Precis: The USA has very largely created the enemies we now face in the region, but not all. The threat of terrorism is directed at the whole world: we cannot fight a war when we do not understand the fighter we face. He comes out of the dawn of time, and has defeated every empire that dared to subdue him. One such enemy is the Taliban Pashtun.

Acknowledgment

I am indebted to my friend Iqbal Latif for provoking this essay. I have always liked the name Iqbal: it means lucky or fortunate. Iqbal is also the name of an important ghazal poet, of which more shall be said shortly.

Beginnings

The Genesis story of Cain and Abel is a metaphor of a conflict between pastoral people and a settled people. Abel’s offering from his flock is preferred to Cain’s offering from the fields. We must remember the story was written by Moses, himself a shepherd: he always seems to find fault with farmers and city people.

Mohenjo-Daro, the first great city of antiquity is built within eyesight of where the Pashtuns live today. The conflict of Cain and Abel would play out in those mountains for millennia. Cain and Abel have murdered each other forever.

Though it has no basis in historical fact or linguistics, the Pashtun believed they arose from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, calling themselves Bani-Israel and Yusufzai, the sons of Joseph. In the Makhzan-i-Afghani, a history of the Afghans written for the Mughal emperor Jahangir around 1612, we read of these oral traditions. The Pashtun culture is mostly oral to this day, and their legends are held in the heads of the women.

More likely, the far-older Rig-Veda holds a more straightforward explanation. The Pashtun were the enemy Paktha tribes of the west. They enter history, first harassing Alexander on his way to India, then as the ghazi warriors of the Mughal Empire, a subject I covered in an earlier essay. They have never been subdued by any conqueror.

Pashtunwali

The Pashtun are Muslim, but practice a far more ancient and unwritten code of justice called Pashtunwali. We think of Taliban sharia as a strict, inflexible and horribly misogynistic system, and so it has become, but it was not always so. Given its head, Pashtunwali is astonishingly democratic, encompassing personal honor, personal responsibility, protection of the guest and stranger, swift justice, and romance.

Yes, romance! For all this talk of their horrible treatment of women, the Pashtun concept of love beggars anything in the West. The Pashtun sing the Persian ghazal, a poetic form, from the Persian word gazelle, the dying scream of this delicate animal. The closest I can come to ghazal is the Browning Sonnets from the Portuguese, or some of John Donne’s poetry. You must envision the most ferocious man on the planet, sadly singing of his isolation from the woman he loves, of the wilderness within himself. The ghazal is heartbreakingly beautiful stuff, often deeply abstract and spiritual. The comparison to Donne is fairly apt.

Reply to Iqbal

Iqbal Latif believes Hamid Gul, the ISI general, is a vocal backer of civil society in Pakistan. Hamid Gul also believes the Mossad was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, and various other crackpot theories, including one which says God will destroy America. Hamid Gul was always Benazir Bhutto’s creature. Gul is a dangerous maniac, directly responsible for the Taliban’s dreadful reign over Afghanistan.

If Pakistan wanted prosperity, it would be done with Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s Islamic Socialism program of bread and circuses, once and for all. India prospers, Pakistan fails, and still the Bhutto PPP has its supporters in certain circles. Pakistan is its own worst enemy: there is no reason why Pakistan cannot come to terms with its tribes and integrate the society.

Musharraf has held Pakistan in his grip far too long, and his “disciplined army” has never been able to subdue the Pashtuns or eliminate the crushing levels of corruption. There is no integrating the rural Pashtun society into the civilized world: they must be treated with more respect. As the Kurds of Iraq have formed a country-without-borders, Pakistan must work out a deal with Afghanistan to give the Pashtuns their own area of control. The Zamindar system worked for the Mughals, it could work today. Pakistan really has no choice: the Pashtuns are now enriched by heroin money on a vast scale.

The Cold War did not end with a defeat in Afghanistan, it ended in Poland first. I am on record predicting the downfall of the USSR in 1983, the handwriting was on the wall even that early. Gorbachev couldn’t afford to keep up pretenses any more. As with the post-USSR Russia, economic policy failed in Pakistan and dictators arose.

Back to First Principles

On August 15th, 1947, the date of Pakistan's independence, Ali Jinnah gave a speech which should guide Pakistan today, for it has not been observed in the interval between then and now:

Conclusion

When Pakistan lives honorably with its own tribes, it will have fulfilled Ali Jinnah’s promise. Until then, the dreadful story of Cain and Abel will play out in those mountains for centuries to come.

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