Pashtun Identity and Geopolitics in Southwest Asia

Iftikhar H. Malik

Description

Innovative study which brings together Pakistan and Afghanistan as two inseparable entities for the first time.

‘Pashtun Identity and Geopolitics in Southwest Asia’ brings together Pakistan and Afghanistan as two inseparable entities by investigating areas such as the evolution and persistence of the Taliban, quest for Pashtun identity, the ambivalent status of the tribal region and the state of civic clusters on both sides. In addition to their relations with the United States and the EU, a due attention has been devoted to regional realties while looking at relations with India and China. The study explores vital disciplines of ethnography, history, Islamic studies, and international relations and benefits from a wide variety of source material. The volume takes into account the salient subjects including political Islam, nature and extent of violence since 9/11, failure of Western policies in the region, the Drone warfare, and the emergence of new regimes in Kabul, Islamabad and Delhi offering fresh opportunities as well as new threat perceptions.

Introduction; 1. Gandhara Lands: Wrestling with Pashtun Identity and History; 2. Imperial Hubris: The Afghan Taliban in Ascendance; 3. Masculinities in Conflict: Western Pedagogy and the Return of the Afghan Taliban; 4. Understanding Pakistan: Geopolitical Legacies and Perspectives on Violence; 5. Locating Civic Sentiments and Movements in Pakistan: Stalemated Cycle, or a Way Forward?; 6. The United States and Pakistan: Friends or Foes!; 7. The European Union and Southwest Asia: Perceptions, Policies and Permutations; Conclusion: Pashtun Troubled Lands, Uncertain Southwest Asia, or a New Beginning

Sujets

• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Middle East
• Asian
• World

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 18 juillet 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783084968
• Langue: English

Extrait

Pashtun Identity and Geopolitics in Southwest Asia
ANTHEM MIDDLE EAST STUDIES
The Anthem Middle East Studies series is committed to offering to our global audience the finest scholarship on the Middle East across the spectrum of academic disciplines. The twin goals of our rigorous editorial and production standards will be to bring original scholarship to the shelves and digital collections of academic libraries worldwide, and to cultivate accessible studies for university students and other sophisticated readers.
Series Editor
Camron Michael Amin - University of Michigan - Dearborn (USA)
Editorial Board
Benjamin Fortna - School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (UK)
John Meloy - American University of Beirut (Lebanon)
Lisa Pollard - University of North Carolina Wilmington (USA)
Mark L. Stein - Muhlenberg College (USA)
Ren e Worringer - University of Guelph (Canada)
Pashtun Identity and Geopolitics in Southwest Asia
Pakistan and Afghanistan since 9/11
Iftikhar H. Malik
Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com
This edition first published in UK and USA 2016
by ANTHEM PRESS
75-76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK
or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK
and
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Copyright Iftikhar H. Malik 2016
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested.
ISBN-13: 978 1 78308 494 4 (Hbk)
ISBN-10: 1 78308 494 4 (Hbk)
This title is also available as an ebook.
CONTENTS
Preface
Acronyms
Glossary
Maps
Introduction Chapter One Gandhara Lands: Wrestling with Pashtun Identity and History Chapter Two Imperial Hubris: The Afghan Taliban in Ascendance Chapter Three Masculinities in Conflict: Western Pedagogy and the Return of the Afghan Taliban Chapter Four Understanding Pakistan: Geopolitical Legacies and Perspectives on Violence Chapter Five Understanding Civic Sentiments and Movements in Pakistan: Stalemated Cycle, or a Way Forward? Chapter Six The United States and Pakistan: Friends or Foes! Chapter Seven The European Union and Southwest Asia: Perceptions, Policies and Permutations
Conclusion: Pashtun Troubled Lands, Uncertain Southwest Asia or a New Beginning!
Notes
Bibliography
Index
PREFACE
Momentous and painful developments in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and especially in their Pashtun regions, over the past two decades make it pertinent to analyse their respective and often conflictive quest for a consensus-based identity within the parameters of ethnic and religious pluralism. While the Pashtuns on both sides of the Durand Line - seen through the Orientalist or neo-Orientalist prisms - have been in the throes of these vital historical, ideological and geopolitical events, studies have often tended to focus only on the high politics of the two Southwest Asian states, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Afghan Taliban. Other than a pronounced and no less grievous reality of various forms of violence, these countries and especially their Pashtun regions are hastily caricatured as the epicentre of world terror and an exclusive and inherently militant political Islam. In the process, the securitization of scholarly investigation ends up overshadowing the historical and sociological aspects of life in the Gandhara lands, or upper Indus Valley. Ironically, it may appear convenient to hastily lump a historical (Gandhara) region like Southwest Asia - or western territories of the Indus Valley - only as an area of perpetual conflicts, porous borders, volatile ethnicity and a militant Islamism, and even its reconstruction as the romanticized graveyard of the old and new empires is not too unfamiliar. These factors may operate as significant determinants, but one needs to go beyond them. While recapping history, sociological hypotheses and security analysis, this volume seeks out more recent and ongoing thematic issues such as state formation, civil society clusters, multiple forms and postulations of violence and postulations from the outside. Southwest Asia, especially after the Western invasion of 2001, has encapsulated varying but no less problematic relations with NATO, the European Union (EU) and regional neighbours, along with intermittent tensions between Kabul and Islamabad, further complicated and influenced by ground realities, grass-roots defiance and various forms of competitive modernist and traditional trajectories.
Whereas since the withdrawal of most NATO and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops from Afghanistan in 2014 politicians and strategists have talked of minimal deterrence and zero option , Afghans and Pakistanis are faced with fresher challenges and opportunities with varying regional and global ramifications. With the new political dispensation already ensconced in Islamabad and Pakistani generals settling for a less obtrusive role, the Kabul regime is cautiously eager towards building bridges across deeper ethnic and ideological chasms despite apparent hesitation, ambivalence and uncertainty. However, both these countries still need to move towards substantive regionalization and consensual politics, and the hitherto traditions of distrust, scapegoating and dependence on external support have yet to give way to pragmatic and systemic alternatives. Mutual accusations and mistrust, or falling prey to a new great game between India and Pakistan (and possibly involving China, Iran and Central Asian Republics), can only exacerbate the ongoing human predicament on all sides, as is sadly being experienced in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Somalia. Both Afghanistan and Pakistan have been the casualties of multiple forms of militarist enterprise and, without succumbing to a debilitating victimhood or seeking scapegoats in each other s state structures, they can move towards more cohesive and gradualist consensus without falling for any ethnic discretion in the sense of taking pluralism aboard instead of forming a government by selecting some ethnic groups and ignoring others. While Pakistan needs to augur a fresher and co-optive approach towards Afghanistan s various ethno-regional particularities, Kabul is equally required to reciprocate in similar terms, while India, China and Iran can certainly follow a hands-off policy towards trans-Indus communities. If it acts more responsibly and in a collective spirit, Afghanistan in the post-2015 era can still engender a long-awaited phase of regional peace, as it may also bleakly fall victim to increased militancy in the name of religion, vendetta and ethnicity in which numerous factions might accentuate their jockeying for political power. In that case, Pakistan and, for that matter, India will be gravely impacted from the fallout, which could further aggravate their respective discretionary interventionism. In other words, the next few years are crucial for this heart of Asia and that is where civil societies as well as the respective political elite can exhibit a greater sense of responsibility and regional ethos instead of pushing South Asia into another abysmal phase of moroseness, violence and instability. As has been the case so far, insurgency, militancy, midnight raids and drone warfare have rendered the Pashtun regions on both sides of the Durand Line into a simmering cauldron, and here instead humane imperatives deserve fresher dynamics auguring a new era of Pak-Afghan interdependence. Or, conversely, their free fall into a new chaos could also mean unbridled and extensive violence at various levels. In the same vein, increased Indo-Pakistani discord can lead all the three states to a bleeding balkanization with the horrid spectre of a new nuclear showdown.
My sincere thanks to a number of individuals and institutions who come from a wide variety of disciplines and regions and who are too numerous to be acknowledged in a paragraph, but whose words and time have duly benefitted this sociopolitical commentary. My colleagues and students at Bath Spa University kept me going with their queries and nods, while the family as always stood in good stead as I tended to disappear for extended spells at the Old Bodleian, Oriental Institute, Wolfson and the British Library. I am thankful to James Hollifield, Yunas Samad, Pritam Singh, Meena Dhanda, Farzana Shaikh, Ian Talbot, Gurharpal Singh, Alan Marshall, Elaine Chalus, Brian Griffin and several other colleagues whose works and words never allowed me to slow down. My deeper appreciation is due to Anthem Press and its team, especially Brian Stone, Kiran Bolla, Tej Sood and the production group for their persistent faith in my commitment to this research. In addition, I duly acknowledge the feedback and criticism from two anonymous reviewers, whose comments led me to newer angles and better presentation of this complex terrain. My Pakistani, Afghan, Iranian, Indian, Turkish, Arab, European and American friends - too numerous to be identified here - deserve my gratitude for keeping me on course. Of course, the situation on the ground remains quite fluid, but there is