Sword and Reason among Pashtuns: Notions of Individual Honour and Social Responsibility

SWORD AND REASON AMONG PASHTUNS:
NOTIONS OF INDIVIDUAL HONOUR AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN AFGHANISTAN
By Bernt Glatzer (1)
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Since its beginning the recent Afghan jihad was not only directed against an alien invasion and an imported ideology, but also against obsolete internal political structures which long before 1978 had encroached on traditional values without improving the standanrd of living of most people. After the withdrawal of the Red Army the country is still under heavy influence from outside powers which do not allow Afghanistan to come to terms with her own social and political problems. A case in point is the recent emergence of the powerful Taliban movement whose success is partly due to the support by Pakistan. On the other hand the Taliban are an indigenous movement whose motives of action are rooted in the norms and values of a large part of the traditional society. In order to analyse the present civil war in Afghanistan indigenous as well as exogenous factors have to be taken into consideration as well as the motives of the acting persons who consciously reflect their role in local, regional, interregional, inter-ethnic, and international contexts.

In spite of Afghanistan's retrogression into a pre-state situation, and in spite of all the violence and terror the media are so eager to report on, there is a remarkable process going on in the country: in most areas of Afghanistan civil life has returned and rehabilitation with and without international aid is proceeding successfully and fast (Christensen 1995, Donini 1996). This proves that civilian values and practices counterbalance those of the "Pathan warrior".

This paper will mainly deal with Pashtuns - the largest single ethnic group in Afghanistan. "Afghan", "Pashtun", "Pukhtun", have originally been synonyms and are still understood so by a large part of the local population, although the Afghan state officially includes all ethnic groups under this term.

Half of the 17 to 20 million Pashtuns live in Afghanistan the other half in the Pakistani provinces NWFP and Baluchistan.

They were called the world's largest tribal society (Spain 1963) because of their number and their all embracing genealogical charter which links the thousands of Pashtun tribes to one apical ancestor.

Although comparative research among different social groups in Afghanistan is lacking we have no indication that there are significant differences between the ethnic groups as notions and concepts of person and Islam is concerned. The reason why I concentrate on the Pashtuns is that we have more detailed and elaborate emic and etic sources on personal norms and values of Pashtuns than on other ethnic groups in Afghanistan, namely the pashtunwali, a charter of ethnic pride and self understanding many times written down in a systematic way.

The Pashtun ideology of war and violence, of the martial and heroic behaviour of the men is named tura (lit. "sword"). However, readiness for violence and war is but one aspect of the traditional ideal of a male person; the other aspect is aql: "reason", particularly in the sense of social responsibility.

A man of aql is one who reasons and acts in an integrative social way, he is hospitable and generous, he grants asylum, reaches to balanced social judgements and is able to act as a mediator in conflicts.

The concept of tura and aql includes to know when to draw the sword and when to put it back to the sheath, when it is time fight and when it is time for caring for the welfare and unity of one's family, clan, tribe or of wider social units, up to the Muslim umma, depending on one's social horizon.

When we consider the duality of tura and aql we may understand why bands of anarchic Afghan warriors were able to inflict heavy defeats to the super powers of their time, and why most tribal warriors laid down their arms the day after their victory and went home to plough their fields - some for the first time in their life(2).

The Image of the Noble Warrior

Several times in Afghan history invasion armies, superior in number, technique, and organisation, received "bleeding wounds" (Gorbatchev). Persians, Moghuls and the British had to make this experience. After three major defeats the latter had to give up the plan to colonise the country. E.g. in 1842 the attempt of the British General Governor of India to occupy Afghanistan permanently and to enthrone a puppet Amir ended in complete disaster, the British ambassador got assassinated and the British garrison with more than 16,000 soldiers and their attendants perished during retreat in the gorges of eastern Afghanistan. Even in distant Germany this event became a subject of poetry:
"Mit dreizehntausend der Zug begann,
Einer kam heim aus Afghanistan."
[with thirteenthousand the campaign began,
one came home from Afghanistan]
(Theodor Fontane quoted from SNOY, p.73)

In London this defeat was felt with particular pain and shame because it was not the armies of imperial Russia or of another big power which inflicted this set-back to British expansion but unorganised bands of "savages". During the following assessments of the disaster the "savages" soon mutated to noble warriors, to descendants of Alexander the Great or to "Aryans", i.e. they were styled as a sort of Europeans against whom to loose was not considered that shameful. The unspoilt Afghans were said to have preserved all the male virtues of antique times and were depicted as a model for the contemporary youth, similarly as Tacitus idealised the ancient Germanic virtues. It was Mountstuart Elphinstone, officer of the East India Company, researcher and influential writer, who in 1815 laid the foundation for the idealisation of the Afghans in his famous "Account of the Kingdom of Caubul". In open sympathy he compared the anarchic and fiercely egalitarian ("republican" as he called them) Afghaun tribes with the most noble human groups the Scottish aristocrat and humanist could think of, that is with Scottish clans and with Greek-Roman republicans.

Afghan intellectuals, poets and authors, traditionally multilingual, were well aware about what was said and published on their people and country even in England, they were of cause pleased to see their people so advantageously characterised and they added to it in their own writings and teachings. No wonder that the ideal image of the Pashtun/Afghan as the noble, gallant, dauntless and generous warrior soon became the subject of legends and elaborated ethnic and tribal self representations among the Pashtun tribes who lived not too far from British-Indian cultural influences (the ones between Kabul and Peshawar, Swat and South Waziristan). From there the image was taken-up again by European authors and was further elaborated, particularly when more British military defeats at the North West Frontier were to be explained. Thus in intercultural collaboration an elaborate image of the ideal Pashtun personally was created. The eastern Pashtun tribes who had to deal with their mighty eastern neighbour merged this personal image with Islam and with their more traditional tribal law to a canon of Pashtunness, the pashtunwali.

Pashtunwali the Ethnic Self Representation

ELPHINSTONE used "pashtunwali" only in the sense of the customary law of the Afghans. In RAVERTY's Pashtu Dictionary of 1860 pashtunwali became "...the manners and customs of the Afghan tribes, the Afghan code." More than hundred years later among eastern Pashtuns pashtunwali is used as the "... explicitly known part of their system of values and norms by which they believe to differ positively from all Non-Pashtuns". In West Afghanistan the term pashtunwali is unknown, there the traditional norms are called rawaj which in terminology and content hardly differs from those of their neighbours.

In West Afghanistan the term for the ideal person is ghairatman, but Pashtuns there do not claim a monopoly. An Aymaq or Tajik may be as ghairatman as a Pashtun, differences are considered rather in degree. (more on ghairatman see JANATA & HASSAS). The pashtunwali of the eastern Pashtuns serves as a model and an orientation for education, as a guide line and measure of values for solving conflicts, as a marker of contrast against ethnic aliens and also as an invitation card for peaceful visitors (hospitality has first priority in pashtunwali). With its threatening list of martial self-characteristics it also serves as a deterrent to less peaceful visitors.

Eastern Pashtuns have codified their ideal of person, thus offering us easy access to their scale of values and to their motives for action, but we may easily overemphasise the more spectacular or violent aspects of pashtunwali such as tura and place them out of context neglecting the more subtle points which complete the image of person and without which we cannot understand complex sequences of actions.

I base this paper of Pashtun ideals of person mainly on Alfred JANATA's and Reihanuddin HASSAS's research on "The Good Pashtun", on Willi STEUL's monograph on the pashtunwali, and on my own ethnographic research among western Afghan nomads in the years 1970 - 1977 and on my experiences as relief worker from 1990 through 1993 in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

nang: Dignity, Honour and Shame

The central term in pashtunwali is nang: honour and shame, dignity, courage and bravery. A nangialay brings honour and fame to his tribe. To be called benanga ("shameless", "undignified") is the worst possible insult in Pashtu and a deadly threat to the social position of the insulted. Killing the insulter is an accepted way of regaining one's nang and thus of one's social status.

sharm is a decisive part of nang. sharm can well be translated by the English shame, which encompasses shame in the sense of noble modesty and its contrary shamelessness. If a boy greedily devours his meal his father will tell him "sharm nalare?!" ("don't you have shame?", "aren't you ashamed?"); but if a man does not prevent his unmarried daughter from flirting with neighbour's son people would say "sharm nalari" ("he has no shame") which is an extremely serious insult and can only be answered by a very impressive action. sharm has mainly to do with the behaviour of the women of the group whose honour is at stake and with male control over the female half of the society.

The relation to women can be seen clearer if we analyse the term namus, which belongs to the complex of nang. It means privacy and the protection of its sanctity. In the narrower sense namus relates to the integrity, modesty and respectability of women and to the absolute duty of men to protect them. In its wider sense namus means the female part of the family, of the clan, tribe and of the Afghan society; in the widest sense it is the Afghan home land to be protected.

Although namus includes the inviolability of women and the duty to protect their honour it does not imply that women stay passive. In Pashtun folklore boldly acting heroines are praised such as Malalay who has played a decisive role to win the battle of Maywand in the Second Anglo-Afghan war, 1878-80 (more on male-female relations among Pashtuns see TAPPER, in war see SHALINSKY). Yet in general men consider young women to be less able to think and act rationally, to have less self-control and to be more inclined to sexual activity, in short they are believed to be an easy prey to any seducer who comes along. Thus men feel obliged to fight for maintaining their namus, i.e. first of all to keep the women of their families under tight control, and to protect the women from their own "weaknesses".
Even more feared than the actual behaviour of women is the neighbours' gossip, that is what erodes namus most effectively and what is most difficult to control. Better do not let anybody see the women. In urban areas this leads to an increasing compulsion for women to wear full veil or to remain hidden behind the walls of the family compound. Since the early 1970-s I noticed seclusion of women (parda) to expand into the countryside, a process which gained momentum during the recent "holy" war. I estimate that more than a million of women have experienced parda for the first time in their life when they arrived at the refugee camps in Pakistan.
Very many Afghan consent that parda is not an indicator for strength and effective maintenance of namus, rather to the contrary, as I was repeatedly told by nomads and peasants in Northwest Afghanistan: A strong man can trust his womenfolk and is sure that no outsider would dare to come near to them, only weaklings need to hide and lock-up their women (cf. TAPPER 1991: ). In fact the refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran were places of disturbed social and demographic relations. During the war ca. 80 % of the camp population were women, children and very old men, and the relatively small number of younger men felt quite insecure in that alien environment, thus the strict observation of parda observed in the camps was indeed a sign of weakness and people believed they had no alternative how to maintain namus.

In pashtunwali the inviolability of women and of land is closely connected or considered as practically identical. Common sayings are: "The way to the women leads over the land." and "He who cannot protect the integrity of his family cannot protect anything, anyone is free to snatch away from him what he wants, his possessions, his land." Most authors on Afghanistan agree that threatened namus is the most common cause for violent conflicts. When mujahedin were recruited for jihad they were told, besides religious arguments, that the (common) namus of the Afghans was threatened. In fact, in 1978 the first uprisings against the new socialist regime broke out when the new socialist Afghan regime sent young activists from Kabul to the provinces in order to force girls and women to school. Not that people were principally against female education, but they felt it was neither the state's nor any other's business to interfere in matters where females are involved. So far the public and the private spheres were always kept neatly separate. People, though grudgingly, did pay tributes to rulers or even accepted military conscription, but the state's transgression of the line between the public and the private (namus) meant war.


tura - the Sword

nang the honour and dignity of a Pashtun has two sides:
(1) An aggressive one with readiness to fight until self-sacrifice - this is symbolised by tura, the sword;
(2) Reason and social responsibility (aql). aql is deliberate and prudent behaviour which is intended to benefit one's family and one's wider social entities up to the entire ethnic group, nation (if such a notion exists) and even up to the entire Muslim umma. It reaches from material support to participation in councils, to jurisdiction and mediation in conflicts. These two sides of nang are connected with different ages in life: The ideal persononality of a young man is supposed to be dominated by tura he may be hot headed and ready to draw the sword (tura) (today Kalashnikow) at the slightest provocation. Aggressiveness is his first reaction, reasoning comes second. The virtue of tura does not need to be tempered by the young man's own aql , it is supposed to be checked by the aql of the elders, the "white beards" (spin giri). Consequently boys are educated to obey the elders.

Many Pashtun clans/tribes have tribal militias (arbaki, lashkar) to execute the decisions of the egalitarian councils (jirga), bound by the discipline of the militia the tura of the youngsters is guided to socially accepted objectives.

During my time as an aid worker I experienced this in the eastern Afghan province of Paktia: In spite of a large pre-war German development project with its deep impact on the local infra-structure the tribal social organisation remained intact and functioning; in 1992, after the break-down of the Kabul Najibullah regime most mujahedin of Paktia went home, participated in the rehabilitation of their villages and land or rejoined the tribal militia. Organisations who helped in the rehabilitation task were provided arbaki (tribal militia) as guards. Thus in a situation where state and government were absent civilian life returned rather smoothly.

tura always relates to an individual. It is not sufficient to belong to a group or unit of bold fighters, every one has to prove his tura in single actions. The turialay, the man who embodies tura gains his distinction by individual acts. He fights first of all for his personal honour and autonomy, then for that of his family and clan. A strong motive for displaying tura is to demonstrate one's own equality and autonomy and consequently that of one's family and clan and to demonstrate one's refusal to bow down before any arbitrary power.

The mujahedin commanders were usually understood as primi inter pares, the mujahedin respected their fighting and tactical experience and most importantly their logistic abilities, every mujahed considered himself to be on the way to become a commander. The latter had to prove constantly their superiority, there was no effective military command structure which could impose a commander arbitrarily on any band of mujahedin.

Obedience to the tribal elders does not contradict the egalitarian principle. The elders are understood as the representatives of reason and tradition, of the collective will of the clan/tribe, but they have to take care that their decisions are understood by the younger as just and as in accordance to the generally accepted values, they cannot expect the younger to obey automatically.

The highly individualistic stile of the Afghan mujahedin's fighting was feared by the military planners on both sides and considered as a great strategic problem. Even the Afghan mujahedin parties in Peshawar lost control, their function was reduced to logistical tasks and to public relations. I think the success of the Afghan mujahedin against the hierarchically well organised Red Army lies in the fact that the anarchic and chaotic actions of the Afghan rebels were absolutely unpredictable for any professional strategist. On the side of the mujahedin there was no military command to deal with, if one commander was eliminated several new ones replaced him instantly.


Education

Education to tura begins early. Fathers scuffle and mock fight with their little sons of three to 10 years of age and allow them even to hit their fathers who would return a friendly clap in order to encourage the little fighter to another round. Harmless fighting games between boys are applauded. The education is non-authoritarian, a father is considered to be an example, not a penal authority.
Children are present in guest houses, at tribal councils and whereever serious decisions are made, in this way they are introduced to pashtunwali and to the traditional values and thier practical applications.
Girls and boys are educated towards the same values of person, parents see to it that pashtunwali is internalised by girls as much as by boys, girls also are present in public councils and listen carefully. It is generally believed among Pashtuns that women are more strict at pashtunwali then men and less ready to compromise when matters of honour and shame are at stake. The following story of a very popular Pashtun hero may serve as an example for what Pashtuns conceive of an ideal personality.

It is the story of Ajab Khan an historical figure who has challenged the British Empire and serves even nowadays as a model for education:

The Cantonement of Kohat, south of Peshawar was one of the strongest military fortresses of the British Empire, from here campaigns were launched against the hostile and rebellious Pashtuns of the tribal areas along the British-Afghan frontier. Pax Britannica may have prevailed elsewhere, the garrison of Kohat was constantly at war. The year 1923 was no different, this time a punitive campaign was carried out against the Bostikhel, a sub-tribe of the Afridi north of Kohat. At this occasion British soldiers trampled into the huts of the Bostikhel and allegedly came too close to the ladies, anyway the namus of the Bostikhel was serously violated and the clan in uproar. A few weeks later young Ajab, a Bostikhel together with two companions, sneaked at night into the Cantonment of Kohat, through its multiple security cordons. They raided the bungalow of an officer named Ellis and kidnapped his daughter Molly. The men with the girl made good their escape and the next days they paraded in triumph through the Afridi land making a laughingstock of the Empire. In Kohat, Delhi and London emergency committees were formed and the media reported wordwide with pitty for the girl and with mockery for the toothless English Lion.
A military action to save the girl was out of the question, all the British Government could do was to threaten the Bostikkhel and even the entire Afridi tribe with frightening consequences.

In the mean time an English nurse walked into Afridi land all alone and unarmed, met Ajab and persuaded him to release the Girl. After three weeks Molly Ellis was back to Kohat - unharmed. The British demanded strongly from the Afridi to hand over Ajab to the British which the Afridi of course refused, but this was a very serious and conflicting problem for the Afridi tribal council: The extradition of Ajab would have been a breach of pashtunwali but not to hand him over would have had very dire consequesences, there was little doubt that the British would repeat what they had done in 1919 when their war planes bombarded Pashtun villages.
Now came Ajab's second act by which he completed his heroic deed and by which he earned the honorary title of khan: Realising that he had brought his tribe into serious trouble he voluntarily emigrated to North Afghanistan where he died a natural death in 1961 as a highly honoured khan. He had saved his tribe from drastic punitiv actions of the British by renouncing everything which a tribe offers to the individual: protection, social security and warmth, in short: social life. Expulsion from tribal land is the severest punishment a tribal court can award, and volunary exile is considered the highes sacrifice a Pashtun can offer.

For the British this was not enough, the Bostikhel had to pay 42,000 Rupees and Ajab's own land and village was destroyed.
As it can be expected from an heroic epic, Ajab Khan and the girl are believed to have fallen in love to each other, but contrary to the rest of the story this is not proven (for more on the story see SPAIN p. 154ff).

Epilogue:
In 1982 I met Miss Ellis in Islamabad, she had followed an invitation of the Government of Pakistan. Accompanied by the Governor of the NWFP she was driven triumphantly from Peshawar to Kohat right through parts of the Afridi country. The streets were lined by jubilant Pashtuns and relatives of Ajab Khan offered to carry her on their hands all along the way where she had been abducted, which she friendly declined.

This story ilustrates tura and the core values of the ideal and idealised Pashtun person. The colonial power had severely violated the namus of the Afridi. An impressive symbolic retaliatory action , an attack on the namus of the British was seen as the only way out from disgrace in the eyes of the rest of the Pashtuns. Disgrace is considered as weakness, as social inferiority, if I cannot kill the one who disgraced me I have to disgrace him also, otherwise I would accept my permanent social weakness and inferiority.
By a particularly dare-devil act as the one of Ajab, disgrace can even be turned into honour and fame. Ajabs deed is considered by the Pashtuns so brilliant because it was an individual act (with only two companions). Only individual acts lead to honour and fame which then may radiate to the whole clan or tribe.

The Whole Man: khan and Commander

As mentioned already the ideal male personality consists not only of tura but also of aql (reason and wisdom) as Ajab proved by voluntary exile.
Unchecked tura is expected from boys, later social virtues are added: responsibility for family and for the wider social world. The aim of an ambitious Pashtun is to become khan , i.e. one who has proved tura, who is sharp in thinking and just and prudent in his judgements, who is an acknowledged expert of pashtunwali , who exercises generous hospitality and who is ready to share his wealth with adherents, guests and with people under his protection.
A khan also provides economic benefits to his clients, e.g. a nomad khan organizes for his people access to pastures and deals with state authorities, among the peasants the khan cares for irrigation, provides access to improved seeds or even attracts foreign aid organizations to carry out projects in his area. The khan 's oppinion has weight in the local councils and tribal assemblies. His power and influence is weighed by the number of his clients and of his guests in his hujra, his guest house, whom he can expect to take his side in a conflict. A khan is called to settle quarrels and to act as a speaker of his adherents.

E.g. I met one khan who used his fluent German to speak at solidarity functions for Afghanistan in Germany in order to raise funds for his people in Tani (East Afghanistan) - a genuine task for a khan.
During the last war in many Afghan areas the khan was replaced by the commander (comandan). Now other leadership qualities were on demand, e.g. access to wepons, money and to food supplies from Pakistan or Iran. Commanders had to join one of the mujahedin parties who were the main distributers of military supplies. The new leaders needed military abilities and had to be physically able to march long distances on foot, because the fronts were constantly moving. Many of the old khans could not cope with these new tasks and fled along with their clients to Pakistan leaving their place to the new commanders.

Islam, Martyrs, and Victors

So far Islam was not mentioned much in this paper. The Pashtuns understand pashtunwali as an expression of practical and true Islam. Other Muslims may be of a different oppinion. During the war when Arab mercenaries critisised their Afghan comrades for deviations in Islamic practice bloody conflicts arose, e.g. when Arabs tore down flags at Afghan graves. Pashtun claim they are genuine Muslims, not converts as the Iranians, Turks or Pakistanis. As their legend goes, Qais Abdurrashid the apical ancestor of all Pashtuns in his Afghan mountains heard of the Prophet in distant Arabia, went there and became one of the Prophet's first disciples at a time when most Arabs still fought against Islam.

In fact the basic values of honour, shame and readiness to fight (for a just cause, of course) do not contradict the canonic scriptures of Islam, the pashtunwali rather elaborates on them or sets slightly different accents. In official Islam fighting without a "just" cause is not acceptable and also not just for the honour and fame of an individual. A Pashtun would answer that the unbridled fighting spirit of young men has to be directed to reason and responsibility, and this is where Islam comes in.

The Islamic concept of jihad is not new in Afghanistan. Afghan mullahs called for jihad against the British infidels many times. After the Soviet invasion in 1979 when jihad was declared again, the whole complex of the Islamic concept of warfare and its terminology was available. Now the warrior was not only an arbaki and a turialay but a mujahed , "the one who fights the jihad". The refugees are not just pitiable displaced people who lost everything, but they bear proudly the honorary title muhajer (plural muhajerin) as the Prophet on his Exodus (hijra) to Madina. The one who aids the mujahedin and muhajerin and gives asylum to the latter as the Pakistanis and Iranians is an ansar as the Prophet's friends in Madina (CENTLIVRES & CENTLIVRES-DEMONT). He who dies in the just war is a martyr of religion, a shahid ("one who bears witness for his belief"), he goes to heaven irrespective of his former sins.

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NOTES:




(1) Revised text of a paper presented at the 14th European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies in Copenhagen August 1996, Panel 4: Concepts of Person, Sainthood and Power in South Asia. The original title of this paper was "Being Pashtun - Being Muslim: Local and Translocal Concepts of Person in Afghanistan". During the process of revision the emphasis of the paper got changed making it necessary to change the title too.

In the original text some of the Pashtun terms have diacritical marks which are not possible to produce in this ASCII format.

(2) The size of the "armies" of the present war lords fighting for Kabul are relatively small in numbers (some ten thousands) compared to the male population engaged in agriculture (millions). The atrocities of this civil war are due to sophisticated modern weapons not to the numbers of fighters.

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