AN INDEPENDENT PASHTUN WATAN - "KHARGADAY WATAN"?

About 35 yeas ago, the former Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) Pakhtunkhwa chapter, published a very appropriate black and white picture poster, which was widely distributed. The picture was that of a filthy little Pashtun child in ragged clothing, standing miserably with his finger in his mouth. It had a large caption written in Pushto which said: "Pakhtunkhwa....Pakhtunistan?" What it pertinently inferred was that although the name Pakhtunkhwa was a legitimate demand - Pashtun society was as yet not fit to be a proper country on its own. Notwithstanding all that has happened since this poster was printed in 1975, our situation and potentials are pretty much the same as they were back then. I am sorry to to throw cold water on the romantic aspirations of Pashtun nationalists, many of them young, zealous and inexperienced about both the world - and as to the intricate knowledge of their own culture. Many of them now live in plush Western climes, and look back at their ancestral land through rose tinted glasses, which can be very nice. But much more is needed than just the vague idea of a separate national identity for Pashtuns. Any identity must have quality and substance. The state of our society is to be considered. At present, a realistic apprisal of Pashtunistan brings up the picture of one large, unstable, wild and very impoverished tribal wasteland - just what the present Afghanistan is now like: an unsettled poverty stricken and backward population dominated by illiterate and semi-literate snuff-eating tribal elders of Bronze Age vintage and thuggish gangsters, warlords and smugglers - all engaged in constant belligerence with each other, and obeying the authority or rules of no one. I would rather we remained where we are than ending up like that, with a "khargaday watan" or a "kabari jamhooriyat". (A donkey cart country, or a junkyard republic). Nobody with an ounce of sense would want such an outcome, except for excited kids on the internet who don't really know what they are talking about - or backward types of people to whom such conditions don't matter, or either provide some kind of illegal and unsocial advantage. But that is where our "Pashtana tolana" now stands. It is well suited to the tribal and feudal mindset and lifestyle. (This is aside from the fact that the old geopolitical frameworks within which our wretched society exists - are still very strong and would not permit anything detrimental to their security...) We have to address issues such as progress: the status of Pashtunwali in a future society. We have to realise that "our" ancient code of life, despite its chivalry and romance, is the main overall impediment to progress... We have to seriously and maturely reassess our rigid and unreasonably extreme attitudes about Islam, and what it really represents - and what it should represent in our lives...what, also, will be the status of women in such a future society? They can't be kept as secluded and imprisoned commodities, symbols of our shame and honour, the way we now do, in a truly respectable modern nation. Pashtun nationhood is an empty and harmful slogan without vast proper reforms on all fronts - social, economic and political. Feudalism and tribalism form the basis of our culture, and have to be abolished as a first step. Land reforms have to be effected universally. Drastic "shock reforms" will be needed in most areas of life here. A strong state will be needed - illusions regarding "democracy" should be discarded for now as being out of the question for quite a while. These are all issues of the utmost gravity and without which we can continue dreaming sweet dreams, which will eventually turn sour...as reality bites.