Although I believe logically that every nationality and ethnicity is entitled to its own national state and identity therein, I have revised my ideas about what should be regarding the Pashtuns I was born among. I am not ready to identify myself with a chaotic, backward-looking society of tribes that prides itself on its primitive inclinations, and egotistic thuggery and devil-may-care contempt for law and procedure. Though there are many nationalities around in the world, with overall boorish and criminal reputations, chiefly like the Albanians, Sicillians, Chechens and Georgians.....and to an extent even Arabs, but I believe that Pashtuns have outdone them all. That isn't to say that I am "stereotyping" all individuals, but what I refer to is their society as a whole - as it exists on the ground, in its own element - and in doing so, I employ numerous "indicators" too.....and I don't mean its "diaspora" either, in the West, especially their youth - as those people are hardly representative of their society at all and to regard or believe that they are, would be a serious error. Those expats are mostly nice people to know, but have little or no bearing on their parent society...and are far removed from iot, and tend to view it through the same exotic glasses as would most foreigners.....rather here, I am talking about the everyday people, of all hues, on the roads and villages of their own land - and domiciled permanently in it. Superficially speaking, I too fit that description, but thankfully I am an outsider because of my English mother - and even because of the fact that my paternal ancestor himself was a Turkoman, who arrived and settled among Pashtuns only 270 years ago - very recent in ethno-historical terms. I would prefer the term "Pashto speaking Turk" for myself, although not many would understand, or appreciate its relevance.........as I don't want to identify with a people who are themselves largely responsible for most of their troubles and ailments.....my reputation is most valuable, and I don't want to soil it by involving it with lowlifes and boors who have limited and inhibited themselves senselessly, and who make deliberate negative use of their potentials - primitive, corrupt and lawlwss to the very core.
Let me also insert an elaboration here about those claiming to represent Pashtuns politically, most of all in cyber space. Rarely has there been such a readily available and misused means as the Internet, and rarely have I heard lies proclaimed so loudly, so effortlessly and with such abandon, and the pointing of fingers at others with a blatant and vulgar shrillness - regarding problems, the genesis of which lies within the Pashtun character itself - as is done by the Pashtun "cyber-nationalists".....I have more worthwhile things to do, than to be involved with a brigade of base, and shrill liars, whose politics blatantly tries to whitewash the image of their twisted people and society - by attributing to them a non-existent humanity and decency, meant for the consumption of an audience of international idiots in this era of information chaos. Pashtuns often will not even drive on the proper side of the road, and think nothing of doing so, let alone being the tragic angels that they are made out to be - always badly bedevilled victims, the butt of one detestable foreign oppressor or another, but never themselves......I am sick of it all.
