Afghanistan was progressed fairly well until the 1970s (for a developing country).
"From the 1930s to the 1970s, Afghanistan had a semblance of a national government and Kabul was known as “the Paris of Central Asia.”
When Afghanistan was “the Paris of Central Asia” « Asian Window
You still want to deny that the period under the King were Afghanistan's only recent period of prosperity?
Before I reply to your post, i want to say that i am glad that Pashtun nationalism is haunting Pakistan too, so we are not the ONLY ONE. It has distrubed your sleep badly so you do everything to destablize Afghanistan in order that the Pashtuns dont have the time and chance to claim on NWFP, but you know what, they have already made their mind and will keep on haunting you. Even your support of Pashtuns is based on the Fear of Pashtunistan issue.
Back to your post: Off course there was some progress in Kabul City, it was not bad at all, but had you dared to take one step outside kabul and you had seen poverty. Secondly, everything good was appointed to the ruling pashtuns class followed by the other pashtuns, the non pashtuns were where they were. Even Zahir Shah, his uncles and cousins(Naem, Dawood Khan, Hashim Khan etc) were delibarately blocking the building of roads and schools in non pashtun areas especially the hazara ones, because they didnt want to the others be educated.
The Ghilzais predominated in the 1960s afghan national army in fact. this was because the Ghilzais are 20% of the Afghan population, Pashtuns around 50% so they should be a majority in the Afghan Army. or are you anti-democracy?
ohh, here you go, that is another attept to put an innocent face on this thing, Pasutuns are around 40% and Tajiks are around 30%, no matter what the percentage of each group is, everybody should have a role in it. If i go by your logic, then the Pashuns of Pakistan also shouldnt have a place in Pak army, as Panjabis make around 50% and Pakhtuns make 15%. Uzbeks and Hazaras didnt have a single high rank officer, even low ranks, their job was Nafar Khidmat, nafar khidmat was someone who was a servant in an army officer's house, in other words, they were slaves to pashtuns, Tajiks were needed for their skills, and even so, they were not given the high rank posts, they were low level solders with no authority, if you dont call it discrimination, then god knows what it is.
that the tajiks had a higher literacy rate than pashtuns is proof they were not discriminated against in 1960s afghanistan. with higher literacy comes less army recruitment since people are less willing to fight. that would be another reason along with the ghilzais being probably a lot more martial in character than most other people.
well well well, if you want to build a proper army, then it needs to be a literate army, otherwise it will be a banch of illiterate and undisplined guys. Secondly, high rank officers especially need to be literate. And literacy rate among tajiks is because they have carried this thing among themselves hundreds of years or maybe thousands, they are naturally keen on skills and literacy, no matter you see many many prominant people among them over the centuries.
so youre again flinging the accusation of discrimination but not proving it. it is possible to prove anti pashtun discrimination by looking at any figures in afghanistan. currently tajiks are overrepresented even though they are a minority.
Tajiks are not minority, they are the second largest group in Afghanistan. If you prove the discrimination against pashtuns, i can prove the institutional discrimination against Tajiks and others right now. and currently tajiks are not over represented, they only have their share even less.
one needs only look at the afghanistan now to see evidence of tajik discrimination, from the army to the government.
prior to the present period the pashtuns were in power since they are the majority and the country is named Afghanistan not Tajikistan.
I cant believe you, Pashtuns are not majority, but the largest group in Afghanistan. Afhganistan only 150 years ago was not Afghanistan but Khorsaan, even the son of great Ahmad Shah Abdali Baba was calling himself the king of khorasan. Secondly, again if we go by your logic, Pakistan should be Panjabistan as Panjabis make most of the population.
history lesson needed here.
mongols entered southwest asia in 1200 AD. The pashtuns didnt just drop from the sky sometime after 1200 AD in real history.
its not like the indian claim to pakistani history (pakistanis appeared from nowhere in 1947).
the pashtuns certainly were a migrant group but undoutedly have been in the Afghan region for well over 2000 years.
And where did i say that they were droped from sky? Off course they were there, but an isolated group in suleman range mountains, in those day and time were irrelevant as i said before, but they existed, they were busy in their tribal life.
if massoud was a traitor that kept letting soviet columns through to allow fighting into the areas of eastern afghanistan then its no surprise that massoud was viewed as a target by the afghan militias that resisted the soviets without compromise. however supplying massoud was never a problem. he had enough weaponry to overrun andarab.
Keep on repeating, the supply lines were in the south and and east, andarab was not relevant, it was to the north west of Panjshir, and as i said, his area was having heavey winter, no matter what, he would have been traped without food and weapns, secondly, he did beat the soviets badly.
