“Too often, stories about Afghanistan center around the various wars, the opium trade, the war on terrorism. Precious little is said about the Afghan people themselves — their culture, their traditions, how they lived in their country and how they managed abroad as exiles.”
-Khaled Hosseini
-Khaled Hosseini
Historical Overview
Afghan Population
As of 2017, there were just over 34 million people living in Afghanistan with approximately 5 million living in the capital city of Kabul. Afghanistan constitutionally recognizes 14 ethic groups with the largest groups being Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, and Uzbek.
Additionally, Afghanistan has the third lowest life expectancy rate at 51.7 years old, just after Chad (50.6) and Guinea-Bissau (51), and has the world’s highest infant mortality rate (approximately one death every ten births). The country is also the world’s largest producer and exporter of opium — with around 11 percent of its own population suffering from opiate addiction. Across the entire country, the bilingual Afghan people are communicating in approximately 15 languages with 5 percent of the total population speaking in English, whereas 80 percent use Dari (or Persian), the first official language and lingua franca, and 47 percent speak Pashto as the other official language. However, only 38 percent of the Afghan population is literate, while the literacy rates of bordering countries are considerably higher: Turkmenistan: 99.7%, Uzbekistan: 100%, Tajikistan: 99.8%, China: 96.4%, Pakistan: 57.9%, Iran: 86.8% (CIA, 2017). |
Geography
This clip is about four minutes long but presents the beauty and isolation of Afghanistan's geography in a powerful way. (Kahn, 2016)
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Afghanistan is a landlocked country sharing borders with seven other countries. The vast Hindu Kush mountains (highest peaks at 24,580 feet) stretch 500 miles northeast to southwest, dividing the northern provinces from the rest of the country. Afghan communities mainly develop in the eastern foothills and surrounding areas of the Hindu Kush. Other groups live in country’s deep inner valleys, while Afghans are hard to find in the hot southern part of the country. The isolating features of Afghanistan’s geography has created isolated pockets of people, each with their own unique dialects (CIA).
Being far from the sea, the country is arid and many Afghans get their water from the mountains, whose snow pack lasts into the spring. There are extremely cold snowy winters and incredibly hot dry summers, with temperatures ranging from freezing to scorching in a single day (NAC). Additionally, due to having a resident mountain range, Afghanistan is often jolted by severe earthquakes reaching magnitudes between 7.2-7.5 and causing tens of thousands of Afghans to be homeless in 1983, 2002, and 2015 (Ambraseys & Bilham). Afghanistan is similar to other mountainous geographic regions, like the isolated Caucasus range between Europe and Asia or America’s western mountain belt, by way of “linguistic diversity and high incidence of relic and outlying forms” (Ingham 89). |
Politics
Afghanistan has been torn by political infighting and occupation by foreign military forces for centuries. Sharing its borders with Iran, Pakistan, and China, along with occupations by the Russians and the U.S., has all heavily influenced the political framework and decisions of Afghanistan. The country is divided into 34 political provinces, and in 2004 democratically elected Hamid Karzai as the first President of Afghanistan. As a presidential Islamic Republic (ratifying a constitution in 2004) the legal system is mixed between civil, customary, and Islamic law, and similar to the U.S. and other democracies, Afghanistan has executive, judicial, and legislative branches. Currently (2016), there are 57 political parties licensed by the Ministry of Justice, but stiff political pressure often comes from religious groups, tribal leaders, ethnic groups, and the Taliban. Additionally, Afghanistan is a participating member of nearly 40 international organizations, including the United Nations, World Bank, World Health Organization, and Interpol.
Afghans celebrate their Independence Day on 19 August, the day in 1919 when they were released from British control. However, there are currently several terrorist groups, both in-country and abroad, trying to subvert and overthrow the Afghanistan government including the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant-Korasan (ISIL), al-Qa’ida, and the Haqqani Network (HQN). In fact, the Afghan people greatly distrust their government because officials have been caught in a number of corruption cases, including bribery, embezzlement, and nepotism. Therefore, the Taliban has been accepted by many Afghans in place of the government for settling disputes because the latter often extorts complaining citizens (CIA). |
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Religion
Nearly 100 percent of all Afghans are Muslim, with 85-90 percent being Sunni and 10-15 percent being Shia. Less than half of 1 percent of the Afghan population is affiliated with a religion other than Islam.
"The sacred religion of Islam is the religion of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Followers of other faiths shall be free within the bounds of law in the exercise and performance of their religious rituals." |