Afghan summary, lectures, readings, videos
Inhoud
Session 1 – Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1
Afghan Session 2.................................................................................................................................. 9
Afghan session 3 ................................................................................................................................ 25
Afghan Session 4................................................................................................................................ 32
Afghan session 5 ................................................................................................................................ 40
Afghan session 6 ................................................................................................................................ 49
Afghan session 7 ................................................................................................................................ 58
Afghan session 8 ................................................................................................................................ 71
Afghan session 9 ................................................................................................................................ 78
Afghan session 10 .............................................................................................................................. 87
Afghan session 11 .............................................................................................................................. 94
Afghan session 12 ............................................................................................................................ 106
Afghan session 13 ............................................................................................................................ 110
Afghan session 14 ............................................................................................................................ 120
Session 1 – Introduction
Lecture Session 1 – introductory session
Watch the videos before class!
Lectures are recorded and put on Brightspace.
Don’t talk about what the teacher shares with others, to protect him.
Teacher is born and raised in France. Master in international affairs and international relations,
studying conflicts and theories of conflicts. PhD on warlords in Afghanistan. Trying to understand
how warlords adapt to different environments and exert powers in different ways.
He doesn’t speak Dari fluently, for interviews he uses interpreters.
Dari is easier and more widely spoken than Pashto.
Also teacher negotiation and peace-making next year!
Contemporary afghan state – from 1747 onwards
In the course we’ll focus more on the war, 1978 and afterwards
More on period of 2001 and after
Prior to 1747, the idea that Afghanistan is a graveyard of empires is not really true.
Only true for the British in the 19th century, the soviet union in the 20th century and the US in the 21st
century.
,Afghanistan has no border with India.
Afghanistan is at the intersection of the south asia, the Persian in the west and the north…
Afghanistan is technically south asia.
Culturally people in the north belong to central asia
Culturally people in the south belong to the pashians.
It is a land lock country. Which is important in terms of strategic purposes. To wage war you need a
country that is touching others.
Large part of the country is mountains.
Kabul is the capital and main city.
Kandahar is the capital of the Taliban.
Herat has a high Iranian influence.
Mazar-e Sharif also referred to as Nazar.
,People in Afghanistan are Afghans, not Afghanis.
Afghani is the currency in Afghanistan.
Be extremely careful with numbers, especially with the population. There is no consensus of the
population in decades. Which is also one of the problems with elections in Afghanistan.
There is a strategic point, groups want to act as if they’re bigger than they are.
They have a very young population.
Everyone is muslim, with different kinds of muslim.
There is no ethnic homogeneity in Afghanistan.
The Pashtuns is the majority.
The Pashtuns in Pakistan are twice as many.
Only the Pashtuns are tribal communities in Afghanistan.
The Taliban is not a tribe, do not have common ancestors, they see themselves as a group but not an
ethnic group. They see themselves as a political, military group. They claim to be inclusive of all
afghans. They claim they unite people of Afghanistan through the islam.
The tajiks is the second major group. They don’t have tribes they have clans. They define themselves
through kinship. They really find geographical idea important, whereas tribes can be all over the
place.
Ethnicity is something that evolves. Originally the Tajiks are not an ethnic group. Originally it was a
name for all non-dari speaking groups. To distinguish them they call them Tajiks. That is why there is
a lack of cohesion between the Tajiks.
Uzbeks are dominant in the Turkey population.
The hazaras try to portray themselves as bigger than they are. They are Shia Muslims. They have
been long persecuted by Pashtuns. They live in the middle of Pakistan but also in the main cities.
They are the people who are massacred by the people who try to fuel a civil war between the sunnis
an the shias. Because according to them anyone who is not a sunni is not a true muslim.
Pashtuns speak Pashto. Some of them also speak Dari, but chances are slim.
On the Afghan flag, the word Afghan that is on it in Arabic, the people in Afghanistan don’t speak
Arabic. In Dari they use the same alphabet (with small differences), so it would be the same word in
Dari as it is in Arabic.
We’ll have online guests from other countries!
There is a lot of information in the earlier weeks, so keep up with readings and videos!
Keep up with names and ask if you can’t follow!
Video for Thursday is 1 hour long!
The point of the quizzes is not to make them complicated but as an incentive to watch the videos.
The postings are really about the readings, not per se the videos.
You have to clearly reference the reading with quote and page and author.
, Your grade for forum posts is the average of your best 3 postings.
Look at grades on Brightspace.
If there’s a – on grades, he forgets to post it, let him know. He posts grades the day of the session, so
message him 1 or 2 days after if it is not there, mail!
You can already do forums, so you have time to post in future forums already if you want to.
Most likely take home exam that we have to do, 3 essay questions to answer within 24 hours.
Session for this Thursday is very important and heaviest for this course.
The readings are the core theoretical theories of this class.
It’s very important to read the chapters before the lecture!
SO1. History of Afghanistan – explained.
37 million people, one of the fastest growing populations on the planet.
Will soon be bigger than Canada or Poland.
It is bordered by Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, China and Pakistan.
Bactria connected by Central Asia, in the middle Hindu Kush and those in the south influences by
Indus Valley Civilization, founded by colonists from the south.
Kabul inhibited for more than 3500 years
➔ Median empire 678 BC- 549 BC
➔ Persian Achaemenid empire 550 BC – 330 BC
➔ Alexander’s empire 323 BC
➔ Selucid empire 312 BC – 63 BC
➔ Mauryan empire
➔ Greco-barctrian kingdom 265 BC – 125 BC
➔ & Parthian empire 247 BC – 224 AD
➔ & Indo-greek kingdom 180 BC – 10 AD
➔ Then a culture of Greek, Iranian and central Asian
➔ Then the Greco-Barctrian were overrun by the Sakas and Yuezhi, nomadic invasions
➔ Parthian empire
➔ Suren Kingdom (Indo-Parthians Kingdom) 19 AD – 240 AD
➔ Kushan empire 30 AD – 375 AD
➔ Sassanid Persian empire 224 AD – 651 AD
➔ Rashidun Caliphate 632 AD – 661 AD
➔ Umayyad Caliphate 661 - 750
➔ Abassid Caliphate 750-1258
➔ Saffarid empire 861-1003
➔ Samanid empire 819-999
➔ Ghaznavid empire 977-1186
➔ Ghurid sultanate 879-1215
