{"id":5419,"date":"2025-10-22T17:47:29","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T17:47:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/taand.net\/en\/?p=5419"},"modified":"2025-10-22T17:49:45","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T17:49:45","slug":"in-pakistan-taliban-war-lurks-a-racist-colonial-view-of-afghans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taand.net\/en\/?p=5419","title":{"rendered":"In Pakistan-Taliban war lurks a racist, colonial view of Afghans"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sanaa Alimia<\/a><\/p>\n

This month saw deadly cross-border attacks between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Pakistani air force also bombed Kabul, and southeastern Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Pakistan stated that it was responding to an attack by the Tehreek e Taliban (TTP), in its Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and that it wants to stop the \u201cmenace of terrorism emanating from Afghan soil towards Pakistan<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Taliban government denies harbouring the TTP, and for now, a\u00a0ceasefire<\/a>\u00a0mediated by Turkey and Qatar is in effect.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, it is difficult to take Pakistan\u2019s outrage seriously. This is not, because the TTP hasn\u2019t carried out its own\u00a0violent attacks<\/a>\u00a0in Pakistan. It has. In fact, attacks have surged since the Taliban 2.0 returned to power in Kabul in August 2021.<\/p>\n

But Pakistan\u2019s outrage rings hollow when, since October 2023, it has enacted an\u00a0ugly racist mass expulsion programme<\/a>\u00a0against its own\u00a0Afghan refugee population<\/a>. Upending the lives of millions and engaging in systematic\u00a0mass human rights violations<\/a>\u2014from sexual assault to arbitrary detention and forced removal.<\/p>\n

The Pakistani establishment\u2019s concerns appear somewhat disingenuous given it fostered the longer-term conditions that gave rise to the TTP.\u00a0 Pakistan has a well-documented and\u00a0long history\u00a0<\/a>of patronising and empowering the Afghan Taliban.<\/p>\n

It was a key broker of the 2020\u00a0Doha Peace Deal<\/a>\u00a0between the Taliban and the US, which paved the way for the group\u2019s return to power. When the Taliban took back control, out of fear, many Afghans fled the country (again) or went into hiding. However, many Pakistani establishment supporters celebrated. \u201cTheir guys\u201d were in.<\/p>\n

The breakdown in relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan is clearly not just about TTP violence. Islamabad is also uneasy about the Afghan Taliban acting as a sovereign power rather than toeing its line. Especially as is seems to be pursuing closer relations with India. Just last week the Afghan Foreign Minister\u00a0Amir Khan Muttaqi<\/a>\u00a0visited Pakistan\u2019s nemesis, after which India said it would upgrade its \u201ctechnical mission\u201d in Kabul to the status of an embassy (which was shut down in 2021).<\/p>\n

Accustomed to war<\/h2>\n

The truth is that the region is doomed to remain stuck in a cycle of violence as long as Pakistan continues to view Afghanistan\u2014as well as its own Pashtun regions and peoples\u2014as a playground for its own geopolitical goals. This has been the reality for decades.<\/p>\n

As scholar\u00a0Anila Daulatzai<\/a>\u00a0explains, from the mid-1970s until now, Afghanistan and its peoples have faced \u201cserial war<\/a>\u201d. These wars are not a series of separate events, but an overarching structure that governs Afghan (and Pashtun) life. This is due to the lasting imperial legacies in Afghanistan and the region.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Afghanistan and its people are treated through persistent colonial\u00a0racialised tropes.<\/a>\u00a0Imagined as irrational, tribal, accustomed to war, this perception manufactures consent for the repeated, near seamless interventions in the country.<\/p>\n

When in the 1970s the Afghan communist party, the People\u2019s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), seized power following the Soviet Union\u2019s 1979-1989 military occupation, Pakistan saw an opportunity to gain influence in the country. This included its own Pashtun territories and populations, which it hasn\u2019t let go of since.<\/p>\n

Until then, Afghanistan and Pakistan had a tense relationship. Afghanistan never recognised the border between the two countries, and it still doesn\u2019t. Meanwhile, its own Pashtun regions were also home to popular discontent. This was not just because these regions were \u201ctribal\u201d and \u201crebellious\u201d as the state claimed, but because military interests were always prioritised over the people.<\/p>\n

During the Cold War, Pakistan used calls of \u201cIslam in danger\u201d to\u00a0host millions of Afghan refugees and sponsor and train the PDPA\u2019s opponents<\/a>, mainly Islamists, or the so-called mujahideen (holy warriors), most of whom lived in Pashtun regions. The US and the wider Western bloc, also invested in a Soviet defeat, pumped billions into Pakistan.<\/p>\n

With the end of the Cold War, Pakistan remained busy sponsoring an emerging Taliban in Afghanistan, as well as in the Pakistani refugee camps. This was also linked to Pakistan\u2019s desire to have militant groups fight a proxy war in Kashmir.<\/p>\n

However, in a somewhat contradictory turn, the War on Terror, during the 2000s and 2010s, led Pakistan to become a US ally against the Afghan Taliban.<\/p>\n

Frustrated by Pakistani duplicity, the TTP officially emerged in 2007, especially in parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the former tribal areas. It engaged in numerous campaigns of violence, including the 2014\u00a0Army Public School attack in Peshawar<\/a>\u00a0that killed over 150 people, primarily children.<\/p>\n

Pakistan\u2019s military\u2019s campaigns against the TTP killed thousands of civilians, displaced millions, and resulted in\u00a0mass human rights violations<\/a>. Dismissed as \u201ccollateral damage\u201d, the military\u2019s actions created the seeds of further discontent that has either been channelled into a radical popular politics, such as the\u00a0Pashtun Tahafuz Movement<\/a>, or reactionary militant conservatism, including that of the TTP.<\/p>\n

The TTP were silenced for a while, but since 2021 they appear to be back with a vengeance thanks to the support of the Afghan Taliban, Pakistan\u2019s supposed allies.<\/p>\n

The problem is, of course, that Pakistan has never been able to fully control the Taliban or its other militant \u201cprojects\u201d. These individuals and groups have their own agency and ideological and material aspirations.<\/p>\n

Until Islamabad stops relying on war by proxy, however, the long-term future of the region remains bleak, and the biggest fallouts from ongoing tensions will continue to be felt by the people living on both sides of the border. Not to mention, the considerable problems faced by both countries: climate disaster, floods, earthquakes, tanking economies, low life-expectancy, and war, will only be further exacerbated by their military obsessions.<\/p>\n

Pakistan must stop behaving like Afghanistan is an extension of itself, only there to serve its needs. However, between the country\u2019s continued slide into\u00a0authoritarianism<\/a>, and its leaders\u00a0falling over themselves to flatter US President Trump<\/a>\u00a0despite the latter\u2019s claim of wanting \u201cBagram back<\/a>\u201d, it feels like there is little hope for improvement. The tense regional relations fuelled by a decisively pro-war and anti-Pakistan, right-wing India, also don\u2019t help matters.<\/p>\n

For now, as tired and familiar structures are emboldened, the people of Afghanistan, Afghan refugees in Pakistan, and ordinary Pakistanis, especially Pashtuns, are sadly expected to continue to pay a heavy price.<\/p>\n

Sanaa Alimia is an academic and the author of Refugee Cities.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Follow Sanaa on X: @SanaaAlimia<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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