Being Pashtun - Being Muslim Concepts of Person and War in Afghanistan

Since its beginning the recent Afghan jihad was not only directed against an alien invasion and an imported ideology, but also against obsolete internal political structures which long before 1978 had encroached on traditional values without improving the standard of living of most people. After the withdrawal of the Red Army the country is still under considerable influence from outside powers which do not allow Afghanistan to come to terms with her own social and political problems. A case in point is the recent emergence of the powerful Taliban movement whose success is partly due to Pakistan’s support. Basically the Taliban are an indigenous movement whose motives of action are rooted in the norms and values of a large part of the traditional society. In order to analyse the present civil war in Afghanistan indigenous as well as exogenous factors have to be taken into consideration as well as the motives of the acting persons who consciously reflect their role in different contexts, be it local, regional, interregional, inter-ethnic, and international.