The picture at left, which I took in January of 1979, is noteworthy for a couple of reasons. First, it suggests that English is not well known in Afghanistan: the intended meaning in the language of the sign ("SPARE PARTS FOR CZECHOSLOVAKIA") was that the shop sold spare parts from Czechoslovakia. Second, the photograph records an example of the red sign which the Khalq Communist party then ruling Afghanistan required all merchants in the city of Herat to display: the emblems seen were symbols of the Khalq party. In contrast to Pakistan, its neighbor to the east, Afghanistan has never been a country where English is widely spoken, even though multilingualism is common in this country where many languages have come and gone. If the British imperialists of the nineteenth century had managed to hold onto the territory, English might now have the highly visible post-colonial status it does in India and Pakistan. Throughout history, Afghanistan has often been on the minds of the ruling classes of India, and in the 1830's the British Raj feared that Afghan rulers were allying themselves with Russia, which indeed had been expanding its domain over much of Central Asia. Accordingly, the British sent an army in 1839 to install a king more to their liking. The troops had a relatively easy time subduing the cities they passed through and began to settle down in Kabul. The peace of the capital city proved to be deceptive, however, and as time passed, the Afghans increasingly resented what seemed to be a permanent British occupation. In 1840 a violent uprising took place, and the occupying forces retreated through the mountains back to India. The guerrillas and the weather in the passes proved deadly: of the 16,000 soldiers and civilians who departed Kabul, only about a hundred ever managed to return to India.

British forces did return to Kabul about forty years later, but they never attempted a permanent occupation, contenting themselves instead with "subsidies" to Afghan rulers and treaties promising that Afghanistan would tilt toward Britain, not Russia, in its foreign policy. After the departure of the British from India in 1947, the Afghans continued to maintain their independence, allowing the Soviets and Americans to compete for their support in the Cold War but not allowing either superpower to dictate to them. This neutralist policy succeeded until 1978, when the Khalq party staged a coup against the Afghan government and shifted quickly to a pro-Soviet stance (it is unclear whether the coup was planned by the Soviets or whether the Khalqi action caught them by surprise). Though the Persian word khalq means 'masses,' the Khalqis were never popular despite their promises on land reform, education, and so on. An uprising in Herat was a serious challenge to their rule, and guerrillas made travel dangerous. While Islamic forces offered some of the strongest opposition, the Khalq had other enemies as well including a rival Communist party known as the Parchem. In yet another coup, staged in December of 1979, the Russians threw their support to the Parchem and sent huge forces to aid the new government. What became known as the invasion of Afghanistan had begun.

The Russians proved no more successful than the British in fighting guerrillas who were determined and who knew their mountains and deserts extremely well-and who received anti-aircraft Stinger missiles and other help from the CIA. Even so, the war dragged on through 1988, when Soviet forces withdrew but continued to support their Marxist clients, who were in turn driven out by 1992. Figures offered by M. Hassan Kakar suggest the scale of the war's brutality: over 1.5 million Afghans killed (over one tenth of the total population) and over three million forced to flee to Pakistan or Iran (resulting in the world's largest refugee population). Another two million or so Afghans were wounded, with some making their way to the United States (Ohio State University hospitals aided amputees). When the Communist regime collapsed in 1992, the fighting did not end, and ordinary Afghans have been trapped in vicious battles between many contending forces. In recent years, the Taleban, a faction of extremely conservative Muslim fundamentalists, have controlled most of the nation's territory though few countries have given diplomatic recognition to their intolerant regime.

While the Afghan forces were anti-Soviet, some were also anti-American (despite the American support for the guerrillas), and some veterans went on to join Islamic terrorist groups operating in the United States and several other countries. In 1998, the Clinton administration viewed Afghanistan as a haven for the terrorist network of Osama bin Laden and fired cruise missiles (to little effect) at camps said to be part of the network. In the aftermath of September 11, 20001, the alliance of American, British, and Afghan forces has succeeded in ousting the Taleban from power in a campaign which has thus proved to be a case of foreign intervention welcomed by many Afghans. The current government of Hamid Karzai has committed itself to democracy and to a much greater degree of Western assistance than was the case in the past. Even so, it remains uncertain whether the English language will ever have the impact on Pashto, Dari, and other Afghan languages that Arabic, the language of Islam, has had.

To see other pictures of Afghanistan, press here.

Source for this page:

M. Hassan Kakar (1995) Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1992. Berkeley: University of California Press.