Friday, September 30, 2011
Why ethnic Hazaras flee their home
Published Date: September 30, 2011
Quetta is a small city located in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, a couple of hours by road from the Afghan border. It is the administrative centre of Baluchistan and a second home to hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees who have settled in the city following the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent outbreak of the Afghan civil war. (Hadi Zaher, newmatilda.com)
Among them are tens of thousands of Hazaras, adding to an older community that arrived there a century earlier after the invasion of the Hazara homeland in Afghanistan’s central highlands by Amir Abdur Rehman, known in the British Empire as Afghanistan’s Iron Amir.
The Hazaras adhere to the Shiite branch of Islam, distinct from the Sunni Islam, by far Islam’s largest sect.
Quetta’s Hazara population is divided between two township slums in the east and west of the city. Many in the community own small shops, others depend on remittances from Iran, the Gulf States, Europe and Australia. Most families are divided across many political borders with relatives living in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Some of these people live legally, some have been able to obtain UNHCR refugee cards, but most have to make regular payments to local authorities and the police to avoid incarceration and deportation. This community has become the target of killings and massacres and its members have been forced to flee for their lives.
The list of attacks specifically targeting the Hazara community is long. Members of the community, easily distinguishable for their Mongoloid features, bear the brunt of Pakistan’s sectarian violence. Almost every time the killers have got away and each time the Taliban affiliated Pakistan-based sectarian outfit Lashkar-e Jhangvi (LeJ) has claimed responsibility.
LeJ has a declared agenda to rid Pakistan of all Shiites, who they consider heretics and liable to be killed. Leaflets distributed by the group have declared Hazaras and Shiite Muslims to be “infidels”. Followers are urged to take “extreme steps”, much like ones carried out by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Source: newmatilda.com
Quetta is a small city located in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, a couple of hours by road from the Afghan border. It is the administrative centre of Baluchistan and a second home to hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees who have settled in the city following the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent outbreak of the Afghan civil war. (Hadi Zaher, newmatilda.com)
Among them are tens of thousands of Hazaras, adding to an older community that arrived there a century earlier after the invasion of the Hazara homeland in Afghanistan’s central highlands by Amir Abdur Rehman, known in the British Empire as Afghanistan’s Iron Amir.
The Hazaras adhere to the Shiite branch of Islam, distinct from the Sunni Islam, by far Islam’s largest sect.
Quetta’s Hazara population is divided between two township slums in the east and west of the city. Many in the community own small shops, others depend on remittances from Iran, the Gulf States, Europe and Australia. Most families are divided across many political borders with relatives living in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Some of these people live legally, some have been able to obtain UNHCR refugee cards, but most have to make regular payments to local authorities and the police to avoid incarceration and deportation. This community has become the target of killings and massacres and its members have been forced to flee for their lives.
The list of attacks specifically targeting the Hazara community is long. Members of the community, easily distinguishable for their Mongoloid features, bear the brunt of Pakistan’s sectarian violence. Almost every time the killers have got away and each time the Taliban affiliated Pakistan-based sectarian outfit Lashkar-e Jhangvi (LeJ) has claimed responsibility.
LeJ has a declared agenda to rid Pakistan of all Shiites, who they consider heretics and liable to be killed. Leaflets distributed by the group have declared Hazaras and Shiite Muslims to be “infidels”. Followers are urged to take “extreme steps”, much like ones carried out by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Source: newmatilda.com
Thursday, September 29, 2011
The Boy Mir: Ten Years in Afghanistan – review
This documentary chronicling a decade in the life of a young Afghan is an eye-opening insight into the country's difficulties
Andrew Pulver
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 29 September 2011 17.10 EDT
Man's world ... The Boy Mir: Ten Years in Afghanistan
An epic labour of righteousness from British documentary-maker Phil Grabsky, who evidently travelled to Afghanistan every year since 2002, to film updates on the charismatic little kid he found while making an earlier film, The Boy Who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan. What emerges is an unadorned chronicle of grinding poverty: Mir starts at school, but is gradually sidetracked into a life of ploughing and coalmining as his father becomes too ill to work. In some ways, Mir's story is that of the universal early-teen – he pines after a motorbike, wants to ring girls, skips lessons – but there's the extra edge of civil war and Taliban-inspired carnage in the background. But the most powerful warning is Mir's rueful stepbrother Khushdel, who bitterly regrets his own lack of schooling.
Andrew Pulver
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 29 September 2011 17.10 EDT
An epic labour of righteousness from British documentary-maker Phil Grabsky, who evidently travelled to Afghanistan every year since 2002, to film updates on the charismatic little kid he found while making an earlier film, The Boy Who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan. What emerges is an unadorned chronicle of grinding poverty: Mir starts at school, but is gradually sidetracked into a life of ploughing and coalmining as his father becomes too ill to work. In some ways, Mir's story is that of the universal early-teen – he pines after a motorbike, wants to ring girls, skips lessons – but there's the extra edge of civil war and Taliban-inspired carnage in the background. But the most powerful warning is Mir's rueful stepbrother Khushdel, who bitterly regrets his own lack of schooling.
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