Fieldnotes on Humanity

Photo source: x/twitter One of the questions that has preoccupied the minds of contemporary Hazaras is: Who are we, and where do we come from? This question has no historical basis, but nevertheless, a question is a question. So, why is this question raised in the first place? Who is asking it? What has fueled this question more than anyone else is not the Hazaras themselves but the non-Hazaras, the Pashtuns and Tajiks in Afghanistan. The origin of this question lies among those who do not consider the Hazaras native to Afghanistan. It stems from those who claim that the Hazaras are outsiders and that they arrived in Afghanistan with such-and-such army in such-and-such century, but they never bother to question or think about their originality, how they did come to Afghanistan. This question also originates in the inhumane attitudes and behaviors of members of the dominant ethnic groups towards the Hazaras, which persist to this day. The roots of this discriminatory outlook lie with th...

No one comes short regarding the prejudice and dehumanization of the Hazara people in Afghanistan. Since the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, racism and hatred against the Hazaras have been on the rise and social media platforms have amplified it. I have tried to stay away from Twitter, but today, when logged in again, I accidentally stumbled upon a few racist tweets. One of them was by a person who claimed to be a Tajik commander of Panjshir valley. He created a Twitter poll by asking: " Who is conscientious and loyal? Dog or Hazara."  Here is the screenshot: Equating Hazaras with dogs and other animals has a history of racism, exclusion, dehumanization, and genocide. I have written a blog post about this racial trope used against the Hazaras by the Tajiks, Pashtuns, and other ethnic groups. This kind of racial slur carries the echoes of ethnic hatred and deep animosity against the Hazara people, who are right now facing genocide.  Oftentimes, people point the finger...

Bahar Jalali is a well-educated Afghan-American woman. According to her Linkedin profile , she has received her MA from the University of Chicago and studied her doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley. She has taught at American University of Afghanistan for six years. I was hoping that those Afghans who grew up in the West have skipped the inherited hatred of the Hazaras, but it turns out that I have been wrong. Here it is an evidence from an American born Afghan woman: What makes Bahar Jalali, an American born Afghan to harbor such hatred towards the Hazaras who have been persecuted throughout the history? She says that the Hazaras should leave Afghanistan. That is exactly what the Taliban wanted almost two decades ago. In November 1998, when the Taliban force took over the city of Mazar-e Sharif for the second time, the Taliban/Pashtun governor of Balkh, Mullah Manan Niazi,  announced that the Hazaras are infidels and killing them is not a sin . Niazi ...