جمهوری اسلامی افغانستان
Jamhūrī-ye Islāmī-ye Afġānistān
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan














MY country of Afghanistan, we had many wars before but we want peace, we will be a beautiful country like before ! AFGHANISTAN ZENDABAD!

I wanna see Hazara pics.

Hazara are just an ethnic group, why do you like to see them if I can ask?

Just curious, what are the average Afghan's opinion about India? Is Indian foreign policy with Afghanistan viewed positivily, negativily, or do ppl not really have an opinion? And what's your own personal opinion towards discrimination agaisnt Sikhs in Afghanistan?

Afghanis generally think highly about India, especially Pashtuns like myself. We like Indian pop culture, etc and because of the civil war and Pakistani support for taliban, we pashtuns grew much closer with india. I do not support discrimination of any ethnic group in afghanistan.

yeah i think it's about time the country started moving in a direction to improve general living conditions. i too hope it can become a peaceful and fortunate county

i sense an asian obssesd person.

Thank you Amir, wherabouts are you originally from, Amir is a Muslim name, sounds similar to Arabic name for king.

i m half iranian, half irish/scottish. and yeah amir is arabic for prince, or military commander. i ve lived a good portion of my life in iran and i can say that a strong and healthy afghanistan will be also good for iran.

I agree yes, Iran and Afghanistan are traditionally friendly countries and our countries friendship will flourish!

How connected are the people to the central government?

Pashtun people are close to central government but other ethnic groups like Hazara, Tajik, Balouch, are more distanced. And the Taliban are very far from the central government

So do you think most Afghani's view the government's role positively and trust it to provide public goods for the people?

I hear the pashtuns are very racist towards the Hazara in Afghanistan. Ive visited youtube and typed in Hazara, and watched hazara videos, and in the user comments section, theres so called "pashtuns" posting things like, "ch1nk, you're not afghan" "g@@k, you're not afghan" I use to tiptoed around afghan american forums, and from what Ive learned, the Hazara started a civil war a couple decades ago, and also started a war between tajiks and pashtuns, correct me if Im wrong.

And also who are the Aimak? Ive read they are similar to Hazaras but unlike hazaras are nomadic and live in Mongolian style yurts. I just cannot find too much info on them.

This is what wikipedia says about them:

"The Aimak (or Aimaq) are Persian-speaking nomadic or semi-nomadic tribes of mixed Iranian and Mongolian stock inhabiting the north and north-west highlands of Afghanistan, immediately to the north of Herat. They are closely related to the Hazara, and—in varying degrees—to the Tajiks. They live in western Hazarajat in the provinces of Ghor, Farah, Herat, Badghis, Faryab, Jowzjan and Sar-e Pol. The name is Mongolian for tribe (compare Aimag).

They were originally known as chahar or (the four) Eimaks, because there were four principal tribes: the Taimani (the predominating element in the population of Ghor), the Ferozkhoi, the Temuri, and the Jamshidi.

Estimates of the Aimak population vary between 250,000 and 2 million. They are Sunni Muslims, in contrast to the Hazara, who are Shiahs. They are predominantly of Iranian ancestry, while the Hazara are of Mongolian and some Iranian ancestry. They are renowned fighters.

The best estimates of the Aimak population in Afghanistan hover around 1-2 million. The tally is made difficult since, as a consequence of centuries of oppression of the Hazara people in Afghanistan, some Aimagh Hazaras are classified by the state as Tajik, or Persian instead of Aimaks."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aimak

Afghan don't like hazaras because they're Central asian (Mongoloid)

Pashtuns dont like Hazara who are in Mujahadeen because they kill civilians. Many Hazara live in Kabul in peace and are welcomed by Pashtuns because many of them are refugees and have nothing to do with starting the war. The only people who really started a war was the US, USSR and Taliban. But conservative Pashtuns do not like Hazara or any other ethnic group ( i am not one of them). Hazara are a mix of Iranian and Mongoloid, some look quite mongol.

I use wonder what kind of mix Hazaras were, but since they speak a Persian language, their obvious mix is Iranian/Mongolian. Some pashtuns that live around hazaras show mongol features also, but only the ones that live around Hazaras, especially in Hazarat(hope i spelled that right).

Too much bitter hatred between Hazaras and Pashtuns, more so than pashtuns and any other ethnic group in Afghanistan. Do Hazara and Pashtuns intermarry much?

the thing is the hazara are the remains of mongolians in the region, and if you consider the lives lost in afghanistan due to the mongol invasion, you can see why they might not like the Hazara.

look at it this way, blacks have been killed by whites, blacks gain power, what do you think they will do to the whites who once had the power and killed many of them?


i don't apporve that anyone should bother the hazara but i can see why the native afkans don't like them.

Most Afghans are rather indifferent to India.

As far as persecution of Sikhs in Afghanistan...The place has been an endless war zone for three decades.

Everybody hurts.



My thoughts exactly...



Very true.

The way I have always seen it, Iranians and Afghans are family, separated by a border.

As Afghanistan recovers over the next decade, Iran-Afghan trade, business and cultural exchange can only increase.



Pashtuns are not known for liking people in Afghanistan who are not "Pashtun". It is not racial, but ethnic and tribal in nature. Trying to put western notions of race and racism onto groups from Central Asia and the Iranian plateau will not yield an answer that is in anyway reflective of reality. People in that region are just too genetically/racially mixed between groups.

Pashtuns don't "hate" Hazaras because they look to have greater Mongolian ancestry. They may hate them because they speak Persian, and not Pashtu, and are Shia, as opposed to Sunni.

Hazaras then are a competing tribe with the Pashtuns.



You can encounter nomadic groups like that in Iran, as well.

I am sure they have been in the area for a very long time.



I am just not seeing that.

I think the tendency on this forum is to put western notions of race onto groups of people who really do not fit into traditional categories. Everyone on that area has some degree of Turkic and Mongolian ancestry, and it shows.



The Hazaras are the result of ancient intermixing, as is really all of the various groups in the region.

Azeris, Uzbeks, Turkomans, Tajiks, and yes, even the Pashtuns.



Except, even if they are, they speak Persian, celebrate ancient Iranian customs(Noruz, etc), and are Shia Muslim.

That, and the fact that for even with all of Chingis Khan's killing and destroying in ancient Afghanistan, the Mongols are hardly "hated" for it.

Admired is more like it.



Except, and no offense, but your comparison really does not work in Afghanistan.

Atari Turcoman = azeri

Oghuz is devided in 2 accually one main and one 'exception'

Allmost all Oghuz Tribes are Turcoman wich means Muslim Turks this includes the Azeris Turks of Anatolia and ofcourse the Turkmens themselfs. Turcoman is the english word for Turkmen.

The non Turkmen oghuz tribe are the gagauz. They were small oghuz clan who were forced to settle in The Balkans and Converted to Christianity after the Mongol invasion and during the early years of the ottoman Empire



Hazar is a Turkic word for wanderer but there was a tribe who were called the Hazars who converted 2 judaism for political reasons. The names sound familiar but I don't think there related


There are also some claims of uygurs in the region be4 the Mongol invasion

Well, my Grandfather was Iranian Azeri, while my Grandmother was from Turkmenistan.

Turkmans and Azeris are close, but there are differences in my experience. A different dialect, though close enough to understand easily, most Turkman are Sunni, and they tend to look more "Asian", while the Azeri tend to look less "Asian", and more similar to others in the Caucasus.

Thats my take on it.

^true I my self am a Meskheti Turk(Mix of kypchaks, oghuzes,Georgians + mabey minor others) our culture is verry similar to that of Northrn Azerbaycan. Lingual its slightly rougherand less 'persian' than azeri and not as Faggy as Istanbulite or standart Turkish.

When I talk about Turk related History you can thrust me on it for I am a Moderator at a Stepe History Forum

It sounds to my ear as though the Istanbuli Turks are REALLY trying to sound more "European" like.



Hey its all good. I am a big fan of all things "Central Asian", so I can respect a fellow traveler.

Believe it or not, I think I know your forum, to.

Not to be intrusive, but didn't you post over a Allempires.com, also?

Yes, many of the so called Turks in Istanbul are descendents of Bosnian, Greek, Bulgarian, Serbs who were taken to Istanbul under Ottoman Empire, maybe this is why there are some very fair skinned Turks and Turks with blonde hair but now many have intermarried with local Turks and more of their Eastern European attributes start to fade away. Quite a lot of Turks have other blood in them like the singer Ibrahim tatlises, he is half arab I think.

Yeah I hate That accent everytime I am there I just wanna be def and some Girls talk with that you know callifornia girls accent only In Turkish OMG (I can't expres my self writing this)

Realt Turkish is spoken in villeages all over Anatolia mostly around the Central anatolia.

Heck teh Kurds even speak proper Turkish than those Istanbul fu-ks

Yeah I post in Allempires




Dude that fair skinn stuff -> Turks have allways had fair skinn the arab and Kurdish mixture made it darker. The Persian Nomads Allso had light hair Light skinn collored eyes-> They look nothing like todays iranians (few exceptions ofc)

Ibrahim Tatlises isn't even Turkish his mother is Kurdish his father arab--------> he's just a Turkish citizen.

The problem about 'Ethnic" Turks or people woith CA ancestry is that you can't say that they live in certain regions of teh country there scattered all over the Country. But Mostly they live in the Heartland of Anatolia near the Capital Ankara.


The Ottoman Empire was Allot like America is now. People from All over teh world, different races------> there all American.

The Turks all said to the Former 'foreign' people of the Empire your as Turk as us because they lived for centuries together. SO there are accualy a dozen Ethnic Minorities in Turkey but only a few are considered 'outsiders'

1. Armenians(because they collaborated with the European powers--> I don't give a fu-k about your oppinion if u wanted to reply on this matter)
2. The Kurds because they didn't want to be Turks simple as that. The Kurds fought allongside the Ottomans since ever and they were loyal more like allies. But when the republic was created. The Turks saw a Kurdistan as a Unstable State if there should be one. The new Turkish goverment under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk had plans to reform the whole country.

1. Separation of Church & State (the Kurds weren't to happy about this)
2. Westernisation(The Kurds saw them selfs as sort of Ottomans and this would mean that they would be european-> Not to happy about this either)
3. After the death of Ataturk or a decade after his death the new Pro-American goverment was convinced to stop investing in the allready poor region of south eastern Turkey(Ataturk even had open aggracultural school & other things)

Teh Kurds just didn't feel Turkish anymore

But The Kurds living awy from the border say 'I am a Kurd But I am a Turkish citizen' (most of teh 'trouble' comes from Iraq & syria')



The genetic make up of Turkey is most likely to most diverse in the world.

Is Turkey taking in many Iraqi refugees?

NO why would they ?

it's true that turks are lighter than most arabs in skin tone(althogh northern arabs like lebeness and syrians have the same skin tone as turks but they aren't true arabs any way they are actually northern semities), but they aren't really as light as you are making them seem, and though the average of skin color in turkey is lighter than the average skin color of iranians, it's not so when you consider northern and southern iranians. if you consider northern iranians they have got about the same skin tone as turks.

id say turks on average have light tan skin and by tan i don't mean brown, i mean they usually have a skin color that got a bit of an orange undertone to it. it's kind of simialr to mainland greeks. as for their hair color and eye color i d say true turks have a strong majority of dark hair and eyes with about 90+ having brown eyes and dark brown hair and the small minority who have lighter eyes usually have hazel or dark green eyes. it's practically the same in iran and that is what it has been since the begining. and it's true turky does have foreign influnced in it due to slavery and it's slavic influence that cause some turks to have really light features and origianl turks just like i said had dark hair and eyes and a medium skin tone.

the same could be said about iranians, it's true that they might have had lighter skin before they entered iran but not by much and they probebly resembled modern day afkans in skin tone, and they had about the same amount of dark eyes and dark hair as modern iranians with a small minority having hazel or dark green eyes(as do modern iranians) the only real significant change to some iranians is that the more western iranians have features tended towards thier neighbors(which is the cases for all countries) so southers might somewhat resemble arabs, while the western border is similar to iraqies and north westerns look armenian and so on. but the bulk of iranians people still look like what anceat iranians would have looked like.

westerners like to think about ancent persians looking all white european while it's not true, if they want to consider modern iranians as white then yes ancent iranians were white too!

it's true that as a whole the iranian nomads were visibly lighter than middle easterns but it's not like they were northern european white and most importantly they weren't blonde and blue eyed. there is even an example of this in historic text were romans talk about the physic of sarmatians and other iranic nomads and they said quite clearly that they resembled persians in facial structure and that they had muscular tanned body builds they would have most likely resembled people from the balkans as many of these groups eventually went there.

^ Lot of Persian Nomads had light brown or red hair


U can't find 'Pure' Turks in turkey Amir accualy there isn't such thing as a pure Turks because they don't believe in racial pureness. Turks from Anatolia should have look like The Turkmens of Turkmenistan in the beginning


When you look at persian Miniature art 70% of the Time teh characters are Turks slightly slanted eyes and fair skinn complexion.



Some iranians look Arab some do look like Persian "should' look

I mean lots of Iranians have nappy hair that ain't right


some scytian pictures

Arent Kazakhs the direct descendents of Scythians?

And I also read that Scythians lived as far east as North Central China(Innner Mongolia)

correction a minority had red and light brown hair, medium brown hair wasn't as rare but most had dark brown hair or even black, you could even see it in your own pics(only the blonde one is false). they also had light tan skin (also what they got in your pics). note that iranians, kurds and turks have a prenonced skin color difference between men and women and women are considerably lighter in these groups(more so that most populations) so i think you might have have been seeing to many women as your examples. and when i said pure turks i meant the people who migrated to turkey as turks.

i have seen persian miniatures and in them even persians have fair complexians.

also what do you expect of a large country like iran, someof the iranians in the south are actually arab if you haven't noticed but the majority no matter how dark still have iranian features and straight to wavy hair.

iranian general features have always been fair to light brown skin, dark hair and eyes, relatively tall stature, quite hairy and strong beard development, strong facial relife(protuding but somewhat thin nose, deep set eyes, strong brow bones and a relatively strong chin and jaw) and a somewhat signiture sharp thick brows

most scythians were wiped out by huns or mongols, some went to europe and some mixed with mongols.

also before we continue let's call iranians, iranian not persian, cause that's just a given name which was derived from the ruling tribe of pars. and iranian nomads had nothing to do with the pars.

dude i'm not going to writ down all of the Persian Clan Names and not all of em Belong to Iran

just call them iranian, it's not only used for iran the country. when talking about scythians for instance say iranian nomads, it makes no sense to say persian nomad because they aren't persian but they are a part of iranian people.

I would also add a Mediterranean body type with some East Asian influence, and a somewhat almond eyes in many Iranians.

The Kazakhs are Turks. The Scythians were Iranians.

Yes, except that the Kazakhs do seem to carry some genetic markers related to Iranian populations, indicating that there was most likely some degree, however limited, of local "inter-mixing".

i don't think original iranian morphiology was influenced by east asians, in fact quite to the contrary it's was almost the exact opposite of what east asian morphiology is. yes iranians have almond eyes but not asian almonde eyes, it's the type of eye shape that is even common in germanics where the eyes are close set and of medium size. it's true iranians unlike arabs don't have big round eyes but their eye type is what we can call indo european since it is shared through out people with indo european lineage. it has got a almond shape but it has nothing to do with asian background.

if your talking about today, we can say that about some afkans and central asians but the original morphiology of iranian people is not asian influenced.

you are kind of right about the body type with the note that some iranians have a more rubust physic than the usual mediterranean type.( not to mention taller).

I never denied it. I was referring to linguistic identities, rather than genetic identities.

^ @GreyShades this thread is not about Iranians.

This thread is about Afghanistan so you go away and stop complaining like a little girl.

i have personally dealt with iranians like your description and i don't like them myself. most of them are the iranians who fleed the country after the revolution and were among the rich and assholes of the country who still believe in the aryan superiority of iranians and crazy idea's that arabs made iranians darker than what they were

what can i say it's not my fault that that stupid people exist, you can be sure i hate these pro monarchy people more than you and they stole all of the riches of iran with themselves and took it abroad. but the thing is these people are only a group of iranians and a lot of the other iranians are nothing like what you said and i do hold them in high regards.

now for what you said about me: i m merely stating the facts about history regarding the mongolian invasion and if you don't like it it's your own problem. and you expect me not to be patriotic about my origions? what do you suggest, that i hate iranians i sense you actually think i m lying about my origin? why in hell would i do that?
indirectly it seems you put value into people being white or part white, i personally feel more close to my iranian side a lot of the time cause it actally has a defined culture not a mish mash like america. i don't put any of the two above the other in terms of how respectful i think each is, but i do feel the urge to be more patriotic about iran cause it's weaker and in trouble.

So you see Iranian nationals and Afghan nationals as one in the same?

Granted, they are rather close, but as immigrants in America, they are also rather different.

My apologies. I shouldnt have wrote that. I was just mad because I read a thread in the lounge section about Persians being racist to Asians on the subway.

Theres good and bad in all races. My apologies to Amir

i can imagine some fools being like that. on occasions when i go to my college, i can see an iranian having a rude attitue just by looking at him.

but just like you said there are good and bad in all people.

If I may then I also would like to share some beauty of Afghanistan;

You sound like a racist, hate-mongering bigot to me!

Only people I hate are mongols,and neanderthals.