The Eternal Persecution of the Hazaras in Afghanistan
Audio 03:03
A view of Bamiyan in Afghanistan, December 22, 2021 REUTERS - ALI KHARA
By: Vincent Souriau
3 mins
During the 20 years of American occupation in Afghanistan, the Hazaras, Shiites in a Sunni country, had managed to extract themselves ever so slightly from the pattern of cultural and social discrimination that had targeted them for years.
But the return of the Taliban to power in August had the effect of a slap in the face.
And for this ethnic and religious minority, fear of a return to persecution is on everyone's lips.
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Apparently, Bamiyan, the capital of the Hazaras, is acclimating to the return of the Taliban.
The city center has regained a semblance of normality, a good part of the businesses are open and the patrols of the Taliban police are greeted with indifference.
But when one lifts the veil of resignation that has fallen over the region, the evidence is obvious.
The notables and all those who had the means left as quickly as possible, says this young woman on condition of anonymity:
“
The directors, the journalists, the social workers, the academics, all those who had this kind of activity left the country.
And when asked why they went abroad, they say they felt unsafe
.
We suffered like crazy. When we learned that the Taliban were going to take over the region, all the young people hid somewhere in Bamiyan or else, they did like me: they left for Kabul, because we were sure they were going to torture us, because we didn't want the persecutions to resume. And we always have this visceral anguish that they will attack us overnight.
»
A marginalized people
In the past, the Hazaras, and in particular the Shiite communities, have been constant targets.
From the end of the 19th century and throughout recent history, they were marginalized, ostracized from society, reduced to slavery, deprived of their land, until the mass massacres committed during the first reign of the Taliban. who besieged the Hazarajat in 1998.
“
They don't see us as Muslims.
They think that the love we have for Ali's family is not justified, but it's wrong, we believe in Allah,
pleads this religious.
Then it's just a messenger thing, it's the connection to God that's not the same, in a way.
It doesn't change anything fundamentally.
»
Today, in full quest for international respectability, the Taliban promise that they have changed and that the minorities will not be disturbed.
“How to believe them?
asks Mohammad Reza Ibrahim, the vice-rector of the University of Bamiyan:
“
You know, even under the previous government, for the past 20 years, the institutional discriminations were still in place. And anyway, the history of the Hazaras has made us a particularly vulnerable people
.
We are mountain people, we live at altitude, in the cold, without agricultural resources, without industries, without access to economic resources, we are deprived of everything.
And if the Islamic State group is reborn here, if Al Qaeda comes back, they will come after us. Because we are easy targets for any terrorist group that wants to assert its power.
Ninety-nine percent of the attacks that have taken place in Afghanistan since August have targeted Hazara communities or regions.
»
“
Our future
,” he says, “
uncertain at best, or tragic if things go wrong.
But what is the way out?
»
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Also to listen
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Afghanistan: 20 years ago, the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas
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