Ariana Afghanistan Online

Authored by: Abdul Bari Jahani
Verbatim Translated by: Hazarzbek Tajiashtun
Fourth open letter to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan leadership.

Respected leaders of the Islamic Emirate, Assalamu Alaikum.

It has been a long time since I have sent you an open letter. The reason for this is that you view the opponents of your regime and their actions - of which I am one of them - as enemies and accordingly you do not listen to their concerns and suggestions.

Dear respected ones! Almost thirty years ago, in the presence of the respected Maulavi Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil and my late teacher, Professor Hashemian, I have told your leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar Mujahid, that all the people of Afghanistan are Muslims and have no objection to the establishment of an Islamic system, but they oppose the behavior of your colleges' and you the way the [ governing] system is implemented. Believe me that I have not seen or met a single person from Kandahar, Kabul, and Jalalabad who is satisfied with your [team] actions. If the current status quo situation continues, you too will fall from the peak of power simply due to general opposition of the people.

I have told you this many times and I repeat again that there is no established system in the world, and there is no example in history that has not collapsed in the face of strong public opposition. Your associates, or rather, I should say, the "Amr-Bel-Ma'ruf ", insults and beats people in public and even [go as far as] beats and humiliate young women in the public market, which is [indeed] an acts and deeds against human dignity. People will not remain silent forever in the face of such atrocities of yours.

You yourself had written in your [issued edict] of Penal Code that if someone converts from the Hanafi branch of [ Islamic] faith to another school of [ Islamic] faith, he will be sentenced to two years in prison. I had condemned your action then but now I call such action not only cruel but also un-Islamic. [Simply] because all four Sunni schools of thought/ branch of faith are considered valid and a Sunni Muslim has the right to choose between all four branches.

Your Minister of Higher Education announced a few days ago that no one has the right to preach for any branch of [Islamic] faith other than the Hanafi. This simply means upsetting and unsettling the [already long-established variant] community for which you have no legal basis for such ruling. By what procedure and law do you have the right to deprive the Panj Pirs of Kunar [in Afghanistan], who consider themselves more devout Muslims than you are, to preach and order the change of their branch of [ Islamic] faith path?

There are six to seven million Shia brothers living in Afghanistan. Just as Sunnis, they are too legal citizens of Afghanistan and since no one can deprive [Sunnis] of this right, Shia brothers [also] have equal rights as much as Sunnis in terms of Afghan citizenship. I heard the sermon of a respected religious leader of a Shia brothers, Ayatollah Sharifi, last Friday. He said that your authorities of Amr-e-Bal-Maruf summoned him and questioned him for the crime of concluding [the approval] of a mut'ah or temporary marriage. Your servers beat him with their fists to the point that his turban fell to the ground, humiliated. Although he asked all his followers present there in the prayer sermon to exercise patience and tolerance and to avoid reaction; but [ despite his calm nature], no one can guarantee that the followers of the Shia faith of Islam will not react violently [ in response to such humiliation]. [Your created] situation will not remain as-is for long. Your adversarial opposition of Shia brothers has now turned into hatred towards you. The feeling of hatred is increasing day by day, spreading and transferring from person to another person fast. [Rest assured] that not just you but even powers much greater and broader than you cannot stand firm against the hostility of six to seven million people.

[I will take] full responsibility for [ my words] and on behalf of hundreds of thousands and even millions of Pashtuns and firmly state that not all Pashtuns and [ specifically] not all Kandaharrians are Taliban. Pashtuns have lived in peace and brotherhood with non-Pashtuns and their Shia brothers in the north and south of the country for years and as long as Afghanistan exists, they will live in peace and brotherhood with everyone. [ As a reminder please be reminded] that every Pashtun is not a victim of foreign conspiracies.

Afghanistan is a flower bouquet of tribes. In this country, the history of their settlement may not be clear to all Pashtuns, which extends back thousands of years. Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turkmens, Pashayan, Aimaqs and . . . have also lived in this land for centuries and have equal rights with Pashtuns in every aspect. In such a society, which consists of so many tribes, the monopoly of power is not the right of any tribe.

You have handed over all leadership power to the Pashtun, and that too mostly to the southwestern region and as such you have made the other tribes and ethnic groups of Afghanistan to look down at the Pashtuns- especially the Pashtuns of the southwestern provinces. A Pashtun wrote that "If it is dirty, it is from Kandahar." I heard your Minister of Higher Education, who is proud of being the son-in-law of Mullah Hibatullah, stated that we will govern the government whatever and however we want. But in the 21st century, we ought not to have the opportunity of [others obedience] by force and coercion. On this account, you have made not only your Shia brothers but also most Pashtuns and other noble tribes your enemies. Such affairs of governing bring your own demise steps closer because you such brutal acts of violence against your imaginary and real opponents.

I have always opposed the violent fall of the Taliban regime, and that is because a violent fall would lead to internal war and, God forbid, would lead to the killing and destruction of tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people.

If you continue to usurp the rights of Pashtuns and non-Pashtuns alike and anew, in the current form and speed you are proceeding, and if you continue to allocate and hand political power in the country only to Pashtuns-Mullahs, and if the ministries of higher education, education, mines and industries, communications, and . . . are in the hands of unprofessional, unskilled and ignorant/uneducated people, and if you continue to treat your own people like enemies and slaves, then I tell you once again that Afghanistan is heading towards the abyss of destruction.