While global attention remains riveted on the Taliban’s restrictions on female education and Afghanistan’s continued diplomatic isolation, a deeper and more structural crisis is quietly taking hold: the systematic marginalization of the country’s non-Pashtun populations, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, and Turkmens. This ethnic exclusivity has become the defining feature of a regime that risks pushing Afghanistan toward decades of internal fragmentation.
The Kandahari Core: Power Concentrated in One Tribe
The promise of an inclusive government, touted during the Doha negotiations, has been decisively broken. Afghanistan’s governance today is centralized and ethnically homogenized. The supreme decision-making body surrounding Amir-ul-Mominin Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada is an exclusive enclave of Pashtun clerics, almost all from Kandahar.
From the Prime Minister’s office to the critical ministries of Defense, Interior, Finance, Education, Justice, and Vice-and-Virtue, the only apparent qualification for authority is a dual identity: being both a Taliban loyalist and ethnically Pashtun. This “Kandahari Core” has effectively frozen out Afghanistan’s diverse population from positions of power.
Institutional Cleansing: Governors, Universities, and Beyond
The Taliban’s ethnic consolidation extends well beyond Kabul. Of the country’s 34 provincial governorships, virtually all are held by Pashtun appointees, often dispatched from the south to oversee regions dominated by Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras. District administrators, police leadership, and university faculties have been similarly purged of non-Pashtun representation.
Historically, Tajiks provided the backbone of Afghanistan’s civil administration and intellectual leadership. Today, their exclusion signals bureaucratic decay and deliberate dismantling of institutional competence, leaving the state structurally weakened and alienated from much of its populace.
A House of Cards: Consequences of Exclusion
The Taliban’s ethnically biased governance has generated acute frustration and alienation among northern and central populations. Uzbeks, Hazaras, and Turkmens find themselves treated as second-class citizens in their own country, while the sidelining of experienced administrators erodes governance and institutional resilience. Afghanistan’s history demonstrates that systemic exclusion of minority communities is a primary precursor to civil unrest and insurgency. By equating “Islamic rule” with Pashtun dominance, the Taliban are violating the egalitarian principles they claim to uphold and constructing a governance model that could fracture the nation.
A Looming Ethnic Catastrophe
Experts warn that Afghanistan risks becoming a mono-ethnic fortress, isolated, internally fractured, and vulnerable. If the Taliban persist in treating the state as a spoils-of-war prize for one group, ethnic exclusion will overshadow foreign pressures, economic sanctions, or international isolation as the most potent threat to regime survival.
In the years ahead, Afghanistan’s survival may hinge on whether its rulers recognize that a government dominated by one tribe is inherently unstable and that inclusive governance is the only path to lasting statehood.
The Mono-Ethnic Fortress: Taliban’s Ethnic Parochialism Threatens Afghanistan’s Future
While global attention remains riveted on the Taliban’s restrictions on female education and Afghanistan’s continued diplomatic isolation, a deeper and more structural crisis is quietly taking hold: the systematic marginalization of the country’s non-Pashtun populations, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, and Turkmens. This ethnic exclusivity has become the defining feature of a regime that risks pushing Afghanistan toward decades of internal fragmentation.
The Kandahari Core: Power Concentrated in One Tribe
The promise of an inclusive government, touted during the Doha negotiations, has been decisively broken. Afghanistan’s governance today is centralized and ethnically homogenized. The supreme decision-making body surrounding Amir-ul-Mominin Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada is an exclusive enclave of Pashtun clerics, almost all from Kandahar.
From the Prime Minister’s office to the critical ministries of Defense, Interior, Finance, Education, Justice, and Vice-and-Virtue, the only apparent qualification for authority is a dual identity: being both a Taliban loyalist and ethnically Pashtun. This “Kandahari Core” has effectively frozen out Afghanistan’s diverse population from positions of power.
Institutional Cleansing: Governors, Universities, and Beyond
The Taliban’s ethnic consolidation extends well beyond Kabul. Of the country’s 34 provincial governorships, virtually all are held by Pashtun appointees, often dispatched from the south to oversee regions dominated by Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras. District administrators, police leadership, and university faculties have been similarly purged of non-Pashtun representation.
Historically, Tajiks provided the backbone of Afghanistan’s civil administration and intellectual leadership. Today, their exclusion signals bureaucratic decay and deliberate dismantling of institutional competence, leaving the state structurally weakened and alienated from much of its populace.
A House of Cards: Consequences of Exclusion
The Taliban’s ethnically biased governance has generated acute frustration and alienation among northern and central populations. Uzbeks, Hazaras, and Turkmens find themselves treated as second-class citizens in their own country, while the sidelining of experienced administrators erodes governance and institutional resilience. Afghanistan’s history demonstrates that systemic exclusion of minority communities is a primary precursor to civil unrest and insurgency. By equating “Islamic rule” with Pashtun dominance, the Taliban are violating the egalitarian principles they claim to uphold and constructing a governance model that could fracture the nation.
A Looming Ethnic Catastrophe
Experts warn that Afghanistan risks becoming a mono-ethnic fortress, isolated, internally fractured, and vulnerable. If the Taliban persist in treating the state as a spoils-of-war prize for one group, ethnic exclusion will overshadow foreign pressures, economic sanctions, or international isolation as the most potent threat to regime survival.
In the years ahead, Afghanistan’s survival may hinge on whether its rulers recognize that a government dominated by one tribe is inherently unstable and that inclusive governance is the only path to lasting statehood.
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