The memory of ordinary, everyday intercultural or interreligious relationships, in brief
Here, an area where Afghanistan meets Tajikistan, China and Pakistan, and an area which is affected in many ways by conflict and crisis, local cross-cultural relations are experienced as extremely valuable resources. Two local relationships are in focus here, both of which are strong enough to be seen to be symbiotic: relations between the Kyrgyz and Wakhi ethnic communities in the villages of Sarhad-i-Broghil and Wuzd, and between Arab Pashtu and Shugni in Pul-i-Zirebon. The strong relationships between both pairs each link a community of sedentary famers with one of migrating pastoralists. Relationships are strongest between families who work and live part of the year together: their partnerships create resilience for them, helping them to face food shortage, climate change, geographical isolation, and also pressure or mistreatment from security forces. Over time, these communities have maintained a variety of cooperative relationships which deliberately promote their common good and which encourage recognition of the value of their differences. The communities follow different Islamic traditions: the Kyrgyz and Arab Pashtu communities are Sunni, and the Wakhi and Shugni are Ismaili (a branch of Shia Islam). At the same time, the Kyrgyz and Wakhi share religious shrines (mazars). The Pashtu and Shugni indicate greater anxiety about extremist interference, noting in interviews for a study by Karim-Aly Kassam that they respect each others’ holy places and places of worship, but are constrained in what they are free to undertake in each others’ presence.
The context in which these relationships made a difference at the time
These are relationships built on long memories, which are also still vibrant and functional. Karim-Aly Kassam, Professor of Environmental and Indigenous Studies at Cornell University, has written a very interesting account of the mutually supportive practices between these communities (see link below). Faced with economic, political and ecological pressures, the communities can be seen to react in resilient fashion as a coherent human-biological ecosystem, or as a single ecological unit. While the Wakhi are sedentary farmers who keep animals, the Kyrgyz are nomads. The two occupy distinct ecological niches which overlap seasonally. Two keys to this resilience are provided by the ability to draw on long-established local knowledge, and by the practice of enduring cooperation which takes advantage of their complementary capacities. Situated at the edge of ecosystems, too, they are also living in places of high biodiversity, and this creates good conditions for the partner communities to adopt a diverse range of economic activities – in this way, strategies based on the valuing of diversity encourage resilience.
The Kyrgyz and Wakhi, and the Arab Pashtu and the Shugni, rely on each other in a variety of concrete respects. When the communities are in each other’s territories, they extend hospitality, they live at each others’ houses, and those individuals who are in regular contact speak each others’ languages. In both cases, they trade with each other and through this trade they sustain long term relations between families that last over generations. In this context, partners may also ask each other for favours – a supply of goods from the market, or from further afield. Families also arrange for partners to keep animals safe during their seasonal absences. The Wakhi partner will mill grain into flour for the Kyrgyz, for instance, the Kyrgyz provide employment for poorer Wakhi, and their already-strong inter-personal relationships are strengthened further as a result.
Both found their way here as a result of oppression or marginalisation, the Sunni Kyrgyz because of the Mongol invasion, and the Ismaili Wakhi at the hands of Sunni regimes. Both have been persecuted because they are not seen as orthodox Muslims. The Pashtu consider themselves wealthier than the Shugni, and explain that for this reason they are not rivals, but brothers. As Kassam notes, the communities here use their ecological context to resist pressure to adopt narrow ideologies and narratives of religious conflict.
What has happened since, which makes the memory valuable
Recurrent war in Afghanistan has placed great pressure on these communities, and their situation is further exacerbated by climate change-related environmental disasters – earthquakes, landslides, and flooding. In 2006-09, Kassam saw they faced threats from corrupt security actors, and the presence of illicit trade. As Afghanistan’s crisis continued, this area continued to see resistance, and the Taliban have now been re-establishing themselves in this region, giving rise to reports that they curtailing the traditional freedoms of the local religious minorities. As Kassam has written, there is much more value to be had from further ethnographic work with these isolated and under-appreciated communities.
How might the memory be used in bringing people together in practice now?
The resilience shown in the relationships between Kyrgyz and Wakhi, and between Arab Pashtu and the Shugni, could offer much for specialists and lay observers interested in cross-cultural communities. Kassam notes that further study would be useful for partners interested in seeing how these symbiotic relationships could be valuable indicators of what is possible in building new futures for social, economic and ecological relationships on a much larger scale. The Memory Bank team is keen to promote discussion with the widest range of partners interested in the ways in which ecologies marked by cultural and biodiversity can provide in-roads for creating greater understanding and prospects for improved community-led development outcomes.
Additional context/Some additional reading
Karim-Aly Kassam, ‘Pluralism, resilience, and the ecology of survival: case studies from the Pamir Mountains of Afghanistan’. Ecology and Society 15/2 (2010) 8. http://www.ecologyandsociety. org/vol15/iss2/art8/
Karim-Aly Kassam, ‘Viewing change through the prism of indigenous human ecology: findings from the Afghan and Tajik Pamirs’. Human Ecology 37/6 (2009) 377–390.
Kassam, K-A. (2013). Keeping all the parts: Adaptation amidst dramatic change in the Pamir Mountains. In L. R. Lozny (Ed.), Continuity and change in cultural adaptation to mountain environments: From prehistory to contemporary threats (pp. 303-317). New York, NY: Springer. Please check formatting
‘Taliban take control in the last outpost of female freedom’, The Times, November 11 2021 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/burqas-on-as-wakhan-region-lives-in-silent-dread-of-taliban-7bpv8x2tr
Kassumba, Guinea-Bissau [Kassumba is located in southwestern G-B, in Guinea-Bissau’s southernmost region of Tombali, known as the Cacine sector – see map on p. 9 of https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17449057.2011.632959?needAccess=true]