Hazara people

The Hazara people belong to an ethnic group that primarily lives in Afghanistan, with a smaller collection in Pakistan. They represent one of Afghanistan's largest ethnic minorities. They speak a particular type of Persian known as Hazaragi. Most of them follow the Shia branch of Islam. The Hazara people have endured persecution and oppression in Arabic countries, particularly in Afghanistan. Oppressors have prevented Hazaras from taking any positions of authority, enslaved them, driven them from their homes, and killed them.

The Taliban, which came to power in the 1990s, was particularly oppressive toward Hazaras. In 2001, in response to the terrorist attacks on America, the United States and the United Kingdom mobilized a coalition to invade Afghanistan and displace the Taliban. After the Taliban was removed from formal power, Hazaras gained more legal rights and opportunities in Afghanistan. Even after legal discrimination ended, however, Hazaras still faced heavy prejudice as well as threats of violence from the insurgent Taliban and the Islamic State (ISIS). After the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021, the situation for the Hazaras deteriorated once again, with the group facing violence, forced displacement, and economic and social marginalization.

Brief History

Hazaras are commonly believed to have descended from Mongolians. There is also evidence pointing to Turkish ancestry. While there is no conclusive evidence dating their arrival in Afghanistan, it is estimated to have occurred as early as the thirteenth century. Around the turn of the seventeenth century, the Hazara people adopted Shia Islam. They occupied a region that came to be called Hazarajat, which lies in central Afghanistan.

An ethnic group known as the Pashtuns—who practiced Sunni Islam, which frequently came into conflict with Shia Islam—controlled much of the territory surrounding Hazarajat, and they would eventually found modern-day Afghanistan in the early eighteenth century. While the Pashtuns regarded the Hazaras as outsiders in their homeland, for the most part, both groups coexisted peacefully until the late nineteenth century.

In 1880, Abdur Rahman Khan became the leader of Afghanistan. He sent his forces throughout Afghanistan, attempting to unify the country under his rule. Khan's forces drove Hazaras from their homes and killed others who refused to leave. While many of Afghanistan's minorities were threatened by Khan, the Hazaras were the first to directly resist. Their first uprising was defeated by Khan's superior numbers, resulting in the death of thousands of Hazaras and the enslavement of thousands more.

The Hazaras attempted a second uprising a few years later, prompting Khan to declare jihad—holy war—against Shia Muslims. Other Sunni groups joined in, and the forces Khan was able to raise defeated the Hazara uprising, forcing them out of their homeland. Hazaras fought back and retook it, but a lack of food and supplies led to another defeat.

With their armed resistance effectively ended, Hazaras found themselves regular targets of oppression. Many of them fled to India and Pakistan. Those who remained were heavily taxed, some were taken as enslaved people, and their homes were frequently invaded, robbed, damaged, or destroyed by Afghan authorities. Even after Khan's successor granted Hazaras and other Afghan exiles amnesty and allowed them to return in the early twentieth century, prejudices continued. Hazarajat received only minimal maintenance and services, and despite making up a large portion of the country's population, Hazaras had no representation in the Afghan government.

Topic Today

Hazaras continued to experience oppression in the late twentieth century. They finally enjoyed the representation of a political party—Hizb-e Wahdat, which means Party of Unity—in 1988. Abdul Ali Mazari emerged as the first prominent political figure to call global attention to the Hazaras' plight. He appealed to the United Nations and attempted to negotiate a treaty with the Taliban when it first came to power in the mid-1990s. However, the Taliban—a group led by militant Sunni fundamentalists—executed Mazari in 1995.

With Afghanistan under Taliban control, persecution of Hazaras grew more intense than ever. The Taliban declared jihad on Hazaras and killed thousands of them. Hazaras united with other Afghan peoples who rejected the Taliban due to its brutality and formed the Northern Alliance.

Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America, the United States and the United Kingdom launched a coalition that invaded Afghanistan. The offensive removed the Taliban from power, giving control of Afghanistan to the Northern Alliance. However, the Taliban remained as an insurgency, attempting to undermine and destroy the newly formed Afghan government.

Following the change of government, the Hazaras saw significant improvements. They finally had a voice in the Afghan government and were officially recognized as a people. In 2004, Afghanistan's newly adopted constitution gave Hazaras equal rights as Afghan citizens.

While Hazara persecution was no longer legal, more than a century of oppression left a powerful impact. Hazaras continued to encounter discrimination from their Pashtun neighbors in everyday life. After generations of Hazaras being treated as inferior, that sentiment remained among many Afghan citizens. Hazara communities continued to be underserved by government programs.

One example of institutional prejudice, even after it was legally ended, emerged in 2012. The Academy of Sciences Afghanistan—an official government organization—published the Ethnographic Atlas of Non-Pashtun Ethnic Groups of Afghanistan. In it, Hazaras were described with negative traits, such as being violent and dishonest. This led to immediate controversy. Afghanistan's president and deputy attorney general both publicly condemned the passages as offensive and non-objective, and the atlas was banned.

In 2014, the Islamic State (ISIS) became a globally known threat. The group was a well-armed militant force of fundamentalists that carried out terrorist acts to attempt to unite citizens of several Middle Eastern nations. ISIS had existed for years prior, but in 2014, it began launching large-scale attacks, demonstrating the capability to take over cities. Hazaras once again found themselves threatened by violence.

In the twenty-first century, Hazaras became much more represented in the global community. This extended to fiction and popular culture. In 2003, Afghan American author Khaled Hosseini published the novel The Kite Runner, which portrays life in Afghanistan before and after Taliban rule. Some of the novel's major characters are Hazaras, and the prejudice that other Afghans hold against them is important to the book's plot. The book was a New York Times bestseller and was generally well-received by critics. It inspired a film adaptation in 2007.

The situation for the Hazara people once again became dire when the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021. Repression and discrimination against the Hazara once again became issues as the Hazara faced economic and social marginalization, violence, and forced removal from their homes. The situation with the Hazaras in Afghanistan is indicative of the human rights violations being committed under the restored Taliban regime.

Bibliography

"Afghanistan's Shia Hazara Suffer Latest Atrocity." Human Rights Watch, 13 Oct. 2016, www.hrw.org/news/2016/10/13/afghanistans-shia-hazara-suffer-latest-atrocity. Accessed 6 Jan. 2025.

Crowcroft, Orlando. "Kabul Protests: Who Are the Hazara and Why Do Isis and the Taliban Hate Them?" International Business Times, 11 Nov. 2015, www.ibtimes.co.uk/kabul-protests-who-are-hazara-why-do-isis-taliban-hate-them-1528243. Accessed 6 Jan. 2025.

"History of Tyranny – The Ongoing Persecution of Hazaras in Afghanistan." Minority Rights Group, 24 Sept. 2001, minorityrights.org/events/history-of-tyranny-the-ongoing-persecution-of-hazaras-in-afghanistan/. Accessed 6 Jan. 2025.

Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. Riverhead Books, 2003.

Hucal, Sarah. "Afghanistan: Who Are the Hazaras?" Al Jazeera, 27 June 2016, www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/06/afghanistan-hazaras-160623093601127.html. Accessed 6 Jan. 2025.

"KP CM Urged to Stop Dislocating Hazara People for CPEC," Daily Times, 1 Nov. 2016, dailytimes.com.pk/khyber-pakhtunkhwa/01-Nov-16/kp-cm-urged-to-stop-dislocating-hazara-people-for-cpec. Accessed 6 Jan. 2025.

Mousavi, Sayed Askar. The Hazaras of Afghanistan: An Historical, Cultural, Economic and Political Study. Palgrave Macmillan, 1997.

Zahidi, Besmellah. “Amnesty International Exposes Dire Human Rights Situation Under Taliban Rule.” Kabul Now, 26 Apr. 2024, kabulnow.com/2024/04/amnesty-international-exposes-dire-human-rights-situation-under-taliban-rule. Accessed 6 Jan. 2025.