10 Curiosities and Deeper Truths About Afghan Society That May Sound Peculiar

### **10 Curiosities and Deeper Truths About Afghan Society That May Sound Peculiar**

To the outside world, Afghanistan is best associated with war, tribalism, and the Taliban. While decades of conflict have undoubtedly shaped the nation, this stereotype distorts a rich and multifaceted social tapestry that will at times be puzzling to outsiders. A culture operates on codes, mores, and reason based on the unique combination of geography, religion, and human centuries of practice in fending off invader empires. To understand Afghanistan is to be traveling in a world in which being hospitable is a religious duty, being passionate about poetry is an all-encompassing love affair, and being honorable is a cherished credit above money. Here are ten facts that offer a glimpse into the strange, beautiful, and often cruel nature of life in the "Graveyard of Empires."

**1. The Unwritten Law of "Pashtunwali": A Code Above All**

Before the Constitution, before the Taliban concept of Sharia, there stands an older, uncodified social code for the Pashtun majority (and respected by others) known as *Pashtunwali*. It is the ultimate word about life, often taking precedence over official law or even religious edicts. Its underlying pillars can seem tremendous and bafflingly excessive to outsiders.

The most famous maxim is *Melmastia* (infinite hospitality and protection). A stranger, even an enemy or a complete stranger, in your home is inviolable. You are bound to feed, house, and nurse him with what resources you possess, a tradition developed from the harsh realities of desert and mountain life. Another, *Badal* (justice or revenge), says that injustice must be punished, often leading to multi-generational feuds. But *Nanawatai* (asylum) permits an individual to take refuge from an enemy by touching his door, and the enemy is obligated to grant it in honor. This sophisticated, non-state-based legal framework, regulating everything from war to marriage, is the actual foundation of social order for countless Afghans.

**2. The "Third Gender" of the Bacha Posh**

In a society which boasts the world's most extreme gender roles, there is a strange and utilitarian tradition: the *Bacha Posh* (literally "dressed as a boy"). In families with no son, it is not uncommon for a girl to be selected, typically at the age of early childhood, to live and behave as a boy.

This "third gender" girl is exempt from the prohibitions her sisters are denied: she may walk with them outside, play sports, work, and attend school. She is a social replacement for a son, preventing the family from shame at having no sons. It is an era of glittering liberation for her. The tragedy and otherness lie in the inevitable ending of this farce at puberty, when she is forced to leave behind the new role in favor of the time-honored woman's role, marry, and leave the past behind. The tradition is emphasizing the colossal social pressure exerted on the male child and the creative, if ironic, methods by which families circumvent it.

**3. The Poetic Frenzy of "Musha'ara"**

In a nation often depicted through the lens of raw power, the passionate, public recitation of verse might well seem misplaced. Yet to Afghans, poetry is less an activity than the lifeblood of the nation. The *Musha'ara* is a poetic competition in which people gather to listen to, recite, and compete against one another with their verse.

These gatherings are electric. The poets read from memory, their shaking voices full of feeling, bringing the audience to tears or being whisked away to ecstatic applause. The subject matter is love, loss, war, homeland (*watan*), and God. 13th-century poet Rumi, born in present-day Afghanistan, remains a cultural and spiritual rock star. This deep identification with poetry is a collective psychotherapy, a way of processing generations of suffering and expressing a beauty denied by the material world. To witness a battle-weary farmer weeping in response to a poem on the nightingale's song is a poignant expression of this dualism.

**4. The Sky-High Art of Kite Fighting ("Gudiparan Bazi")**

The rainbow kite-flying image in the film *The Kite Runner* is only half the picture. In Afghanistan, kite-flying isn't a peaceful sport; it's a rough, sometimes bloody game known as kite fighting. The strings are coated with a sticky, gritty paste of glue and ground glass (*shisha*).

The goal is not to maintain your kite aloft, but to use your string to cut the strings of your opponent's kites. The Kabul and city air is a mad, beautiful battlefield of flying kites at odds with one another. The last kite flying is the winner. The runner-up, the *kite runner*, is the boy who goes running after the crashed, beaten-down kites in the streets to retrieve them as trophies. This ritual, once banned by the Taliban as "un-Islamic," is a metaphor for Afghan life: a beautiful struggle, where you must be graceful to fly and quick enough to chop your enemies.

**5. The Bizarre Bazaar of "Jobai" (The Wedding Money Dance)**

An Afghan wedding is a multi-day, gender-segregated extravaganza. One of the strangest and most vibrant rituals is the *Jobai* or *Naqareh*, money dance. During the reception, the bride and groom stay seated on a stage and the guests dance in a circle or line before them.

As the music swells to near-fever pitch, bystanders move forward to literally pin money—dollars, Afghanis, even gold—onto the couple's garments or a special shawl that they both wear. It isn't a discreet envelope in a card; it is an open, performative gift of wealth and generosity. The higher the money you pin, the more honor you bring to your family and to the couple. The funds collected are to help the young couple start their new life. This ritual turns gift-giving into a dynamic, competitive, and very social public occasion.

**6. The Language of Tea ("Chai"): A Social Barometer**

In a country where trust is earned incrementally, the serving and offering of tea (*chai*) is a sophisticated, non-verbal lexicon. The taste of tea, if it is sweet, and the way in which it is poured convey exact social messages. The norm is *green tea* (*sabzi chai*) that is typically served neat with cardamom.

The oddness lies in the niceties. If you are given *black tea* (*seyah chai*), this may signify higher respect or a more official occasion. *Sheer chai*, salty, pinkish-colored milk tea with baking soda is the greatest indication of favor and liking. Refilling a guest's cup round the clock is a sign of welcome. Conversely, if your host fails to refill the teacup, it may be a subtle signal that the guest is departing. Reading the "tea leaves" of Afghan hospitality is an important, if unspoken, social skill.

**7. The "Goat-Pulling" National Sport of Buzkashi**

If you believe that polo is rugged, then you haven't experienced *Buzkashi*, or "goat pulling." It's the national sport of Afghanistan and an exhibition of raw, unbridled adrenaline. The game involves several hundred horsemen (*chapandaz*), who are reputed to be tough and capable horsemen, racing to capture the headless, decapitated carcass of a calf or goat.

The objective is to wrest the fat, oily carcass from a spinning melee of horsemen, carry it clear of the pack, and dump it into a designated "circle of justice" on the far side of the field. There are few rules. Whips are used, on horses as on opponents. It is a dirty, violent, and hypnotic spectacle of raw horsemanship, a direct heir of Central Asian cavalry training drills. Buzkashi is an Afghan metaphor come to life: a brutal fight for a valued goal, in which only the most intelligent and strongest succeed.

**8. The Architecture of Secrecy: High Walls and "The Other Room

Afghan domestic architecture is constructed with privacy and gender segregation in mind. The houses are usually surrounded by high, windowless mud-brick or concrete walls that front onto the street with a blank, unwelcoming face. This is to exclude outsiders from seeing the honor of the family, i.e., the women (*namus*).

Inside, there will always be a "guest room" or separate entrance opening into a direct male-only reception area (*mehmankhana*). Female guests are taken straight to the private apartments of the family. A male friend, however intimate, might never be allowed to look at the rest of the house or at his host's wife and daughters in his lifetime. This secrecy of the building, so phantasmagoric to the world outside, is a central mechanism for maintaining social honor and purity of the private domain.

**9. The Power of Superstition and Folk Beliefs ("Jinn")**

Apart from an ardent belief in Islam, a rich and prevalent world of superstitions and popular beliefs exist that are largely pre-Islamic in origin. The most significant among them is the belief in *Jinn*—invisible beings made of "smokeless fire" who share the world with humankind.

Jinn are not spirits; they are complex beings with free will who can be good, evil, or evil-minded. People will not whistle in the evenings lest they summon them down, and certain trees are considered their abodes and spared. Quran verse amulets (*ta'wiz*) are worn by kids and adults to ward off evil eyes and Jinn. Such syncretism of orthodox religion with pre-Islam animist thought generates a spiritual geography wherein the supernatural realm is as tangible as the physical one.

**10. The Social Forgetting of "Abrish" and the Talent of Beginning Anew**

After decades of conflict, a strange and effective social coping strategy has emerged, informally referred to as a sort of *Abrish* (a demolition, but with a suggestion of erasing clean). It is an unspoken, collective agreement to never discuss the past. You'll find, in conversations, that individuals' individual histories have enormous gaps.

They will go from "I was a teacher" to "and then we escaped to Pakistan," and in between put nothing that explains the trauma. This isn't lying; this is survival. To relive the horrors of war, loved ones dying, and the loss of one's home repeatedly is psychologically impossible. It is this social practice of forgetting through narrative that allows society to be, to celebrate a wedding, to fly a kite, and to recite a poem, even when the memories that lie just beneath the surface are too painful to talk about. It is, perhaps, the strangest and deepest quirk of all: the need to live, if only at the cost of forgetting.

And so, Afghan life is a world of harsh contrasts, where brutal customs like blood feuds co-exist with exquisite poetry, where gender roles are rigid yet loose enough to give rise to the *Bacha Posh*, and where the sparseness of life is made bearable by the sacred duty of hospitality and the unbridled excess of a *Musha'ara*. These ten facts are not trivia; they are the reasons for a nation whose soul is as tough and deep as its Hindu Kush mountains. To learn them is to look beyond the war headline and into the heart of a people whose lives are bound by an indomitable code of honor, a deep love of culture, and a toughness that refuses breath.