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‘mirror’). 2 These developments, however, currently fall significantly short of
suggesting or indicating any manifestations of ethno-nationalism among
Afghanistan’s Central Asian ethnic groups in the north.
Growing uncertainty and the evolving ties
There is not only an unfortunate general lack of awareness in Afghanistan about
Central Asia – and in Central Asia about Afghanistan – but there also are serious
stereotypical perceptions that haunt the region as a whole (Kazemi, 2012a).
Central Asian stereotypes have, by and large, reduced Afghans to ‘religious
extremists’, ‘drugs traffickers’ and ‘the backward’. Typical Afghans, by contrast,
generally perceive Central Asia as a ‘free’, ‘rich’ and ‘advanced’ area, 3 while the
region is, in practice, ruled by authoritarian governments (with the possible
recent exception of Kyrgyzstan) with notorious disregard for human rights and
freedoms, is generally poverty-stricken (excluding parts of Kazakhstan) and is
one of the world’s most internally divided regions, characterised by conflicts
over ‘water-sharing, border delineation, trade and transit, and other issues’ (such
as ethnic discrimination and ill-treatment) (Nichol, 2013: 12). According to Aziz
Aryanfar, former head of the Centre for Strategic Studies at the Afghan Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, ‘in Tajikistan, Afghanistan is always looked upon as the
epicentre of brewing instability towards Central Asia and particularly Tajikistan’
(Shahryar, 2012; see also Olimov and Olimova, 2013). These (mis)perceptions
may become more pronounced in the present uncertain times.
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are, of all the five Central Asian states, most
intimately connected to developments in Afghanistan for historical, social
(mainly ethnic), economic and political reasons. Having the longest border (1206
km) and the largest co-ethnic group that is socio-politically significant in
Afghanistan and, at the same time, being one of the poorest and most vulnerable
of the Central Asian states, Tajikistan will probably be most affected if there is a
significant spillover of Afghanistan’s armed conflict northwards. It seems that
Tajikistan has (re)started investing in its relationship, albeit so far in a limited
and largely unorganised way, with Afghanistan’s ethnic Tajik leaders 4 within the
northern Afghan leadership, and that it is further restricting ordinary Afghans’
ability to visit the country. 5 In specific terms, Tajikistan, which faced its own
presidential elections in November 2013, is – rightly or not – concerned about
Afghanistan’s instability breaking through the frontier in terms of potentially
violent extremist and terrorist ideas and acts, higher and more dangerous levels
of drugs and other forms of trafficking, and unmanageable refugee flows.
As for Uzbekistan, Central Asia’s strongest military power, the fear in
Afghanistan and perhaps elsewhere is that it might increasingly overreact to any
possibilities, whether justified or not, of Afghanistan’s armed conflict spilling
over northwards, and that it might simply seal off the border again as it did in the
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