Prominent Pashtun intellectuals warn Taliban language remarks threaten national unity
A number of well-known Pashtun intellectuals and cultural figures, reacting to remarks by a Taliban official about the status of languages in Afghanistan, have warned that fuelling language disputes would harm national unity. They stressed that all languages spoken in the country are part of Afghanistan’s national culture and should not be turned into a tool of confrontation among the people.
This position was set out in a joint statement signed by 10 prominent figures in Pashto language and literature, including Abdul Bari Jahani, Habibullah Rafi, Abdul Ghafoor Liwal and Pir Mohammad Karwan. The signatories said “provocative, hostile and contrary to national unity” debates about languages are worrying and could weaken social cohesion.
In the statement, Pashtun cultural figures wrote that Afghanistan’s linguistic, literary and cultural diversity is the shared heritage of the country’s people and should become a factor of national closeness and unity, not a source of division. They also added that the richness of languages comes through the production of works, research, translation and scholarly activity.
The reaction came after Lotfullah Hakimi, the inspector general of the Taliban-run Defence Ministry, said in an interview with Shamshad TV on 10 September that Dari Persian and Pashto are Afghanistan’s official languages, but that only Pashto is the national language. The remarks triggered widespread criticism from social media users and cultural activists, who saw them as an attempt to elevate Pashto above other languages in Afghanistan.
The signatories of the statement also said that, in the current situation, addressing the people’s problems is more urgent than language and cultural disputes. According to them, the people of Afghanistan are facing various crises and distances should not be widened through “meaningless and irrational” conflicts.
The statement says that discussion of languages and dialects should be pursued at the right time and in an academic setting, not amid social media uproar. They concluded by stressing that Afghanistan now needs improvements in people’s living conditions more than ever, and that efforts should be made to overcome the problems threatening the country’s shared national life.
Under Afghanistan’s previous constitution, Dari and Pashto were recognised as the country’s official languages. After returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban abandoned the constitution and have run the country largely on the basis of decrees by Hibatullah Akhundzada.
