St Petersburg International Conference of Afghan Studies

St Petersburg International Conference of Afghan Studies 79 Panel Five. Political Patterns in Afghanistan and in the Liminal Areas... Vahe S. Boyajian (Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, National Academy of Sciences, Yerevan, Armenia) Virtue and Vice: the Dialectics of Afghan Affiliation among the Baloch The intricacy of the Baloch society is greatly conditioned by the presence of alien components of ethnic, social and religious background, among them the Afghan element being one of the most prominent. This paper explains the main circumstances of how the Baloch perceive the Afghans or those connected withAfghanistan. For this purpose a historical dimension of the Baloch-Afghan interrelations plays a crucial role, as it might offer answers for the identification of the criteria that shape social perceptions of the Baloch towards the Afghans. The Pashtun origin of certain Baloch tribes (like the Barakzay), provide prestige and, therefore legitimizes their stand in the Baloch social hierarchy. Same is true regarding the Afghan affiliation of some eminent Sunni religious leaders of contemporary Baluchistan. Meanwhile, being an Afghan (Pashtun), particularly out of the traditionally established tribal social structure (this applies mostly to migrants and refugees fromAfghanistan who fled to Iranian Balochistan during the last decades) creates certain challenges for a full integration into the Baloch society. In light of that the position of Afghans and those perceived as such in Iranian Baluchistan is of an ambivalent nature. Thus, the paper attempts to navigate into the dialectics of theAfghan affiliation and identify the criteria for the Baloch complex society’s assessment ofAfghan affiliation. Robert D. Crews (Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA) The Afghan Shia Revolution This paper explores major shifts in the political ideologies of the Afghan Shia from the 1970’s to the present. It investigates the emergence of revolutionary thought in the 1970s and 1980’s and then traces its evolution under clerical leadership in the 1990s and 2000s. The focus is on the shifting ideas of Shia revolutionary and clerical figures and their global contexts. From the 1970’s, Afghan Shia religious scholars and lay people intensified their contacts with centres of scholarship and piety beyond the borders of Afghanistan. Well before the revolution in Iran, labour migration and the growing attraction of study in centres of religious education in Iraq and Iran meant that more and more Afghan Shia gained exposure to vastly different religious, political, and cultural milieus. 1979 drew many of these migrants, students, and