BAistan

I haven't told you about my BA yet, have I, Blog?

Well, I'm probably not going to right now either, because while it's endlessly fascinating I can't give too much away at this point. I have done some research and I have a lot left to go. I can give you the key words in descending narrowing order, however, which are: Afghanistan, Taliban, Pashtuns, ethnic nationalism. I promise it's very, very interesting.

One of the nice things about focusing on a BA topic is getting to fall into the depth of a subject again. Being on the quarter system, and taking four classes a quarter, means you can get into lots of things but you can only fall so deep into each one. Examples from my college experience: Marx, Durkheim, pirates, Russian literature, the world water crisis, AIDS, museums, early American colonization, the Beat Generation, Bretton Woods..

But with this BA, it's all Afghanistan all the time. I am learning odds and ends. I am collecting and printing articles from journals I doubt more than 80 people read. I'm investigative. It turns out I can't really go to Afghanistan and interview a member of the Taliban, so I'm sniffing out primary sources wherever I can. The number of formal interviews given by the Taliban to the press and recorded can probably be counted on two hands. I need ethnographies, travel writing, first-hand accounts, anything that takes into account ethnic relations.

I haven't been able to explore at all the past week (midterm PAIN and SUFFERING on a grand scale), and have been insufficiently lazy for the past several. I only have about seven articles read and miscellaneous bits of a number of books. So these last five weeks? It's Go Time. I need mega-discipline. I need to at least imagine that I'm on Adderall.

Anyway, in my more leisurely exploration of everything Afghan/Taliban/South-Central Asian, I have found some things worth sharing (learn something new today!):

Ghosts of Alexander is a frequently updated blog of political/social/cultural commentary on Afghanistan mainly, but also Central Asia more generally, by a PhD candidate doing his research in Tajikistan. If you want to actually know complex things about Afghanistan, this is an interesting read. I am thinking about emailing him for help with sources. (Also: we have a mutual Facebook friend. The world is small.)

The Kalash are a genetically unique tribe in the mountains of Pakistan; they're disproportionately blue-eyed and blonde. And also, still polytheists. Apparently there's speculation that they were left over from Alexander the Great's army. Just, wow.

Finally, Afghan Atheist. Because religion should piss everyone off, at least a little bit.

...I seem to be on some kind of pan-Asia mental tour. It started three years ago in China, trekked West to India, went up through Pakistan and Afghanistan, and now I'm eyeing Central Asia while I'm at it. Check in on me in three years and I'll be up around Turkey.