Jafar Mahdawi: Afghanistan’s Problems Will Not Be Solved by “Khorasan,” “Turkestan,” or “Hazarastan”

According to Iraf, Jafar Mahdawi, responding to discussions about the partition of Afghanistan that have recently emerged in Afghan cyberspace, wrote in a commentary that some individuals, despite their studies and intellectual engagement, remain entrapped in “outdated and worn-out narratives” and seek solutions to Afghanistan’s problems in renaming or partitioning the country’s political geography.
He stated that the outcome of past approaches has been nothing but “resentment, hatred, war, and destruction” for Afghanistan, and that repeating the same views will not produce a different future.
He further added that even if ideas such as “Khorasan,” “Hazarastan,” or “South Turkestan” were to materialize, the fundamental problems of Afghan society would remain unresolved, and these hypothetical regions would face crises similar to those Afghanistan confronts today.
The former Afghan parliamentarian, referring to the rise of ethnic tensions on social media, stressed that ethnic insults and accusations in cyberspace demonstrate that the issues of Afghanistan’s various ethnic groups cannot be resolved through separatism or renaming the country.
Mahdawi also noted that just as certain ethno-nationalist views — such as the advocacy for “Pashtunistan” — failed in the past to offer solutions to Afghanistan’s crises, new separatist schemes will likewise plunge the country into a fresh cycle of crisis and instability.
He called upon Afghanistan’s political, cultural, and intellectual activists to, rather than being influenced by the “dust-laden” atmosphere of social media, study Afghan history and understand the social and cultural roots of the crises, and work toward strengthening coexistence among all of the country’s ethnic groups.
He emphasized that the political and security complexities of the region, Afghanistan’s social structure, and the demographic distribution of ethnic groups across various provinces have rendered any partition or fundamental alteration of the country’s political geography practically impossible.
Mahdawi concluded by underscoring that all of Afghanistan’s ethnic groups have paid a heavy price to preserve the country’s territorial integrity and continue to stand firm in defense of Afghanistan — “with this very name, this very identity, and this very geography.”