ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses upon factors that facilitated the politicization of ethnicity and the consequent ethnicization of the conflict in Afghanistan. It examines the conflict in the years 1978 to 1992 when Islam seemed to be the principal axis of allegiance and mobilization. The chapter gives a brief detail of political-economy, cultural and foreign policies of the Afghan state that together fed the national minorities perception of a nationalizing state. It covers the period of the monarchy, stretching from the nineteenth century up until the collapse of Sayyid Mohammad Najibullah's government in 1992. The chapter examines the range of responses among the politicized ranks of national minorities to the nationalizing state policies. It focuses on the role played by external actors, most of whom shared ethnic and/or sectarian links within Afghanistan. Armed mobilization of ethnicities derived its legitimacy from the strong belief in the possibility of renegotiating the social and political order in their favour.
