Population displacement, political space and social identity (original) (raw)
2003, Global Review of Ethnopolitics
With the arrival of US and coalition troops in Kandahar and Kabul, Afghanistan, following the unexpectedly swift destruction of the fundamentalist Taliban regime in November 2001, a new element has appeared in an ongoing ethno-religious struggle that had been destabilizing the heartlands of Eurasia since the early 1990s. The unexpected appearance of US, British, Turkish and other ISAF (International Security and Assistance Forces) in a country whose extremist theocracy has attempted to disseminate its fundamentalist interpretation of Islam to the neighboring regions drastically altered the status quo in the latest chapter in the 'Great Game' struggle for the soul of Central Asia and the Caucasus. 1 This latest version of a centuries-old conflict for influence in Central Eurasia has pitted Saudi-style Wahhabi fundamentalists against indigenous secularists/Sufi-mystics in a transcontinental battle costing tens of thousands of lives. While largely overlooked outside of this region, this bloody struggle has surged across Eurasia, from the Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan and the Kashmir Vale in the Himalayas, to the mountain villages of the secessionist statelet of Chechnya and the war scorched plains of Kosovo.
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