He is surrounded by Afghans on foot, all wanting to cross to the forbidden country. Women wearing burkas ride sidesaddle en route to visit relatives. Amongst them are students returning to the university in Peshawar having celebrated eid, a religious festival, with their families. There might be some smugglers in the company, maybe some businessmen. Sultan does not ask. He is concentrating on his contract and the reins, and curses the Pakistani authorities. First one day by car from Kabul to the border, then an overnight stay in a hideous border station, followed by a whole day in the saddle, on foot and in a pick-up. The journey by main road from the border to Peshawar is barely an hour. Sultan finds it degrading being smuggled in to Pakistan; he feels he is being treated like a pariah dog. Pakistan supported the Taliban regime politically, with money and weapons, and he thinks they are now being two-faced, suddenly sucking up to the Americans and closing the border to Afghans.
Pakistan was the only country, besides Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to officially recognise the Taliban regime. The Pakistani authorities wanted the Pashtoon to control Afghanistan. The Pashtoon live on both sides of the border and are to a certain extent influenced by Pakistan. Virtually all the Taliban were Pashtoon. They are Afghanistan ’s largest ethnic group and make up approximately forty per cent of the population. The Tajiks are the largest ethnic group in the north. About one quarter of Afghans are Tajiks. The Northern Alliance, which after September 11 was supported by the Americans, was on the whole made up of Tajiks. Pakistanis look upon them with a certain amount of scepticism. Since the Taliban fell and the Tajiks became a force to be reckoned with in the Government, many Pakistanis now feel that they are surrounded by enemies: India to the east, Afghanistan to the west.
But on the whole there is little tribal hatred between the various Afghan groups. The conflicts are due rather to power struggles between various warlords who have encouraged their own ethnic groups to war against each other. The Tajiks are fearful that if the Pashtoon become too powerful they would be massacred in the event of another war. The Pashtoon fear the Tajiks for the same reason. The same can be said about the Uzbeks and Hazars in the northwest of the country. War has also been waged between tribal chiefs within the same ethnic group.
Sultan couldn’t care less what sort of blood flows in his veins, or in the veins of anyone else for that matter. Like many Afghans he is a mixture: his mother is Pashtoon, his father Tajiki. His first wife is a Pashtoon, his second a Tajik. Formally he is a Tajik, because ethnicity is inherited from the father’s side. He speaks both languages, Pashtoo and Dari – a Persian dialect spoken by the Tajiks. Sultan is of the opinion that it is high time for the Afghans to put war behind them and start rebuilding the country. The dream is that they one day might make up for what they have lost in relation to their neighbours. But it doesn’t look good. Sultan is disappointed by his compatriots. While he works away at a steady pace, trying to expand his business, he grieves over those who fritter away their earnings, and go to Mecca.
Immediately before travelling to Pakistan he had a discussion with his cousin Wahid, who just about manages to keep his head above water running a small spare-parts shop for cars. When Wahid popped into Sultan’s shop he told him that at last he had saved up enough money to fly to Mecca. ‘Do you think praying will help you?’ Sultan asked contemptuously. ‘The Koran tells us that we must work, solve our own problems, sweat and toil. But us Afghans, we’re too lazy. We ask for help instead, either from the West or from Allah.’
‘But the Koran also tells us to worship God,’ argued Wahid.
‘The Prophet Muhammad would cry if he heard all the shouts, screams and prayers in his name,’ continued Sultan. ‘It won’t help this country however much we bang our heads on the ground. All we know is how to scream, pray and fight. But the prayers are worth nothing if we don’t work. We can’t just sit and wait for God’s mercy.’ Sultan was shouting now, egged on by his own torrent of words. ‘We search blindly for a holy man, and find a lot of hot air.’
He knew he had provoked his cousin. For Sultan work is the most important thing in life. He tries to teach his sons as much and to live up to it himself. For that reason he has taken his sons out of school to work in the shop, in order that they might help him build his empire of books.
‘But to travel to Mecca is one of the five pillars of Islam,’ the cousin objected. ‘To be a good Muslim you must acknowledge God, fast, pray, give alms and go to Mecca.’
‘We might all go to Mecca,’ Sultan said at last. ‘But only when we deserve it, and then we go to give thanks, not to pray.’
I suppose Wahid is on his way to Mecca, in his white flowing pilgrim robes, Sultan thinks now. He snorts and wipes the sweat off his forehead. The sun is at its zenith. At last the pathway descends. On a cart track in a small valley several pick-ups are waiting. These are Khyber Pass taxis, and the owners make a killing transporting unwelcome visitors into the country.
This was once part of the Silk Road, the trade route between the great civilisations of antiquity – China and Rome. Silk was carried west, traded for gold, silver and wool.
The Khyber Pass has been traversed by the uninvited for more than two millennia. Persians, Greeks, Moguls, Mongols, Afghans and the British have tried to conquer India by approaching the country via this route. In the sixth century BC the Persian King Darius conquered large parts of Afghanistan and marched on through the Khyber Pass to India. Two hundred years later, the generals of Alexander the Great marched their troops through the pass. At its narrowest point only one fully-loaded camel or two horses side by side can pass at any one time. Genghis Khan laid waste parts of the Silk Road, while more peaceful travellers, like Marco Polo, merely followed the caravan tracks to the East.
Ever since the time of King Darius and right up to the British invasion of the Khyber Pass in the 1800s, the Pashtoon tribes from the surrounding mountains invariably fiercely resisted the invading armies. Ever since the British withdrew in 1947 the tribes have once more held sway over the pass and all the land to Peshawar. The mightiest of these is the Afridi tribe, feared for its fierce warriors.
Weapons are still the first thing to catch the eye after crossing the border. Along the Pakistani side of the highway, at regular intervals, dug into the mountainside or painted on dirty signs in the barren landscape, is the name Khyber Rifles. Khyber Rifles is a rifle company and also the name of the local militia who are in charge of security in the area. The militia protect a considerable fortune. The village immediately over the border is famous for its bazaar full of contraband; hashish and weapons go for a song. No one asks for licences, whereas anyone carrying weapons on Pakistani territory risks a long prison sentence. Amongst the clay huts are large, glitzy palaces, paid for with black money. Small stone fortresses and traditional Pashtoon houses, surrounded by tall walls, lie dotted over the mountainside. Now and again walls of concrete loom up in the landscape; they are the so-called dragon’s teeth, erected by the British who feared a German Panzer invasion during the Second World War. On several occasions foreigners have been kidnapped in these remote tribal regions, and the authorities have introduced strict measures. Not even on the main road to Peshawar, patrolled by Pakistani troops, are foreigners allowed to drive without guards. Nor can they leave Peshawar for the Afghan border without the correct papers and an armed guard.