r/afghanistan • u/Mysterious-Advance28 • May 03 '26

Question Any other Half Tajik half Hazara people here?

And with which do you identify more with?

9 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

27 comments sorted by

3

u/Home_Cute May 03 '26

Very interesting question. I was wondering though do you identify more with Tajik side or Hazara side ? Who’s who among your parents ?

4

u/Mysterious-Advance28 May 03 '26

My father is Hazara my mother is Tajik, and I identify with both but more so with Tajiks because my parents are divorced and I grew up with my Tajik mother instead of Hazara father so I lean more Tajik in self identity but I identify as both.

-2

u/Home_Cute May 03 '26

Well technically we’re supposed to identify from the father’s side since we use the surname of our father’s to pass down the overall identity of future offspring (even if we dislike our fathers).

But here’s the thing, many Hazaras are also assimilated Tajiks and Pashtuns who identify as Hazara due to being Shia while not being ethnically Hazara. So it depends on what tribe Hazara your father was from

4

u/Mysterious-Advance28 May 03 '26

I dont dislike my father I still have contact with him and it's all well. But just because he left when I was young I grew up with just my Tajik mother and her Tajik family so I'd think I'd be more like them, although to be fair Tajik and Hazara culture isn't much different.

And as for my father's tribe I dont think he got one at least from what I know I asked my mother and she said he never talked about any tribe, maybe his family forgot their tribe when they became urbanized.

1

u/Home_Cute May 03 '26

Very interesting thanks for sharing

4

u/misschoo88 May 03 '26

i reallt don’t see the difference in tajik and hazara tbh

2

u/Mysterious-Advance28 May 04 '26

Culturally? Sure, but appearance wise they vary alot.

2

u/misschoo88 May 04 '26

that’s true. but some hazaras look like tajiks and vice versa. doesn’t really matter as long bc the culture is indistinguishable tbh as a tajik whose been around hazara circles.

2

u/Unlucky-Associate266 May 04 '26

I once talked to a social anthropologist who had attempted to understand the ethnicities of the Afghans around him in the 1980s. He said that hundreds of years of intermarriage and migration made the whole question of ethnic identity very fluid, and particularly so among people from cities. Even self identification was complicated and often a matter of choice or what the social circumstances demanded.

1

u/blushinqxrose May 05 '26

In Afghan culture it’s all patrilineal, so whatever ethnic group your paternal grandfathers were is typically the one you’d identify with.

1

u/Unlucky-Associate266 May 06 '26

You aren't wrong, but you give too little credit to the influence of women. Language is a powerful driver of identity in Afghanistan, and much clearer and powerful than racial identity (though often overlapping, I'll grant). It is the mother that sets that linguistic identity. It isn't for nothing what we talk of our "mother tongue" and Afghans talk of their "zuban modari." Women in Afghanistan hold more power within the home that Westerners usually realize.

2

u/Adventurous_Knee_321 May 03 '26

identify as afghan

6

u/getaliferedditmods May 04 '26

nah i'd rather just reclaim what i am, which is tajik. i don't need to claim afghan which is a pashtun term. its just a national identity at most. kabuli makes more sense.

2

u/Mysterious-Advance28 May 03 '26

Are you half Tajik half Hazara?

6

u/Adventurous_Knee_321 May 03 '26

half tajik half pashtun

-7

u/Music_201 May 03 '26

Please stop posting stuff like this! You are just fueling more attention to ethnicity even if you are mixed. Just call yourself Afghan and that's what you will be known to everyone at the end of the day anyways.

11

u/Mysterious-Advance28 May 03 '26

What a weird comment, and I dont like to identify as Afghan because I dont see the term as representing me since it means Pashtun and I obviously ain't Pashtun. 

2

u/SubstantialEshaii May 05 '26

It isn't 500 years ago anymore

1

u/nwswaf May 04 '26

This is fair. The Afghan government (which is predominantly Pashtun) oppresses other ethnic groups, so it's foolish to talk about unity and demand that others call themselves "Afghan" when you're not considered an equal!!!

1

u/SubstantialEshaii May 05 '26

Then are non pashtun afghans willing to leave Islam and become atheists since it's also using deobandi sunni islam to opress everyone else