Zoroastrian readers will need no explanation. Their New Year (Zoroastrian annum 3740) begins with the spring equinox this afternoon at 2:16:20 EST. No big deal in Bangor, but a great festival in the Persian world, including Afghanistan.

This holiday is full of folkloric contradictions. Afghanistan was converted in the first Muslim century, and reckons time from the hijra, Prophet Mohammed’s establishment of Medina as the first Islamic community. That event occurred in 622 of the Common Era. Remarkably, however, the whole arc of what was once ancient Persia – now Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, and Tajikistan – stuck with Zoroaster’s equinoctial New Year’s Day.

(We are more Zoroastrian than is commonly realized. Heaven and hell, devil and angel, messiah and resurrection and last judgment – all these features of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition originated in ancient Persia. Main difference: Zoroaster preached not one God but two Divine Forces: Good and Evil. Our word “anger” comes from the evil Angra Mainu. Bush talk of “evil-doers” thus stems theologically from what now is Iran, one third of his euphonious but nonsensical “axis of evil.”)

Images of rebirth and renewal crowd this age-old celebration which Afghans call Now Roz (“New Day”): spring clothes and spring house-cleaning, wildflowers and colored eggs. On previous Fridays (the Muslim sabbath) women have started growing samanak by placing wheat grains on damp pottery surfaces. The grains thus sprout in full view testimony of rejuvenation. Their fresh green leaves yield a special juice which is mixed with flour and cooked into a Now Roz delicacy.

The male principle is celebrated most vividly in the raising of a sacred green banner (janda) atop a phallic pole in both Kabul and (more famously) Mazar-e-Sharif. Green, as usual, stands for Islam, but here it also symbolizes regeneration. Like the ibex horns which festoon mosques, tombs, and houses in Central Asia, the janda predates Islam and probably Zoroastrianism, stretching back to shamanic taproots of religious experience. Hence the depth of passion whereby locals (men) try to touch the pole as soon as it’s firmly erected. I remember that frenzy from Now Roz 1972 (Kabul) and 1977 (Mazar): tremendous shouting and pushing and shoving. Make what you will of this male explanation, recorded at both spots: We must touch the pole, men said, “so that our wives will have sons.” In days to come, once the male frenzy has passed, women also venture forth and shyly touch the standard.

Will it be a happy 2002 C.E. (1380 After Hijra) for Afghanistan? Happiness, so hard to define in Western societies, can be specified for Afghans in two simple concepts: peace and physical security. Never mind democracy or even prosperity. After two dozen years of violent turmoil, folks want safety. What are the prospects?

After several months of post-Taliban euphoria, hope is now somewhat tempered. Life in Kabul is undoubtedly happier – safer, freer, more pleasant – except for Pashtun nationalists who resent ongoing northern alliance power and fear its institutionalization. The International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) helps keep peace in the capital city. As yet, however, and despite pleas from interim leader Hamid Karzai and the ex-king in Rome, ISAF has no presence elsewhere. Nor has the United States committed troops directly.

Let’s leave Kabul and take a clockwise tour around the Afghan map. The key road eastwards to the Khyber Pass and Pakistan remains impassible because of murderous and quasi-political banditry. Four ex-pat journalists were killed last fall – in just about the same spot (and perhaps by the same people) where I was mugged exactly a year ago. Three factions contend viciously for control of that province (Ningarhar). Next door, to the southwest, is Paktia province, site of recent Operation Anaconda and current Operation Harpoon. Have these U.S. military missions been successful? It depends on whom you ask.

“Operation Anaconda … is an incredible success,” said our U.S. Army 10th Mountain Division spokesman. “It took only 20 terrorists to kill 3,000 of the world’s citizens in the World Trade towers. We’ve killed hundreds and that means we’ve saved hundreds of thousands of lives. This is a great success.”

Does that mathematical logic seem somewhat contingent? Here’s the assessment of an Afghan battlefield ally: “Americans don’t listen to anyone,” said Commander Abdul Wali Zardran. “They do what they want. Most people escaped. You can’t call that a success.” Remember Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, Kandahar and Tora Bora, the Pakistani secret service airlift from Kunduz? The key guys keep getting away.

Move farther west to Kandahar, erstwhile Taliban spiritual capital, and onwards to Herat. These two great Afghan cities are both fairly peaceful at the moment … but under the control of warlords independent of central government. Without ISAF muscle, they’ll stay that way – aided in part by Washington Cold Warriors who can’t abandon the vicarious fun of playing Afghan warlord war games.

Much the same pattern exists north of the Hindu Kush with this special refinement: The main and extremely bitter quarrel is between the defense minister (Tajik general Fahim) and his deputy (Uzbek general Dostum). Their only common element: Both are non-Pashtuns and opposed to resumption of Pashtun hegemony in northern Afghanistan. Their nominal boss, Hamid Karzai, is Pashtun, albeit detribalized and non-nationalist. Even so, Human Rights Watch reports brutal abuses of Pashtuns – Karzai’s own people – across the North. (Stay tuned for “Occupied Territories” in the Bangor Daily News.)

And smack dab in the middle of Afghanistan live the most previously abused and now most resolutely determined of all ethnic groups: the Hazaras. Robbed of their best grazing lands by the (Pashtun) central government more than a century ago and variously oppressed ever since, the Hazaras have regained de-facto autonomy … and will not soon let it go.

Enter, supposedly, Zahir Shah. Exiled in Rome for the past 29 years, the former king was scheduled to return for today’s celebration of Now Roz. He may still come later this week, but the royal arrival has now been politicized and thus delayed. The first hint of serious trouble came late last month with the murder of the pro-royal Afghan civil aviation chief at his own airport in Kabul (“When life becomes buzkashi,” BDN, Feb. 27). While Karzai, some Pashtun leaders, and most ordinary Afghans want Zahir back as a unity symbol, non-Pashtun authorities (such as our northern alliance allies who now control the three top ministries) aren’t so sure.

Smudging the royal image is a supposed interview published March 7 in the Italian daily La Stampa. Of the U.S. military effort in his country the former king is quoted as saying, “It is a stupid and useless war and it would be better to stop it immediately.” Whoops! In another version Zahir Shah states definitively, “I am a Pashtun.” Whoops again. The palace in Rome subsequently denied that A) there had ever been an interview and B) that such words had ever been uttered.

What’s the truth? From what I know of the man, such patently foolish remarks seem uncharacteristic. In a CNN interview telecast this past Sunday, the old monarch made all the correct noises, but he sounded tired and some harm’s been done. Well-wishers, myself included, still hope that he can play a helpful part. A hastily convened tribal conference in Kandahar, ancestral base of his dynasty, has invited him to come back home where, as elders put it, people “will have total and free access to meet the father of the nation.” Their fear: That the deeply mistrusted northern alliance power bloc will impede Zahir Shah’s reception in Kabul.

Of such matters, great and small, are Afghans talking on this New Year’s Day. The Taliban had prohibited Now Roz on the grounds that its origins, like those of the Bamiyan Buddhas, were pre-Islamic and thus sacrilegious. Now the simple fact of this festival’s resumption is cause for hope. It will last 13 days and then end with a ritual called seezda be-dar, which translates as “getting rid of [unlucky] 13.” Families pack picnics and leave home for the day so that “unlucky 13” won’t invade the household.

Afghanistan needs no more bad luck. It needs peace and security. Concrete next step: Extend the ISAF mission beyond Kabul. Why can’t the United States, so active (and mostly successful) in waging war in Afghanistan, participate in this ISAF effort and wage some peace?

Dr. Whitney Azoy, a cultural anthropologist and former U.S. diplomat in Kabul, has worked for 30 years with Afghanistan and the Muslim world.