The Mother of Cities

Last month, in northern Afghanistan, I visited the rural town of Balkh: rutted dirt streets, no plumbing, erratic electricity, barely a dozen shops in the marketplace. It wasn’t always that way. Arabs once called the site Umm Belad, “Mother of Cities.”

Umm is Arabic for “mother” and, when linked with a generic noun, connotes prototype or prime example. Sometimes exaggeration runs amok. Saddam Hussein referred to Gulf War One – which he lost – as “Mother of Battles.” The first British victory of Gulf War Two occurred – against weak defense – in Umm Qasr, “Mother of Citadels.” But Balkh, more than once in its history, has been the real deal. Its saga provides a cautionary tale.

Basic fact: Balkh is old. Older by far than what Donald Rumsfeld disdainfully calls “Old Europe.” Older still than what is called the nation-state of “Iraq.” At least twice as old as Balkh’s conquest by Arabs in the first century of Islam.

By way of contrast, Bush people now speak of “New Realities.” How does Young America’s faith in Newness square with the eternal realities of Old Balkh?

The name first appears in Vedic texts written 2500 years ago: “Bakhdi the beautiful, crowned with banners.” Perhaps true, certainly boosteristic. Behind this chamber of commerce sloganeering was a deadly – and still ongoing – conflict between two mega-ethnic groups: Indo-Europeans (a.k.a. “Aryans”) and Turks (including Mongols, Tartars, Uzbeks, etc). Both came from further north in Asia; both wanted warmth and water. Balkh and the rest of (currently) Afghanistan represented the route to southern comfort.

(Deep context for a modern problem: English is an Indo-European language; Turkish is Turkish. Note, in Gulf War Two, the ambivalent relationship between the American-British [Indo-European] Coalition and our NATO partner Turkey. At stake is the fate of this planet’s largest, state-less nationality: 40 million Kurds of Indo-European origin. Kurds and Turks, despite both being Muslim, heartily hate each other. Here ethnicity is thicker than religion. How will all these conflicted allegiances, including our own, shake out?)

The first good-guy, Indo-European empire was based in what we now regard as – gasp! – bad-guy Iran. Its religious prophet (and chief propagandist) was Zoroaster who, according to legend, died near Balkh in righteous battle against the Turks. Zoroaster preached a dualistic gospel of Good vs. Evil. Ahura Mazda, chief god in Zoroaster’s pantheon, issued a regime-friendly message: “Whoever does not rally to the [Indo-European] chief … goes over to the hordes of the [Turkish] infidels.” Modern equivalent: “With us or with the terrorists.”

Buddhism came to Balkh and, regrettably, went. Of all world-class belief systems, Buddhism is hardest to distort into militarism or imperialism. But without political clout, it is also hard to maintain, especially in places as contentious as Balkh. Hence this wistful description of a faltering Buddhist shrine in 630 C.E.: “Many years have elapsed since its foundations were laid. At present the number of priests is [only] about 100; so irregular are they morning and night in their duties that it is hard to tell saints from sinners.”

Islam (like crusading Christianity) goes to war all too easily. The first wave of Muslim conquerors reached Balkh less than two decades after Prophet Mohammed’s death. Militarily, nothing could stand in their way. But culturally, to the Arabs’ credit, they recognized much to admire in newly dominated territories. Always thirsty, these desert dwellers marveled at Balkh’s irrigation system: 18 main canals – plus innumerable capillaries – from a river that flowed north from the Hindu Kush mountains and became a man-made delta of unmatched fertility. Magnificent gardens led to another Balkh nickname: “Paradise on Earth.”

But not even Islam could safeguard Balkh from the perils of life on an ethnic frontier. Conflict resumed between Indo-European Iranians and Central Asian Turks. Enter Genghiz Khan, the 13th century’s version of WMD.

One hundred thousand horsemen, according to a contemporary historian, “crossed the [Oxus] river and advanced towards Balkh. The chief men of the town came forward professing submission and bearing all manner of presents. Genghiz Khan commanded that the people of Balkh, great and small, few and many, both women and children should be driven out onto the plain … to be put to the sword; and that not a trace should be left of fresh or dry. For a long time the wild beasts feasted on their flesh, and lions consorted without contention with wolves, and vultures ate without from the same table as eagles. And they cast fire into the gardens of the city and devoted their whole attention to the destruction of the outworks and walls, and mansions and palaces.”

Memory casts long shadows. Passing Balkh in 1275, Marco Polo noted that “Balac was formerly still more considerable, but has sustained much injury from the Tartars. … It contained many palaces constructed of marble, and spacious squares, still visible, although in a ruinous state. When a man crosses this land, he may ride for ten whole days without seeing a single habitation, for the people have all withdrawn to fortresses in the mountains for fear of invading armies and brigands.”

And from Ibn Battuta in 1333: “It is completely dilapidated and uninhabited, but anyone seeing it would think it inhabited because of the solidity of its construction, for it was once a vast and important city. …”

Various Turkic dynasties dominated Balkh for another half millennium. Some created superb architecture. My mind swam last month at the sight of Balkh’s central mosque, built by a descendant of Tamurlain in 1597. Two corkscrew minarets flank a ribbed turquoise dome. Even at nightfall – we had crammed the day with politics and, stupidly, left little time for culture – the old tiles glowed.

But the ancient ethnic fault line remained and, in the 19th century, finally tilted back toward Indo-European control. “Afghanistan” came into being, run by Indo-European Pashtuns. A last Turkic insurrection failed in 1892. Recognizing Balkh’s symbolic importance, the Kabul-based Pashtun government undertook ethnic cleansing. One ruthless Pashtun governor became known, in reverse, as “The Second Genghiz”. By the 1970s only a few Turkic families survived in Balkh. Now the situation is once again in flux as two rival warlords pursue this ancient quarrel. Mohammed Atta is the (Tajik) Indo-European; Abdul Rashid Dostum is the (Uzbek) Turk.

Similar patterns exist all across the world of Old Islam. They already confound their own nation-state politicians. Their depth will test the “New Realities” of President Bush. Iraq, for instance, is at least as ethnically divided as Afghanistan. It has even less history as a nation-state. Good luck to its American pro-consuls.

As a final indicator of what may come, consider that first of Western military imperialists – Alexander the Great. His whole life was an exercise in the imposition of New Realities. Young Alexander, still in his 20s used Balkh (or some nearby site) as base camp for two years in the fourth century B.C.E. Here’s classical historian Plutarch’s sympathetic spin: “He planted Greek institutions all across Asia and thus overcame its wild and savage way of living. … Greekness was marked by excellence, but wickedness was the way of the barbarians.”

What’s left today in Balkh of those excellent institutions? Pashtuns (Indo-Europeans) compete with Uzbeks (Turks) in digging up Greek artifacts to be sold, illegally, in the Kabul bazaar.

And Alexander himself? In Balkh, without realizing it, he was already in deep trouble. Quick victories had gone to his head. Balkh was where he became an extreme unilateralist. Earlier, he’d always consulted with companions on key decisions. Now he stood aloof and, worse, began requiring erstwhile friends to prostrate themselves. Humiliation bears a cost. No longer supported by his own men, Alexander soon had to turn back. He died at 33 in what now is Iraq.

These are old stories, ancestrally rooted in time. Young America should pay heed. Otherwise our “victory” in Iraq could turn into the Mother of Troubles.

Dr. Whitney Azoy, a cultural anthropologist and former U.S. diplomat in Kabul, has worked for 30 years with Afghanistan and the Muslim world. He was last in Afghanistan in May on a U.S. government contract. Editor’s note: The second edition of Dr. Azoy’s definitive study, “Buzkashi: Game and Power in Afghanistan,” is newly available from Waveland Press.