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1 J. Refugee Stud. 141 (1988)
The Afghan Refugee in Pakistan: An Ambiguous Identity

handle is hein.journals/jrefst1 and id is 149 raw text is: Journal of Refugee Studies Vol. 1. No. 2 1988 The Afghan Refugee in Pakistan: An Ambiguous Identity* PIERRE CENTLIVRES AND MICHELINE CENTLIVRES-DEMONT Institute of Ethnology, University of Neuch~tel; Neuchltel, Switzerland Since the Afghan crisis and the Soviet intervention of December 1979, more than three million Afghans have sought refuge in Pakistan. During fieldwork (1986-87), we tried to find out how the exile situation has affected their identity. The Afghan refugees seem to define themselves along three ideological models. The most familiar to us is the one of 'refugee' as defined and governed by the Convention of the United Nations of 1951. The second is related to the norms of the tribal code of honour as practised by the Afghans, where tribal groups seek temporary shelter among kin. The third model, that of mohajer, and perhaps the most important, refers to Muhammad's flight from Mecca to Medina in 622 AD and has a religious significance. The second and the third models are more significant than the first. To the outsider, each of the three types of identity may seem to contradict the others. To the Afghan refugees, however, these diverse constituents of a new and complex identity are not contradictory; instead, they coexist in the consciousness the refugees have of their situation and are used in different ways, according to the context. Quand des habitudes sdculaires s'effondrent, quand des genres de vie disparaissent, quand de vieiles solidaritds s'effritent, il est, certes, frequent qu'une crise d'identitd se produise (Claude Lvi- Strauss, L'identitd, p. 9). Since the Marxist Coup on 27 April 1978 and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan on 27 December 1979, more than three million Afghans have sought asylum in Pakistan. This exodus has several causes, but is due in par- ticular to military operations and repression in Afghanistan, as well as to the refusal of the Afghan people to submit to a government they consider atheist. The above quotation of LUvi-Strauss applies perfectly to the situation of the Afghan refugees in Pakistan. For these Afghans, what was once the basis of social life, power, and daily existence has been threatened if not completely disrupted or even destroyed. As the Pakistani anthropologist Akbar Ahmed, member of the Civil Service, put it: 'The kaleidoscope of traditional patterns © Oxford University Press 1988