Afghanistan - Culture Smart!

Afghanistan is situated at the crossroads of Asia, a strategically important location that connects the Middle East with Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Down the ages it has been subjected to continuous foreign invasion and intervention from Alexander the Great to Genghis Khan, and as a pawn in the struggle between the British and Russian Empires making its people wary of outsiders. That history is being repeated in the twenty-first century. Afghanistan has always been seen from the outside as a realm of much intrigue and many myths. The Afghans tried to keep their distance from the outside world especially from the Europeans who, whether in pursuit of imperial goals or simply as explorer-travelers, attempted to enter and traverse the land. Their very elusiveness attracted Westerners to this landlocked country of high mountains and breathtaking beauty, where age-old customs and traditions were zealously guarded, sometimes at the cost of many lives. The Afghan people are a tapestry of ethnicities woven over time Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, and many smaller ones. Society is organized mainly along ethnic and tribal lines, but ethnic identity becomes irrelevant wh