Rattler:

...As the human instinct is to "fight to the bitter end", then fight they will! Much better to complete the war at home than to invite the conflict to our own shores!

...Their personal choice to risk life and limb for failed causes is endemic; best for us all to accept the reality and not "discourage" their desire for death!

The author talks of Hazaras as being totally innocent victims suffering persecution. The reality is never that simple. This has been the problem with the portrayal of refugees, the distinction between villains and victims is very hazy one at best. The Hazaras are using this narrative to avoid any analysis of their own complicity in the problems they are fleeing from.

The basic problem as far as I can see is one of rapidly expanding populations from various ethnic groups crowding each other out, competing for territory and resources. The Hazaras are no different from other groups in my opinion in this regard

Good comment,

Then there's the Sunni v Shia issue, which we're actively "importing".

Farquhar is right. So long as a society refuses to get out of the Malthusian trap, there are going to be these sorts of incidents. In Afghanistan, the population growth rate is 2.22% (doubling time of 31 years). The total fertility rate is 5.64 births per woman, and the median age of the population is 17.9 years. In Pakistan, the population growth rate is 1.55% (doubling time 45 years). There are 3.07 births per woman, and the median age is 21.9 (Figures are from CIA World Factbook; doubling times were calculated by me from the population growth rates.) These people are very poor right now.

This sort of conflict over resources has been going on since before there were modern humans. There is abundant evidence (and some very graphic illustrations) in "Constant Battles" by Prof. Steven Leblanc (Archaeology, Harvard) and "Warfare Before Civilization" by Prof. Lawrence Keeley (Archaeology, University of Chicago). Here is a description in Prof. Keeley's book (p. 37) of excavations at a burial ground in Egyptian Nubia that was in use from 12,000 to 14,000 years ago:

"Over 40% of the fifty-nine men, women, and children buried in this cemetery had stone projectile points intimately associated with or buried in their skeletons. Several adults had multiple wounds (as many as twenty), and the wounds found on children were all in the head or neck - that is, execution shots. The excavator, Fred Wendorf, estimates that more than half the people there had died violently, He also notes that homicidal violence at Gebel Sahaba was not a once-in-a-lifetime event, since many of the adults showed healed parry fractures of their forearm bones - a common trauma on victims of violence - and because the cemetery had obviously been used for several generations."

These sorts of sites are found all over the world, and the estimated death rates from violence make our bloody 20th century look like a happy multicultural picnic. Refugee places should go to genuine political refugees who stuck their necks out to fix their societies.

Is it fear, uncertainty and distrust, intense competition for scarce resources, or sheer inculcated intolerance and hatred which so pits man against man? And, who or what is responsible for such blatant corruption of basic morality - such as is constantly being demonstrated, not only in Pakistan against the Hazaras, but in India, Syria, Mali, Indonesia, and throughout the world? Are government and bureaucracy to blame, or mere human frailty, or must we delve deeper into the realms of superstition and indoctrinated religious (and political) intolerance, dogma and corruption?

So many 'groupings' - Hazara, Shia, Sunni, and so many others, Christian, Hebrew, Hindu, Buddhist, etc, not to mention 'ethnic' differences, variations, origin and history. But, why can we not live together in peace and harmony, and in constructive co-operative endeavour to share the wealth and promise of this finite and fragile world for the benefit of all? Alas, the moral compass has been hijacked by amoral vested interests, corruptions of human and historical record, and the magnification of the 'mystical' at the expense of the 'natural'.

We have no need of a mystical Heaven and Hell, for we are too busy creating them here on Earth on a daily basis. Rather than reveling in diversity, we dote on paranoia and the peddling of fear and usury.

Compassion will always have its limits, so long as we fail to overcome the folly of our inability to enable reason to triumph over our basest instincts, and learning to supplant superstition. The 'Dark Ages' are thriving still, and the 'Dawn' remains elusive and far off.

…I think you “over specify” Saltpetre, in your description of human nature. Humans are simply ferocious “Killers”. Remove law and order and your head will roll for no real reason too! Humans are gifted with a natural dislike of each other. Hatred is the most intense of human emotions: Man will always fight first and make love second, given the chance!

...And don’t you think Capitalism is the personification of humanity, not religion. I think you may be tripping over your Atheistic mantra.