Abbottabad District Puns

[RETRO] May 1966

In May 1966, the people of Afghanistan went to the polls to vote for all 250 seats of the Wolesi Jirga and the 51 directly elected members of the Meshrano Jirga (the other 51 being appointed by King Mohammad Zahir Shah). For the first time ever in Afghan politics, Hezb-e Khalq Milli has (barely) won an outright majority of the seats in the Wolesi Jirga, meaning that a party other than Hezb-e Watan has earned the right to form a government. While the King technically has the power to appoint whoever he pleases as Prime Minister (and indeed, rumor has it he was under considerable pressure from Daoud Khan to appoint him anyway), he has adhered to the will of the voters and selected Mr. Khan Abdul Wali Khan as his Vazīr-e Azam.

Below is a brief overview of the political parties and the events leading up to the election.

Hezb-e Watan (Fatherland Party)

The largest party in every Milli Shura to date, Hezb-e Watan is a center/center-right party whose most notable political trait is its support of the Mohammadzai royal family. One does not need to look farther than its leadership to see that: though its parliamentary faction is led by Dr. [Abdul Zahir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Zahir_(politician)), a medical doctor turned politician with no blood ties to the royal family, the actual power in the party is held by Sardar Mohammad Daoud Khan, who, as the King’s brother-in-law, is constitutionally barred from holding office in the Wolesi Jirga. Having previously held posts as varied as Governor of Eastern Province (1934-35; 1938-39), Governor of Kandahar Province (1935-38), Defense Minister (1946-48), Interior Minister (1949-50), and finally Prime Minister (1950 to present), Daoud Khan is doubtless one of the most powerful people in Afghanistan--perhaps more powerful than the King himself.

Politically, though Hezb-e Watan is certainly to the right of its major rival Hezb-e Khalq-e Milli, it is still generally reformist in nature. Watan argues that the greatest way to provide peace, security, and economic development to Afghanistan is through the creation of a strong and capable central government that can rein in the tribal disputes that have dominated Afghanistan over the centuries. Under Daoud Khan, Watan has also shifted towards promoting Pashtun nationalism, sponsoring several cultural initiatives to promote the creation of a unified Pashtun identity (often

August 1962

The legal structure of land ownership in Afghanistan leaves a lot to be desired. Historically, the government has played a very small role in land management. Successive governments under Amanullah Khan in the 1920s and under Nadir Shah and Zahir Shah in the 1930s made limited attempts to expand the documentation of land (mostly for tax retrieval purposes), but these efforts were mostly limited to urban centers--and even there, they did little. Thus, to date, land ownership in the non-Tajik, non-urban parts of Afghan Pakhtunkhwa is a largely informal, largely community-mediated affair (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has it slightly better, with effective British land records in the Peshawar Valley, around Quetta, and in Abbottabad Province, but the former Tribal Areas have much the same problem).

In most of Afghanistan, land ownership is usually based on traditional claims--either by individuals or families, in the case of farmland or urban land, or by tribes in the case of forests, pastures, deserts, etcetera--with little written or formal documentation. When disputes arise, they are usually mediated by a shura--a collection of tribal elders--or a jirga--an open forum for the region’s Pashtun men. In some tribes, the rulings of these shuras and jirgas are written down, but this is the exception rather than the rule, meaning that most of Afghan Pakhtunkhwa has next to no written title for the land within it. While this is fine for the people who live there--local people have a pretty good idea of who owns what, and are generally fine using the traditional dispute resolution mechanisms when problems arise--it leaves a lot to be desired for the government. Levying taxes on land is near impossible when there is no central record of who owns what, and businesses, both foreign and domestic, are hesitant to “buy” anything when they have no legal, official way of guaranteeing that the person they’re buying the land from actually owns it, or to prove their ownership of the land.

With its mandate renewed following the 1962 election, the Daoud Khan government has set about the important task of increasing the state’s role in land management via a number of new policies.

The Department of Land Affairs (AMLAK)

Managing land rights in Afghanistan is no small undertaking, ill-suited for any existing government entity. Thus, Afghanistan must make one. The Department of Land Affairs, housed under the Ministry of Agriculture, shall be responsible fo

1963

In Afghanistan’s 1949 Constitution, the organization, area, name, and function of Afghanistan’s administrative divisions was left to the central government to determine. So far, the central government has done little to create a standardized system of administrative divisions within the country, relying on traditional, ad-hoc administrative divisions to run the country. With the government seeking to build up a uniform system of governance in the country, it has promulgated new laws to create the following administrative structure.

###Administrative Divisions of Afghanistan

Deh (Village)

The deh or village is the basic building block of rural administration in Afghanistan. Larger deh can be composed of smaller villages called qala. Villages are led by an elected council, known as a dehi shura (Pashto) or shura-e dehi (Dari),* which consists of five members (marakchi) who will be responsible for minor public works (street lamps, road maintenance, wells, minor irrigation works) and minor judicial functions–the most important of which is resolving land and property disputes within the village (the results of which must be recorded and reported to the Dehestan) and holding trials for small crimes like petty theft. Shuras will have broad abilities to resolve disputes or assign punishments, but the results must be reported to the state, and cannot contradict laws published by the central government. Individuals may appeal the decisions of the deh to the dehestan.

In practice, these shuras are just giving legal standing to existing social institutions in Afghan society. As such, though these shuras can technically have elected female members, most, if not all, members will be male. One member of the shura shall be elected by his peers as the hakim, who will be responsible for ensuring good order in the shura and managing communication between the deh and the dehestan above it. Decisions on the shura are made with a majority vote.

Dehestan (Rural Block)

The dehestan or rural block is the first-level administrative division of rural Afghanistan. It is built up of a number of deh--sometimes as few as two, and sometimes as many as ten. The dehestan is responsible for transmitting directions from the central or provincial government to its subordinate deh, and for directing and coordinating the actions of its

June 1961

Regrettably, Afghanistan is a multiethnic, multilingual society. Historically, Afghan Persian (officially Dari since 1949) has served as the lingua franca of the country: if you were formally educated, you spoke Dari. So significant was Dari's stranglehold on educated society that the royal family--Pashtun by ancestry--spoke Dari better than they spoke Pashto.

The accession of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa marked a distinct shift in Afghan language politics. Though Dari had been used as the courtly and administrative language in India for centuries, the British had all but eliminated its use by the turn of the 20th century, replacing it with English. The accession of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa meant that, for the first time ever, there were Afghan cultural and political elites who didn't speak a word of Dari.

The decade since unification has seen few substantive changes made to address this. By and large, Afghan Pakhtunkhwa still teaches its students in Dari (or a foreign language, if you're wealthy enough), while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa still teaches its students in Pashto (or English, if you're wealthy enough). As the government starts to consolidate and standardize the education system in the Kingdom, this has proved to be extremely frustrating. Thus, the Ministry of Education, with the support of the Prime Minister, has announced a series of reforms to standardize the languages of instruction throughout the various levels of education in Afghanistan, with the goal of creating a more broadly multilingual society that values both Pashto and Dari.

###Compulsory Education

Primary School and Orientation Stage - Ages 6-12 - Grades 1-7

Primary school is the foundational piece of the Afghan education system, and must serve the role of imparting the national languages to Afghanistan's youth. Primary school will be divided into three different “language models” depending on where in the country the school is.

The first model will be used in areas with a clear Pashto or Dari majority. Here, the language of instruction shall be the local language (e.g. Pashtun areas will use Pashto, Dari-speaking areas will use Dari), but from day one the other national language shall be taught as a core subject. The goal is to achieve functional fluency in both languages by the end of the Kingdom's compulsory education in Grade 7, so that even if the student never spends another day in school in their life, they will be able to communicate in both Dari and Pash

Do your worst!

It really does, I swear!

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂

They’re on standbi

Buenosdillas

Pilot on me!!

Dad jokes are supposed to be jokes you can tell a kid and they will understand it and find it funny.

This sub is mostly just NSFW puns now.

If it needs a NSFW tag it's not a dad joke. There should just be a NSFW puns subreddit for that.

Edit* I'm not replying any longer and turning off notifications but to all those that say "no one cares", there sure are a lot of you arguing about it. Maybe I'm wrong but you people don't need to be rude about it. If you really don't care, don't comment.

When I got home, they were still there.

What did 0 say to 8 ?

" Nice Belt "

So What did 3 say to 8 ?

" Hey, you two stop making out "

I won't be doing that today!

You take away their little brooms

This morning, my 4 year old daughter.

Daughter: I'm hungry

Me: nerves building, smile widening

Me: Hi hungry, I'm dad.

She had no idea what was going on but I finally did it.

Thank you all for listening.

There hasn't been a post all year!

Why

It’s pronounced “Noel.”

After all his first name is No-vac

What, then, is Chinese rap?

Edit:

Notable mentions from the comments:

• Spanish/Swedish/Swiss/Serbian hits

• French/Finnish art

• Country/Canadian rap

• Chinese/Country/Canadian rock

• Turkish/Tunisian/Taiwanese rap

There hasn't been a single post this year!

(Happy 2022 from New Zealand)

[Removed]

Nothing, it just waved

Bob

So that I could frequently say, "I am going to walk 5 miles now."

Edit: My most popular post on Reddit! 😀 Thank you for the awards.

Just to clarify, 12345678