#thread Pashtuns should understand one basic thing about the oppression we face: it is not an end in itself but infact is a means to an end. Simply put we are discriminated by the state not because we are Pashtun and Pakistan by default has to hate us but it is because in

oppressing and discriminating us, the state gets some benefits. This nuance is important to understand if we have to escape reactionary forms of nationalism and instead want to articulate a progressive nationalist politics. The structural racism, discrimination and oppression we

face is part of the power structure of the state and we can't see and tackle our reality in isolation to others relations and structure of power.
In Pakistan, there are some avenues opened for upward social mobility of Pashtuns and Pashtuns as a whole have been integrated into

economy of the country but simultaneously we are oppressed for strategic gains of the state. We have to see where our own immediate oppression based on our national (ethnic) identity fits in the larger system of power. We can't isolate the system or set of structural attitudes

that dehumanized and oppresses us from those systems which oppress others on the basis of class, gender, ethnic identities, sect and caste. These all are interrelated.
The oppression a Pashtun face in Pakistan is because of the same system which oppresses a Pakistani woman,

a Baloch, a Punjabi laborer, a Hazara Shia, a Sindhi missing person. These are integral relations of oppression and thus power. If we go on repeating the mantra that our national identity of being Pashtuns is essential to the oppression we face, we will be going down a

reactionary rabbit hole. But if we understand that the oppression we face is interrelated & integral to that of the others then our very 'nationalist' politics becomes a ground for progressive politics and opens up the possibilities of a wider politics on the basis of solidarity.