There is a peculiar illness of the soul that afflicts conquered nations long after the conqueror has departed. It lingers not in the ruins or treaties but in the minds of the people; in how they think, what they worship, whom they praise, and what they forget. For the Pashtun people, whose lands span modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan, this condition manifests as a defence of the very forces that sought to erase their names, silence their language, and reshape their dreams.