viewed it as a part of Pashtun hegemony that devised to erase their ethnic identity. The term Afghanistani has been used among some refugees and diasporas, particularly among non-Pashtuns. History Afghanistan has never been a nation-state or dawlat-e milli. Due to its tumultuous history, it has often defined as failed-state. The local groups and communities across Afghanistan have rather strong local and regional identification as a tribes or ethnic groups (Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek or others). For the past two centuries, Afghanistan rulers have tried to create a state that represents Pashtuns. Early efforts were made to create a strong centralized government based on a national identity of "Afghan," which privileged Pashtuns beyond their ethnic boundaries at state level as a whole. Non-Pashtun ethnic groups were not yet ready to accept a centralized state system let alone accepting a new national identity. They did not have overall or even wider identification with Afghanistan as a whole, not to mention national identity or citizenship that was not given to them by the central government. Etymology From a more limited, ethnological point of view, "Afḡhān" is the term by which the Persian-speakers of Afghanistan (and the non-Pashtō-speaking ethnic groups generally) designate the Pashtūn. The equation Afghans = Pashtūn has been propagated all the more, both in and beyond Afghanistan, because the Pashtūn tribal confederation is by far has maintained its hegemony in the country, numerically and politically. National Identity Afghanistan's early efforts to create a sort of national identity began in 1919, after receiving its independence from the Great Britain. This was the time when Afghanistan completely regain control over its sovereignty. Especially, the Hazara people who are still considered second-class citizens. After the fall of monarchy in 1973, Mohammed Daoud Khan, a staunch partisan of Pashtunistan, who saw the country not as Afghanistan but a Pashtunistan, a land uniting Pashtuns from NWFP and FATA with Afghanistan. Despite implementing some social and educational progress, he failed to create a national identity. After the Saur Revolution, the central governments tried to advocate for a broader Afghan identity through the use of modern education, but their efforts met with limited success. One of the most common hurdles for fostering a common national identity was the fact they ethnic groups such as Hazara, Uzbeks, or Tajiks could not identify with elements of an identity that had strong base in Pashtun ethnicity that ruled the country.