What’s Going on in Afghanistan
Even though I myself am an atheist, I respect and appreciate the existence of religions and the differing beliefs of individuals. Where I draw the line, and where I believe as a collective people should draw their line as well, is when the practice of a belief becomes destructive and hurtful to people. This hurt could describe what we would call ‘extremism’, and from what we can see in the media, what happened three months ago in Afghanistan could similarly be described as the rise and seizing of the power by the group of extremists known as the Taliban.
In a TEDx Talk I saw a couple years ago, a reseacher, Samina Ali, talked about the origins of the hijab in Islam and how its meaning has been transformed by male imams over the years due to their interpretation of the sacred writings.
Aside from setting my point of view and confirming what I was already beginning to believe about religion in general, it taught me two new thing: firstly, at its core, Islam is not necessarily the religion that the media and sometimes our close relatives (who are not Muslims) depicts. Secondly, men (not all of them I know but for the purpose of this article we’ll use it as a general terminology) manipulated religious texts in order to get some kind of supremacy over women.
What does all of this have to do with what's going on in Afghanistan? To put stuff back in context, a little history lesson is in order:
Afghanistan is a country whose ruling changed a lot over the last century: it swung from a monarchy to a republic, to a democratic republic (a communist state, if you will). During the Cold War, Russia (then known as USSR) invaded Afghanistan and destabilized it by reinforcing the communist uprising taking place. For Russia, and other states who fought for the control of Afghanistan, the country was like a playground to demonstrate their power. As we know, politics and war are always about power. But citizens, human beings, happen to live in the middle of these lands, making civilians collaterals as the greater forces fight for something other than their freedom.
In the aftermath of the Afghan Civil War (1989-1992), a conflict that began with the withdrawal of the Communists, a religious state took place under the Taliban. This lasted from 1996 to 2001. The United States supported this regime until 1998 and intervened in the country in 2001, after the World Trade Center attacks.
But who are the Taliban, you might ask? Well, after the country plunged into chaos and instability as multiple groups fought to replace the old government, a specific group of Muslim "rebels" grew in Pakistan. These Afghan students would later choose to refer to themselves as the Taliban, a term which comes from the word for study in Arabic. They introduce themselves as Muslim rigorists, but it is important to note that their views and actions do not reflect the stance of the Muslim people.
The Taliban fought for a religious government that would rule by Sharia Law. This application of the religion is often viewed as extreme as they forbid people from accessing television, music, any form of entertainment, and are known for their extensive use of violence. We're talking about everything from lapidation to beheading in public. They promote the role of the good wife who is honorable when she is invisible at home; meaning she is not to go out without being accompanied by a man and wearing a burqa. Women in general cannot be represented on public display or publicities, they have no rights, no schools, no studies, and no work. The Taliban justifies this by saying it's the original way that the Quran should be interpreted.
But what they often forget to mention, as Samina Ali explains in her TEDx Talk, is that scripture from the time the Quran was written advocates for a greater balance between men and women — for freedom for women.
The people living in Afghanistan, when asked about the years under the control of the Taliban, often describe this period as grim, or they won't even talk about it due to the extreme violence they witnessed and traumas they endured.
How did Afghanistan end up in its current situation? In 2020, Trump signed an accord with the Taliban that American troops will leave the country in 2021. President Joe Biden decided to keep this direction and promised the withdrawal of the troops before the 20th commemoration of the Twin Towers attacks. But the Taliban wouldn't wait until then to strike.
From May to August, the Taliban engaged in destructive behavior, but it was nothing "out of the ordinary" for the locals to report. In the first week of August, everything took a really fast turn as the Taliban took down multiple cities per day and collected the old military supplies of the United States. Eventually, the Taliban finally took control of the capital, Kabul, and its presidential palace.
All that was partly possible because of the United States and their role in the country. Afghan civilians and military personnel were so unprepared to the brutal uprising of the Taliban, and all of the promises of progress, protection, and learning opportunities had failed or were not kept.
Today, Afghanistan is in a humanitarian crisis and on the brink of civil war: Afghan civilians, for the most part, don't want to go back to this way of life and tried desperately, as we saw on the news, to get on planes to leave the state.
But some also migrated to other parts of the country and are still standing tall against the Taliban, but for how long? On small portions of land, food, water, and basic needs are hardly accessible. More than 20 million Afghans are in extreme poverty, and a lot of lives were lost during the invasion of the Taliban these last weeks.
For those who cannot run or hide, the situation is critical. "Everyone could be assassinated, kidnapped or raped." Says Chékéba Hachemi, founder and leader of the association Free Afghanistan. The Taliban search appartements and kill public personalities just because they are promoting something against Sharia. They also already let the population know that every family with more than one man ought to send one to become a member of the Taliban.
But women are definitely the most impacted by the return of the Taliban. Numerous times as I gathered information for this article, I saw and read about women who were in tears, sobbing that their future was lost, that all they did while they had their freedom now condemned them to death, or another tragic turn of events.
All feminists — and everyone else — there are certain of one thing: the Taliban in control of Afghanistan means a great and dramatic peril for the women’s rights for which they fought the last 20 years. "All hopes of Afghan women, young or old, have been crushed”, said an anonymous woman interviewed on the streets of Kabul.
There's no more security for civilians, especially for women. Taxis won't accept rides with a woman alone, afraid of the retaliation. Women, under the Talibans, are not allowed to go see a doctor unless it's a woman. There are countless other consequences, whether mentioned here or not, that put their lives in jeopardy.
One of the most terrifying things I read about what the Taliban can and will certainly do to the women, they already started. The Times of India reports that the Taliban reached out to the imams in the regions they control and asked for a list of young girls from 15 years old and of the widows under 45, so that they could share them as war trophies.
As soon as I saw this news, I knew I had to write about it.
All of the information about what’s going on in Afghanistan isn’t so hard to find, and should be talked about way more. But the worst is that because some of us live far away from these atrocities, we don't realize that we are not talking about facts but rather humans, and the tragedy of their lives right now.
Women in Afghanistan are crying —literally— for help. As people outside of Afghanistan, we should at least try and share what’s going on there. The more people know, the less our governments can stay silent and complacent about all of it.