Taliban have triumphed

In a scene of the movie, The Siege, Denzel Washington is arguing with an army general who is ordering the torture of a captured terrorist. He reminds the general that the terrorists’ real plan might be to tear apart the Constitution, as Americans broke laws that the generations before had fought and bled for.

That movie was released before 9/11. Everything Denzel warned the general about has happened. The Americans have been spied on; their entire data stored for perpetuity; and the Constitution violated tremendously. The point is: the system has been defeated. Democracy, it turns out, has its dark side and it is quite ugly. Just the recent events around the world drive the idea home.

Israel held three elections in less than a year and has still not chosen a leader. The Israeli democratic system suffers from the corruption of putting personal benefit over the national one. Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying hard to get re-elected because this time it is not just about becoming Israel’s longest serving prime minister but it’s also his only get-out-of-jail card as he faces serious corruption charges.

India elected a man who is a known murderer. He was the chief minister of Gujarat when 1,200 Muslims were slaughtered there. He has annexed Kashmir and turned it into an open air prison and is now expelling and killing Indian Muslims. Racism, murder, and bigotry have become the new face of the largest democracy. Religious discrimination is now the law of the land.

Americans went to the polls in 2016 where the popular vote went to Hillary Clinton but the delegates voted Trump in, meaning he won by getting less votes. The indirect democracy in America is a check on democracy in itself. The founding fathers wanted to prevent what they called the “excess of democracy”. Later, Americans were told Russia helped elect Trump. This year, Americans will be asked to choose between Trump and Biden; a con artist and a war criminal. Quite a choice.

This week, Russians supported the notion that the Taliban must not take Afghanistan back to becoming the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”. President Putin urged the lower house of the Russian Parliament to pass the legislation allowing him to run for a fifth term as president. He has been in power for two decades and if elected for two more terms, he will surpass the duration of time Joseph Stalin was in office.

In Afghanistan, two men declared themselves as president of the country this week. The incumbent, Ashraf Ghani, and his chief rival and former chief executive of Afghanistan, Abdullah Abdullah, held oath-taking ceremonies minutes apart. Ghani had shown some recalcitrance last week when he refused to release the 5,000 Taliban prisoners as was agreed between the Americans and the Taliban. I had written in this space last week that Ghani was bargaining to be recognised as president in return for releasing the Taliban fighters. He has now agreed following recognition as president.

After the US-Taliban deal, the plan was for the Taliban and Afghans to talk to each other. But now there appears to be a new phase there; for Ghani and Abdullah to resolve things or for the Americans to make them just as John Kerry had done the last time.

Given the unproductive and unsatisfactory situation of the democratic world, the Taliban would wonder if this is what they would become by embracing the ballot. Perhaps their way is better. No succession issues. No infighting. No compromise on their cause. They will hate the West and the democratic world not for their freedoms and rights but for their dysfunction and corruption. Whether it’s the battlefield, talks or ideology, the Taliban win everywhere.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 12^th, 2020.

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