Revisiting Afghanistan — a year after American withdrawal

On 15^th August 2022, the deputy Prime Minister and co-founder of the Taliban movement, Abdul Ghani Baradar said, “this great victory came after countless sacrifices and hardships. On this day… the Islamic Emirate brought the world superpower and its allies to their knees and Afghans gained their independence.”

Last year, on 15^th August 2021, the Biden administration ventured on its haphazard military withdrawal from Afghanistan and President Ashraf Ghani subsequently escaped from his palace. In the aftermath, images of chaos at Kabul airport and in the city surfaced in the news and social media. The Taliban who were overthrown by the US-led forces after 9/11 re-entered Kabul and established their writ over the city and the rest of Afghanistan. The Taliban celebrated their victory on 15^th August in front of the defunct US embassy in Kabul claiming that the people of Afghanistan gained real independence by liberating themselves from the clutches of foreign forces. It is yet to be seen how the occupation of Afghanistan by the Taliban has led to the emancipation of the Afghan people and whether they are better off today.

A year after the fall of Kabul and unceremonial US withdrawal, Afghanistan is back to square one. The US and its allies invested more than $2 trillion to transform Afghanistan into a modern, democratic, and enlightened state but their efforts failed miserably. The Taliban re-established the old order that prevailed during their rule from 1996-2001 with meagre resistance. They violated the terms and conditions of the Doha accord of February 2020 by depriving women of their fundamental rights and providing sanctuary to Ayman al- Zawahiri, the former head of Al-Qaeda who was recently killed in Kabul in a drone attack.

Revisiting Afghanistan a year after US withdrawal and the Taliban’s hold on office would require an in-depth critical analysis of how and why things in Afghanistan are still complicated and unsettled. Severe economic crisis, international isolation, and emerging resistance against what is called a ruthless mode of governance are shaping another phase of crisis and conflict in Afghanistan.

According to the Agence France-Presse news agency, on 13^th August upon the completion of one year of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, a group of Afghan women protested in front of the education ministry in Kabul and chanted “break, work and freedom” but the Taliban forcibly dispersed them by firing guns into the air. Taliban fighters beat up female protestors who refused to leave with their rifle butts. Zholia Parsi, a women’s organisation that had arranged the anti-Taliban demonstration lamented that “they dispersed girls, tore out banners and confiscated the mobile phones of many girls.” She further said that “if the Taliban want to silence this voice, it is not possible. We will protest from our homes.”

Like the previous Taliban rule, the current regime has imposed a travel ban on women. Women cannot travel long distances without a male companion; education for girls beyond the primary level is still not allowed and strict segregation of males and females is imposed in public gardens and parks. Women make up almost 50% of the total Afghan population, yet they have not been given their due rights. Instead, they have been excluded from public offices and are regularly persecuted. In May this year, the Taliban’s supreme leader Hibatullah Alhundzada ordered women to fully cover themselves in public including their faces according to his interpretation of Shariah.

Afghanistan was not an ideal country when the US backed Afghan regime was in power from December 2001 till August 2021, but the country didn’t undergo Taliban-type backwardness and suffocation. The flawed political process brought the legitimacy of the regimes of Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani into question, but the Taliban neither believe in political pluralism, constitution or equality of all Afghans nor do they feel accountable to the people. They just captured power by taking advantage of the US military withdrawal and Ashraf Ghani’s crumbling regime.

A year has passed, and the Taliban government is struggling to seek legitimacy for its rule and wants to run Afghanistan as a medieval-type state detached from the realities of the contemporary world. Revisiting Afghanistan a year after the US withdrawal and the subsequent occupation by the Taliban would require a critical analysis of the situation from three angles. First, non-conformist Afghans are running out of patience and tolerance for the suffocating Taliban regime. Will the Taliban continue to use force to disperse women’s demonstrations and other popular protests, or will they turn Afghanistan into a big prison? Thousands of Afghans who were threatened by the Taliban regime have already left their country. However, the remaining 40 million cannot leave Afghanistan and will not tolerate unabated coercion and oppression.

The Taliban after getting another chance to rule Afghanistan could have made a difference between the previous and present regimes. They could have adopted a more moderate, tolerant, and amenable approach to prevailing conditions and adhered to the main tenets of the Doha accord like respecting human rights, and the rights of women, and not providing sanctuary to foreign terrorist groups. But, it seems, that the Taliban have not learned lessons from past debacles and still believe that they can suppress non-conformist segments of the population and deny women their fundamental rights. Resultantly, Afghanistan is drifting into another phase of violence and civil war.

Second, the prevailing ostensible silence in Afghanistan during Taliban rule is misleading because the youth who experienced relative freedom in the last 20 years are unwilling to accept massive curbs on education, female employment, entertainment, and other progressive things. Despite being in power for a year, the Taliban have not been granted international legitimacy. This has deepened isolation and intensified the economic crisis due to the sanctions imposed in the past year.

Finally, given that no substantial changes have taken place in Afghanistan during the one year of the Taliban’s rule, the country will continue to degenerate in the years to come. In the past year, there has been little socio-economic development, quality of life has deteriorated, human security has worsened, and educational opportunities remain absent.

With marginal space for groups and parties advocating for democracy, political pluralism, and gender emancipation, it seems Afghanistan under the Taliban will be no different from its past rule. However, if the people of Afghanistan rise against the Taliban regime to mitigate violence, armed conflicts, corruption, and disorder, one can hope for a better future for the country.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 21^st, 2022.

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