Will today's days be an old dream? The wandering of young Afghans

Many Afghans fear that the experiences and aspirations of the past 20 years of modernity and open life could be turned into old dreams

On August 17, 2021, local time, the streets of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, were empty. Photo/People's Vision

Caixin Network (reporter Lu Kejia) "They only know how to hold on to the plane. But they did not know that the landing gear of the aircraft would be withdrawn into the wing after take-off. ”

On August 15, when some residents of their hometown of Kabul were seen fleeing to the airport after the Taliban had "entered the city", and even some people were still holding the fuselage and landing gear while the plane was accelerating, the Afghan Emir lamented that this was due to the educational and cultural level of many Afghan civilians who tried to flee.

The entire conversation with the Emir through video is in repression, anger and sadness.

Through the glass window behind him, he could faintly see that it was raining heavily in Washington, where the Emir was living, and several successive lightning bolts illuminated the night like a dilapidated incandescent lamp.

It was only when I was asked "how Afghan society has transformed over the past 20 years" that the mood of the Afghan man in a foreign land calmed down slightly.

The biggest transformation in Afghan society since 2001 has been that Afghan women, who had been confined to their homes for a long time, were finally able to get out of the house again and bathe in the worldly sunshine.

Under the new social system established after the war in 2001, women in many cities voluntarily took off their full-body burqas and wore headscarves and other Islamic ornaments to their liking. Some of them even put on light T-shirts and jeans, with their jet-black, fluffy hair scattered over their shoulders.

In the streets and alleys of Kabul, restaurants, supermarkets, pharmacies and other public places, women can be seen everywhere. They shop with friends, hold fashion shows for women, and even dance, drink and smoke shisha in slightly hidden occasions.

Over the past 20 years, women's voice in public affairs has also improved dramatically. In 2004, Afghanistan promulgated a new constitution that required more than a quarter of women's guaranteed seats in the lower house of Parliament. That goal was even "overstepped" on the eve of the collapse of the Ghani government – nearly a third of Afghanistan's parliament is now made up of women. Female civil servants, on the other hand, account for about 20 per cent of the total number of public officials. Television programs and radio stations aimed specifically at female audiences aimed at promoting women's rights have also begun to take root in Afghanistan.

In 1999, during the Taliban's last time in power, not a single woman in the country received secondary education, and only 9,000 women received primary education. Today, nearly 40 per cent of Afghan girls attend secondary schools, while nearly one-third of Afghan public and private universities are female students. These highly educated women have entered different professions such as law, education, and medical care. As of April 2021, more than 200 women serve as judges throughout Afghanistan and more than 4,000 women work in the judiciary.

More and more Afghan women are also engaged in art and literature, becoming musicians, painters, directors and writers. In a documentary published by the Financial Times in July, a young Afghan girl dedicated to becoming a cellist pulls up Bach's Suite No. 1 in G major in front of camera, with the gentle, deep tone of the cello flowing slowly around her. Asked what she thought of the Taliban's recent offensive, the girl smiled and replied in a clean, crisp voice that "change always starts with the subtleties."

Today, the Taliban, who have openly hated all non-religious music and banned sound and light entertainment media — and even publicly smashed television sets to show their dissatisfaction with secular culture , return to Kabul on social media, run Twitter accounts, and even try to send cadres to give interviews to female anchors on TV news programs — even though the two are deliberately separated by about four or five people.

Is this a change in the Taliban's organization, or is it a brief compromise between the Taliban and the urban world that has returned to its rule?

And what about young girls who have never lived under the Taliban in the past, and all their reverie about their future?

During its last term in power, the Taliban regime imposed severe controls on women's thoughts and behaviors, in accordance with the harsh interpretation of Sharia law, including prohibiting women from working and going to school, prohibiting them from going out without being accompanied by male relatives, and requiring women to wear clothing "buka" that covers their bodies from head to toe in all public places. Women who do not comply with these religious regulations may be flogged in public.

Since the beginning of this year, while winning on the battlefield, the Taliban leadership has also frequently made public claims that when it comes back to power, it will be committed to promoting women's rights "within the framework of Sharia law" – including no longer requiring women to wear "bukas" and must be accompanied by male relatives, and accepting women's right to education and work – including working in government institutions.

But the Emir didn't buy into these well-deserved promises. "The Taliban are 'zero' likely to accept women's jobs and serve as key members of the government," he told me. This is not in keeping with their religious beliefs and with the 'Sharia law' (i.e. Sharia law) they pursue. "Zero," he emphasized again.

In her early 20s, Afghan girl Pashtana was active in rural Kandahar province, where she helped local women get an education, start their own business and respond to domestic and sexual violence.

When the Taliban recaptured their area, Pashtana began to flee from Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan.

She told Caixin in intermittent phone calls that she did not believe the Taliban's promises: "All the promises are very empty — girls in Kandahar can't go to school, girls in Herat can't go to school." She chronicles the changes that have taken place in cities outside kabul, where foreign media are plentiful, that may not have been noticed by international cameras.

She said she would "continue to fight" with the Taliban and would not give up on providing educational opportunities and other resources for Afghan girls.

Although spokesmen who spoke internationally on behalf of the Taliban's top brass frequently said that "the war is over" and that "the Taliban do not seek revenge on anyone." But the flames of the 20-year civil war that poured into each other clearly would not stop in a moment.

On 19 August, Bahaar Joya, an Afghan journalist who had worked for the BBC's Persian channel, sent an urgent open letter on behalf of her father, who is still in the western Afghan city of Herat, seeking asylum for him.

Joya's father worked for the Afghan government forces and since 2003 has worked as a prison officer in the local government's prison in Herat, where a large number of members of the Taliban are imprisoned.

With the Taliban armed seizure of the area, "as a well-known Afghan government figure, my father became a stark target". On August 19, members of the Taliban knocked on Joya's door and asked her mother about her father's whereabouts. The Taliban, who was released from prison, is also looking for her father to prepare for revenge.

The former government officer and prison officer, who was fleeing and hiding, entrusted his daughter living in Britain with a cry for help, knew his life was in imminent danger. In the past, he has also received many letters of pressure demanding that he release members of the Taliban under his jurisdiction. In 2017, Joya's brother was even kidnapped for this. After being rescued by the Afghan government, Joya's brother moved to Russia. But now, the original Afghan government itself has disintegrated, "no government to save my father." He does not have a visa to travel to a foreign country. Several of his former colleagues have been shot. Now may be the last chance to save him", In her open letter, Joya desperately searched for someone who could provide shelter and rescue for her father. "Id card information and birthday will be passed on to you privately," she noted in the letter.

The Emir argues that today's Taliban organizations have become more adept at "preemptively operating their international image" in terms of public opinion. The emir, who now works on Afghan defense information, said he had enough video evidence on his hands that Taliban soldiers had begun to break into civilian homes after entering Kabul, including forcibly abducting young girls as young as a few years old. But a Taliban spokesman has previously publicly denied reports of the situation.

In documentaries shot by some foreign media in recent years in areas controlled by the Taliban, Taliban organizations in different regions have different attitudes toward women.

Taliban organizations in some areas allow girls to wear headscarves to school, continue to study modern subjects such as mathematics and geography, and interact face-to-face with male teachers. In other areas, however, girls are only able to go to institutions that specialize in teaching the Koran, and male teachers are not allowed to appear in front of female students and can only sit behind a curtain and communicate through oral communication.

In June, in a documentary filmed by France's France 24 television station in Herat, western Afghanistan, a burqa-held area, was whipped by Taliban judicial officers for "offending morality" for having a phone call with a man. In a loud leather whipping sound, the girl twisted her body and cried loudly, "Allah! Allah! Nearly a hundred villagers were watching from the sidelines, and no one dared to come forward to stop them.

There were also reports of gun-armed Taliban soldiers driving female employees out of banks in a city in kandahar, a southern province controlled by the Taliban, and asking their male relatives to take their jobs.

Recently, in Herat, more and more women have voluntarily worn the buka in response to the city's takeover by the Taliban. In other parts of Afghanistan, schools attended by girls have also been closed, female teachers have been asked not to teach in schools, or bus drivers have stopped accepting female passengers.

Today, many Afghans fear that the experiences and aspirations of the past 20 years of modernity and open life could be turned into old dreams. And some Afghans in foreign countries are also suffering and tormented by the mountains and rivers in their homeland.

In the past few days, many writers, female directors, and human rights activists in Afghan society have been posting dynamics on social networks, conveying their trepidation and even grief about the dramatic changes in the situation.

"Today, my heart is broken. Today, I mourn the lost hopes and ideals of my fellow Afghans. Khaled Al-Husseini, author of "The Kite Chaser" and a goodwill ambassador for UNHCR, wrote on Twitter. I worry about the millions of Afghans who have fled their homes — who are struggling to survive. Where will they go? What will they become? No one can give me a definitive answer. ”

Afghan female director Sakhre Karimi also called on the international community to speak out for the Afghan people: "The great achievements of the young generation of our country in these 20 years have been wiped out in the abandonment of the government... Please help us so that the world does not abandon Afghanistan. ”

But at the first press conference after the Taliban occupied Kabul on August 17, the group's spokesman, Mujahid, continued to shout to Afghan society that "talented young people, people who grew up here, we don't want them to leave" and "they are all our assets, we want them to stay here."

The spokesman, who has been in charge of the Taliban's external communications for many years, also made commitments to the rights of women, children and media in Afghanistan in the future, and also answered the questions of female journalists on the spot.

He claimed that the Taliban regime would uphold women's rights within the framework of Sharia law and would also work to establish a "free and independent media". However, he added that when it comes to media activities, nothing can go against Islamic values, that the media "should not oppose national values, should not oppose unity among peoples", and that when it comes to issues such as ethnic, religious and hostile behaviour, the media "should not promote these differences".

In the face of objective fears in Afghan society — especially those who have sided with the Taliban in the past 20 years of war — the spokesperson called them all "amnesty", and specifically explained that the Taliban would not only "pardon" all staff members in the former Afghan government system, but also exempt Afghan translators, contract workers, contractors who had served foreign military and political units, and that none of them would be "prosecuted". He also claimed that if any Taliban soldiers who went door-to-door to check the jurisdiction had committed ill-treatment of others, they would be hunted down and investigated.

But according to information from amir's relatives and friends who remain in Afghanistan, as well as from other sources he contacts at work, some government employees he knew well had been executed. In addition, some civilians who have been hastily evacuated by the arrival of the Taliban are threatened with starvation or even death due to lack of food and drinking water.

Based on the information he obtained, the Amir said that some Taliban soldiers who had entered Kabul had arbitrarily occupied the homes of those who had fled as their strongholds or looted them, and were also retaliating against officers, soldiers and public officials who had worked for the Afghan Government. "We are helpless, very helpless, very helpless. I kept telling the media, international organizations, and everyone I had access to on the ground in Afghanistan. I really hope someone can save them. Emile said as he propped his arms up on the couch and covered his tearful eyes with his palms.

Thomas Barfield, an anthropologist at Boston University who studies Afghanistan, told Caixin that the Taliban's verbal commitment not only needs time to verify, but also may have an implementation "gap" between the upper and lower levels - "the Taliban leadership in Doha may have promised so." But what do their local fighters in Afghanistan think? ”

Barfield also commented on the security assurances that the Taliban's top brass have made to neighboring countries, including China, that the Taliban will not allow "our territory to be used against anyone or any country in the world," Barfield also commented, "Some of the promises they [the Taliban] cannot keep — for example, they don't really control a lot of extremist groups that live in Afghanistan but are organizationally originating outside the country." ”

Zhu Yongbiao, director of the Afghanistan Research Center at Lanzhou University, analyzed to Caixin that the "sustainability" of the Taliban's series of commitments may not be too strong. Because ultra-conservative ideology is actually an important basis for the Taliban's movement potential and political legitimacy, "if it is revised too much, it will also affect its survival and rule."

Since The father of Afghan independence, King Amanoura, first tried to modernize in the 1920s, in the past century, afghanistan's urban and rural areas have not been separated from the duality of modernization and religious conservative ideology.

Barfield pointed out that the urban values introduced by every foreign invader, from the Soviet Union to the United States, were met with stubborn resistance from traditional conservatives such as the Taliban. The modernization process introduced by this external force ultimately failed to stabilize at the political and social levels.

"In Afghanistan, where every regime tries to impose its values on all its people, but the government is always powerless to make fundamental changes across the country, this game becomes a cyclical, long-term model."

In the view of the American scholar, who has gone deep into the fieldwork of Afghanistan, the post-2001 US-led political reconstruction of Afghanistan is a "lost opportunity." Due to the lack of understanding of Afghanistan's diverse and complex tribal and existing urban and rural social structures, the United States has mistakenly pursued a strong centralized government in Afghanistan according to the Western model. But in terms of the effectiveness of state governance, "Afghanistan would have had the opportunity to have a government that was more 'messier' but could function more stably." ”

In an exclusive interview with CGTN, Javid Ahmad Qaem, the Afghan ambassador to China appointed by the former government, also pointed out in an exclusive interview with CGTN that although the Taliban are familiar with the mentality and ideas of the people in Afghanistan's vast rural areas, they must also learn more about the changes in the thinking of the people in the urban areas in the future and integrate them into the future governance and policy formulation framework. Otherwise, even if the Taliban are in power, they risk repeating the difficulties and challenges encountered by the democratically elected Afghan government over the past 20 years.

Since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, Afghanistan's population and social openness process have flourished. Not only in Kabul, but even in smaller cities, women hold public positions. Mobile phones and social media have become a common way of life in Afghan society, and communication networks have penetrated into many rural areas.

The share of educated young people in Afghanistan and their social influence have increased significantly compared to 2001.

At the time of the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, Afghanistan had a population of only about 21 million. By 2019, the population of Afghanistan exceeded 38 million.

This means that nearly half of the population has not experienced the harsh rule of the Taliban when it last came to power, and has taken for granted many of the modernization measures that have flowed over the past 20 years.

Barfield said the Taliban, who will come back to power in the future, need to adapt to these new realities, "if the Taliban regime alienates these young people — the majority of the population , leaving them feeling like they don't have any future, it could cause political upheaval." Today's Afghan women are more likely than ever to rise up again when they face oppression. (End)

For more coverage, see Caixin's special report: Critical Moments in Afghanistan

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