“I think it is a human thing, it’s an ethical issue, it’s a moral issue, not to turn our backs on the people of Afghanistan and not to allow them to be prisoners of this country. Because the violence and the devastation is going to spill over and it already has”.
I sat down for an interview with Berkeley Professor and author of “Islam Explained” Ahmad Rashid Salim— a man of Afghan descent specializing in Middle Eastern studies.
After the 6.3 magnitude earthquakes late last year killing over 2,000 people— 90% women and children— and the distressingly slow recovery process, it was clear the region had deeper issues than the natural disaster itself.
“We have been looking under every rock and stone around us, but there is still no sign of her . . . I am digging this ruined land by myself to find my little girl,” a father still frantically looking for his child told NPR weeks after the earthquake.
I asked Salim what the failed response by the Taliban tells us about its shortcomings as a government— “It tells us everything we need to know. The fact that the majority killed in these earthquakes were women and children tells you of the imprisonment of women and children in Afghanistan . . .
Most of the initial responses were done by civilians themselves and non-governmental aid groups, including various Muslim charities. We have sufficient evidence that shows aid was diverted and most of it wasn’t received. We are months after the earthquake and the vast majority of these individuals have not been resettled anywhere. Many of them talk about how they don’t have access to sanitation, how women don’t have access to sanitary items, how women don’t have access to a place to bathe. There are tremendous problems that are taking place.”
He continued noting that the lack of machinery and efficiency was not due to any shortage of government funding, but the negligence of the Taliban itself –“Their focus isn’t on governance, their focus isn’t on meeting the needs of the civilian population, their focus is on absolute control.”
Afghanistan is currently at one of its worst points in terms of economy, civil liberties and safety. Today, at least two-thirds of the Afghan population live off humanitarian aid and assistance, 15 million facing food insecurity. Over 800,000 children under the age of 5 require life-saving treatment due to malnutrition. Now thousands are dead or displaced from the earthquakes— the country’s economy also shrinking by 25% the past 2 years, dependent mainly on humanitarian aid. Since the government take-over in 2021, over 1,000 civilians have been reported killed by the Taliban.
Salim and I discussed the rise of the Taliban after the bloody Russian invasion and civil war that killed up to 25,000 civilians, the period under US occupation and the Taliban’s full resurgence in 2021.
He explained the initial response of the civilian population during the first Taliban take over in 1996– “They thought the civil war has come to an end and we are going to have a relatively peaceful government who is going to work on establishing a normal kind of state for us. But pretty soon they realized the Taliban represented a very extreme and very foreign interpretation of Islam.
They saw tremendous repression when it came to personal rights . . . such as girls and women being denied access to education, women being forced to wear the Burqa, men were forced to grow beards . . . television and radio completely banned except for the Taliban’s propaganda channel.
Things you would find to be very normal were also banned. For example, children were not allowed to fly kites. The institutionalization of very extreme brainwashing programs for children in various religious seminaries were put in place . . . People were regularly beaten, people were regularly tortured, especially individuals from other ethnic groups– non Pashtuns– as Afghanistan is made up of various ethnic groups and the Taliban are a majority Pashtun group.”
He went on to detail the good and bad elements of the Republic era from 2004-2021, during the US presence— “In the context of the economy, the economy was at its strongest, in the context of personal rights, personal rights were the most vibrant that the country has ever experienced and with respect to the hopefulness, people were very hopeful for a future. Young people in particular were working toward what they hoped would be a new Afghanistan.”
Describing this period as a renaissance of education, free press, economic development and a more representative and tolerant transitional government, he noted however, that “starting in 2005-2021, there was a lot of armed violence that was being inflicted on the population by groups such as the Taliban and other terrorist groups,” including suicide bombings targeting mosques, schools, journalists and government officials.
Due to this war, an estimated 70,000 civilians were killed between 2001-2021, the direct result of the fighting between the Taliban and US funded militant groups, many including the intentional targeting of civilians.
He contrasted the main issues between the Republic era and Taliban rule—“The corruption was both present during the time of the Republic but also during the time of the Taliban as well, the difference being that during the time of the Republic people had freedoms and rights and there were methods to address it even if those things weren’t effective. But now none of those things exist, you just have the gun.”
Today under a new Taliban rule that promised to be more inclusive and tolerant “What has happened since August 2021 is that the country has zero political freedom. Taliban 2.0, as it is referred to, is worse than Taliban 1.0 because they are more tech savvy . . . It has now been two years and the Taliban has promised that they are not against women’s education, that they are not against the free press, that they believe in an inclusive government. None of those things have happened. The economy is completely destroyed, women are regularly kidnapped and tortured in the country and there is evidence that shows that various terror groups are once again active in Afghanistan.
Prior to the genocide taking place against the Palestinians in Gaza, the conclusion of the United Nations was that the worst place to be a child is Afghanistan and the worst place to be a woman is Afghanistan.”
“I see a lot of people that take the position of supporting the Taliban saying the US wreaked havoc on the civilian population as well and should have never intervened. Would you say the US bears any of the responsibility for what’s happening in Afghanistan and should they help the Afghan people through this period,” I asked.
“The violence from the United States deserves its own condemnation and deserves its own discussion. But the violence of the United States does not justify the violence and targeting of civilian populations of the Taliban. This is a very important distinction because a lot of times people try to bring up this point to generate a whataboutism or excuse or erase the violence and the irresponsibility that the Taliban had in the murder of tens of thousands of individuals.
Now with respect to the responsibility of the United States towards the people of Afghanistan, absolutely the United States bears responsibility, the United States bears responsibility for funding extremist groups in the past, the United States bears responsibility for signing the Doha agreement with the Taliban and essentially saying we don’t care. So all these claims around Democracy and women’s rights and education, you don’t hear a peep from the elected officials in the United States.”
“Are there any short or long term solutions or anything word leaders or citizens can do to stop these terrible living circumstances? Would a similar attention to this as there is to Gaza right now help the case of the Afghan population?”
“You bring up a really great point and that is that there is a lack of equal consideration for the plight of the people of Afghanistan and others. If you look at the very extreme, horrific violence that the Palestinians have endured and the genocide that they are currently enduring, as horrific and as heartbreaking as it is, the one thing that is very much comforting is that you do see the vast majority of citizens of the world accept and call for a ceasefire in the recognition that it’s a genocide.
However, what’s happening in Afghanistan is that there’s so much disinformation that it is made to seem there are no issues with the country— the bad things are done, there is peace in the country now, everything is fine, so we shouldn’t really care or just give them time. It’s their own internal issues, they’ll figure it out.
You can’t give both the gun and the key to the executioner and say that ‘well, there is peace in the jail’.”
He concluded “International pressure, awareness and solidarity around the plight and the needs and the oppression of the people of Afghanistan is one way we could move towards a solution, because as long as people say everything is fine in Afghanistan, nothing is going to happen. There needs to be intense pressure to dislocate the Taliban, preventing funding and preventing arms.
The people of Afghanistan are normal just like the people of the rest of the world. People want the same things. People want a roof over their heads, safety in movement, access to resources. And for the people of Afghanistan it’s the same.
You see heartbreaking videos and heartbreaking testimonies of fathers breaking down because they can’t provide for their family, of little girls breaking down because of lack of access to education, of women breaking down because they were forced to shut down their business. These are horrible things, these are not things that should be denied and excused away, these are realities.”
I myself before this interview paid little attention to the suffering of the Afghan people. I fell into the similar pitfalls of hesitancy in criticizing a group that outwardly claims to believe what I and 1.8 billion Muslims in the world believe.
In reality, “With respect to Islam . . . the vast majority of people in Afghanistan [are] Muslim. This land has existed under various names and these people have existed under various identifications. Islam came to this region in the 7th and 8th century.
So the idea that the Taliban represents Islam is a very strange thing,” Salim emphasized.
It is not in spite of but precisely because we are Muslim that we must call for what’s right, no matter who the perpetrator is, each of us commanded to do so by our Lord–
۞ يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ كُونُوا۟ قَوَّٰمِينَ بِٱلْقِسْطِ شُهَدَآءَ لِلَّهِ وَلَوْ عَلَىٰٓ أَنفُسِكُمْ أَوِ ٱلْوَٰلِدَيْنِ وَٱلْأَقْرَبِينَ ۚ إِن يَكُنْ غَنِيًّا أَوْ فَقِيرًۭا فَٱللَّهُ أَوْلَىٰ بِهِمَا ۖ فَلَا تَتَّبِعُوا۟ ٱلْهَوَىٰٓ أَن تَعْدِلُوا۟ ۚ وَإِن تَلْوُۥٓا۟ أَوْ تُعْرِضُوا۟ فَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ كَانَ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ خَبِيرًۭا ١٣٥“O you who have believed, be persistently standing firm in justice, witnesses for Allāh, even if it be against yourselves or parents and relatives. Whether one is rich or poor, Allāh is more worthy of both. So follow not [personal] inclination, lest you not be just. And if you distort [your testimony] or refuse [to give it], then indeed Allāh is ever, of what you do, Aware. (Qur’an, 4:135)