20 years ago, I smuggled myself into the Taliban's country to tell the story of women

[Abramelin]

Posted: Aug 18, 2021 4:21

Twenty years ago, almost to the day, I smuggled myself into the Taliban's Afghanistan, using my burqa to hide my video camera.

I'll never forget what it felt like to stumble across the border, cowering under my veil, trying not to stand out, knowing that women were regularly whipped for showing too much ankle or for a strand of loose hair.

For a week, I stayed in safe houses in Kabul, sheltered by a network of heroic Afghan women -- the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan.

What they showed me humbled me and changed me forever.

In one middle-class home, a female teacher was teaching 5-year-old girls to read and write. The lessons were quite ordinary -- until I realized that every single person in the room, including the children, was risking flogging or execution for what they were doing.

I was staggered that the children's parents thought it was worth the danger.

They were risking everything for what then seemed an impossible dream: a future Afghanistan where their daughters could be independent and free.

Everywhere I went, it was the same story.

I even met women who were running secret beauty salons -- even though if they'd been caught, they'd have faced horrendous sanctions.

Twenty years on, I'm still in touch with some of the women I met on that journey.

The children who risked their lives to learn to read are now educated women who have enriched every aspect of Afghan society they've touched.

There are female MPs, doctors, teachers, university lecturers, scientists and sports figures.

Afghanistan is not the same place it was 20 years ago. But there's a sickening feeling of déjà vu as I watched the ascendancy of the Taliban in recent days -- the same uneducated men lording their power over women, imposing it by means of the weaponry they carry.

I cannot believe that the US government -- the same government that boasted in February that America is back -- is allowing this to happen all over again.

Because one of the lessons I learned my stay in the Taliban's Afghanistan is that -- however rich and peaceful nations pretend they can insulate themselves from poor and turbulent ones -- in fact we are all connected.

I had barely returned from Afghanistan and finished editing my film Beneath the Veil (shown on the UK's Channel Four and CNN) when 9/11 happened.

At first, I found it hard to believe that the awful pictures I was seeing of devastation in New York City were directly linked to the horrendous oppression I had witnessed of the Afghan people under the Taliban.

It was the Taliban who sheltered al Qaeda and helped make 9/11 possible. The US reaction was swift and decisive: military force.

After not paying enough attention to Afghanistan, suddenly America was paying it too much.

Moderate voices like my friend, the mujahid commander Abdul Haq began trying to persuade Pushtun tribal leaders to hand over al Qaeda and to dismantle the Taliban peacefully.

He believed that it wasn't necessary to bomb Afghanistan to achieve that result.

Nobody got a chance to know if it would have worked.

Days later, Abdul Haq had been assassinated, as were many other moderates. Afghanistan was plunged into war again.

The Taliban were routed, a new government installed. There were scenes of rejoicing in Kabul and other cities. Afghans queued up to vote in free elections. The impossible dream of an Afghan society in which women could play a full role seemed to have come true.

But there were always problems. The Afghan army was propped up by foreign forces.

The vast amounts of aid coming into a country whose civic structure had all but collapsed caused widespread corruption -- and the huge US contracts awarded to its cronies didn't help.

A generation of Afghans had been traumatized by war. There were orphans and widows and no jobs for young men who were often forced to sign up with the local independent warlord to feed their families.

The chance the West had to rebuild infrastructure, to win hearts and minds, was squandered.

The irony is that some of the most liberal versions of Islam have always flourished in Afghanistan alongside the extreme traditionalist viewpoints.

My father was the writer Idries Shah; his family came from an Afghan Sufi tradition -- the mystical philosophical side of Islam.

For years, I've been involved with a project by the Idries Shah Foundation to distribute anthologies of Sufi stories, which stress the value of common sense, critical thinking skills, humor and women's rights.

Read the rest here.

[+OverSword]

Yep, it's a sad thing.  Too bad enough of the people of that country don't desire or have the will to fight to live differently.  They've seen how it could be and let it slip away.

[Abramelin]

9 minutes ago, OverSword said:

Yep, it's a sad thing.  Too bad enough of the people of that country don't desire or have the will to fight to live differently.  They've seen how it could be and let it slip away.

Would you let things 'slip away' while someone pointed a gun at your temple?

[+OverSword]

1 hour ago, Abramelin said:

Would you let things 'slip away' while someone pointed a gun at your temple?

We poured trillions of dollars into that country, trained their military, armed them to the teeth and showed them what life could be like if they desired it.  At some point their way of life is up to them.  They could have fought the Taliban tooth and nail but the truth is the majority of them are under educated religious fanatics that are afraid to say no to rule by hard line religious zealots.  That's not on us.

[Abramelin]

52 minutes ago, OverSword said:

  That's not on us.

Of course it's not on you.

Unless...you had been able to change the minds of those hard line religious zealots.

And for that you need more than technologically advanced weapons, or western trained psychologists.

[Earl.Of.Trumps]

For twenty years, NATO allies tried smashing a round peg into a square hole. It didn't work!
The Taliban were met by raucous crowds welcoming them in to Khost, Jalalabad and other cities.

If the West wishes to inflict its will on the Afghan people, they better have the stones to commit genocide.

  

[jmccr8]

2 hours ago, Earl.Of.Trumps said:

For twenty years, NATO allies tried smashing a round peg into a square hole. It didn't work!
The Taliban were met by raucous crowds welcoming them in to Khost, Jalalabad and other cities.

Hi Earl

Hmm, gee,...let me think for a second, oh yeah, do you think not looking enthusiastic is a healthy approach then so why not tattoo the stars and stripes on your forehead as well or yell boo when they march in and not showing up might look bad to your neighbors

[Tatetopa]

2 hours ago, jmccr8 said:

Hi Earl

Hmm, gee,...let me think for a second, oh yeah, do you think not looking enthusiastic is a healthy approach then so why not tattoo the stars and stripes on your forehead as well or yell boo when they march in and not showing up might look bad to your neighbors

That's a point.   From what I have read of defectors, North Korea is like that.

[docyabut2]

Taliban is a horrible tribe  there is a report they beheaded children

https://nypost.com/2021/09/15/ex-us-officer-claims-taliban-beheaded-two-children-in-afghanistan/

Edited September 17, 2021 by docyabut2

[jmccr8]

4 hours ago, docyabut2 said:

Taliban is a horrible tribe  there is a report they beheaded children

https://nypost.com/2021/09/15/ex-us-officer-claims-taliban-beheaded-two-children-in-afghanistan/

Hi Docyabut

This is horrible as well

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/20/19-children-are-shot-every-day-in-the-united-states/

The study, conducted by statisticians at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the University of Texas, found that roughly 7,100 children under the age of 18 were shot each year from 2012 to 2014. An average of 1,300 died of their injuries in a typical year.

That works out to 19 children shot every single day in the course of a year — or 3.5 children killed by guns every single day.

https://www.childrensdefense.org/state-of-americas-children/soac-2021-gun-violence/

Even before COVID-19, another epidemic was killing our children at higher rates: gun violence. Gun violence was the leading cause of death for all children and teens ages 1-19 in 2018, surpassing motor vehicle accidents for the first time in history.1 Children and teens are far more likely to die from gunfire than COVID-19,2 yet our leaders continue to allow gun violence to go uncurbed and gun laws to go unchanged.

After years of congressional inaction, a growing number of children are paying with their lives. In 2019, 3,371 American children and teens were killed with guns—enough to fill more than 168 classrooms of 20 (see Table 35).

• Child and teen gun deaths hit a 19-year high in 2017 and have remained elevated since.3
• In 2019, nine children and teens were killed with guns each day in America—one every 2 hours and 36 minutes.4
• Guns killed more children and teens than cancer, pneumonia, influenza, asthma, HIV/AIDs, and opioids combined.5
• While mass shootings grabbed fleeting public and policymaker attention, routine gunfire took the lives of more children and teens every week than the Parkland, Sandy Hook, and Columbine massacres combined.
• Since 1963, nearly 193,000 children and teens have been killed with guns on American soil—more than four times the number of U.S. soldiers killed in action in the Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq wars combined.6

Shamefully, gun deaths reflect only part of the devastating toll of America’s growing gun violence epidemic. Many more children and teens are injured than killed with guns each day in our nation.

• For every child or teen fatally shot, another 5 suffered non-fatal gunshot wounds.7
• An estimated 16,644 children and teens were injured with guns in 2018—one every 32 minutes.8

Gun violence affects all children, but children of color, boys, and older youth are at greatest risk.

 

[Abramelin]

Jay, what you posted is truelly bad. But I consider what Docy posted a different kind of bad.

The word "evil" comes to mind.

[Earl.Of.Trumps]

On 9/16/2021 at 2:28 AM, Tatetopa said:

That's a point.   From what I have read of defectors, North Korea is like that.

I'm glad you could figure out what he said because I surer than heck can't