Afghans Face Grim Future after Taliban Takeover
By Arshad Alam, New Age Islam
16 August 2021
Women Will Be Secluded, Forced To Don the Niqab and Will
Be Kicked Out Of Work
Main Points:
• A miniscule
minority creamed itself on aid economy but the large majority of Afghans were
reeling under corruption.
• The Taliban
are welcomed because it gives the appearance of normalcy and law and order.
• Eventually
the Taliban will fail to govern as Islam cannot be expected to have all the
answers in a modern world.
• To hide
their failure, they will adopt a performative Islam in which any deviation from
the sharia will be severely punished.
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Afghan woman beheaded
by Taliban for shopping without husband / Behind Woods News Shots
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As the Taliban takes Kabul, there is a sense of déjà vu; a
familiar repetition of events, a foreboding of what might become of the
ordinary Afghans. The tragic history of this country is partly a result of its
extreme inequality. There is a tiny section, posing as champions of gender and
human rights who have made their fortunes owing to the aid economy. But this
tiny minority is completely cut off from the majority of Afghans who are trying
hard to put their body and soul together. The widespread corruption, the
absence of law and order has given the Taliban the support and legitimacy with
which it is being welcomed in many parts of the country. The projection of the
Taliban as regressive and conservative and might be functional for western
audiences, located as they are within the matrix of Orientalism, but for the
Afghans they appear to be the harbingers of peace who would at least ensure
that markets remain open and there is some kind of order in society.
One can certainly have differences with the nature of order
the Taliban want to establish. Already the signs are ominous. In parts where it
has become the ruling power, they have driven out women from public work and
have decreed that they be replaced by their husbands! Professionalism,
expertise and specialized knowledge have no merit in the eyes of the Taliban.
The logic seems to be that if a woman is able to do something, then surely men
can do it better. Moreover, they can justify their actions by citing numerous
hadiths wherein it is clearly stated that women are intellectually deficient as
compared to men. Moreover, Allah himself has made men in-charge of women.
Taliban Religious
Police Beating A Woman
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In the wake of US-Taliban accord, many had argued that the
group will adhere to the international norms of gender equality, pluralism and
democracy. Recent events have proved that all that was basically an American
spin on its badly needed exit strategy. What we have learned is that the
Taliban cannot be expected to change or compromise with their fundamental
beliefs. Inequality between sexes is one of the basic beliefs in Islam and
there is no way that the Taliban would compromise on it. Time will tell us what
position they take on modern education, especially the teaching of history and
allied social sciences. Going by its past record, the Taliban would certainly
not entertain even a liberal education. This might not affect the ordinary
Afghans for whom quality education unfortunately was never an achievable dream.
What they are more interested in is the ability to simply live a life. Till the
time the Taliban are able to provide them this sense of security, the people
will rally to support it.
We know that the Taliban will ultimately not be able to
govern a complex country like Afghanistan. The movement is particularly
ignorant about running and administering a modern economy. One remembers
vividly that when they first came to power, they appointed Muhtasibs or market
inspectors to see whether business were run in accordance with the sharia.
These inspectors were knowledgeable in the sharia but were positively ignorant
about how modern markets worked and therefore ended up doing more harm than
good. A similar experiment done by the ISIS in Syria ended up ruining the
economy. The point is that such religious orthodoxies are unable to govern and
ultimately end up ruining everything simply because Islam does not have the
answers to many demands of contemporary life.
FILE - Afghan women,
shown Nov. 19, 1996, in Kabul, wear Taliban-imposed burqas as they wait during
a winter relief distribution. Scores of poor Kabul residents, notably women,
were regularly seen huddled in front of aid agencies every day.
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Owning up one’s failure is courageous but the Taliban would
never do so as their failure would also mean the failure of the sharia. To
deflect the attention of the people, they would once again turn to
demonstrative Islam, especially in the punitive domain. In the near future, we
will see the return of public beheadings, forcible closure of schools and the
blowing up of statues, in case they still exist. These will be performances
with the express objective of captivating the minds of ordinary people by
showing them the power of Islam and what will happen to them if they disobey
the laws of the Taliban.
Getty: The Week, UK
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The Americans and others went to Afghanistan with the stated
intention of instituting democracy and promoting the empowerment of women. But
the way in which they have hurriedly exited the country lays bare that all
those promises were empty rhetoric. The west was never interested in such lofty
ideas but only occupied the country due to security concerns. Now, we are
hearing from the same forces that it is not their responsibility to effect
modern changes in a country which ‘choses’ the Taliban as their rulers. This
articulation of choice, coinciding with the exit of American forces, is a
curious one, to say the least. Is seclusion of women, the forcible adoption of
full burqa really a question of choice for millions of Afghan women? Or is it
the choice of a group of powerful men who are speaking on behalf of this
beleaguered nation?
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Arshad Alam is a columnist with NewAgeIslam.com
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/radical-islamism-jihad/afghan-taliban-takeover-women/d/125222
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