Report from a forgotten land
"There is hardly anyone here who doesn't want to get out," says Mohammad Zahed, who is sitting on the floor of his living room cutting up fruit for his five-year-old daughter. The topic around every table these days is how to flee daily life in Afghanistan. At the same time, the market for travel documents is booming, he says. Getting a visa for Pakistan, Iran or Kazakhstan now costs a three-digit sum.
The same applies to an Afghan passport. Zahed once worked as a communications technician for the German armed forces and U.S. troops. He installed communication lines, earning good money and making new friends. Without his expertise, the Western soldiers stationed in Afghanistan for twenty years would not have been able to communicate with each other.
Then, in August 2021, the Taliban arrived. The international troops pulled out and everything collapsed. "They shirked their responsibility," says Zahed, summing up the situation today. He means not only the general political responsibility borne by the West for the disaster but also his employers' responsibility for him.
Unlike many other so-called local staff, Zahed received no offers for evacuation. He is still living with his family in Kabul, or rather: he has gone into hiding in Kabul. As a former ally of the Western troops, he is considered an enemy and a traitor in the eyes of the new rulers.
It was only later that Zahed came to understand that he had been a part of a war-obsessed military apparatus that was never really concerned with the welfare of the Afghan people.
Afghanistan's new Islamic Emirate
For two years now, the militant Islamist Taliban have once again ruled over Afghanistan. The old army has crumbled and the republican government has fled into exile. Back in October 2001, after al-Qaida's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, U.S.-led NATO troops invaded the country and the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" fell.
The "War on Terror" began. But it in fact was waged for the most part on innocent Afghans, while many of the Taliban leaders who had been declared dead after supposedly precise counterterrorism operations by the U.S. military or CIA later turned up very much alive and celebrated their success.
Now the Taliban emirate is once again a reality that Afghans cannot escape. White flags displaying the Shahada, the Islamic creed, are omnipresent in various formats. The Taliban are said to have spent several million U.S. dollars on such flags, while the population starves and careens from one crisis to the next.
On 15 August 2023, the Taliban celebrated their "victory" over the Western troops and their Afghan allies with a propagandistic pageant, just as they did in 2022. Cavalcades of cars and motorcycles drove through the city, the Taliban waving their white flags. But they put on the show for themselves alone. Many other Afghans were practically banished to their homes.
Shops were forced to close and the streets of the capital were deserted. The new rulers are evidently afraid of the kind of bombings they themselves once perpetrated. The greatest threat is still posed by the IS cell in Afghanistan.
Sold down the river by corrupt politicians and military chiefs
Many Afghans believe that the Taliban were never actually defeated militarily. Instead, they say, the country was sold down the river through political deals, most notably a 2020 agreement reached in the Gulf emirate of Qatar between the Taliban and the Trump administration, and thanks to corrupt politicians and military chiefs.
But even if true, that circumstance does nothing to change the narrative that the new rulers want to impose. A year ago, masked extremists marched through the capital while the relatives of suicide bombers were being courted by the regime. The state radio and television station RTA, which once tried to present itself as diverse and modern, displayed an array of explosive vests, Kalashnikovs and hand grenades.
The Taliban are also busy indoctrinating children, who dream of emulating them. "When I grow up, I want to be just like my father. Someday I'll have my own unit," says Bilal, who is just eight years old. A few metres away, near the Darul Aman Palace in western Kabul, Bilal's father is patrolling the area with a few other Taliban fighters.
The Kabul summer is taking its toll on them. Passing cars are waved through with disinterest. "What else are these kids supposed to learn? Violence is everywhere here – and it will be our future," says Hakim (the name has been changed, ed.), who has now become accustomed not only to Bilal and his father, but to most Taliban fighters in the Afghan capital. In the old days, the cab driver used to hardly ever venture out of Kabul, and he avoided the areas controlled by the Taliban.
Pockets of resistance scarce
But today, no one can elude the new rulers. They control virtually the entire country and like to frequent cafes and restaurants they once blew up. Not much is happening anymore in the provinces of Baghlan and Panjshir, where some resistance fighters are said to still be holed up today.
Multiple war crimes have allegedly been committed in both regions since the Taliban took power. But independent reporting is impossible. If any journalists are even allowed into these provinces, they are accompanied by a Taliban chaperon.
Particularly in the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul, which in the 1990s became known as an anti-Taliban stronghold under the mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, the new powers that be are ruling with an iron hand, probably partly out of revenge.
During the U.S occupation of Afghanistan, several core ministries, including the ministries of defence and the interior, were dominated by Massoud's former commanders. Massoud himself was killed by al- Qaida extremists two days before the attacks on 11 September 2001. Anyone wishing to visit Panjshir province today has to face the Taliban and deal with massive surveillance.
This also applies to ordinary Afghans from other provinces. "We were questioned and ultimately had to leave," recalls Karim Mohammadi. The 25-year-old student had planned a day trip with his friends to the valley, but they were denied access by local Taliban fighters.
The people of Panjshir are practically living in an open-air prison, Mohammadi says. But many go a step further and claim that the whole of Afghanistan is now a prison. Since the return of the Taliban, the country has withdrawn again into isolation. The catastrophic humanitarian situation and economic stagnation can be felt everywhere.
Recent decree: mass closure of beauty salons
The situation is particularly bad for girls and women, whom the Taliban forbid from attending schools and universities. To make matters worse, new work bans are constantly being imposed. The recent mass closure of beauty salons sparked outrage. "I had six apprentices. I ran my salon for fifteen years. Closing now means my ruin, and not only mine," says Sharifa, in her early 50s, from western Kabul.
While a few workers are busy clearing out her salon, she struggles against her tears. Sharifa says that salons like hers not only secured the livelihood of many women and promoted their independence but were also a meeting place. The women could be amongst themselves.
Such objections leave the Taliban cold. Their paranoid guardians of public morals, constantly prowling the city on the lookout for possible "moral offences", have no sympathy for people’s difficulties. "These idiots see prostitution and moral decay everywhere," one of the workers says angrily as he helps Sharifa empty the room. Those who refuse to vacate their salons face fines and expropriation.
The extent to which this new move by the Taliban will break the backs of Afghan women is evident from the sheer number of beauty salons in Afghanistan. Until recently, several tens of thousands of them operated throughout the country. Similar to high schools and university courses for girls, salons will now continue to operate underground.
Sharifa wants to continue working – from home. "My hairdresser has already converted her house. I will continue to go to her," says Samira Rahmani, a teacher from Kabul. Then she tells of an acquaintance who is planning to flee to Pakistan: "She wants to reopen her salon there."
For Mohammad Zahed, it is clear that Afghanistan under the Taliban cannot offer his family a future. "That will never be the case. These people will never change, and I have my daughters to think of," he says. Now that the Germans have left him behind and have stopped replying to his mails, he wants to try his luck in the USA. He has already applied for an SIV – a Special Immigrant Visa – just like hundreds of thousands of other Afghans.
An old friend in the U.S. military wants to help him. "The Taliban can go ahead and have the country – along with all those who think like them," Zahed says.
© Qantara.de 2023
*All names are real except Hakim's.
Translated from the German by Jennifer Taylor