Afghanistan’s self-created isolation

EDITORIAL: Nobody expected the threat of multinational legal action at the ICJ (International Court of Justice) over “contempt” for women and girls rights to rattle Afghanistan’s Taliban regime. Yet Canada, Australia, Germany and the Netherlands announced in New York that they were initiating just such proceedings, which could very well lead to a hearing in The Hague.

Kabul can and will — and indeed does — call the charges “unfounded” all it wants, but its own actions are only making it clearer by the day that it has no qualms about its treatment of women causing extreme international isolation just when the country needs the outside world and its money to manage its many, many social and economic challenges. It has undoubtedly been tightening the screws on all sorts of social freedoms for girls and women, even after initially telling the world that things would be different this time.

And even though the Taliban didn’t spring out the “law of propagation of virtue and prevention of vice” right out the door like they did last time they took power, it has been sanctioned and all but removes women from public life on the pretext of religious principles.

So, once again Afghanistan is being reduced to a society where girls cannot get education and women cannot work – or even talk other than in hushed tones outside the house – and since they are forbidden from seeing male doctors, only God can help them when they need medical assistance.

It turns out that the regime was slow in reverting to such policies from their previous term in power because of resistance from within. It’s been reported that some members of the high command did not quite agree with extremely regressive steps like denying girls the right to education. But they were slowly sidelined, and now that there’s no resistance to hardliners that surround the supreme leader in Kandahar; it’s like old times again.

Yet, importantly, this is bad news not just for girls but also the rest of Afghan society. For, sidelining girls will keep the country deprived of assistance from or interaction with the outside world. And the money that must flow into the country to relieve social pressures will be forced to stay away.

Pakistan, being Afghanistan’s only real window to the rest of the world, shares these concerns, of course. But it has other grievances as well. The Taliban have no doubt made progress in the fight against ISIS, but they never did a thing to rein in TTP (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan); despite repeated requests. Islamabad is therefore the first to realise that Kabul is not in the mood to listen to anybody, regarding anything, at least for now.

Sooner or later, though, they will realise that they have far more problems than they can solve on their own. Afghanistan is one of the poorest and least advanced countries in the world, struggling to emerge from the wreckage of decades of war and destruction, and it has no money. It also does not have the skills and/or manpower needed for the kind of reconstruction it needs. It must allow women to get educated and participate in public life not just to unlock necessary aid, but also to lift the country in the long term.

It’s a shame that people who advocated women’s education were silenced or removed from power in Afghanistan. Yet the fact that they tried, despite such little tolerance for even the slightest progressive ideals, gives hope. Their own children’s future is at stake, after all, so they must keep trying.

However, till they succeed, the Taliban will have to blame only themselves for their country’s severe isolation.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024