We All Lost In Afghanistan – OpEd

It has been two weeks since the Taliban succeed to capture the capital of Afghanistan, but still, they failed to maintain law and order in the country. For the moment anarchic type of system is in running in Afghanistan. The takeover of Kabul by the Taliban was not expected as soon as they rapidly sized it. The fast collapse of Afghanistan shocked the world. No one can believe in presence of 300,000 Army equipped with modern NATO weapons Taliban captured Kabul and disintegrate the Army.

Now Afghanistan is preparing itself for the second round of Taliban rule. First Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. Therefore, the people have the experience of Taliban rule in Afghanistan. During their rule, they oppressed the women, deprived them from education and imposed strict sharia law over the people. Therefore the people observed Taliban on the same path. The return of these rule and regulation create kind of panic situation among the citizens. If this time again they try to impose their so-called Sharia law their rule would not be acceptable neither for the people of Afghanistan nor for the international community. After 20 years, millions of young boys and girls in the cities are seeing Taliban physically for the first time. But they have been their victims in the last 20 years, either directly or indirectly. Many of them lost their lives and money others lost their family members due to the Taliban violence.

Currently, the young generation feels that the Taliban not only captured their country. In fact, the Taliban stole their country, dreams and goals. Even they feel they have lost their own country to live.

So, we address those countries who helped Afghanistan for the last 20 years do not abandon Afghanistan in this catastrophic condition. We know and appreciate your assistance in building Afghanistan infrastructures and your investment in our security forces. We can understand that you have done all your efforts to assist us. But what happened in recent weeks made you people dishearten and you people feel all your investment gone away in short time. The reason for all these status quo is widely corruption of imposed political leaders who come from western countries. We accept all these failures. But one thing to know today about ten million boys and girls are attending schools which 40 per cent is girls. Further, about 350 thousand young boys and girls are going to universities (26 per cent are girls). There are hundreds of thousands of women are working as teachers, doctors, engineers, and so on. All these achievements have been gained through your assistance and led us to reach this stage. Unfortunately today by entering the Taliban into Kabul, these achievements are on the brink of collapse.

Though the Taliban have not clearly announced that they will allow girls to go to university and females can work under their rule. But what we know from our past experience [1996-2001] Taliban has not changed. And they play a political game to be recognized by the international community. Because last time when they had Kabul under their control they were recognized only by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirate (UAE). Under their rule, all these achievements will multiply to zero.

For instance, on the first day of their entrance in Herat city they did not allow girls to go to school, university and enter their offices. The same has happened in Kandahar, they ban three ladies from entering their office and told them there is no need to come outside for a job your, male members of the family will work instead of you. The Taliban believes that female’s education, social activity, doing jobs and political participation are against the sharia law. So, that is why there is a doubt that they may not allow females to broadly exercise their rights. Billions of dollars have been invested in these aspects. Taliban will put an end to all these achievements.

The Afghanistan National Army was one of the well-equipped and well-trained in the region. There were more than 350 thousand well-trained in ANDSF and more than 80 billion dollars were invested in this sector, but today when the Taliban captured the country, the ANDSF structure collapsed and their weapons and ammunition were taken by the Taliban. There were thousands of cars (Ranger), tanks, helicopters, which are in the hands of the Taliban. Today all the security forces of Afghanistan are collapsed and the Taliban is the only group that is responsible for the security and defence sector of Afghanistan.

Billions of dollars have been invested in equipping government institutions. But today most of them have been looted whether by the Taliban or by looters.

A huge amount of money was invested in the past four presidential and three parliament elections of Afghanistan. Taliban do not believe in elections and those monies which were invested in training and equipping elections institutions (such as AIEC and FIFA) is seemed to be wasted. Because the Taliban do not accept election and democracy. They believe that democracy and election are against sharia law.

Furthermore, there were many other sectors that billions of dollars have been invested whether for their equipment or for their skill-building. But the Taliban will put an end to them.

We can conclude that not only we (the people of Afghanistan) lost, but you; the international community and those who have been whether directly and indirectly helping Afghanistan in the past two decades, have lost as well. Yes, we all lost; a shameful, deeply and irrecoverable loss.

*About the authors:

• Abdul Hadi Sharifi is a PhD candidate at Punjabi University, Patiala, India
• Zahid Aria is a PhD candidate at Punjab University, Chandigarh, India