The Taliban's new regulations have attracted opponents. There were protests in universities and on the streets, but the scale was not large. More opposition voices came from outside. Even Saudi Arabia, which is famous for being too harsh on women, expressed shock, not to mention Western countries. The spokesperson of the White House in the United States bluntly shouted to the Taliban. If you do this, you will not be recognized by the world or return to the United Nations. The Taliban's attention has continued to decline in the year since it came to power. These two bans have allowed it to regain traffic and put itself on the opposite side of the world.
When the Taliban returned to Kabul in 2021, Shaheen, the spokesman of the organization, told reporters that they would safeguard and protect the rights and interests of women. Women can participate in social life and freely choose the style of headscarf. After the reporter returned home, he wrote furiously: The Taliban have changed and become more moderate. The future of Afghanistan is worth looking forward to. However, in the past year, not a single lesbian has entered the Taliban's government agencies to work, and the promises once sworn have not been fulfilled. What they did at the end of December proved that the Taliban has not changed, and it is still the same as it was 26 years ago.
(Taliban Spokesperson)
26 years ago, in 1996, the Taliban entered the capital Kabul after defeating other warlords and raised the flag of the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" for the first time. The Taliban at that time made no secret of its extremism and immediately locked all Afghan women in their homes and prohibited all girls from going to school. Today's Taliban treats women the same as the Taliban in the past. The difference is that this time the ban came later than last time. The Taliban used practical actions to show that the ban on women will only be extended, not absent.
Human society has entered 2022, and the Taliban is still promulgating policies that go against modern civilization. Depriving Afghan women of their right to education is not good for Afghanistan’s social development, nor is it good for the Taliban’s external image. Don’t the Taliban have these obvious problems in mind? Of course the Taliban know what they are doing, but they are not fooling around. As the saying goes, there must be monsters when things go wrong. We cannot understand because we do not understand Afghanistan. Afghanistan is well-known due to years of war, but familiarity does not mean understanding. Afghanistan is just a "familiar stranger" to many people.
There are some key data that must be listed. Afghanistan has a total population of approximately 32.2 million, including 7.7 million urban residents, 23 million rural residents, and 1.5 million people living a nomadic life. In this set of data, the urban population only accounts for 24% of the total population. According to statistics in 2021, Afghanistan's urbanization rate is only 26.3%. The above data tells us that nearly 80% of Afghans live in rural areas. Rural people's views on women represent the majority of Afghans' views on women. Rural people are the group that the Taliban should focus on, not urban people.
(There are no women in the Taliban government)
Afghanistan has a very long history, but its nation-building has failed. What does it mean? This means that most Afghans first consider themselves to be members of a certain tribe rather than Afghans, and they do not yet have a clear concept of country in their hearts. In all 34 provinces of Afghanistan, tribes are still the main body maintaining grassroots governance, and the influence of large families in the local areas cannot be shaken. After the U.S. military drove away the Taliban in 2001, it worked hard in Afghanistan for 20 years, trying to establish a modern government at the grassroots level to replace the backward tribal system. With the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2021, this attempt completely failed and went bankrupt.
Places outside the capital of Afghanistan rely on tribes and large families to exercise autonomy, so the Taliban entrenched in the capital Kabul is a bit like the federal government of the United States, and the entire Afghanistan is like an alternative " federalism ", Talli If Ban wants to promote a certain policy across the country, he must rely on the tribes in various places. The Taliban must respect the tribe's culture, rules, and demands rather than violate them. The relationship between the two parties is the so-called "central-local relationship." Now it seems that the rights of Afghan women have become victims of the central-local relationship. This cannot be entirely blamed on the Taliban.
First of all, the social structure of Afghanistan is a classic patriarchal society. In a large family, older men have absolute authority, and women's rights are severely restricted or even completely deprived. In Afghanistan’s tribal culture, women and children are not even viewed as full human beings, but as property, especially property belonging to men. Among the Pashtun tribe with the greatest influence in Afghanistan, women are like a "resource". It is a violation of the rules left by our ancestors to allow women to appear in public, receive education, and then go into society to constantly move closer to the status of men. Therefore, the biggest obstacle to preventing Afghan women from going to school is not the Taliban, but traditional culture. If the Taliban does not want to be abandoned by the tribe, they must respect that culture.
Secondly, there is a "purdah system" in the Pashtun culture of Afghanistan. This system forces women to stay at home for many years to have children and take care of housework, and cannot go out alone. It is simply equivalent to a gender segregation system. Men regard this rule as women's honor and dignity, and it protects women from infringement. With this system, men have a legal basis to control women. They maintain men's authority by restricting women from entering the public sphere, thus forming a male-dominated society. In recent decades, Afghanistan has received a lot of external impacts, but they have mainly focused on the field of killing and killing. So far, the bad culture of imprisoning women has not been shaken.
(Before the ban, male and female college students attended classes separately)
Third, the influence of Islamic religious culture is everywhere. 99% of people in Afghanistan believe in Islam . The influence of the religious code of conduct is second only to the Pashtun tribal code. The religious code of conduct requires women to stay at home and not go out. They should wash and cook, raise children, control desires, and be honest throughout their lives. Men are responsible for all household expenses. When facing controversy in 1998, the then Taliban Deputy Minister of Education Shashi Qir said that the Qur'an stated that women should "stay in your homes" and the Prophet used an imperative tone, so this was non-negotiable and they could not work or study.
Once they receive education, Afghan women's ideas change. They enter society and have independent economic capabilities, which will impact the traditional "men's society", which makes Afghan men who have not yet progressed feel panic. Although the Taliban prohibits women from receiving education and participating in the workforce, those who oppose it are only a minority. Most Afghan women live in rural areas, and they do not have the ability or consciousness to oppose it. On this issue, the Taliban needed to take into account both urban and rural areas, and finally decided to sacrifice the minority to achieve the majority. This is an inevitable choice for any powerful organization.
Afghan girls were allowed to go to school as early as 1931. Kabul University began to enroll girls in 1950. Co-ed schools appeared in Kabul in 1958. However, in 2022, the Afghan government banned girls from enrolling. In the past 100 years, women's educational rights in Afghanistan have remained stagnant in waves. If there is a breakthrough, it will soon go back. This is not something that the rulers in Kabul can change with a ban. The Taliban will have nothing to do without breaking down the deep-rooted cultural barriers. If the Taliban allows women to work and educate, they may sooner or later be replaced by another organization.
(Urban women protesting against the Taliban)
Throughout the history of Afghanistan, the period with the highest status of women was the 20 years from 2001 to 2021, that is, the 20 years since the US military entered and occupied Afghanistan in the name of counter-terrorism.During those 20 years, the Afghan constitution provided for nine years of compulsory education and a total of 12 years of free education for all girls. Under such regulations, there were 80,000 female teachers in Afghanistan in 2018, 2.5 million female students in primary schools, and 90,000 female college students in colleges and universities. Although those 20 years were the 20 years of U.S. invasion and illegal occupation, they were indeed the 20 years of freedom for Afghan women.
However, Afghans do not want this kind of life. They support or watch the Taliban drive away the Americans, destroy the "puppet" government supported by the United States, and let the Taliban raise the white flag again in Kabul.
