Is the world becoming too naive in its approach to the Taliban?

Many of the Taliban's most repressive laws affect women. Talib Jariwala/Reuters

Almost a year has passed since the fall of my homeland to the Taliban. While the militant group and its allies celebrate a year of triumph, and the US and Nato pause for a moment of reflection, the people of Afghanistan, especially brave Afghan women, mark a year of toil, tears and horror that does not seem to have an ending any time soon.

This time last year I thought we could still reach peace. As a member of the peace talks delegation of the former Afghan Republic, my colleagues and I were hopeful for a settlement. After all, we naively believed in the narrative that was created for us. We were told that the “Taliban 2.0” is a changed group. Our international colleagues, who had met Taliban leaders in Doha reassured us that the militant group’s ideology on women’s rights had evolved.

Taliban leaders were also quick to seize newfound fame, repeating the narrative that they had changed their position on all issues, especially women’s rights. They even approached the four female members of our delegation to convince us. A senior Taliban negotiator reiterated to me in person that a “Taliban 2.0” regime would allow women to hold high political offices, including the office of prime minister.

To convince the world, other senior Taliban figures, including the leader of the Haqqani Network, a particularly conservative element within the organisation, even went as far as publishing an op-ed in The New York Times, spewing words of hope for the formation of “an inclusive political system in which the voice of every Afghan is reflected and where no Afghan feels excluded”.

Military leaders attend a flag-lowering ceremony in Afghanistan on June 24, 2021 as the UK’s contribution in the country draws to a close. A number of troops were to remain to offer diplomatic assurance to the international community in Kabul. Getty Images

A member of the Afghan security personnel looks distraught as he stands guard at the site of a car bomb explosion near the defence minister's home in Kabul, on August 4, 2021. AFP

Security officials inspect the scene of an attack on Dawa Khan Menapal, the head of the Afghan government's information centre, in Kabul on August 6, 2021. Taliban militants shot him dead. EPA

People are stranded at the Pakistani-Afghan border which has been closed by the Taliban, who have taken control of the Afghan side, on August 9, 2021. EPA

US special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad (2nd L) arrives at a hotel in Qatar's capital Doha for a meeting on the escalating conflict in Afghanistan, on August 10, 2021. AFP

Taliban fighters driving through Herat, Afghanistan's third-biggest city, on August 13, 2021 after under-siege government forces had pulled out the previous day. AFP

Taliban militants gather in the main square after taking control of Kandahar, Afghanistan, on August 13, 2021. The fall of Kandahar came hours after the Taliban had captured Herat. EPA

Afghanistan's president Ashraf Ghani and acting defence minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi visit military corps in Kabul on August 14, 2021. Reuters

Internally displaced families from northern provinces, who fled from their homes due to the fighting between Taliban and Afghan security forces, take shelter in a public park in Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 14, 2021. EPA

People at the border checkpoint at Chaman, Pakistan on August 15, 2021. Pakistani authorities had reopened the frontier with Afghanistan on August 13 after several days of closure. EPA

Afghan police on duty on August 15, 2021 after the Taliban had taken over Kandahar. The militants have by this stage reached the outskirts of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. EPA

Ahmadullah Muttaqi, the Taliban's director for information and culture, talks to journalists after the government in Kandahar had surrendered to the militants. EPA

Taliban fighters and local people sit on an Afghan National Army armoured vehicle on a street in Jalalabad province on August 15, 2021. AFP

Afghan families flee Kabul on August 15, 2021. The Taliban said they do not intend to enter Kabul 'by force or war, but to negotiate with the other side to enter peacefully". Getty Images

Tens of thousands of people attempt to flee Afghanistan to escape the hardline rule expected under the Taliban, on August 15, 2021. AFP

Taliban fighters take control of the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul, after the president Ashraf Ghani had fled the country, on August 15, 2021. AP

Hundreds of people run alongside a US Air Force transport plane on the runway of the international airport in Kabul on August 16, 2021, desperate to escape the Taliban capture of their country. Some held on to the jet as it took off and fell to their death. AP

Thousands of Afghans rush to the Hamid Karzai International Airport as they try to flee the Afghan capital of Kabul, on August 16, 2021. Getty Images

A US soldier points his gun at a man at Kabul airport on August 16, 2021, after a swift end to Afghanistan's 20-year war. Thousands of people mobbed the airport in a bid to flee. AFP

Crowds on the tarmac of Kabul International Airport, Afghanistan, on August 16, 2021. EPA

People clamber on top a plane at the Kabul airport on August 16, 2021. AFP

These Afghan passengers made it. They sit inside a plane and wait to leave Kabul. AFP

Afghan women, holding placards, gather to demand the protection of women's rights in front of the Presidential Palace in Kabul, on August 17, 2021. Getty Images

British citizens living in Afghanistan board a military plane to leave Kabul Airport, on August 16, 2021. Reuters

Luggage belonging to Afghan people, who were waiting to be evacuated. at the site of two suicide bombs, which killed scores of people including 13 US troops, at Kabul airport on August 27, 2021. AFP

Afghans, including those who worked for the US, Nato, the European Union and the United Nations, wait outside Hamid Karzai International Airport to flee the country, after Taliban took control of Kabul, on August 17, 2021. EPA

People queue at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border point in Chaman on August 17, 2021 to cross back to Afghanistan. AFP

People wait to board a French military transport plane on August 17, 2021 to escape Kabul and Taliban rule. AFP

Zabihullah Mujahid, Taliban spokesman, gives his first press conference in Kabul on August 17, 2021. The new leadership said it would not seek revenge on those who had fought against them and would protect the rights of Afghan women within the rules of Sharia. EPA

Young men who say they deserted the Afghan military trudge through the countryside in Tatvan, eastern Turkey, on August 17, 2021. Turkey was concerned about increased migration across the Iranian border as Afghans fled from the Taliban. AP

A young demonstrator at a vigil in support of Afghanistan at the West Los Angeles Federal Building, California on August 17, 2021. EPA

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan holds a press briefing to talk about the recent events in Afghanistan, at the White House on August 17,2021. EPA

A Taliban fighter walks past a beauty salon with images of women defaced using spray paint in Shar-e-Naw in Kabul on August 18, 2021. AFP

People among the first evacuees from Kabul, arrive at Frankfurt International Airport in western Germany in the early hours of August 18, 2021. AFP

A transport plane evacuating refugees out of Afghanistan lands at Al Maktoum International Airport in Dubai, August 19, 2021. Pawan Singh / The National

Afghanistan's former president Ashraf Ghani talks in video message, somewhere in the UAE, on August 18, 2021, in his first media appearance since the fall of Kabul only days earlier. Reuters

Displaced children wait for the next flight at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul on August 19, 2021. AFP

An Afghan man waves a national flag to celebrate the 102nd Independence Day of Afghanistan in Kabul on August 19, 2021, days after the Taliban's military takeover of the country. AFP

The US military helps to reunite families at Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 20, 2021. AFP

A US Marine comforts an infant while they wait for the mother during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 21, 2021. Reuters

New personnel in the Afghan security forces take part in military training in Panjshir province on August 21, 2021. AFP

US President Joe Biden speaks to his national security team during a briefing on the situation in Afghanistan, on August 22, 2021, in Washington. AFP

Mexico's Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard welcomes members of Afghanistan's robotics team after arriving in Mexico to apply for humanitarian status on August 24, 2021. Reuters

Belongings of Afghan people, who were evacuated from Kabul, are laid on the ground at Torrejon Military Air Base on August 24, 2021 in Madrid. Getty Images

Volunteers and medical staff unload bodies from a pickup truck outside a hospital after two powerful explosions, which killed at least six people, outside the airport in Kabul on August 26, 2021. AFP

Flag-draped coffins of service members killed in action are loaded on to a transport aircraft during a ramp ceremony at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 27, 2021. Reuters

Afghan evacuees at the Emirates Humanitarian City, Abu Dhabi, on August 28, 2021. Victor Besa / The National

Smoke billows after an explosion near the Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul on August 29, 2021. EPA

A vigil for Max Soviak, one of 13 US service members killed in the airport suicide bombing in Afghanistan's capital Kabul, in Berlin Heights, Ohio on August 29, 2021. Reuters

A Taliban member stands guard near a vehicle which was used to fire rockets at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 30, 2021. EPA

World Health Organisation supplies land in Afghanistan. Photo: WHO

Major Gen Chris Donahue, commander of the US Army 82nd Airborne Division, XVIII Airborne Corps, boards a C-17 cargo plane at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 30, 2021. His departure closes the US mission to evacuate US citizens, Afghan Special Immigrant Visa applicants and vulnerable Afghans. AFP

Fireworks after the last US aircraft took off from the airport in Kabul early on August 31, 2021, signalling its complete withdrawal after 20 years in the country. AFP

Afghans wait for the banks to open in Kabul on August 31, 2021. AFP

An Afghan Air Force A-29 attack aircraft inside a hangar at the airport in Kabul on August 31, 2021, after the US pulled all its troops out of the country. AFP

Taliban fighters sit in the cockpit of an Afghan Air Force aircraft at the airport in Kabul on August 31, 2021. AFP

An Afghan resistance movement and anti-Taliban uprising forces rest as they patrol on a hilltop in Panjshir province on September 1,2021. Panjshir remains the last major holdout of anti-Taliban forces led by Ahmad Massoud, son of the famed mujahideen leader Ahmed Shah Massoud. AFP

The UAE sends a plane carrying urgent medical and food aid to Afghanistan, as part of its contribution to provide the basic and necessary needs of thousands of Afghan families, especially the most vulnerable groups such as women, children and the elderly, September 3, 2021. Wam

Afghan women's rights defenders and civil activists protest to call on the Taliban for the preservation of their achievements and education, in front of the presidential palace in Kabul on September 3, 2021. Reuters

The main money exchange market in Kabul reopens on September 4, 10 days after the Taliban takeover. Currency dealers have been hit hard by the fall in value of the Afghani currency. EPA

Passengers board a plane as domestic flights resume across Afghanistan, at Ahmad Shah Baba International Airport in Kandahar on September 5, 2021. EPA

Protesters reflected in the sunglasses of a demonstrator during a rally in support of Afghanistan's people after the takeover of the country by the Taliban, at the Place de la Republique, in Paris on September 5, 2021. AFP

A Taliban fighter stands guard at a market in Kabul on September 5, 2021. AFP

A suspected ISIS member sits blindfolded in a Taliban Special Forces' car in Kabul on September 5, 2021. Reuters

Children stand outside the former US embassy in Kabul where the banner of the 'Islamic Emirate' has replaced previous murals, on September 8, 2021. Stefanie Glinski for The National

A veiled student speaks to a gathering of female students before a pro-Taliban rally at the Shaheed Rabbani Education University in Kabul on September 11, 2021. AFP

Taliban fighters take a selfie after they stormed and overran the home of the Afghan warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum in the Sherpur neighborhood of Kabul. on September 11, 2021. AFP

Members of Afghanistan's national girls football team arrive at the Pakistan Football Federation in Lahore on September 15, 2021, a month after the hardline Taliban swept back into power. AFP

Afghan students separated by a partition attend a class at Mirwais Neeka University in Kandahar on September 20, 2021. The Taliban had officially announced the segregation of male and female students in all government and private universities. EPA

A young girl from Afghanistan hides under a truck carrying fruit and vegetables as she attempts to smuggle herself over the border from Afghanistan into Pakistan on September 12, 2021. Everyday dozens of children from Afghanistan smuggle themselves over the border into Pakistan to sell Paan and other goods before smuggling themselves back again. At least one child is injured each day trying to cross the border like this. Oliver Marsden for The National

Afghan girls at a school in Kandahar on September 26, 2021. AFP

Afghans gather outside the passport office after Taliban officials announced they will start issuing passports to its citizens again, in Kabul, October 6, 2021. Reuters

Sohail Ahmadi, an Afghan baby boy who went missing during the disordered evacuation process in Kabul after the takeover by the Taliban in August 2021, is reunited with his grandfather and aunt on January 10, 2022. EPA

Zakia, an economics student who dropped out of university after the Taliban took power, at her home on the outskirts of Kabul on January 24, 2022. AFP

A burqa-clad woman walks along a street in Kabul on May 7, 2022. The Taliban had just imposed some of the harshest restrictions on Afghanistan's women since they seized power, ordering them to cover fully in public, ideally with the traditional burqa. AFP

An Afghan vendor displays a burqa at his shop at Mandawi market in Kabul on May 8, 2022. AFP

Khatira Ahmadi (L) and Tehmina (R), Afghan presenters at Tolo TV, read news at the studio in Kabul on May 23. Female television presenters and reporters in Afghanistan appeared with their faces covered to comply with a mandate issued by the Taliban. EPA

Afghan women prisoners in Kandahar on July 26. EPA

This false narrative was amplified by scores of Taliban sympathisers and supporters, deceptively disguised as women’s rights activists, who poured into Doha from their homes in the US and Europe to give credibility to the Taliban’s “changed” position. They launched a public relations campaign, publishing articles that painted “Taliban 2.0” as having gone through a radical transformation, even claiming that they would even allow women to lead prayers.

Given the prevalence of this narrative, my colleagues and I, up until the last moments of that fateful day, August 15, 2021, were cautiously optimistic that we could save the achievements that our nation made since 2001. We failed because of the leadership of the former Afghan government, which chose to flee so suddenly at the last minute. We lost because the US and our international allies chose to pull their troops out without a peace settlement. And more importantly, we faltered because of our own mistakes, failures and beliefs in the narrative that was created for us.

So, where are we a year later?

There is no inclusive political system. It’s a government of the Taliban, by the Taliban and for the Taliban, ruling harshly and using violence and force rather than governing by consensus.

Taliban rulers have banned millions of Afghan teenage girls from school, destroying the hopes of an entire generation, yet again. Afghan women are banned from working in the justice sector. And as I am writing this, female teachers at one of my schools inside Afghanistan told me that the Taliban have just informed them that girls who are already high school graduates and who are taking university entrance exams are banned from selecting engineering, law, fine arts and other humanities and science schools.

The Taliban has abolished the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. Although it was a largely symbolic government institution created in 2001, it was still a place of solace where women could speak up. In its place, the militant group has resurrected its notorious Ministry of Vice and Virtue, which operates as the Taliban’s Gestapo, enforcing their ideology of darkness, brutally imposing further bans and restrictions on Afghan women.

Hundreds of Afghan girls who came out to protest for their basic rights in the aftermath of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan have been disappeared, jailed, humiliated or forced into exile. According to the latest Amnesty International report, they have cracked down on Afghan women protestors using widespread torture, arbitrary arrests and detentions and physical and psychological abuse.

Since taking over Afghanistan, the Taliban’s obsession with banning and restricting women has been relentless. While the country is reeling from a humanitarian catastrophe, Taliban leaders have been issuing more edicts, totalling 28 so far and counting, to restrict and ban women from almost every sphere of life. The Taliban’s Supreme Leader has also abolished “man-made” laws, taking away the last remaining liberties of Afghans, especially women.

And while Afghanistan under the Taliban is fast sliding into the age of darkness, the world is struggling to find a solution.

The education of girls in Afghanistan is under huge threat. AP

Some argue for more aid to prevent the ongoing humanitarian disaster. This is a short-term solution but a long-term problem. More aid, while critical to saving lives, could also help sustain the Taliban’s new repressive regime.

Others, especially those who tacitly advocated for the Taliban during Doha peace talks last year, argue for removing sanctions on Taliban leaders and unfreezing the funds of Afghanistan’s Central Bank, which are held in the US. Unless there is an international mechanism in which this money is used to support the people through international organisations, falling for this argument will only bolster the Taliban’s ranks and will give away the last cards of leverage to force the militant group into genuinely changing.

There are also some who argue that more engagement with the Taliban will bring about their change. I heard this argument during the Doha peace talks. While I support conditions-based engagement that yields actionable results, I am against endless talks that are focused on issues raised by the Taliban solely. I also harbour strong doubts as to whether the current format of talking to the Taliban will lead to something tangible. From my perspective, the world has given too much to the Taliban without getting anything major in return. This must end.

Finally, I have also heard the Taliban’s advocates arguing that without the group, Afghanistan’s only other option is ISIS. My question is why should the Afghan people have to choose between a terrible option and one that is even worse? There are already several extremist groups operating in Afghanistan, drawing inspiration from the Taliban’s victory, and are actively present, posing grave threats to neighbouring countries and beyond.

The way forward starts with Afghanistan’s political leadership.

We should establish our own narrative and take ownership of our future. We can blame the whole world for our problems, but it is us and our political leaders who are fragmented, stuck with political bickering and failing to come together. Unless Afghanistan’s existing political leadership unites and takes ownership with one single narrative, our country will always stay fragmented, ruled by militant groups whose ideology represents nothing but failure, deprivation and isolation.

The international community should work towards providing the same space for Afghanistan’s political and civil society and women’s groups that they have been giving the Taliban for several years.

The international community should also move beyond humanitarian aid. They should use whatever is left of their leverage to push for an inclusive political settlement in Afghanistan by working closely with regional countries. The international community, especially the US, should not end the travel ban on Taliban leaders, should not recognise its de facto authority and should not engage with the militant group’s leaders unless they agree to a political settlement which is inclusive of all Afghans.