The Woke Taliban That Never Was

The U.S. said international pressure would force the Taliban to change, especially when it came to women’s rights. It was wrong.

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In a matter of just months, the Taliban’s violent sweep of Afghanistan’s provincial capitals reversed a two-decade struggle by Afghan women to equal their male counterparts in academic achievement, political influence, and basic liberties. For Pashtana Zalmai Khan Dorani, an Afghan activist and educator now exiled in Massachusetts, this reversal meant a sudden disruption in her efforts to fill the education gap that existed even pre-U.S. withdrawal.

“This is not a reality, it’s a nightmare,” Dorani recalled thinking at the time of her country’s collapse last summer. “Then it happened and we woke up to the reality.” 

After her narrow escape from Afghanistan amid Taliban death threats, Dorani adapted her approach to women’s schooling. The 24-year-old’s non-profit organization, LEARN, now provides an underground education to around 400 girls in four different regions of Afghanistan in undisclosed locations.

But at the same time that it targeted female activists like Dorani, the Taliban spent its early days as Afghanistan’s de facto sovereign trying to persuade the West that its Islamic Emirate was up to the task of governance. Central to this endeavor: paying lip service to the rights of Afghan women. 

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  1. John Daly

    Thanks for the link to LEARN, Charlotte. Any chance the Dispatch team could give that a plug in the some of the podcasts if they haven't already? It looks like their fundraiser could use some help.

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    Ben Connelly

    “The Taliban’s actions should surprise no one.”

    Exactly. The idea that the Taliban was going to respect women’s rights was always a canard. It was something to make last August’s news cycle a little more palatable to US voters who wanted to turn their faces away. The Taliban gets in power and what do they do about women’s rights? They try to have a woman murdered for creating educational opportunities for other Afghan women.

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  3. Kurt Von Fuchs

    Anyone who believed that Afghan society would change in 20 years was stupid, delusional, uneducated, or all three. Afghanistan has never really been a country. No Afghan government has had really any control hundred miles beyond Kabul. The only successful occupation was done by the Mongol empire in India, not to be confused with the Mongolian empire, and all they did was secure a few trade routes. As many of your very very smart readers have pointed out we spent 70 years in Europe and we're actually still there and Europe was an advanced place.

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    Vlad M.

    The Biden administratiob always knew the "moderate" Taliban was a lie. The Taliban are the Taliban but good ol' Joe wanted to give them a country to run. Don't worry though, he cares about women's rights.

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    Phil H

    It boggles the mind that even one administration, let alone two of opposite parties, could ever really trust the Taliban to act other than as hardcore Islamists.
    That points to the real issue. The Trump and Biden administrations both wanted out at any cost. That the cost would be paid for by Afghanistan's women, bothered no one at all.

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    Rajeev

    There's a difference between moral clarity and moral convenience. It was easy for the US to prop up their efforts on improving Afghan women's lives following the occupation of Afghanistan. However, for decades we looked the other way on horrific abuses on women from so called 'allies' such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Yemen, etc.

    If American government really cared about female rights they would leverage women's rights wherever they could. Egypt, in particular, consistently ranks the absolute worst country across many studies for the treatment of women. We looked the other way for decades and called their military alliance as indispensable.

    I'm saddened about what happened to women in Afghanistan following our withdrawal. But it also angers me when I see many neo-conservatives conveniently leave out the hideous countries we allied with over the past 50 years in order to gain strategical objectives in regards to Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, and other countries.

    The US would be better off adopting a pro-women's rights policy internationally. If that has strategical consequences so be it. They need us more than we need them.

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      David Chen

      Once you go down the road of 'realpolitik', it is hard to be the 'shining city on the hill'. Perhaps moral leadership was never a sustainable position for any country, but the only other competitor is China (HA!) or just leaving a void and accepting the dog-eat-dog world.

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    George.Skinner

    American foreign policy has often struggled with the idea that other societies don't think the same way as Americans. American exceptionalism often assumes that all other nations will want to emulate the American project. American insularity often means limited exposure to other cultures. The trick is striking a balance between American optimism in assuming that everywhere can eventually enjoy the benefits of American civilization, and the curdled realist perspective that assume that nothing can ever change. Not a lot of American administrations have gotten it right. Bush 41 was pretty good, Reagan caught a lot of breaks that gave him space to adapt his approach and counterparts who were willing to engage, Nixon was far too cynical and amoral. Maybe Eisenhower is the last, best example.

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      David Chen

      I'd be a terrible diplomat, but I wish we at least were very open and honest about the transactional nature of many of these 'allies'. Instead politicians like smiley photo ops and platitudes about 'exciting new alliances'.

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    Peter S.

    I wonder how much money we could have made betting that the rules for women in Afghanistan would, within 2 years of the withdrawal, more closely resemble those rules in 2001 than those rules in 2021? Would anyone have taken that action? Or did the New Taliban believers all know in their hearts that this was likely?

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    Rjosephpaquette

    Russia took the Afghanistan from 900 AD to 1250 AD.
    US took Afghanistan from 1250 to 1750.
    I'm not sure anyone can force modernity on them. It's up to them.

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    Ted Gale


    I have a hard time understanding why people ever thought that the Taliban would be susceptible to “international pressure” on women’s rights.

    One might think that experienced diplomats (who presumably have training in how to interact with people from other cultures) would be able to understand that the Taliban might actually welcome criticism from the UN. One might think that the political appointees from a party that purports to welcome diversity and cross-cultural awareness might suspect that the Taliban does not particularly care about a Twitter campaign.

    The Taliban have a certain vision for society. I doubt that they care what CNN, the editorial board of the New York Times, the operators of various well-meaning NGOs, or the members of the higher ranks of the U.S. State Department think about them. I doubt that they care about their standing in the polls in the U.S., Canada, Western Europe, or pretty much anywhere else.

    They do not share any of the predominant world-views of the West. What they do have is a sense of holiness, a conviction that their view of Islam is correct, and the certainty that the strictures they impose serve the will of God.

    Why would the Biden administration have thought anything would have turned out differently?



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