Reading Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid’s “Taliban” the much-praised book about the ’student movement’ that was published just prior to Sept. 11th.
An observation: It’s interesting to note how different the Taliban are as an Islamic movement in control of a population from other Islamic movements with similar responsibilities. Hizbollah and Hamas essentially made their names and established their ’street credibilty’ through focus on social welfare and improving a population’s well-being.
Hamas funds schools, orphanages, mosques, healthcare clinics, soup kitchens, and sports leagues. “Approximately 90 percent of its work is in social, welfare, cultural, and educational activities,” writes the Israeli scholar Reuven Paz. The Palestinian Authority often fails to provide such services, and Hamas’s efforts in this area—as well as a reputation for honesty, in contrast to the many Fatah officials accused of corruption—help to explain the broad popularity it summoned to defeat Fatah in the PA’s recent elections.
The Taliban, in contrast, were distinct for their extraordinary lack of interest in the social welfare of the populations it came to control. Here’s Rashid’s description of events after the Taliban kicked the NGOs out of Kabul in the summer of 1998:
With more than half of Kabul’s 1.2 million people benefiting in some way from NGO handouts, women and children were immediate victims when aid was cut off. Food distribution, health care and and the city’s fragile water distribution network were all seriously affected. As people waved empty kettles and buckets at passing Taliban jeeps, their reply to the population was characteristic of their lack of social concern. “We Muslims believe God the Almighty will feed everybody one way or another.”
Since the Taliban had dubbed Mullah Omar Amir of all Muslims, not just Afghans – demonstrating transnationalist aspirations – I guess they felt they could use the ‘royal we.’ Tagging this post ‘Muslim-on-Muslim violence’ since the Kabul victims of Taliban indifference were probably all Muslims.
sa.c 9:30 am on November 8, 2009 Permalink |
Not necessarily all Muslims. There are (or perhaps a better term is “were” until very recently) ages-old communities of Hindus and Sikhs living in Afghanistan who likely suffered under the Taliban too.
johnpi 10:14 am on November 8, 2009 Permalink |
Ismailis and Jews too. Afghanistan was a vibrant multi-cultural, multi-ethnic society. But at some point during the Taliban takeover between ‘94 and 2000 a lot of those populations left and became international refugees because the taliban bore down so hard on them. Non-Muslims lives were worth little and their property was targeted for looting.
I don’t know how much of those populations were still left in ‘98.
johnpi 10:18 am on November 8, 2009 Permalink |
Also the Taliban were keen to take concubines too. Rashid writes about the Taliban taking a lot of Shia Hazara women after massacres in Hazara areas back to Pashtun areas in the south of the country.
Mullah Omar even threw one of his battle commanders in jail after his wife complained about all the concubines he brought back with him.
pi.info 10:52 am on November 8, 2009 Permalink |
This brand of Islam appeals to some in the West and throughout the Muslim world, sometimes dressed up as ‘Dawah.’
The Taliban provide a good case study of the results.
sa.c 11:43 am on November 8, 2009 Permalink |
I don’t have numbers (and wouldn’t know where to find them), but personal anecdotes indicate that there was quite a significant community there after the Taliban takeover as well. Hindu’s were not always viewed as being “too different” (Hindu Pashtuns have always existed, as a minority though, – I’ve heard most fled for India in 1947 and no longer identify as Pashtun/Pathan in India) and thus had had some common ethnic-tribal ground with the all Pashtun Taliban. Sikhs on the other hand are most likely an old established merchant community who retained their own Punjabi language (obviously fluent in others though). I’m told that the 2001 war has also contributed greatly to the almost-disappearance of both of these communities – no safety.
sa.c 11:45 am on November 8, 2009 Permalink |
that however, is not to downplay their persecution (which is and has been very real).
Conrad Barwa 12:16 pm on November 8, 2009 Permalink |
Tagging this post ‘Muslim-on-Muslim violence’ since the Kabul victims of Taliban indifference were probably all Muslims.
To be more specific, I think disproportionately most of the victims were women; since it was closing of access to schools for girls and in particular the decline in healthcare access, especially to hospitals and maternal care that affected women, in some cases with fatal consequences. Ideologically, the Taliban were so keen to prevent any significant mobility for women or inter-gender mixing that it was difficult to deliver these services to women.