Yesterday, I read in one of the media outlets that the Taliban in the provinces of Laghman and Nangarhar have warned shopkeepers not to sell anything to women who are unaccompanied by a male guardian (mahram); otherwise, their shops will be shut down,n and they themselves will be imprisoned. The reality is that this chain of restrictions and prohibitions is no longer a temporary policy, nor a measure of moral discipline, but a “road map” with predetermined stations aimed at the complete erasure of women from the public sphere. Over the past five years, the Taliban have not taken a single step back in their suppression of women, not because of pressure from society, not because of international reactions, and not even because of the catastrophic human consequences of the policies of their apparatus for the propagation of virtue and prevention of vice.
The Taliban first launched the project of removing women and girls from schools and universities, not as a temporary or marginal decision, but as a step deemed essential to the survival of their regime. After that came the turn of work and the economy: dismissal from government offices and then from the private sector, meaning the complete removal of women from the cycle of production and livelihood. This means that a woman has neither the right to education, nor the right to work, nor the right to provide bread for herself and her family. Then came the turn of public spaces: parks, bathhouses, sports, travel, and so on. Each of these strips away a piece of women’s presence in society. As if this were not enough, the white-cloaked agents of the propagation of virtue took to the streets and began carrying out arbitrary detentions. This means that the home became a prison for women, and the streets a field of danger.
Then it was the turn of the health sector. Here, it is no longer merely a restriction, but a violation of the most basic right to life. The Taliban ordered that a female doctor must come to her workplace accompanied by a male guardian, meaning that even a woman who saves the lives of others must herself remain under the supervision of a man. They said something even worse: that a female patient must not go to a hospital without a male guardian, and even if she does, she must not be treated. In other words, if a woman is dying and has no male guardian with her, she must die, because the Taliban’s version of Sharia prefers death over treatment without a male guardian. This means that religion has become a pretext for the indirect killing of women. And now it is the turn of the shops. Under the Taliban’s new order, if a woman goes to the market without a male guardian, the shopkeeper has no right to sell her goods, meaning the woman is barred from securing food and clothing for herself and her family.
If we line up everything described above, the same truth becomes even clearer: the Taliban are incapable of reform. Talk of the Taliban’s capacity for reform is not only naive but dangerous. If one day a decree arrives that does not even allow women to leave their homes in cases of necessity, no one should be surprised, because this is precisely the top of the very ladder the Taliban have been climbing rung by rung for several years.
It must not be forgotten that the Taliban’s ideology is inherently misogynistic. For this reason, imposing restrictions on the lives of women and girls is not a temporary, tactical move meant to extort the world, but a central and key objective for consolidating the regime’s longevity. In the Taliban’s ideology, women must be restrained, hidden, erased from the view of society, and denied a presence in any arena. This misogyny is rooted in the Taliban’s particular interpretation of religion, which regards women as a source of corruption and disorder. Backing down on this matter would therefore, for the Taliban, amount to violating the very purpose of their regime.
Yes, the Taliban will not step back, but they can be pushed back. There is a difference between the two. The Taliban understand only the language of force, not the language of bargaining, accommodation, and tolerance. This force has two sources: the domestic and the foreign. The Taliban have indeed seized control of the country by force, but they also have vulnerabilities. The very fact that they lack legitimacy and popularity points to their vulnerability. If this lack of popular support turns into an organized and sustained protest, it would pose the greatest threat to the survival of the Taliban regime; a protest that is not confined to a single city or a single day, and does not quickly subside. If the people show that their fear of the continuation of the current miserable situation outweighs their fear of the Taliban’s bullets, this group will surely be brought to its senses.
In confronting protest, the Taliban know how to resort to only one tool: naked repression. So far, every protest that has taken place has been met with guns and tanks, mass arrests, torture, and numerous enforced disappearances. The key point here is that this very violent reaction by the Taliban, while terrifying, is also a weakness for the group, in the sense that, because they are an armed insurgent group not built to govern a society, they quickly fall into confusion and instability when faced with a wave of street protests, strikes, and civil disobedience. Historical experience in the region around Afghanistan and elsewhere has also shown that the resistance of the people against tyranny has been fruitful, even when the response to civil protest has been bullets. Authoritarian regimes gradually come to realize that the cost of imposing repression will be greater than the cost of tolerating dissent. For this reason, they seek a solution in retreat.
Yes, standing up to the Taliban is hard and carries heavy consequences, but enduring a lifetime of confinement at home, deprived of education, work, medical care, and even of buying bread from the market, carries far heavier consequences. If we remain silent today, tomorrow a new restriction will come, and the day after, still newer restrictions, until even the chance to breathe is taken away. We must also abandon the illusion that the Taliban can be reformed through foreign pressure. The bitter reality is that the international community, for all its statements of condemnation and symbolic sanctions, is not willing to take a hard line against the Taliban for the sake of women’s rights. Neighboring countries are seeking engagement with the Taliban. Western countries, too, are happy to negotiate with the Taliban over migration and certain other issues. In this equation, the place of the women of Afghanistan is on the margins. Popular protest is therefore the effective solution; a protest that begins in neighborhoods and alleys and back streets and spreads to district centers and cities. Likewise, a protest that is organized, has leadership, and carries clear democratic messages.
You can read the Persian version of this analysis here:
طالبان و محدودیتهای پیدرپی؛ وقتی زنان نمیتوانند از بازار خرید کنند
