Talibanization of Afghanistan

 

Talibanization of Afghanistan

The rise of Islamic fundamentalism could be understood in terms of clash of civilizations.  Professor Samuel P. Huntington, best known for his  theory of  the  'Clash of Civilizations'  in a post– cold war new world order, argues that future wars would be fought not between countries, but between cultures, and that Islamic extremism would become the biggest threat to Western domination of the world. In his book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, he examines how the Western civilization and the Islamic civilization are at loggerheads.
 
The Clash of Civilizations
 The term ‘the West’ is used to refer to what used to be called Western Christendom. The European Christendom emerged as a distinct civilization in 18^th and 19^th centuries, in contrast to the ancient Indian Civilization, the Chinese civilization, the Greece civilization and the like. A distinct Islamic civilization- originating in the Arabian Peninsula- had emerged in 7^th century. Religion is a central defining characteristic of civilizations. As the historian Christopher Dawson said, “the great religions are the foundations on which the great civilizations rest.” The four religions- Hinduism, Confucianism, Christianity and Islam-- are associated with major civilizations. The great political ideologies of 20th century – liberalism, socialism, anarchism, Marxism, communism, nationalism, fascism and democracy- have one thing in common- they are the products of Western civilization. The Europeans, by colonisation, controlled 35 % of the earth’s land surface in 1800, and 84 % of the land by 1914 when the first world war started.  According to Hammington, ‘the West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organised violence.”
 
While Asians became increasingly assertive as a result of economic development, Muslims were turning toward Islam as a source of identity, meaning, stability, legitimacy, development, power and hope. It was an ‘Islamic Resurgence’ that rejected the Western culture. This Resurgence has touched almost every Muslim society. Beginning in the1970s, Islamic symbols, beliefs, practices, institutions, polices, and organisations won increasing commitment and support through the world of 1 billion Muslims stretching from Morocco to Indonesia and from Nigeria to Kazakhstan.  As a revolutionary movement, Islamic fundamentalism rejects the nation-state of the West in favour of the unity of Islam just as Marxism rejected it in favour of the unity of the proletariat the world over.
 
Saudi Arabia was the original home of Islam; Islam’s holiest shrines are there; its language is Islam’s language; it has the world’s largest oil reserves and the resulting financial influence; and its government has shaped Saudi society along strictly Islamic liens. During the 1970s and 1980s, Saudi Arabia was the single most influential force in Islam. It spent billions of dollars supporting Muslim causes throughout the world, from mosques and textbooks to political parties, Islamist organisations, and terrorist movements.  However, its relatively small population and geographical vulnerability make it dependent on the West for its security. That explains its close proximity with America.
 
Some Westerners, including then US President Bill Clinton, have argued that the West doesn’t have problems with Islam but only with violent Islamic extremists.  But fourteen hundred years of history demonstrate otherwise. The relation between Islam and Christianity have been stormy throughout. The 20^th century conflict between liberal democracy and Marxist-Leninism is only a fleeting and superficial historical phenomenon compared to the continuing and deeply conflictual relation between Islam and Christianity. The violent nature of this relationship is reflected in the fact that 50% of wars involving states of different religions between 1820 and 1929 were wars fought between Muslims and Christians. And the West’s efforts to universalize tis values and institutions, to maintain its military and economic superiority, and to intervene in conflicts in the Muslim world generate intense resentment among Muslims. Thus, the causes of the renewed conflict between Islam and the West lie in fundamental questions of power and culture. And “so long Islam remains Islam and the West remains the West, this fundamental conflict of two civilizations and ways of life will continue to define their relations.”
 
Muslims fear and resent Western power and the threat which this poses to their society and beliefs. They see Western culture as materialistic, corrupt and immoral. They also see it as seductive, and, therefore, stress all the more the need to resist its impact on their way of life. This reaction against the West could be seen not only in the central intellectual thrust of the Islamic Resurgence but also in the shift in the attitudes toward the West of governments in Muslim countries. One by one, pro-Western governments gave way to governments less identified with the West or explicitly anti-Western in Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syrian, Iran, Sudan, Lebanon and Afghanistan. It is not surprising that following the 1979 Iranian Revolution an inter-civilizational quasi war developed between Islam and the West.
 
The Rise of Taliban
The Taliban- ‘students’ in the Pashto language- emerged in 1994 in the Northern Pakistan following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. The Taliban are the predominant umbrella group for the Afghan insurgency. The Al-Qaeda, founded by Osama bin Laden in 1998, with the goal of waging global jihad has long pledged allegiance to the Taliban. The predominantly Pashtun movement first appeared in religious seminaries, sponsored by Saudi Arabia- which preached a hardline form of Sunni Islam. In September 1995 the Taliban captured the province of Herat and a year later the Afghan capital, Kabul, overthrowing the regime of President Burhanuddin Rabbani - one of the founding fathers of the Afghan mujahideen that resisted the Soviet occupation. By 1998, the Taliban were in control of 90% of Afghanistan. The Taliban introduced severe punishments in line with their strict interpretation of Sharia law - such as public executions of convicted murderers and adulterers, and amputations for those found guilty of theft. Men were required to grow beards and women had to wear the all-covering burka. They banned television, music and cinema, and disapproved of girls aged 10 and over going to school. One of the most high-profile and internationally condemned of all Pakistani Taliban attacks took place in October 2012, when schoolgirl  Malala Yousafzai  was shot  in her head way home in the city of Mingora in the Swat District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province.

Following the September 11, 2001,the US President George W. Bush demanded that the Taliban, hand over Osama Bin Laden, mastermind of the attacks. The Taliban's refusal to extradite him led to the invasion of Afghanistan ,toppling the Taliban ruled  Islamic Emirate. The Taliban and their Al-Qaeda allies were defeated and expelled from major population centers by the US-led forces and the  Northern Alliance.   Ironically, “the Taliban were part of the rise of Jihadism brought about by the USA and Britain in the 1980s and 1990s. They are a puritanical offshoot of the mujahideen, which were backed and emboldened by Pakistan’s intelligence services and bankrolled and armed by the CIA and Britain’s MI6,” says John Pilger, one of the world’s most acclaimed investigative journalists and documentary film makers. According to him, “the invasion of Afghanistan was a fraud, the Taliban were a convenient target to satisfy a political lust for revenge for 9/11.  An authentic military response to 9/11 might have seen US bombs falling on the palaces of Saudi Arabia- most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals, not least Osama Bin Laden himself, not one was an Afghan.”
 
The twenty years of war against terror has ended with abrupt withdrawal of the US troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, with Taliban capturing Kabul and restoring the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan.  In other words, the most powerful country in the world the US failed to protect Afghanistan from the Taliban terror. The Taliban formed the Interim Government on August 24, compromising 33 cabinet ministers, out of whom 20 belong to the hardcore Haqqani terrorist outfit, with both the Prime Minister Mullah Muhammad Hasan Akhund and the Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani designated as global terrorists. The US war against terrorism cost the country over $8 trillion, created chaos across the Middle East, provoking irrational and completely unjustifiable Western adventurism in Iraq, Syria and Libya, killing nearly one million people. This only led to regrouping the various Islamic militant and terrorist outfits to wage war against the West.

Talibanization of Afghanistan is a reaction to Western domination.  The Talibanization is a process that refers to imposition of an ideology based on a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. But whom does it benefit? The Talibanization has created a serious humanitarian crisis, with 14 million Afghans on the verge of starvation, besides reversing the clock of progress and development. The people are facing the collapse of entire country. Women and girls are treated inhumanly, denying them the right to freedom and dignity. The Taliban leaders are tech-savvy, speak English and use modern gadgets to communicate, and yet they treat the women as slaves. The world, including the Islamic world, should realise the importance of adapting the ideals of democracy, liberty, equality and justice to ensure an equitable just world order. What is so boastful in being militant-extremist and obscurantist-religious fanatic, preaching exclusiveness and imposing an inhuman and dangerous code of conduct on people? It is one thing to resist the domination of the West, and choosing barbarism of the worst kind is another.