Social Imperatives

The topic that I will be writing about today is of the social imperatives of the Taliban, the lack of any women’s rights under Taliban control, and the lack of a lasting solution through military force.

The Taliban is an anti-modernism tribal-based organization that is based on an interpretation of the Koran. Their original purpose was to remove the unjust dictators that had ruled over Afghanistan for many years, but in the end they turned out to be just as bad.

Something that is very important to understand is that in Afghanistan the entire culture is built around the ideology of the Koran and because of this their world is utterly different than that of any western society that I know of. We also must understand that though most of the population is Muslim there as always are many interpretations of the social imperatives of the religion. The Taliban have a very strict understanding of what the Islamic beliefs are. Their reign over Afghanistan from 1996-2001 was a time of fear and strict control for a large portion of the Afghanis. One of the major problems that most people in the west have a problem with is the Taliban’s treatment of women.

In an explanation of the situation for women in Afghanistan Abdullah Qazi says that, “Over 1400 years ago, Islam demanded that men and women be equal before God, and gave them various rights such as the right to inheritance, the right to vote, the right to work, and even choose their own partners in marriage. For centuries now in Afghanistan, women have been denied these rights either by official government decree or by their own husbands, fathers, and brothers. During the rule of the Taliban (1996 - 2001), women were treated worse than in any other time or by any other society. They were forbidden to work, leave the house without a male escort, not allowed to seek medical help from a male doctor, and forced to cover themselves from head to toe, even covering their eyes. Women who were doctors and teachers before, suddenly were forced to be beggars and even prostitutes in order to feed their families.”

Though the Taliban share many basic fundamentals with a large number of people. There are some things that are in their belief that one must question what must be done to stop these ideals for the benefit of Afghanistan.

When the United States began their campaign to “fix” Afghanistan there were many things that they did not understand. We must look at what other solutions to the problem there are rather then just sending more troops to fight an ever-growing insurgency. It seems that we might be the cause for the Taliban’s growth as well as causing harm to the Afghani people. In 2005, walking round Zafaraniya, a poor suburb of Baghdad, an American battalion commander Colonel Brian Doser (who is also a civil engineer) showed the new sewage and clean water systems that he and his team had installed. "We should have done this much sooner," he volunteered. And then he made a really persuasive point. "You can't wait for the security problem to be solved before you work on reconstruction," he said. “For the Campaign in Afghanistan to be a success we must look to finding solutions that help stop the problem and not to perpetuate it.” The Taliban’s beliefs make diplomacy very hard, but military force is not a lasting solution either. As Colonel Brian Doser says, "If you wait to solve the security problem before you improve the infrastructure, you may never solve the security problem."

From what I understand, the problems that face the American and local military in Afghanistan involves a lack of ability to change the beliefs of part of the society that the Taliban has created. Without this kind of change there can’t be a significant improvement in the living conditions for the people, specifically the women.

Kalo

http://www.afghan-web.com/woman/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8274993.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban#Origin