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12 September 2021 2.00 h

“We must fight the Taliban like we’re fighting the pandemic”

Bashir Eskandari is an Afghan migrant, a human rights activist and head of the Cultural Association of Afghans and Catalans

What news have you had from your coun­try?
I was re­cently sent an audio telling me that the Tal­iban are going from house to house, to see who has been work­ing with the West­ern­ers. For now, they are in­ves­ti­gat­ing. I also know that they have de­tained ac­tivists in Kabul.
And what about women?
The Tal­iban spokesman made it clear: “There are many Mus­lim coun­tries, but we have our own law.” This “own law” is very dif­fer­ent. In Turkey they are Mus­lims but women have rights.
Not in Afghanistan?
When the Tal­iban at­tacked north­ern Afghanistan over 20 years ago, they mar­ried off girls as young as 12 and kid­napped many women. Now, women are suf­fer­ing be­cause they don’t know what will hap­pen to them.
What’s your analy­sis of what has hap­pened?
After 20 years, it’s a dis­as­ter. The in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity has spent a lot of money, and many West­ern sol­diers have died help­ing to bring democ­racy to Afghanistan. When leav­ing the coun­try, the Amer­i­cans should not have en­trusted the fate of the whole coun­try to the Pash­tun lead­ers. The Tal­iban are prac­ti­cally a hun­dred per­cent Pash­tun. It’s Trump’s fault for ne­go­ti­at­ing with the Tal­iban and giv­ing them a po­lit­i­cal iden­tity. Be­fore that, the Tal­iban were just ter­ror­ists! And they are ter­ror­ists! In democ­ra­cies, every few years the pres­i­dent changes, but in the case of the Tal­iban it’s not like that, the leader doesn’t change, and the poli­cies re­main the same.
Are the Tal­iban strong?
The Tal­iban are not just Afghans. There are also peo­ple from Pak­istan, ISIS, Al-Qaeda and other groups. They have great power and are a threat.
Should we be alarmed?
The Tal­iban are like Covid. We need to fight them like we’re fight­ing the pan­demic. Now they have the land, they have the com­mu­ni­ca­tions, they have it all.
That’s hard to swal­low.
Right now, coun­tries are fo­cus­ing on their own prob­lems, be­cause of Covid, but they don’t re­alise the other pan­demic.
So what hap­pens next?
No one in Afghanistan wants the Tal­iban. They don’t re­spect any­one. The coun­try has been at war for over 40 years. And right now the peo­ple are just think­ing about sur­vival. There’s only one way: the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity has to help them. They have to go back and arm them. The Afghans could liq­ui­date the Tal­iban, but the peo­ple have no weapons.
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