By Paiman Arman
Taliban policies on all matters, including towards women, is derived from Islamic sharia or at least from their interpretation of sharia from Islam’s founding sources, including the Hadith, and interpretations left by pioneering scholars of Islamic Islamic studies as well as from the experiences gained by Muslim societies interacting with the West. The difference between the ideology of the Taliban and other Islamist groups is firstly their simplicity, honesty, and primitiveness, and secondly, the fact that the group’s leaders and members are Pashtuns.
According to the first feature, they express what they have learned from religious sources, without embellishment and fear, and firmly believe in the correctness of their path and are ready to kill or be killed for its realization. For example, the Taliban enforce their ban on women’s social existence regardless of its exorbitant costs. They believe that women have flawed intelligence and faith and are therefore both weak and emotional, and their presence with men in common spaces causes corruption. This belief leads to the deprivation of women’s individual freedoms and, as a result, deprives them of the right to travel, work, education, and other social activities. This belief in their interpretation of sharia means they will not consider alternatives or compromises.
The second characteristic is their tribal origin and exclusivity. The Taliban originates in Pashtun tribes and mobilize Pashtun support and exclude others, whom they deem to be “aliens.” Therefore, it’s impossible to divide the Taliban into good and bad. Yes, immersion of Pashtun cultural mores with sharia forms another characteristic of Taliban ideology. The two dimensions overlap and form the ideological soft tools that Taliban use to gain social legitimation, exercise domination, and exclude everyone else.
What is occurring in Afghanistan is the result of the dominance of the Taliban’s combination of tribalism, racism, and their particular interpretation of sharia over democracy and civic life. According to the Taliban, secularism’s separation of religion from politics is an assault on religion. They rightly consider modern education, rationalism, freedom, civility, equality, and modernity to be enemies of their regressive ideology. And that means they are seeking to re-engineer society to stabilize and maintain their domination and guarantee survival. And focus of that reorganization is education.
The Taliban’s animosity towards modern education is rooted in their understanding that religious education cannot compete against modern sciences. The Taliban itself is the product of religious studies and they deem it essential for their survival. So, they are adamant in their desire to maintain and expand this educational model and stifle modern education. Thus, the Taliban is Islamizing the educational curriculum and institutions of Afghanistan.
As well, they believe that modern education has only instrumental value, while religious education is aimed at the hereafter and the realm of God, which explains why the Taliban believe it is superior. According to Al-Emara and Systems, the only book approved by the Taliban and which was written by Abdul Hakim Haqqani, the group’s ideologue and chief justice, the Taliban are not against education in general or women’s education in particular. Instead, the book explains that they are against the primacy of modern education as it is causing irreligiosity and distance from God. Therefore, they are changing the educational curriculum in favour of religious education, imposing gender segregation, and compulsory hijab for women and girls. They want the education system to mirror the Taliban itself in terms of religiosity and make it subservient to their Emirate.
According to them, only religious education is obligatory for girls and women, while the teaching of other sciences is merely allowed. I believe that they will resume the education of all (boys and girls), sooner or later. Though the Taliban won’t want to miss such an opportunity to indoctrinate a new generation in their worldview, an education system mired in Taliban dogma is a serious problem.
At the same time, women’s right to work will remain limited and conditional to the logic of necessity as well as compliant with Taliban restrictions. According to their dogmas, the Taliban can allow education and work for women and girls, though they will likely also use those efforts to silence those who raise their voice against the Taliban, including their anti-education policies.
Therefore, the claim that the Taliban policies are not Islamic is not correct. It may not be completely consistent with some readings and interpretations of religion, but the Taliban’s worldview is rooted in one of the most prominent Islamic schools of thought, namely the Deobandi school. Therefore, besides challenging them on religious grounds, those wanting to provide an alternative to their ideology must spread knowledge based on democratic and civic values. It also means creating a paradigmatic and discursive transformation and changing the value and attitude of the new generation, orienting society towards secularism, and separating religion from the state.
The central issue of our society is the contradiction between tradition and modernity. It is obvious that the two elements of tribalism and Islamism are essential features of the Taliban. They want to raise future generations who adhere to their dogma and continue establishing a society built on Taliban ideology. Therefore, the conflict of the people of Afghanistan with the Taliban has anthropological, ontological, and epistemological bases.
From now on, our most important task is to counter the Taliban with an intellectual campaign using diverse tactics:
1. All-round criticism of Taliban ideology (intra-religious through providing alternative interpretations that are more compatible with civic values and extra-religious through propagating modern democratic values and methods as well as revealing and explaining the Taliban’s contradictions with the modern international system).
2. Countering Taliban curriculum with content and advanced scientific and intellectual works from other countries.
3. Given the record of violence and crimes of this group, a legal campaign against the Taliban that is based on international law.
4. Elucidation about this group’s use of religion to expand and consolidate their dominance over sources of power and wealth and their exclusion of other social groups.
5. Creating solidarity and unity among the people of Afghanistan and anti-Taliban groups to expand resistance and civil disobedience that can keep alive the hope for change and democracy.
Finally, it must be said that, with a persistent, methodical, and targeted approach, we can confront this decadent and dogmatic ideology. However, our objective should be secularism, and the separation of religion from state. The path towards peace, civility, and prosperity can only be achieved in the light of science, rationalism, pluralism, and tolerance. Only then can Afghanistan become a respectful member of the international community.
Paiman Arman is a pseudonym for a writer and human rights activist.
