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‘The Suicide Shop’: A reality in Afghanistan

The Taliban declared that the book The Suicide Shop is against national interests and must be removed from libraries and bookstores. After hearing about its ban, I decided to read it. Written by the French author Jean Teulé, The Suicide Shop was published in 2007. The book sold well, and a film adaptation was made in 2013.

This book tells the story of the depressed and gloomy Tuvache family who believe that the world is not a place for living and that their purpose in life is to help others access suicide methods easily. The family owns a shop where they sell all kinds of suicide-related products: poisons, weapons, and other lethal means.

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The Tuvaches have three children, each named after a famous figure who died by suicide. The elder son, Vincent, who constantly innovates and invents new suicide methods, is named after Vincent van Gogh, the renowned 19th-century Dutch painter. The daughter, Marilyn, who struggles with her weight, is named after Marilyn Monroe, the iconic American singer and actress. The younger son, Alan, who is cheerful and tries to spread happiness to others, is named after Alan Turing, the groundbreaking mathematician and computer scientist believed to have injected poison into an apple and eaten it in a moment of deep despair.

In The Suicide Shop, sorrowful music always plays in the background, colours have been erased from the setting, and poisoned food is served to customers instead of sweet fruits. The parents even give their children suicide tools as birthday gifts and forbid them from falling in love.

The atmosphere of this novel bears a striking resemblance to the current situation in Afghanistan. Under the Taliban’s rule, Afghanistan has been transformed into a countrywide suicide shop where most of our fellow citizens are deprived of life and constantly bombarded with sermons and propaganda about the means, tools, and best ways to prepare for the afterlife. The Taliban do not see life as separate from death; rather, they consider it merely a prelude and opportunity for dying. For them, governing Afghanistan means preparing its people for death. To the Taliban, death is preferable to life.

In November 2024, while working on a report for Zan Times, “An epidemic of suicidal thoughts among school-age girls,” I listened to interviews with 23 girls, as well as four interviews with their families and friends. After each interview, I had to take a break to regain composure and ensure my emotions did not interfere with my editing.

In these interviews, school-deprived girls described how they face relentless pressure, sometimes feeling so trapped that they contemplate giving up breathing altogether. Nearly all of them understood that their suicidal thoughts were directly caused by the Taliban’s inhumane policies. In reality, they were not committing suicide — they were being erased.

One of the girls said that she had withdrawn from social life and gradually fallen into severe depression since her school was shut down. In the depths of her despair, she would see her room filled with men who looked like the Taliban and imagined that they intended to harm her. This young girl had desperately tried to rid her mind of these hallucinations but failed. By the time of our interview, she had attempted suicide three times.

With their sick ideology, the Taliban have sought to confine women to their homes, barring them from education, work, and social activities. Unfortunately, in these three and a half years, they have made significant progress in their mission to erase women from public life. 

Now, movement and vitality have been drained from Afghan women’s lives. Thousands of young girls who once had ambitious dreams, who aspired to learn skills, practice art, play an active role in society, and gain personal independence, are now confined to their bedrooms and kitchens. Freedom and love have been forcibly stripped from their lives, and they are no longer even allowed to think about what they desire.

A joint report published in September 2023 by UN Women, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) stated that between April and June of that year, anxiety, isolation, and depression among women had significantly worsened, affecting nearly 70 percent of them. According to the report, women suffer from severe psychological distress, including insomnia, depression, hopelessness, fear, isolation, and suicidal thoughts.

Multiple media reports over the past few years have also shown that the Taliban have systematically eliminated women from public and professional spaces, fostering conditions of isolation, psychological crises, and slow death. This darkness will not last forever. 

The Taliban themselves fear that individuals inside Afghanistan like Alan from The Suicide Shop might rise and dismantle their suicide-selling business. The Taliban are terrified of joy, freedom, individual independence, and the power of the people. That is why they have shut down schools and universities and banned the sale of non-Taliban-approved books. They want to keep our people subdued.

The collapse of the Taliban’s Suicide Shop is inevitable. Just like Alan, the character in the novel, there will be those among our people who will risk everything to reclaim freedom, and they will bring down the Taliban’s emirate of death.

Freshta Ghani is the managing editor of Zan Times.

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