The view of David Berry
A recent joint report between The Guardian and Zan Times revealed that the Taliban had issued a new decree banning government officials from having smart phones. The piece also included evidence that this new decree is being introduced in an ad-hoc manner that also targets women, medical workers, schoolteachers and students across Afghanistan.
The Taliban claim that mobile phones are an unnecessary distraction from labour, but the real reason for the ban is that they fear mobile phone usage and see it as an existential threat to their rule. The Taliban hope that by destroying phones so publicly they will instil fear into the population, which will lead to reduced or no usage of mobile phones.
Yet, even if the Taliban were to shut down the Internet and destroy mobile phone connections, Afghans living in border areas will be able to access networks from outside the country. The mass communication genie is truly out of the restrictive bottle that is Taliban rule in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan finds itself at a curious moment in history, similar to the situations faced by other countries that have not gone through the industrial and democratic developments that Western countries have experienced over many centuries. Afghanistan stands witness to a contradiction between tradition and modernity, and it is this battle which is at the heart of the clampdown of mobile phone usage. In Burma, a similar struggle between tradition and modernity led the ultra-nationalist monks to clamp down on foreign influences, which led to the brutal dictatorship of the military (Tatmadaw), which enforces its rule.
In William Dalrymple’s wonderful book titled Nine Lives, he details the struggle between tradition and modernity in India and how this struggle between contradictory forces is forging a new sense of identity, and how that struggle released Hindu nationalist forces of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Narendra Modi, whose government emphasizes Hindu traditionalism.
This struggle between these two powerful and contradictory forces of tradition and modernity is exactly what we are witnessing in Afghanistan today. The Taliban’s fear of modernity often takes the form of a medieval system of rule imposed by Taliban men, whose cruel and barbaric oppression of women makes Afghanistan unique.
My first thoughts on reading about the clampdown on mobile phones in Afghanistan were about the exact same clampdown on news and information that occurred in 16th century England and what lessons Afghan women can learn from that period to help them confront and resist the Taliban regime.
This may sound incredible but what the Taliban are doing in 2026 is no different from what occurred in the 1500s in England when citizens used the new technology of that era, printing presses, to produce and distribute news free from state control.
The Caxton printing press was the mobile phone of its time. It revolutionized the way the English could communicate. Soon, ordinary citizens could produce pamphlets and newssheets that promoted ideas that were contrary to state authority.
The Tudor monarchs were soon faced with their own struggle between tradition and modernity as the pamphleteers and printers refused to kowtow to the state’s violent crackdowns.
While King Henry VIII began to implement forms of censorship during his reign, it reached its apotheosis when his daughter Queen Elizabeth I took the throne in 1588. She increased state surveillance and censorship, and inflicted brutal punishments for those who were caught.
The criminalization of dissent and the suppression of free speech in today’s Afghanistan was similarly abundant in 16th century England where writers and pamphleteers were accused of sedition and libel if they dared criticise the Crown and the religious authority of the church. Writers and printers took enormous risks to produce news critical of the state and church. If caught, they could be accused of treason. Many were severely punished by public whippings, locked into the pillory, and fined so heavily they faced abject poverty. Some were killed.
Under the first Tudor monarch, Henry VII, the Star Chamber was created in 1487. Under his son and granddaughter, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, it would be an organization that controlled the press. The Star Chamber imposed severe restrictions on printers and the updated Star Chamber Decree in 1586 placed print production under strict state control by requiring royal licences for any book being published in England or imported into the country. Similarly, in Afghanistan, the new decree restricting mobile usage has a similar function and aim.
What is interesting is that the Star Chamber was eventually abolished in 1641 because the public, angry at its abuses of power, demanded greater press freedom. One lesson for Afghan women is that the Star Chamber’s collapse resulted in a huge expansion in the production of pamphlets and political ideas throughout England. To mark such freedoms, John Milton wrote his powerful defence of free speech and liberty in his famous works Areopagitica in 1644, just three years after the abolition of the Star Chamber.
The objective of Afghan women is to use mobile communication in a similar, if not identical way, to the way the printing presses allowed pamphleteers to express and distribute their views and ideas. In other words, they can use phones as a form of subversion to create new traditions, which form the basis for removing the Taliban.
It’s also worth mentioning that all traditions are made by humans, and they are not infallible.
The view of Somaia Ramish
In my view, the difference between today’s world and 16th century England at the dawn of the printing press is not simply that our tools are digital. The printing press made it possible to spread ideas, but mobile phones do something that presses cannot: they record reality as it happens. Today, every citizen can be a content creator, a witness to events, and a guardian of part of their society’s collective memory.
This major shift has challenged the traditional monopoly over information that authoritarian and totalitarian governments have long relied on to maintain power and control. At the same time, the nature of this struggle has become more complicated. Repressive governments no longer try to just destroy or ban technology; they also use digital tools for surveillance, censorship, and propaganda.
Yet, as Yuval Noah Harari has argued, the structure of power in today’s world can no longer completely block the flow of information. Total control over data has become increasingly difficult. Afghanistan offers a clear example of this reality: videos showing Taliban members smashing mobile phones are themselves recorded on other phones and shared online. The images speak for themselves as they reveal the limits of traditional censorship in the digital age.
This attempt to erase voices and destroy spaces for communication can be understood through Hannah Arendt’s analysis of totalitarianism. Arendt argued that totalitarian regimes seek not only to eliminate political opposition but also to destroy the very possibility of independent thought and free judgment. When people are deprived of the ability to speak, share their experiences, and engage with one another, the public sphere itself begins to disappear and with it, the foundations of both politics and freedom.
In the current context of Afghanistan, when the ruling authorities prohibit the physical presence of women in streets, universities, and workplaces, the mobile phone camera becomes the last bastion for reconstructing a fragmented yet vibrant public sphere. Amid this severe political repression, the mobile phone has become much more than a communication device for women in Afghanistan. It has become one of their most vital tools of everyday resistance, which is not marked by grand political slogans but through ordinary acts of daily life.
At a time when women are banned from schools, universities, workplaces, and much of public life, smartphones have become a vital gateway to online education, home-based businesses, digital marketing, and access to medical and psychological counseling. They provide a limited but essential space for women to protect both their economic independence and their social identity. For women, social media and digital platforms offer another way to participate in society.
In addition to these practical functions, the mobile phone serves as an alternative medium for women’s political activism. Because public demonstrations carry extreme risks, much of the resistance to Taliban rule has shifted into concealed and underground spaces. Today, the lived experiences of many women protesters are redefined through the screens of their mobile phones. They gather in private locations, chant slogans against exclusionary policies, burn decrees or images of leaders as acts of defiance, all while recording these moments on their phones.
When these videos are shared on social media and subsequently disseminated by international news organizations, they effectively undermine the traditional mechanisms of state censorship. In this sense, the lens of a mobile phone penetrates the thick walls of safe houses and hidden meeting places, transforming underground acts of resistance into public testimony before a global audience. Within this digital space, every short protest video challenges the regime’s monopoly over public narratives.
This daily struggle is helping to document history from the ground up. Just as the printers and pamphleteers of earlier centuries recorded the realities of their own time, women in Afghanistan are preserving history through photographs, personal stories, and everyday observations. Their voices help build the collective memory of a society that those in power would rather erase. The defining feature of the digital age is that history is no longer written only by the victors. Today, the tools to record and preserve history are also in the hands of society’s most isolated and marginalized people.
From this perspective, the struggle over mobile phones in Afghanistan is not simply about a piece of technology. Just like the printers and pamphleteers of 16th century England, this heroic struggle is also about the right to know, the right to be informed, the right to tell one’s own story, and the protection of diversity in the public sphere.
Breaking a mobile phone may be easy. Breaking people’s desire to learn, stay connected to the world, and preserve the truth is far more difficult. That is a challenge no authoritarian regime in the digital age can overcome easily.
Dr David Berry is a writer and activist based in Southampton, England. He teaches English online to young Afghan women to help them gain knowledge and to undermine the authority of the Taliban. He hosts a podcast called House of Dissent and his academic work can be found here.
Somaia Ramish is a writer, researcher, and university lecturer whose work explores the intersections of literature, women’s studies, and culture. She has authored books and scholarly articles, as well as translations and critical essays. She is also the founder and instructor of Writing the Future, an online creative writing program for girls in Afghanistan.
