The Taliban - all-round bad guys or...

pickarooney

Like, I imagine, most people, I've always had an atrocious image of the Taliban as an oppressive, violent, fundamentalist régime, with particularly bad records of women's rights and a zero-tolerance policy on dissent. Any magazine or internet research has always backed this up. However, in a conversation with an English Muslim this morning, she gave me a completely inverted take on the Taliban era. I'll try and summarize using as many of her words as I can. This is the first time I've heard anything so contradictory to the accepted view of the Taliban, and don't know of any reliable sources which might back it up. If anyone knows anything about the following, or could suggest a good source that looks at the Taliban from any other angle than that of the maniacal, misogynistic despots we always see them as, I'd be very greatful.
I do remember thinking it quite odd that Benazir Bhutto's Pakistani government supported the Taliban financially and recognised them as an official leadership when virtually nobody else did. Why would a wealthy, educated, powerful woman want anything to do with such a party that seemingly represented nothing of her ideals (apparently she openly supported them until Sept. 11 2001)? At the time I put it down to one more enigma of Benazir Bhutto, but maybe, just maybe, he all have it wrong...
The incomplete comments (taken from MSN log, names removed) of the lady I spoke with today follow.

newsource wrote:

i would just like to point out that, western sources aside, the situation from inside Afghanistan states over and over that women were bought and sold like animals in the marketplace before the Taliban, were raped and killed at will without punishment because, after all, women were not human. After the Taliban came in, they told the women to stay in their houses for the first few days of fighting, but after that, they were allowed to come and go as they pleased. The Taliban set up schools for women and employed them in government. They had a say in how the government and Shari'ah was implemented. There was a women's hospital set up in the capital. Etc. etc. etc. Dont' forget the Taliban started to protect the rights of two women who were being gang-raped by bandits.
....
I asked if she had any sources I could read
...
I'll see if i can dig something up. Unfortunately, due to the fact that the Russians and Americans took turns bombing the crap out of Afghanistan, in between bands of robber barons leeching the civilization dry, there's nothing like a free press and media to fall back on. Most of what we heard was from the Afghans themselves... whatever that's worth.
I've read some of those reports [condemning the Taliban as oppressive thugs], too, by the way. When Afghans were asked for comment, they usually said they were a complete pack of fabricated lies that had nothing whatsoever to do with what had actually happened. Surprise, surprise.
And the women did not have a nice life. I'm not saying that all was glory and ease after the Taliban. Those people had huge problems and a huge amount of work to do. But at least they had respect, education, money, hope... ! It was working...!
...
discussion went slightly tangental, on reasons the US wanted to oust the Taliban, and destroy their image
...
oil... under the Caspian sea there's more oil than there ever was in Saudi. Which is important, now that the Saudi's seem to be running out. Once the Russians pulled out, the Americans were in like dirty shirts with their aggressive capitalism.

I read that url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban]Wikipedia[/url article on the Taliban. i even have it here on my hard-drive, in fact. That is not true or reliable. It was written by a church group trying to get funding to come in and preach to the 'heathens' in Afghanistan with their own parochial schools.

so where do i begin... ok, the Taliban set up schools for women, and did not enforce hajeb. Burka is worn almost exclusively in Saudi. Mossad came in and made several assassinations among the Shi'a (or Northern Coalition) which were blamed on the Taliban. And the statues... nobody cared about the statues. They could have stayed there for a thousand years, it didn't matter except for this little matter of widespread starvation amongst the kids there. When a Euro group came with gushing cash to restore the statues, the Taliban asked why not donate the cash to the kids who were starving? They just laughed at them. so the Taliban said, you don't care about us, about our future. This is what we think of your arrogance. it was touted as religious intolerance. In fact, jews, christians, buddists etc. were all allowed to worship in peace under the Taliban, and that's always been how it was under Muslim leaders.

And there were people who tried to set the record straight, but the media wouldn't let them speak.

And the Taliban didn't have a free press... because they didn't have a press, period!

The CIA used the Northern Alliance to grow opium, then transferred that to labs in Pakistan to make heroin. That gave them mad money for their efforts elsewhere, including al Quaeda. i guess no one remembers, by now, that it was a creation of the CIA and that bin Laden grew up in Texas with the Bushies.

The year that the Taliban forbid the growing of opium (opiates being forbidden in Islam) and got the export down to zero was the year that the US decided to decimate Afghanistan.

And that the Taliban got writ large as religious fanatics who were so firmly against human rights. Yeah, right.

jhegarty

Whatever about anything else , i don't think there uncertainty that they shot women in football stadiums as a good days entertainment.,.,. for such crimes as sex outside marriage....

Boggle

Whatever about anything else , i don't think there uncertainty that they shot women in football stadiums as a good days entertainment.,.,. for such crimes as sex outside marriage....

TBH I dont recall any of that but even were it headline news I'd have trouble believing anything that comes out of bush's spin machine. (history written by the winners and all that)
Next thing you'll tell me that Husseiin was a threat to world peace! (What was he gonna do? Throw stones over the border?)

chewy

i dunno it such complicated story, it make my head melt....but then again maybe it isn't and even if it is complicated we shouldn't be getting such a one sided view...


that wiki article has a very clear "this article is disputed maker" with a link to the discussion on it, what this women opinion on that, one has to view the wiki in its entirity including the talk page... but is a reflection of the victors writing history

toiletduck

Boggle wrote:

TBH I dont recall any of that but even were it headline news I'd have trouble believing anything that comes out of bush's spin machine. (history written by the winners and all that)

i remember watching a documentary about the executions, on the bbc i think, a few years before anyone ever heard of Bush. Despite what some people believe not all the bad things that happen in countries which America invaded are products of Bushs imagination.

meepmeep

Boggle wrote:

TBH I dont recall any of that but even were it headline news I'd have trouble believing anything that comes out of bush's spin machine. (history written by the winners and all that)
Next thing you'll tell me that Husseiin was a threat to world peace! (What was he gonna do? Throw stones over the border?)

Another person to jump on the anti Bush bandwagon.

"The taliban were lovely people really. That bad man Bush must be making up stories about them killing people for fun"

mr_angry

To be honest, you have to wonder whether the Taliban really controlled Afghanistan. It seemed apparent to me that it was local warlords who controlled most of the country outside Kabul. Ironically this is still the case, and its still the same warlords, except they just changed allegiances when the Americans came along.

The Taliban really were only an administrative group running the capital. I have no doubt that some of them were morally corupt people - you tend to get that in any administration. But the original Taliban movement (Taliban meaning "students") came from a bunch of theologists who were trying to generate a peaceful Islamic country. To label them all as mad, AK47-toting extremists would be incorrect, but its what the western media were fed, and what they reported. Most of the AK-47 toting madmen were henchmen of the warlords, and are still there.

ionapaul

Boggle wrote:

Next thing you'll tell me that Husseiin was a threat to world peace! (What was he gonna do? Throw stones over the border?)

He threw a few *stones* in the direction of Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Israel in his day, to be fair...the fact that his regime was once supported by the US government does not change the certainty that he will go down in history as a brutal dictator who was a genuine threat to world peace during the late 20th century.

Meh

I read that [Wikipedia] article on the Taliban. i even have it here on my hard-drive, in fact. That is not true or reliable. It was written by a church group trying to get funding to come in and preach to the 'heathens' in Afghanistan with their own parochial schools.

Don't suppose she has any evidence to back this accusation up (name of the church group for a start)? If you look at Wikipedia's "history" for that page, you can see exactly who wrote it.

Zombrex

I am not quite sure where your friend is getting her idea of life under the Taliban but it sounds like she has a quite distored view of what it was actually like for women. From the web site of the Channel 4 doc "Beneth the Veil"

Women can't go outside their homes without being covered from head to toe. They are excluded from jobs and medical care. Men may be imprisoned for not having a beard. You can't fly a kite, paint your nails, listen to music or watch television.

As far as I know Pakistan supported the efforts of the Taliban because they had the goal of forming a true Islamic state. But the Taliban twisted Islam to fit their fundamental lust for power -

I left my undercover guides with a feeling of profound depression. The Taliban insist their edicts are based on Islam, yet the Islam I grew up with was a tolerant faith, with no place for bigotry and fanaticism. On my trip to Kabul, I found many devoutly Muslim Afghans who did not recognise their own religion in the Taliban's interpretation

chewy

Another person to jump on the anti Bush bandwagon.

"The taliban were lovely people really. That bad man Bush must be making up stories about them killing people for fun"

hey meepmeep that guy was was asking a very good valid question, saying do we have 100% independent proof that this happened remember the whole Kuwait women gving evidence to the UN about Baby Killing Bathist that was total fake, im sure most people watch that on BBC doesnt mean its true...


I would like to know more about this Muslim English womans background and experience though

luckat

As I understand it, the American-backed Taliban uprising was sparked by the vile Soviets deciding to open schools for women. A shocking thought, and one which I'm sorry to reveal to delicate Irish sensibilities.

The best book I've read on the Taliban is this one - very informative on the "Great Game" that was played in Afghanistan by the British Empire and Russia over oil, long before America was a power. A fabulous book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1860648304/qid=1106830158/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/202-4706094-5958200

Taliban: Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in Central Asia
Ahmed Rashid

amazon.co.uk price: £18.95 (probably much cheaper in Chapters or somewhere)

Amazon.co.uk Review
Ahmed Rashid's Taliban: The story of the Afghan Warlords is the single best book available on the subject of the regime in Afghanistan responsible for harbouring the terrorist Osama bin Laden.

Rashid is a Pakistani journalist who has spent most of his career reporting on the region--he has personally met and interviewed many of the Taliban's shadowy leaders.

Taliban was written and published before the massacres of September 11, 2001, yet it is essential reading for anyone who hopes to understand the aftermath of that black day.

It includes details on how and why the Taliban came to power, the government's oppression of ordinary citizens (especially women), the heroin trade, oil intrigue, and--in a vitally relevant chapter--bin Laden's sinister rise to power.

These pages contain stories of mass slaughter, beheadings and the Taliban's crushing war against freedom: Under Mullah Omar, it has banned everything from kite flying to singing and dancing at weddings.

Rashid is for the most part an objective reporter, though his rage sometimes (and understandably) comes to the surface: "The Taliban were right, their interpretation of Islam was right, and everything else was wrong and an expression of human weakness and a lack of piety", he notes with sarcasm. He has produced a compelling portrait of modern evil. --John Miller

Sand

As far as I know Pakistan supported the efforts of the Taliban because they had the goal of forming a true Islamic state.

Yup - the Pakistan establishment favours an Islamic Afghanistan rather than a nationalistic Afghanistan, due in no small part to tribal "spillovers" such as the Pashtun who live both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In an Islamic Afghanistan their all brothers in Islam so no big deal. In a secular nationalistic Afghanistan, there is the fear of the Pashtun in Pakistan throwing their lot in with their friends north of the border, leading to instability and even revolution.

As for the womans view of the Taliban - Im sure the Taliban werent all 100% completely evil - Im certain that a few of them at least did carry out "good works" here and there. Overall however, their regime was horrific and exceptions to the rule dont counter that.

pickarooney

This is weird, the article has changed the last couple of times I've visited it. I appended that link to my original post without (re-)reading it and now I can't find the passage (below) I quoted from it to her. It may in fact have not been from Wikipedia but from another site (I had several open at the time). Googling some of the text, that in fact seems to be the case. Sincere apologies for the confusion, this is already murky enough without me adding to it.

"The Taliban sought to impose an extreme interpretation of Islam--based in part upon rural Pashtun tradition--upon the entire country and committed massive human rights violations, particularly directed against women and girls, in the process. Women were restricted from working outside the home, pursuing an education, were not to leave their homes without an accompanying male relative, and forced to wear a traditional body-covering garment called the burka. The Taliban committed serious atrocities against minority populations, particularly the Shi'a Hazara ethnic group, and killed noncombatants in several well-documented instances. In 2001, as part of a drive against relics of Afghanistan's pre-Islamic past, the Taliban destroyed two large statues of the Buddha outside of the city of Bamiyan and announced destruction of all pre-Islamic statues in Afghanistan, including the remaining holdings of the Kabul Museum.
In addition to the continuing civil strife, the country suffered from widespread poverty, drought, a devastated infrastructure, and ubiquitous use of landmines. These conditions led to about three to four million Afghans suffering from starvation. In 1998 thousands of people were killed by earthquakes."

Google points to the article here, here and here (this last page only seems to work in IE).

As for evidence, she didn't provide any, or I would have linked to it here. I can ask here next time I'm speaking to her. Actually, I'll make a point of it, as this information also appears on www.state.gov which I think is an official US government site. Not that that in itself makes it more credible or incredible...
I just have no idea at this stage, and don't know any Afghans well enough to ask their opinions.

Meh

luckat wrote:

As I understand it, the American-backed Taliban uprising was sparked by the vile Soviets deciding to open schools for women. A shocking thought, and one which I'm sorry to reveal to delicate Irish sensibilities.

You understand wrong. The Taliban wasn't founded until 1994, three years after the Soviet Union collapsed, five years after the Red Army withdrew from Afghanistan and two years after the fall of the Communist government in Kabul.

Hobbes

The taliban were evil. However they came into power because there were actually worse people then them in power at that time (three guesses who).

That is how they got into power to begin with.

Amazing no one is really paying attention to afganistan anymore.
http://www.sundayherald.com/47282

jhegarty

Hobbes wrote:

The taliban were evil. However they came into power because there were actually worse people then them in power at that time (three guesses who).

That is how they got into power to begin with.

Amazing no one is really paying attention to afganistan anymore.
http://www.sundayherald.com/47282

not that i approve of this , but things can't change over night , not in a country like this.... they have to take small steps or risk people looking back to the days of the taliban.....

read this bit from the end of the articel

But Dr Massouda Jalal, the minister for women’s affairs, is hopeful. “Thirty-five per cent of girls are in school – that’s 5.5 million girls, the highest number in the history of Afghanistan,” she says.

One of three female ministers, Jalal was the only woman to run for president. She came sixth out of 18 candidates, securing 1.2% of the vote, something she is proud of.

“I did it on my own, ” she says. “I had no money, no army, no guns and no media.” Three of the candidates who beat her were warlords.

Jalal works more than 12 hours a day with one of the smallest ministerial budgets. She says women’s rights have been ignored by the inter national community, which has assumed women have attained instant freedom since the fall of the Taliban.

“The West believes in equal rights, but why don’t they help us bring it here?” says Jalal. Of all the ministries, hers has the fewest foreign workers – vital for imparting knowledge in an emerging country.

But she is certain local attitudes will change: “Nothing is impossible. When the new constitution is implemented things will start to change faster. It states equal rights for men and women and that all negative traditional practices will be stopped. But it will take time, patience, resources and security.” In a country divided by ethnic clans and warlords and terrorised by extremists, it could be a long wait, but Jalal will never give up.

Zombrex

Meh wrote:

You understand wrong. The Taliban wasn't founded until 1994, three years after the Soviet Union collapsed, five years after the Red Army withdrew from Afghanistan and two years after the fall of the Communist government in Kabul.

I think he means the Afghan freedom fighers, the Mudahadine (that is competely the wrong spelling). The Taliban were formed out of the more extremist members of this group. But you are correct, they are not the same group the that the US backed during the war (as I myself have made the mistake of thinking in the past).

meepmeep

chewy wrote:

hey meepmeep that guy was was asking a very good valid question, saying do we have 100% independent proof that this happened remember the whole Kuwait women gving evidence to the UN about Baby Killing Bathist that was total fake, im sure most people watch that on BBC doesnt mean its true...

Where was the valid question?

Boggle wrote:

TBH I dont recall any of that but even were it headline news I'd have trouble believing anything that comes out of bush's spin machine. (history written by the winners and all that)
Next thing you'll tell me that Husseiin was a threat to world peace! (What was he gonna do? Throw stones over the border?)

DadaKopf

There's a good explanation of when, where and how the Taliban emerged following the USA-USSR proxy war in Afghanistan, in a book called The Future of Revolutions. Needless to say, as so many things are in the near and middle-east, how they emerged is really, really complex, but this is a really short article explaining how global forces produced them.

If I remember the chapter properly, there were two Talibans: one was a progressive Afghani Muslim movement which tried to bring Islam into the twentieth century (something which Islamic scholars had been trying to do elsewhere for decades), they were literally what Taliban means: Student reformers. The other Taliban is the one that is villified today, a group of people who marginalised the earlier Taliban movement.

This Taliban emerged as a direct result of a generation of Pashtuns growing up in decrepit refugee camps just inside the Pakistani border. They fled because of the US-USSR proxy war. Life in the camps was hard and there was little to do; as a generation grew up in these camps, they developed a very idealistic picture of their homeland that they couldn't remember. Alongside this, their religious vision became more conservative and revolutionary; receiving their only education at Madrassas (holy schools) in the camps, Afghani and Pakistani clerics, needing an ideology to spark some kind of nationalistic passion, indoctrinated them with a highly conservative Islamic political vision. But it wasn't really Islam. Their conservative Islamic vision was much more the product of Pashtun culture specifically, which is very conservative and hierarchical, and not Islam itself.

It was this Taliban, not the reformers who advocated social equality and openness, who took back their Pashtun homeland and imposed an even more conservative, more vicious Pashtun regime than had been in place before. Pashutun Islamic fundamentalism was an ideology used to achieve local national objectives (like the Bush administration, for example), but the irony, the writer of the chapter says, is if it wasn't for global factors the Taliban would never have existed.

But many, many local factors like 'tribal' competition within Afghanistan and within 'tribes' themselves and other things play crucial roles, but I don't know anything about that.

I did a quick search on some journal sites and found two books that might be of interest:

Reaping the Whirlwind: The Taliban Movement in Afghanistan
Michael Griffin
London: Pluto Press, 2001

The Taliban: Ascent to Power
M J Gohari
New York: Oxford University Press, 2000

mycroft

toiletduck wrote:

i remember watching a documentary about the executions, on the bbc i think, a few years before anyone ever heard of Bush. Despite what some people believe not all the bad things that happen in countries which America invaded are products of Bushs imagination.

And who funded the Taliban? Er.....Bush's dad, and when he was vice president Bush's boss.

This is the classic pro war movement argument.

"Well say what you like about the way things are now, things are better than when now when we had the evil dicator" Ignoring the fact the members of the current administrator helped install and fund said dictator, and for them now to moralise about protecting the helpless ignores the fact that they were happy to ignore said human rights abuse when said dictator was helpful to them......

AmenToThat

My (very limited) understanding of the Taliban was that they emerged from southestern Afghani Pashtun tribes based in Kandahar to fight the Northern Alliance (who are in control now) who had rampaged through the south of the country after the Russians had withdrawn.

As I say my understanding is very simplistic but there certainly was/is a tribal basis to all politics in Afganistan and Id be very surprised if this new democratic Afghanistan lasts, well in its present form where the Northern Alliance runs the whole show anyways.
Its interesting that even in Pashtun areas of the south and east the vote for Karzai's government was strong yet Taliban attacks have still increased in recent months, just goes to show how complicated things are there.

Zombrex

mycroft wrote:

And who funded the Taliban? Er.....Bush's dad, and when he was vice president Bush's boss.

This is the classic pro war movement argument.

"Well say what you like about the way things are now, things are better than when now when we had the evil dicator" Ignoring the fact the members of the current administrator helped install and fund said dictator, and for them now to moralise about protecting the helpless ignores the fact that they were happy to ignore said human rights abuse when said dictator was helpful to them......

I think the point TolietDuck is trying to make is that America's f**ked up idea of foreign policy didn't start with Bush Jr. or even Bush Sn. America's foreign policy since WWII has been to manipluate other countries through direct military action or through back door methods, so that the countries serve the interests of American business. THe democrats do it just as much as the republicans, though not as blatant. The USA funded the Afgans against the USSR to protect capitalist interests in the Middle East. The USA funded Sadam to protect capitalist interests in the Middle East. The USA funded the removal of the democracy in Iran (50 years ago! .. suck bullsh*t that Bush is bringing democracy to the middle east) to protect capitalist interests in the middle east. THe USA went to war against Iraq to protect capititalist interests in the middle east ... etc etc etc

This has been going on for 60 years with America and for much longer with teh British and French.

That is why things like Moore's F-911 piss me off. Bush isn't the biggest problem. American Big Business interests are the problem. They won't go away in 4 years time when Bush does. They don't disappear when a democrate enters the white house .

Memnoch

ionapaul wrote:

He threw a few *stones* in the direction of Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Israel in his day, to be fair...the fact that his regime was once supported by the US government does not change the certainty that he will go down in history as a brutal dictator who was a genuine threat to world peace during the late 20th century.

and those that supported him when it was convenient for them and removed him when it wasn't should be remembered as great liberators that brought democracy and freedom to an oppressed people i presume?

Bush has always been a far bigger threat to world peace than saddam ever was and his actions have resulted in a reduction in peace and stability throguhout the world

Nuttzz

mycroft wrote:

And who funded the Taliban? Er.....Bush's dad, and when he was vice president Bush's boss.

The flaw here is that you are assuming that the mujahideen that fought the russians were all Taliban, but that isnt the case. The mujahideen were made up of numerous groups including the Taliban. The mujahideen were all tribal warlords, it was after the support from Pakistan that the Taliban grouping became a serious grouping.

The next flaw here is that you assume that only the US funded the mujahideen but they were also funded by Pakistan, China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Who all had their own interests in seeing the USSR being defeated there.

The Taliban were welcomed initally because the people had come war weary and wanted some order in life, however soon public executions and punishments (such as floggings) became regular events at Afghan soccer stadiums.

Women could be shot by officers of the snazzy named "ministry for the protection of virtue and prevention of vice" for leaving their home without a male relative in tow.

Real nice guys alright.

jhegarty

Meh wrote:

You understand wrong. The Taliban wasn't founded until 1994, three years after the Soviet Union collapsed, five years after the Red Army withdrew from Afghanistan and two years after the fall of the Communist government in Kabul.

mycroft wrote:

And who funded the Taliban? Er.....Bush's dad, and when he was vice president Bush's boss.

well these two posts can both be true ... now can they.......

DadaKopf

The Reagan administration supported the Mujahadeen.

Phil_321

Yeah, the Taliban need to get their PR sorted. I'm sure they're a sound bunch of guys just a bit misunderstood. It's all the US's fault as usual.

DadaKopf

I don't think you'll find anyone expressing exactly that opinion in this thread.

Phil_321

Didn't read the whole thread, I was responding to the OP.

pickarooney

Phil_321 wrote:

Didn't read the whole thread, I was responding to the OP.

Why bother, if not to contribute anything?

For those who were asking, it turns out she's actually Canadian, of Italian origin, fairly recent convert to Islam. She said she'd send me some articles, but to be honest, I'm starting to get the impression she's a bit delusional (though the reason for that is entirely unrelated).