Life Of Afghan People in New Afghanistan
The new situation for people of Afghanistan is going to be something awful. It very much reminds me of changes in Iranian lives and the abrupt changes and mass murders 0f the last forty three years. Since Afghans by nature are more religious than Iranians .The pain of the majority is going to have a less painful sting. However both peasants and city people are going to have a rude awakening.
The lives of our middle class was not that different to lives of people anywhere in the world. However, there was a well- documented revolution in Iran led by Ayatollah Khomeini who was promising everything and ended up being a religious zealot like the chief of Taliban and suddenly everything changed to a pile of garbage causing 10%of the society who were the elite of the country move to other countries.
The people of Afghanistan are going to have similar problems. I divide the immediate problems to two categories.
The military problem and social problems.
1) Upcoming Military Chaos
The Taliban have real enemies of many kinds for many decades. Because of the Taliban military superiority, those enemies are going to pay a high price for the Taliban take over. So we should expect disappearance of rich people, educated people and entire tribes that we have not heard of yet. Taliban leaders will try to consolidate their total control in the entire country, something which has not been done in centuries by any one.
Also, they have immediate enemies who are more of a savage than they are. The ISIS-K that President Biden referred to recently has been actively recruiting in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India for about a decade. The addition of the letter K to their murdering name comes from the Iranian State of Khorasan. When Moslem Arabs conquered Iran 1400 years ago. They referred to all of the states in eastern part of Iranian Empire as Khoorasan which is bad pronunciation of our current state of Khorasan. Since the original ISIS of Iraq and Syria were defeated in the Middle East. They came up with another grandiose idea. The fertile ground of recruiting of countries in east of Iran. The new goals of the ISIS was to make an Islamic state which would include the Iranian state of Khorasan as well as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and all other Islamic territories that Moslems had captured throughout history .
The ISIS did not have any luck in Iran, because Iranian revolutionary Guards were more organized, better equipped and more prepared than they were. However, in the rest of western and central Asia they made a foothold, their leader of the time was Hafiz Saeed Khan who was killed by American forces last year. I do not who is their current leader, but the President Biden's direct reference and what is known publicly is a good reminder that they are a force to be reckon with. They think that the Taliban are not as strict and ambitious of a Moslem as they are. Therefore, the Taliban is going to have its hands full in dealing with them .There are more enemies but this is the immediate military problems
2) Afghan People's Social Problems:
People of Afghanistan have been accustomed to the more benevolent way of Americans doing things. I am sure there is a radio station with some music. May be a T.V station. Probably there is more tolerance for consumption of alcoholic beverages. Women are having pre Islamic freedoms of wearing regular attires rather than Burkas, girls are permitted to go to school. May be more association with men. Freedom of listening to Afghan music.
The legal system has had more of a western style to it, or at least there is not a law for strict adherence to primitive Sharia Laws. Probably there are more modern newspapers with some freedom of expiration, rather than the news system of Taliban, and many more signs of living in twenty first century. So all educated and rich people would want out, and the Taliban will not permit that, but with all those mountainous borders eventually the elite of the society will escape. Living in Afghanistan is going to be miserable.
The rest will come with time, but it just does not look good.
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