So, the fall, more quickly than anyone seems to have expected, even the Taliban. Their return feels unbelievable, the end of an era that began on 9/11 and that for those of our age defined our understanding of the world. Certainly without 9/11 my life would have been different as I doubt the GF would have come to Pakistan, and I would not have decided to return to Pakistan after my degree. And now they are back. Though the memory that book ends this moment for me personally is, for some reason, from 1998, when Clinton sent cruise missiles into Afghanistan and Pakistan erupted in riots, and I had to shelter one afternoon in a bank vault on the Mall Road along with the bank employees.
In Pakistan there is a mood of satisfaction amongst the armchair warriors. That the Taliban have now defeated two global empires and surely belong in the history books, and they surely do not care about girls going to school or women moving freely, as Pakistan’s own schools and streets show. But how this will blow back in Pakistan, how the Pakistani Taliban will be emboldened or supported, remains to be seen.
Interesting, though, that the anti-imperialist side of it is being talked about in Pakistan but not much overseas, as far as I can tell. Much of the talk at the moment is about the failings of the Afghans. The Taliban are certainly an unsavoury type of anti-imperialist, but there is no doubt that they have defeated America – and not because of the failings of Afghans, much as the Americans would like to think so.
Pakistan will be far less willing to accept Afghan refugees than they were last time. They are associated in Pakistani minds with the drug trade, with the pitched street war in Karachi during the 1990s, with arms flooding in, with the Pakistani Taliban, and this has been nurtured for years to increase hostility. There is also more capacity to prevent refugees from entering than before, as the border is far more policed than it was in the 1980s/90s. Here in Turkey caravans of Afghan families have been arriving on the shore of Lake Van after making their way across Iran, and no one wants them here and Europe certainly does not want them.
My best hope at this moment is that the Taliban are serious about becoming part of the rest of the world and that they are able and allowed to, and are steered towards making concessions at least on women’s health and education, and that there is safety and economic activity enough that a refugee crisis will not be too large or too long. A bleak thought that this is the best hope I have, but this is not a world or time that is kind to refugees.
Anyway, these are just some scattered thoughts at what feels like a historic moment, on par with 9/11 itself. Certainly the hysteria in the news feels very much like it did around 9/11 and this time we have the addition of social media, and it is hard not to get swept away.