You only have to google the word "Taliban" to know the preferred view: (to quote one site) "The Taliban maintained a narrow, repressive vision of society".

i also subscribed to this view prior to, and especially after 9/11 when the Taliban and Afghanistan was under the media spotlight. Yvonne Ridley was kidnapped and we all expected something terrible to happen to her... but she returned, safe and sound, and a year or so later i went to a talk in which she detailed her story of what happened in Afghanistan. that got me thinking, and i went home and looked into articles written by people who had actually visited the country under the Taliban. they were very much in contrast to those written by the rest of the media, and i became sceptical...

Coupla months back i came across the transcript of a speech given by a taliban spokesman, and it deepened my scepticism. Read it and add ur views...

LECTURE: Taliban in Afghanistan

Syed Rahmatullah Hashimi
(Senior Advisor to Mullah 'Umar, Afghanistan)

MARCH 10, 2001

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA,

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

*Note: [--] Indicate words that were not heard clearly in the recording.

I was just coming from [a meeting with] a group of scholars, and the first thing we started there was the statues. And the first thing we started here was also the statues. It s very unfortunate how little we see and how little we know. And it really confuses me, if people really know that little or not. Nobody has seen the problems of Afghanistan; nobody saw their problems before. And the only thing that represents Afghanistan today are the statues.

The problem of Afghanistan was not new. As you know that Afghanistan is called, The Crossroads of Asia. So, we are suffering because of our geo-strategic location. We have suffered in the 18th century, 19th century, and we are still suffering in this century.

We have not attacked the British. We have not attacked the Russians. It was them who attacked us. So the problems in Afghanistan you see is not our creation. That reflects the image of the world. If you don t like the image in the mirror, do not break the mirror; break your face.

The problems in Afghanistan started in 1979. Afghanistan was a peaceful country and it was doing its own job. The Russians, along with their 140,000 troops attacked Afghanistan in the December of 1979, just 21 years ago, stayed there for a decade, killed one and a half million people, maimed one million more people, and six million out of the eighteen million people migrated because of the Russian brutalities. Even today, our children are dying because of the landmines that they planted for us. And nobody knows about this.

After the Russians left during the Russian occupation, on the other side, the American government, the British government, the French, the Chinese, and all of the rest, supported the counter-revolutionaries called the Mujahideen; 7 parties only in Pakistan and 8 parties in Iran who fought the Russian occupation. And after the Russians left, these parties went into Afghanistan. All of them had different ideologies, a lot of weapon[s]. And instead of having a single administration, they fought in Afghanistan. The destruction that they brought was worse than the destruction the Russians brought. 63,000 people were only killed in the capitol, Kabul. Seeing all this chaos, and the complete destruction of our country, and I don t have to forget that after the Soviets left, another million people migrated because of the lawlessness that existed in
Afghanistan 7 million people.

So seeing this destruction and lawlessness, a group of students called the Taliban (Taliban is the plural word of students in our language; it may be two students in Arabic, but in our language it means students) so a group of students started a movement called the Movement of Students. It first started in a village in the southern province of Afghanistan, called Kandahar. It happened when a war-lord, or a commander abducted two minor girls, raped them, and the parents of those girls went to a school and asked the teacher of the school to help them. The teacher of that school, along with his 53 students, finding only 16 guns, went and attacked the base of that commander. After releasing those two girls, they hanged that commander, and so many of their [the commander s] people were also hanged. This story was told everywhere; and this was called the terrorist story of the Taliban, or the Students. BBC also quoted this story. Seeing or hearing this story, many other students joined this movement and started disarming the rest of the warlords, who were worse than these. I will not prolong this story so far, this same students movement controls 95% of the country; they captured the capitol, including the four major cities. And only a bunch of those warlords are remaining in the northern corridor of Afghanistan.

So our achievements are as follows. We are in a government for only five years, and the following things that we have done, and many of you may not know:

* The first thing we have done is reunify the fragmented country. Afghanistan was formerly fragmented into five parts. The first thing we have done is to reunify that country. The United Nations, the United States, everybody was confused as to how to reunify that country, and nobody could do it. First thing we have done is to reunify that country.

* Second thing we have done, which everybody failed to do, was disarming a population. After dealing [with] the war of the Russians, and the Americans I would say, every Afghan got a Kalashnikov, and even sophisticated weapons such as stinger missiles, and they even got fighter planes and fighter helicopters. So disarming these people was impossible. The United Nations in 1992 passed an appeal asking for 3 billion dollars to re-purchase that arms, to start a process of repurchasing those arms. And suddenly, because of its impracticalibility, that plan never materialized, and everybody forgot about Afghanistan. So the second thing we have done is to disarm 95% of that country.

* And the third thing that we have done is to establish a single administration under Afghanistan, which did not exist for 10 years.

* And the fourth achievement that we have that is surprising to everybody is that we have eradicated 75% of all worlds Opium cultivation. Afghanistan produced 75% of all worlds Opium. The drug, you know that Opium? The Narcotics business? And last year we issued an edict asking the people to stop growing Opium, and this year, the United Nations Drug Control Program, UNDCP, and their head, [Mr.] Barnard F., proudly announced that there was 0% of Opium cultivation. Not at all. And this was not a good news for UN itself because many of them lost their jobs. In the UNDCP, 700 so called experts were working there and they got their salaries and they! never went into Afghanistan. So when we issued this edict, I know that they were not happy. And this year they lost their jobs. And this was our fourth achievement.

* The fifth achievement that we have, but it s a little controversial, some of our friends will not know is the restoration of Human rights. Now, YOU may think that is a violation of Human Rights, but from OUR perspective that is the restoration of Human Rights. Because usually [among] the fundamental rights of a human being is the right to Live. Before us, nobody could live peacefully in Afghanistan. So the first thing we have done, begun [to give] to the people is a secure and peaceful life. The second major thing that we have restored is to give them free and fair justice; you don t have to buy justice, unlike here. You will have justice freely. And you have criticized us for violating women s rights; now, who knows what happened before us. Only some symbolic schools, or symbolic posts were given to some women in the ministry, and that was called the restoration of women s rights. I can see some Afghans living here, and they will agree with me, that in the rural areas of Afghanistan, women were used as animals. They were SOLD actually. The first thing we have done is to give the self-determination to women, and it happened not in the history of Afghanistan. Throughout the history of Afghanistan, during all the so-called civilized kings or whatever, they didn t give this right to women, so women were sold.! They didn t have the right to select their husbands, or to reject their husbands. First thing we have done is to let them choose their future. And you will know that throughout south Asia, women are killed under the title of honor killings. It happens when a woman s relation is detected with a man, whether or not the relation was sexual, they're both killed. But now this is not happening in our country. And the third thing that happened only in Afghanistan, was women were exchanged as gifts; this was not something religious; this was something cultural. When two tribal tribes were fighting among themselves, then in order to get their tribal issue reconciliated, they would exchange women, and then [they]! would make, or announce reconciliation. And this has been stopped. If we [had to give] fundamental rights of woman, we had to start from zero; we couldn t jump in the middle. Now you ve asked me about the rights of women s education and the rights of women's work. Unlike what is said here, women do work in Afghanistan. You're right that until 1997 I mean, in 1996 when we captured the capitol Kabul, we did ask women to stay home. It didn t mean that we wanted them to stay at home forever, but nobody listened to us. We said that there is no law, and there is no order, and have to stay at home. They were raped before us, ever! yday. So, after we disarmed the people, and after we brought law and order, and now women are working. You are right that women are not working in the ministry of defense, like here. We don t want our women to be fighter pilot[s], or to be used as objects of decoration for advertisements. But they do work. They work in the Ministry of Health, Interior, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Social Affairs, and so on. So, and we don t have any problem with women s education. We have said that we want education, and we will have education whether or not we are under anybody s pressure, because that is part of our belief. We are ordered to do that. When we say that there should be segregated schools, it does not mean that we don t want our women to be educated. It is true that we are against co-education; but it is not true that we are against women s education. We do have schools even now, but the problem is the resources. We cannot expand these programs. Before, our government there were numerous curriculums that were going on; there were curriculums which preached the king for the kings, and there were curriculums which preached for the communists, and there were curriculums from all these seven parties [the previously mentioned]. So, the Students were confused as to what to study, and the first we have done today is to unify that curriculum, and that s going on. But we are criticized, and we say that instead of criticism, if you just help us once, that will make a difference. Because criticism will not make a difference. If you [talk?] criticism from New York, thousands of miles away, we don t care. But if you come there and help us, we do care. So actually there are more girls students studying in the faculty of medical sciences than boys are. This is not me who is saying this, it is the United Nations who has announced this. Recently we reopened the faculty of medical science in all major cities of Afghanistan and in Kandahar, there are more girl students than boys. But they are segregated. And the Swedish committees have also established schools for girls. I know they are not enough, but that s what we can do. So, that is what I say that we have restored. I don t say we are 100% perfect, and nobody will say that they are 100% perfect. We do have shortcomings, and we do need to amend our policies. But we can t do everything over night.

* And the sixth problem, that we are... is it sixth or seventh? Seventh I think the seventh problem that we are accused of is Terrorism, or the existence of terrorists in Afghanistan. And for Americans terrorism or terrorist means only bin Laden. Now you will not know that Afghanistan, or bin Laden was in Afghanistan 17 years before even we existed. Bin Laden was in Afghanistan, fought the Soviet Union, and Mr. Ronald Reagan, the president of America in that time, and Dick, Mr. Dick Chaney called such people freedom fighters or the Heroes of Independence, because they were fighting for their cause. So Osama bin Laden was one of those guys who was instigated by such media reports, so in that provocation by these countries to go to Afghanistan and fight the Soviets there. And now when the Soviet Union is fragmented, such people were not needed anymore, and they were transformed into terrorists from heroes to terrorists. So exactly like Mr. Yassir Arafat was transformed from a terrorist to a hero. So we don t know as to what is the definition of Terrorism. We do regret that the terrorists were actually horrific acts and they were terrorist acts. But if they are terrorist acts, what is the difference between those terrorist acts and the attacks on Afghanistan when in 1998 attacks, cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan. Neither of the two were declared and both of them killed civilians. So we are confused as to what is the definition of Terrorism. If it means killing civilians blindly, both of them killed civilians blindly. And the fact is, I m not going to be offensive or rude, or rude about this, I m going to be frank. And I think it s sometimes honest to be rude. If the United States that it has acted for its defense, lets see. The United States government tried to kill a man without even giving him a fair trial. In 1998, they just sent cruise missiles into Afghanistan and they announced that they were trying to kill Osama bin Laden. We didn't know Osama bin Laden then. I didn t know him; he was just a simple man. So we were all shocked. I was one of those men who was sitting at home at night, I was called for an immediate council meeting and we all were told the United States have attacked Afghanistan. With 75 cruise missiles and trying to kill one man. And they missed that man; killed 19 other students and never apologized for those killings. So what would you do if you were in our status; if we were to go and send 75 cruise missiles into the United States and say that we were going to kill a man that we thought not believed that we thought was responsible for our embassy, and we missed that man, and we killed 19 other Americans what would the United States do? An instant declaration of war. But we we! re polite. We didn't declare war. We had a lot of problems at home; we didn't t want further problem[s]. And since then, we are very open-minded on this issue. We have said, that if really this man is involved in the Kenya/Tanzania acts, if anybody can give us proof or evidence about his involvement in these horrific acts, we will punish him. Nobody gave us evidence. We put him on trial for 45 days and nobody gave us any kind of evidence. The fact is that the United States told us they did not believe in our judicial system. We were surprised as to what kind of judicial system they have. They showed us as to what they are doing to the people they just tried to kill a man without even giving him a fair trial, even if one of us is a criminal here, the police is not going to blow his house, he must go to a court first. So, that was rejected. Our first proposal, despite all these things, was rejected. They said they will not believe in our judicial system, and we must give him to New York. The second proposal that we gave after the rejection of this first proposal we gave was, we are ready to accept an international monitoring group to come into Afghanistan and monitor this man s activities in Afghanistan. So that he does nothing. Even that he has no telecommunications [--]. That proposal was also rejected. And the third proposal we gave, six months ago, was that we were ready, that we were ready to try or accept a third Islamic country s decision, or the trial of [--] in a third Islamic country, with consent of Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan that was also rejected. So we don t know, as to what is the problem behind. If bin Laden was the only issue, we are still very open minded, and for the fourth time, I m here, with a letter from my leadership that I m going to submit to the state department hoping that they will resolve the problem. But I don t think so [that] they'll solve the problem. Because we think, and I personally think now that maybe the United States is looking for a Boogy Man always. Remember what Gorbachev said? He said, that he s going to do the worst thing ever to the United States. And everybody thought that he s going to blow the United States with nuclear weapon[s]. But he said, "I m going to remove their enemy". And then he fragmented Soviet Union. And he was right. After he fragmented Soviet Union, a lot of people lost their jobs in the Pentagon, in the CIA, and the FBI, because they were not needed anymore. So we think that maybe these guys are looking for a Boogy Man now. Maybe they want to justify their annual budget, maybe they want to make their citizens feel that they are still needed to defend them. Afghanistan is not a terrorist state; we cannot even make a needle. How are we going to be a terrorist state? How are we going to be a threat to the world? If the world terrorism is really derived from the word terror , then there are countries making weapons of mass destruction, countries making nuclear weapons, forest deforestation, soil, air, and water pollution they are terrorist states; we are not. We cannot even make a needle; how are we going to be a threat to the world? So as I said in the beginning, the situation in Afghanistan is not our creation. The situation in Afghanistan reflects the world s image. If you don t like the image in the mirror, do not break the mirror; break your face.

Now, we are under sanctions. And the sanctions have caused a lot of problems, despite that we are going under so many problems, the 23 years of continuous war, the total destruction of our infrastructure, and the problem of refugees, and the problem of land mines in our agricultural
lands, all of a sudden the United Nations, with the provocation of Russia, is imposing sanctions on Afghanistan. And the sanctions have been approved; we are under sanctions. Several hundred children died a month ago, here it is (holds up pamphlet). Seven hundred children died because of malnutrition and the severe cold weather. Nobody even talked about that. Everybody knows about t! he statues. For us, we are surprised, that the world is destroying our future with economic sanctions, then they have no right to worry about our past. Everybody is saying that they are destroying their heritage they don t have any right to talk about that. They are destroying the future of our children with economic sanctions, how are they going to justify talking about our past? I know it s not rational and logical to blow the statues for, for retaliation of economic sanctions. But this is how it is. I called, after this announcements, I called my headquarters, and I found out, I was really confused, I asked them, why are they going to blow the statues, and I talked to the head of the council of scholars of people, who had actually decided this, he told me that UNESCO and NGO from Sweden, or from one of these Scandinavian countries Norway, Sweden, one of these they had actually come, with a project of rebuilding the face of these statues, which have worn by rain. So the council of people had told them to spend that money in saving the lives of these children, instead of spending that money to [restore these] statues. And these guys said that, No, this money is only for the statues. And the people were really pissed off. They said that, If you don t care about our children, we are going to blow those statues.

I don t say that he s right or wrong, the decision is yours. Think of yourself. If you are in such a problem, what would you do? If your children are dying in front of your eyes, and you are under sanctions, and then the same people who have imposed sanctions and are coming and building statues here? What will you do? So, I talked to my headquarters today, and they said that the statues have not been blown so far. But the people are so angry. They are really angry, they want to blow them. And there is Kofi Annan is going, you know Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of United Nations? He went to [--], to Pakistan, and he said he s going to meet our representative there. This man never bothered to enter, to talk about these children, he never bothered himself to talk about six million refugees, and he never talked about [the] poverty of Afghanistan. He only goes to that region because of these statues. And the OIC is also, they ve also sent a mission to go to Kabul and talk about those statues. So we re really confused. That the world is really caring about the statues, and then they don t care about human beings. I don t say we have to retaliate in blowing the statues; we have not done that. But if we were to destroy those statues! , we would have destroyed them three years before now, because we captured those areas those areas three years before now. We didn t want to blow them. And now the situation has come, and it s not our decision. This is the decision of the scholars and the people. And that is the decision has been approved by the Supreme Court. We cannot reject this decision. So these guys are there, the OIC and some, even I think some ministers from different countries are there to save the lives of these statutes. I think they will not be blown because of the concerns of these people. But it is really, really ridiculous. These people do no! t care about children, about people who are dying there, about the foreign interference that still exists, they only care about the statues. And I m sure they don t care about our heritage. They don t care about our heritage; they only care about their picnic site one time. Maybe they ll have a good picnic site there, seeing those statues. They don t care about our heritage, I m sure. If they were to care about our past, they wouldn t destroy our future. And I m sure these sanctions which are imposed on our government will never change us, because for us, our ideology is everything. To try to change our ideology with economic sanctions will never work. It may work i! n the United States, where the economy is everything, but for us, our ideology is everything. [--] And we believe that it is better to die for something than to live for nothing.

We are still open-minded. We are still, we have still opened our doors for negotiations, but our offices are closed everywhere our office was closed in New York a week ago. They are trying to shut our offices in other countries, trying to isolate us, and they don t know that isolation is counter-productive. Because they don t have experts; the only experts they have are those people who speak English. They don t even speak the language. Those experts who are advising the sanctions, or the sanction committee have not even been to Afghanistan. And they are setting benchmarks for us to achieve.

[url=http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/Taliban/talebanlec.html]Taliban in Afghanistan[/url]

if u open the link, the above transcript is followed by that of the Question and Answer session, which is also definitely worth the read - it answered all the questions which formed in my mind as i read the speech. (i didnt post it here because this post has already become too long - sorry admin!)

"Admin" wrote:

Any one interested please read [url=http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/Taliban/talebanlec.html]THIS[/url].

I did put it on the lost forums, and its a very positive outlook on the taleban.

They were stupid, they were naiive. They made alot of errors, but are IMO better than what was before them (and probably what is after them!).

lol admin!! u just linked the same article which is the basis of this topic, up there^^^.

"irfan" wrote:

The Taliban: were they really that backward, or were they infact the finest minds of the 14th century?

o-k. thanx for contributing some cynicism irfan... so have u actually read the above article (and/or Q&A session that follows it) ?

"TheRevivalEditor" wrote:

salaam

The taliban had a good intention, they wanted to end corruption, create peace and implement shariah. Unfortunately what they eneded up doing was damagaing and destroying the name and image of Islam forever!

The taliban represents an Islam that is rigid, extremist, not interested in women rights or issues, out of date, more cultural than traditional, .....

The taliban chose Osama over the people of afghanistan- they were prepared for thousands of afghanis to be killed as long as Osama is saved...
The taliban forced the burqa..which is not islamic, a head scarf or jilbaab is sufficient...they took women back a 100 years and damged islam throughout the world.
The taliban denied women to be educated or work or get an education... this is haram, unacceptable and sick. as a result many women ended up begging on the streets, if you dont let them work then the state should provide!
The taliban made it compulsory for men to wear a turban and keep a fist length beard otherwise they were whipped or sent to jail!
The taliban saw media, tv, video, audio as evil!!!!!

rather than focusing on issues of peace, security, strengthening economy, providing jobs, setting up a strong education system...they have done the opposite.

instead the taliban focused on the dress code and punishments!!!! they dont realise the damage they have caused worldwide especially in the west!
Shaykhs like Hamza Yusuf, Abdul hakim Murad etc have emphasised on the above points i have mentioned in their lectures, interviews, articles etc.

karzai is not any better but at least the name, image, value, teachings of islam are not ridiculed by the rest of the world!!!!! obviously he needs to go...but we dont need another Taliban!

wasalaam

ed,
it doesnt look like you've read the article which forms the basis of this thread either. ur post is full of misconceptions... admittedly, misconceptions which i too believed not so long ago.

the taliban was in power for 5 years. thats FIVE friggin years - and people expect them to have reformed their wartorn country and its economy into that of America or something?! i accept that they were not perfect, but in reality, noone is. so its easy to label them when we didnt even give them enough time to learn from their mistakes...

the truth is, us Westerners never really gave them a chance - wot did we do to support a country which had become lawless after years of war? as usual, we sat comfortably in our homes and turned a blind eye... the taliban being 'extremists' was just a convenient excuse.
They did manage to give relative peace and stability to a country which had been in war for 20-odd years - they suppressed the fighting warlords and formed a unified government.

ahh, women's rights, everyones favourite issue. may i point out that the burqa is the afghani cultural version of hijab (covering), just as somalis have their own cultural version - the headscarf and overcoat isnt the only form of covering, and Islam welcomes cutural diversity so if we feel that our version of hijab is the only or best one, that is pure arrogance. women wore the burqa before taliban came to power - we somehow got the idea that it was designed by a member of taliban and then produced and distributed to every afghani woman... :roll:

the taliban are not the ones who tarnished the image of islam - it is the media who has done so, by twisting the truth or highlighting the negative things alone. and we muslims living in the west naively believed everything the media fed us, and instead of actually going to afghanistan to find out the truth for ourselves we took the easier route and stood by our countrymen, saying yes, the taliban must be evil but thats not real islam! Hence, Muslims in the West also publicised this negative image of Islam being portrayed by the media - instead of researching for ourselves and cutting the rumour off before it could spread, we simply fueled it.

i have tried to address a couple of the points u made editor, but i wouldnt have had to if u just read the article provided... is that really so difficult?

"Jack Dante" wrote:

So what's your stance on women being denied basic healthcare, education or the small matter of being stoned to death in public for simply showing a bit of ankle accidentally?

do u have any evidence to prove the above? and in regards to my stance, i've already detailed it more than once in this thread so i'd very much appreciate it if u read the link provided as well as my previous posts before commenting...

"Jack Dante" wrote:

I am not going to make excuses for the US, who I'm fully aware messed things up over there when they assisted the rebels drive the Russians out, then simply left them to pick up the pieces afterwards, but I'd be interested to hear what you say to this.

Would you want to live under them?

hmm, would i want to live in a wartorn country? the answer is ofcourse "no"... but if the taliban had been given enough time to restore their country to economic stability (after all, they were only in power for 5 years so one cannot expect them to have done so following 20-odd years of war) then i dont see y i wouldnt live there (putting aside the fact that i love england too much to move away - i was born and brought up here so though i dont mind holidaying in foreign countries, i cant imagine living in any of them!) :oops:

o and btw, no people live "under" their government - they live and work alongside them, each depend on the other in some way or another.

i hope everyone who voted also read the article, as it certainly doesnt seem so...

Can those of you who voted please leave a comment, and those of u who havent read the stuff, feel free to comment but please dont vote until you've read the material provided... (i guess its a little late to be saying this but oh well.)

"MuslimSisLilSis" wrote:

Aasiyah ur article is WAAAY too long

could u summarise or highlight the main points-for lazy people such as myself?

trust me its worth the read!!
lilsis i think my post in reply to the editor summarises a coupla points - but its seriously a condensed version, theres much more which i havnt mentioned in my posts coz its all up there^!! in fact, gal havent u got holidays? ...which means you've got enough free time on your hands and no excuse; get over that laziness coz ur hols will be over before u know it!