The World Abandons the Afghans Again

Source: AP

Let’s move beyond the idea of Afghanistan being a mysterious mountainous country in Central Asia. Let’s move beyond the idea that is an unconquerable, unscalable terrain where superpowers go to die. Let’s even move beyond the idea that it was where Osama Bin Laden was taking refuge during the Mullah Omar Taliban regime.

Let’s think about the Afghans for a minute. What they have gone through for the last five decades.

Think about the women and children stranded outside Kabul To many Airport as the city was falling to the Taliban. Think about the others throwing their babies over the fence to US soldiers. Think about the men clinging on to the landing gear of the escaping B-57s and falling into the abyss of death. Nobody with a will to live or any hope for a future would do any of that.

Biden responds to his administration's recent crises: "Take a look at what I inherited when I came into office, the state of affairs and where we were. We had 4 million people vaccinated, we had no plan — I could go down the list…I'm not complaining, it's just the reality." pic.twitter.com/xPT6TfOn4J

— CBS News (@CBSNews) September 24, 2021

Perhaps all the considerations for Afghan human rights were overlooked when President Biden decided to evacuate the military in the most bizarre fashion. To many, it seemed that it has undone all the hard work that the United States and its allies had put in to return Afghanistan to civilization. President Bush called the withdrawal a mistake, and while you can blame all the ills of the world on him, he deserves credit for dismantling the Mullah Umer Taliban regime in Kabul, which is back under occupation now.

First of all, even the idea of negotiating with the medieval-minded Taliban was an abomination, I guess nobody is surprised that the Taliban while the Americans conveniently made a deal with them for their exit. The role Pakistan has played in this transition has been disgusting to say the least. Pakistan has been using the Afghan people for its supposed strategic depth to fend off foreign threats from Afghanistan. Its policy of funding and supporting Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan has only made its Western border more insecure instead of secure, while also destroying Afghan society in the process. With their mixed signalling of both urging the US not to leave and facilitating the Taliban to the gates of Kabul, with Pakistani ISI chief praying alongside them, is a new low even for a morall bankrupt regime like Pakistan.

https://twitter.com/MeetMalcom/status/1427389139188658178

It is perhaps not enough cost to pay that the Taliban are searching house to house looking for the allies who served the US forces and international organizations. It is perhaps not enough cost to pay that the Taliban are beheading sportswomen and murdering comedians. It is perhaps not enough cost that the Afghan society has been condemned into dark ages for the foreseeable future again. But of course, you had to stop forever wars.

There is no wonder that the United States could not fund Afghanistan forever. There is no wonder that the Afghan government and its bureaucracy were rife with corruption. There is no wonder that the allied forces had to exit at some stage. But like this? It has been the greatest disgrace for the United States since the Capitol riots, if not since Vietnam or ever.

The worst nightmare of the people of the Taliban has come true. Perhaps the moment Donald Trump and Joe Biden were elected.

The Single National Curriculum Disaster

Source: geo.tv

Perhaps one of the biggest reasons to oppose the government of the currently ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) political party has been its education policy. Seemingly egalitarian and innocuous if not revolutionary, this education policy is anything but. Championed by social conservative nationalists, even PTI urban liberals who come across as socially liberal, this policy has been more about turning secular education in private schools into madrassa education. While even the national ethos in Pakistan is not exactly the most exemplary in the world, the idea of unifying the diverse peoples within Pakistan under the same curriculum could only end in a disaster.

The main executor of the Single National Curriculum vision was Harvard graduate and Lahori liberal Dr. Marium Chagtai. Not only did she supervise this disaster unfold for the children of the country but also shamelessly defended it citing the Islamic provisions of the Constitution of Pakistan when confronted by
secular liberal intellectuals like Pervez Hoodbhoy. This reminds me of all the urban liberal nationalists who thought that a PTI government would be a good idea for the country. Though it really should not be a surprise because this is the “intelligentsia” that makes up the rotten idea of the (Islamic) Republic of Pakistan. They are true to the legacy of their communally-minded demented forefathers.

The Single National Curriculum is unfinished business from the Zia period as per academic A. H. Nayyar, and the hypernationalist theocrats making up the PTI hybrid regime are overzealously keen to complete it. As the process of this horrible transformation of the local private and public sector schools for the common citizen of Pakistan is underway, you can still find nationalist urban liberals defending the Single National Curriculum. They are still defending the celebration of the Hijab on state textbooks. And they will continue to do so as long as their safe spaces are not invaded by the theocratic extremists.

If you are having children or already have who are supposed to grow in a schooling system in Pakistan, be very afraid. The irony is that these urban PTI liberals will send their children to the Cambridge education system, which is completely isolated and safe from these “revolutionary changes.” They would rather satiate their hideous sense of patriotic national cohesion by imposing madrassa education on the lower middle class who want to pursue some semblance of quality education in a hopelessly theocratic society.

The PTI urban liberal experiments on the lower middle class for their stupid nationalist projects must stop.