Why are people silent against the Taliban?
Author: Abdul Naser Noorzad, security and geopolitics researcher, especially for "Sangar"
After the bitter experience of colonialism, fake and authoritarian regimes, every land has no more than two options: either it must submit to force and accept its cultural and historical indignity and erasure, or it must stand up against it and renounce its identity.
After two years of Taliban rule; the regime based on ideological deterrence and the founder of ethnic fascism, the people of Afghanistan, are still silent. This deadly silence has caused the regime of the Taliban to suppress the people on a large scale every day. The basic question is why people are silent against the Taliban? In response, it should be said that it is not surprising that the people are still silent and do not show any movement against the Taliban and the terrorists ruling Afghanistan. Because, contrary to what was expected, there is no movement on the part of the people to confront the existing situation and change it for the better, and Afghanistan under the terrorist rule of the criminal Taliban is still mired in oppression, tyranny and injustice.
Thinking about this matter, the writer first deals with the pathology and further causes of people's indifference towards the Taliban and presents some points in this regard. Because first, it is necessary to enumerate some basic reasons for the lack of popular resistance formation and to understand the exact etiology of the issue:
- Extreme poverty: In the last two years when the Taliban came to power, overwhelming poverty has ruled the country. Capitals have fled, business is paralyzed and there is no hope for its prosperity. People are in dire need of providing three meals of bread, which even many are unable to provide. This has made people think more about a piece of bread than changing the situation. At the same time, this poverty has provided the ground for the Taliban to recruit soldiers from different sections of the society and has caused any movement of the Taliban to be thwarted in the bud;
- The repressive policies of the Taliban in a structural form: since they came to power, the Taliban have been systematically suppressing the people in a targeted and ruthless manner in the form of a ruling system. The Taliban intelligence headquarters, especially the 90th and 40th units, have been the place of the most brutal torture for the Taliban opponents. At the same time, the disappearance, blackmail, making excuses and taking money from the people in various fields by the different factions of the Taliban, especially the Haqqani network, have created extreme fear in the minds of the people and caused no one to dare against the regime. Kame himself, the fake and ethno-centric Taliban, should raise his head;
- The failed performance and the bitter experience of the leaders of the Republic of Corruption: The people are tired of twenty years of widespread corruption in government institutions, oppression and injustice, the lack of rule of law and the absence of a legitimate people's system that should be in defense of the legitimate rights of the people, from any kind of transformation. Suddenness and change against the Taliban are scary. Everyone thinks that if the Taliban are not in power, another tyrant will replace them, and it does not matter to the people who and how they rule;
- People's disappointment in the formation of a powerful leadership based on popular charisma: In the past forty years, the absence of a powerful leadership and people who have the ability to stand up to public and national crises, have not been formed to deal with crisis management. Considering its history and past lessons, the people have no hope for the formation of a capable leader who can deliver a message of salvation and propose a solution to the Afghan crisis. Due to people's despair and the general despair that dominates the atmosphere, it has caused people to become disinterested and unbelieving about the change in the situation towards improvement;
- The collective lack of desire for a meaningful political mobilization: Since a successful leadership has not been formed in the past history of Afghanistan and the necessary power to mobilize the people in a meaningful way does not exist, there is no public will to change the situation through a political mobilization. People are not interested in collective work for a general movement and want justice. Therefore, under such conditions, there is no possibility of general uprising and political mobilization of the people against the Taliban;
- The lack of facilities to form a struggle and resistance gives hope: on the one hand, the resistance against the Taliban has not achieved much, and on the other hand, the lack of necessary facilities to launch a popular resistance against the Taliban and has lifted no place for any grounds for an uprising against the Taliban. When people see that there are no possibilities for resistance, this automatically lowers everyone's morale and creates areas of despair and hopelessness;
- Multiplicity of the resident tribes and the nature of the war based on ethnicity and language: this issue has been acknowledged many times that the nature of the war in Afghanistan under the control of the Taliban and even before that, is an ethnic nature, and the paradigm of ethnocentrism is based on calculations and political interactions and it is very prevalent to the current war. In this regard, there are several groups of ethnic groups living in Afghanistan and the ethnic and tribal nature of the problem of Afghanistan shows a prominent dimension of this crisis;
So with such conditions, the possibility of mobilizing, starting a general uprising and hoping to fight the Taliban is completely ruled out. Until a new young leadership with a fresh narrative, necessary honesty, necessary and reasonable political insight, legitimate and acceptable plan and agenda, takes action to save the people from the current situation. This kind of development can create a great change in terms of quantity and quality in the meaning and content of resistance and force people to resist and stand against the Taliban.
