How real is the gap between the slogan and the action of the visions of the United Nations?
Author: Mohammad Qadeer Mesbah, Regional Affairs Expert
The events of the past fifty years have made Afghanistan the center of unanswered questions. The history of the transformation of the monarchy into a republic by Sardar Mohammad Daoud and the coup d'état of the leaders of the Communist Party on April 27, 1978, until the victory of the Mujahideen on April 28, 1992, and not only these events but also poverty, displacement, suffering, and killings of Afghans are reflected in books and manuscripts of various researchers and writers, which have been described by national and international media from the very beginning. These problems have always filled the minds and hearts of the people of Afghanistan and even the whole world.
The description and interpretation of the global phenomenon of the expansion of the fight against communism of the Western world under the leadership of the United States of America and the fight against new phenomena of terrorism, extremism, drugs, and the development of democracy, human rights, and the free world form the basis of these problems.
Have the communists really been defeated, terrorism has been eradicated, extremism has been curbed, the fight against drugs has been successful, democracy has flourished, human rights have been secured and a free world has been created?
The answer to these questions cannot be easily assessed positively or considered negative without thinking, because, naturally, none of them has a positive answer. The United Nations, by endorsing the annual and monthly resolutions, announcements, speeches, and daily meetings of the lower commissions, under the pretext of clarifying global expectations, the pragmatism of governments, flexibility, constructive interaction, and the continuous way forward, speaks of strategic patience and diplomatic language. But did she pay attention to the implementation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other conventions binding on all governments, formal and informal institutions?
Has the UN heard the voices of freedom in Afghanistan? About the problems of personal security, inhuman treatment of torture, access to a fair trial, protection of privacy, ensuring the marriage of people, respect for the right to personal property, the right to individual and collective protest, and people's access to education and profession? And also about the right to advance, which is one of the fundamental human rights. And what is the pragmatic approach of the UN to the problems that take the women and men of Afghanistan by the throat and about which human rights activists around the world have been talking and shouting for many years?
In my opinion, the United Nations, by showing strategic patience, excessive flexibility, constructive interaction, and diplomatic language in the political process and appeasing the Taliban, has only achieved that the Taliban not only banned the work of women in national and international organizations but even banned women from working - UN staff. With such actions of the UN, the Taliban was spoiled in the truest sense of the word. And in this way, the optimism of the world community about the Doha agreements was put to an end and it turned out that the current Taliban is even worse than their predecessors in the 90s.
Will the UN still shine at the May meeting, which is scheduled to be held in the same Doha, Qatar, with the participation of the highest officials of this organization, without the presence of women in the adoption of statements, declarations, and resolutions? Will their strategic patience run out on issues of violence, women's rights, men's rights, minority rights, and women's education? Will this organization do anything for the constructive engagement that Afghan women and men look forward to? Or will there again be an official statement with fashionable literature about practical steps toward a political settlement of the Afghan crisis?
The fact is that this time the UN and António Guterres himself, the UN Secretary-General, according to the slogan of constructive interaction of this international organization, already have all the evidence of the oppression and hellish life of Afghan women and men under the Taliban. At the very least, they should have asked the Member States, which are bound by international conventions and pacts, to send female representatives instead of male representatives to this meeting in order to somehow answer the unanswered questions of at least 35 million people living in Afghanistan.
