Ruling the Unruly
As you enter Afghanistan by road from Pakistan at Torkham, leaving the border checkpost, there is a small hand-painted notice in Pushtoo, nailed to a tree at the side of the road. Translated, it reads, "The Taliban should rule our people by winning over their hearts with their good character." This seemed like an official exhortation to all the Taliban, the "students" who have taken over almost the whole country, rather than to the people. If the onus was on the students to earn the approval of the people as a pre-requisite for their mandate to rule, this seemed encouraging, but would this noble principle manifest itself in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. How do they win over the hearts of all Afghans? After all, the very word Afghanistan means "Country of the Unruly".
It was to try and find an answer to such question that, as someone who has been attracted by Afghanistan since my first visit 30 years ago, I had accepted with enthusiasm an invitation from my friend John in Peshawar to tour the Taliban-held areas. And so 26 March found John, my wife, Ariane, and myself in a pickup truck, headed into Afghanistan.
Bad Press
There has been a lot of bad publicity for the Taliban, but we were keen to see the real situation for ourselves, first hand. There were tales of women being beaten for showing their ankles under the ´beehive´ type cloak with the crenelated visor; lifetime civil servants were being sacked by the score for having no beard, and even for keeping beards that were too short; and now they were checking if people shaved their armpits, as Abraham had done, and as therefore recommended in the Holy Koran. In Laghman, a woman had been stoned to death for attempting to leave the area with "a male non-family member". In Kandahar, a murderer had been executed at a football stadium, shot by the victim´s relatives (under Taliban supervision) in front of a crowd of thousands. And two French workers in Kabul had been charged with "consorting under the same roof" with some "half-naked" women (their faces had been exposed).