Taliban Tete-à-Tete
The holy warriors who conquered the capital – many of them 15 or 16 years old – not only disarmed the population, they also enforced much-needed security. They went further, forbidding puberty-aged girls to attend school. Highly educated professional women have fled Kabul and are now trying to organize resistance from outside the country. Inside, life has become almost unbearable for modern women. Female Afghani aid workers have been beaten because they dared leave their homes to go work in an office with non-family men. In the Kabul markets, about 10% of the shoppers are women (up from 0 a year earlier), and all must be covered from head to toe in the billowing burkha.
With the imposition of the burkha, women realized only their feet could betray a flair of fashion. For awhile, stylish fishnet stockings or gold anklets added a Felliniesque quality to the tented fantasies strolling through the markets. That fleeting nod to couture was followed by a government edict banning white socks (which might call attention to feet) and "noisy shoes" (i.e., high heels). But fashion has its way of prevailing. A woman in a taxi returns my wave, her palm red with henna. Beneath the blue burkha of a pedestrian, I spy the alluring edge of a fire engine red ruffled skirt.
More insidiously, women are denied treatment in Kabul hospitals, save one, which I visit, with an operating room that lacks electricity or anesthetics. Into that dire scene have stepped western political figures and journalists, who caught the world's attention but dismayed international aid workers. The cultural dissonance of taking television cameras into a women's hospital was seen as self-aggrandizing by the local diplomatic community, trained as they are to paddle through postings with minimum boat rocking.
Still, thanks in part to the sound and fury of that exposure, policies of the Taliban have been scrutinized, with US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright publicly pronouncing their treatment of women "despicable." The UN has increased pressure on this regime--unrecognized except by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Emirates--to moderate its practices or face withdrawal of UN relief.
That pressure is the backdrop for my hour-and-a-half meeting with the Deputy Foreign Minister. I sit on a bench, clad in long sleeves and pants, an orange chador covering my hair, but my face exposed. About six feet away sits the young official, sideways to me, with three aides clustered around him. The men look at each other or stare at their feet so as not to be tempted by my face. I, in turn, gazed out a broken windowpane, onto uninspired brown ridges ringing the city. There I find my opener; commenting that seeing the distant snowy peaks from our Red Cross Beechcraft made me think of my home state of Colorado. While it's doubtful the 25-year-old minister could find the United States on a map (reports are that he learned to eat with a fork and knife only a month earlier), the home-to-home connection seems to register, and he looks up from his shoes to steal an immodest glance.
It’s his turn. I listen patiently as my host explains his regime’s enormous progress combating crime. I tell him his account has been corroborated in several conversations I’ve had with refugees who fled the violence. He and his colleagues can feel proud, I concur.
Next follows the deputy minister’s description of the utter destruction of the economy since the Soviets laid waste to the land in an invasion bitterly resisted for more than a decade by the religious warriors. "We bought the end of the Cold War with our blood," one of the officials explains. Why shouldn't the international community now step forward with development support?
There's one problem, I point out. Rightly or wrongly, the perception of the outside world is that this regime is repressive to women. There’s little hope for donor generosity as long as that impression remains. "If I were in your chair, I’d be thinking very hard of dramatic ways to convince the world that you honor Islam's injunction to lead all people into knowledge." The benefits would be internal as well, I suggest, explaining how women-owned businesses are fueling the booming American economy.
Our discussion of the confluence of economic and social strategies notwithstanding, I’ve no assurance that my Taliban host understands the concept of either an economy or a society. To ensure that we connect on some level, I shift from policy to personal, asking my turbaned interlocutor where he hails from. He looks up, surprised. First Kandahar, in the south, then refugee camps in Pakistan. "Kandahar? I've never been there. Perhaps I might come some time and visit your family." He begins to grin. Everyone in the room smiles, then begins shifting in their chairs, as if amusement is uncomfortable. "You’re most welcome," the interpreter passes on. The deputy minister is looking into my eyes, to judge my reaction. "You can come visit my family too," I offer, promoting the impossible to the implausible -- merely by formulating the idea.