Pakistan

By Aminu Rabiu Kano

The history of Afghanistan is one characterized by epic tragedy. The narrative of the “Afghan problem” has been diverse, with each actor telling their side of the story in a bid to justify their action or inaction as the case may be. A poor, landlocked Afghanistan is one of the few countries in the world which events happening in and around it have been dominating the headlines for decades. Both the mainstream and social media are obsessed with happenings in the country. Indeed, even the layman on the street is more or less interested in the Afghan problem to the extent that virtually everyone can say one or two things about it. The question that follows, therefore, is, why is the world interested in happenings in Afghanistan? In other words, why are developments in Afghanistan capable of generating reactions around the world? Also, why have the superpowers in history found it necessary to invade Afghanistan?

To answer the above questions, we must begin by establishing the geopolitical relevance of Afghanistan on the world map. Afghanistan is doubtlessly strategically located. It is at the crossroads of Central and South Asia. It borders Pakistan, China, Iran, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It is predominantly mountainous and inhabited by approximately 32 million people – nearly 45% of whom speak the Pashtun language. Moreover, the Afghan population is primarily Muslim. This reason, coupled with the fact that it borders Iran, Afghanistan is sometimes seen as a part of the “Wider Middle East.”

From the list of the countries bordering Afghanistan, one will realize the geographical importance of Afghanistan in the international political environment. Of the five countries that bordered it, Iran and China stand out. However, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan had been part of the former Soviet Union that fell apart in the 1990s. This implies that Afghanistan has been a neighbour to glorious powers both in the past and present.

Therefore, it was invaded severally by several empires across ages due to its essential, strategic location. For example, Alexander The Great of the Macedonian empire invaded Afghanistan in 330 BC as part of the war against Persia. Alexander saw that he could only get the Persian empire subdued by invading Afghanistan. Similarly, foreign powers such as the Persian Empires, the Mongol Empire led by Khan Ghengis, the Mughal Empire, the Timurid Empire, the Rashidun Caliphate, and the Sikh Empire conquered Afghanistan.

Little wonder, Afghanistan, even in the modern era, grappled with yet other rounds of invasions, but this time around by the “superpowers”. The superpowers being the USA and the USSR. During the cold war, these superpowers used Afghanistan, among other countries, to test their military, economic and political powers. It all started when, in April 1978, the People Democratic Party of Afghanistan overthrew the Afghanistan government. Nur Muhammad Taraki, secretary of the PDPA, became president of Afghanistan. But Taraki’s government was communist in orientation and enacted some policies that were not well received by the masses. Thus, the masses hated government, and, as a result, Taraki was overthrown by Hafizullah Amin in September 1979. Despite the change of government from Taraki to Amin, opposition to communist rule continued even under Amin. In December 1979, Amin was shot and replaced by Babrak Kamal, who was in exile in Moscow. Kamal’s government heavily relied on the Soviet military for support and protection against his vast opponents.

Opposition to the communist government continued, which prompted the USSR to invade Afghanistan, deploying more than 50,000 soldiers. This occupation was even met by fierce resistance by Afghans, who have joined the Mujahedeen – a guerilla movement that proclaimed to be fighting anti-Islamic forces in Muslim lands. The Mujahedeen would later be referred to as the “Taliban”. The Taliban was formed by Mullah Muhammad Umar, who recruited young Muslim students from Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan to fight the Soviet Military. Over the next ten years, hundreds of thousands of lives were lost. In the end, the Soviet military was forced to withdraw from Afghanistan.

However, the mujahedeen (or the Taliban, if you like) did not fight the war alone: they were heavily supported, armed and financed by the USA, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. USA was mainly instrumental in its support to the Taliban because it feared that if the USSR succeeded in occupying Afghanistan, its national interests would be threatened. In fact, the US’s intervention was informed by the need to resist the advance of what former President Reagan called the “evil vampire”. Then, the two superpowers – the USA and USSR – were in the heat of the cold war. Therefore, the US saw that if the Soviet Union succeeded in implanting communist rule in Afghanistan, the domino theory would materialize. This means that the USSR would also succeed in spreading communist ideology into those countries neighbouring Afghanistan. Most Fundamentally, by gaining the control of the Middle East, the USSR would determine oil and gas supply to the US and its allies in the West. This meant that the Soviets could do great harm to the US economy and those of its allies by cutting off the oil supply since oil was a vital product so crucial that military and industrial operations heavily depended on it.

After the withdrawal of the Soviet military from Afghanistan, the Taliban formed an Islamic government. Osama Bin Laden – a Saudi citizen – was instrumental in fighting the Soviet army. As the son of a rich and influential citizen in Saudi Arabia, Osama contributed substantial financial resources to the Afghanistan war that lasted for ten years. He later formed Al-Qaeda, which was said to be a terrorist movement determined to liberate the Muslim land from Western influence. On 11 September 2001, 4 aeroplanes were hijacked by, allegedly, the Al-Qaeda. Two were flown to the Twin Towers housing the World Trade Centre, one flown to the Pentagon and the other to Pennsylvania. As a result, more than 5000 people lost their lives, and critical government infrastructures were destroyed.

The US was quick to blame Osama’s Al-Qaeda for the tragic 9/11 event. The US President George Bush soon declared war on terror. The war was first on Afghanistan, which led to the overthrow of the Taliban government. After that, the American forces established a democratic government with its foundation in and allegiance to American imperialism. However, after 20 years of occupation, the Taliban expediently returned to power when the US forces willingly decided to withdraw from Afghanistan.

From the foregoing, three lessons can be learned. One, Afghans have a genetic history of resistance to foreign domination. Second, Afghanistan is a strategic country that played an important part in the Great Game power struggles for centuries. Finally, it is evident from the above that Afghanistan’s series of invasions was no end in itself, but a means to an end. Put it more succinctly, Afghanistan is a gateway for foreign powers. Its invasion would allow the superpowers to dominate the Asian continent, including the oil-rich Arab world. Overall, Afghanistan, despite its myriad of aggression by foreign superpowers, is still in existence. It survives!

Aminu Rabiu Kano is a political and public affairs analyst. He can be reached via 08062669232.

Pakistan Telecommunications Authority has, again, on Wednesday banned the popular video-sharing platform TikTok for the “continuous presence of inappropriate content on the platform and its failure to take such content down”.

Pakistan banned the platform for the same reason the first time in October 2020. However, TikTok assured the authorities that it would take measures to censor the contents deemed inappropriate. Days later, the ban was lifted.

Pakistan, an Islamic Republic and seen as conservative by many, blocked the app for the second and third time based on complaints from its citizens and under its Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016. This current ban is reportedly the fourth. However, India blocked the app for reportedly political-cum-diplomatic reasons.

In Nigeria, a social commentator, Muhammad Ubale Kiru, recently criticised the app for promoting “immorality” among northern Nigerian youth. A post he wrote on Facebook went viral in the region’s cyberspace. In reaction to Kiru’s post, several people called on the Nigerian government to ban the Chinese-origin app.

By Salisu Yusuf

Almost 20 years since the September 11 attacks in the U.S. and the subsequent occupation of Afghanistan, the last Friday’s swift vacation of Bagram Airbase by the U.S forces, the situation in Afghanistan gets worst. The country is becoming more divided; social strife grows, and citizens become more disenchanted. Hostilities between the Hazara Shia minority and mainly Pashtun Sunni majority increases. All over the country, people feel less secure in groups and individually as each one is afraid that the rival militia may attack them. The hitherto communal Afghanistan is fast turning individualistic, especially as a result of Talibans’ follies, misrule, the failure of the sectarian/tribal leadership, the role of Ulama and by the Russian occupation in the 70’s and ’80s, as well as the U.S’s so-called war on terror.

I have never seen a religious sect that clings to power and unorthodoxly turns to folly like the Taliban. They have crossed religious, ethical lines. They ask their members to attack hospitals, with women under labour, children receiving natal care, and other defenceless people receiving treatment. In one instance in 2020, they struck a maternity hospital belonging to the international organisation Medicines Sans Frontiers in Kabul. They gruesomely murdered 24 victims, including impoverished women, children, and babies. A week-old baby was among the dead; another two-week-old baby survived though his mother could not. There has not been a worse unnatural disaster!

Moreover, coordinated, reciprocal attacks by both Sunni and Shia militants are on the rise. I have not seen thoughtless sects like the two groups in Afghanistan/Pakistan axis, where each group asks its members to attack the other while performing obligatory prayers in mosques! And when such attacks are carried out, while the victims’ relatives nurse them and mourn other fatalities, the attackers get euphoric as they believe that they have fulfilled a religious duty. Outrageously they think that should if they die in the process, they would directly go to paradise – as if it belongs to their fathers!

 In addition to such senseless attacks, the Taliban has stepped up on a campaign against girl-child education. As a result, hundreds of innocent girls have been killed on their way to schools because, to them, girls’ education is a deviation from the norm. 

In one such horrendous attack, the vocal Malala Yusafzai is lost to the West. The girl was 11 when she’s shot in the head on her way to school. The girl’s crime was pleading to the Taliban to let girls pursue their educational careers. As the saying goes, the rest is history. Malala is now an Oxford University graduate in philosophy, politics and economics. 

Malala is lost to the West with her two young brothers. Pakistanis could only watch her on T.V. addressing the U.N. Assembly, celebrating her birthday, or receiving Nobel Prizes. If she had not been shot, she would have been in Pakistan, and a practising Muslim, whose talent might have been used in teaching and aspiring young girls. Girls like Malala could have been used to heal the growing social division between Sunni and Shia; alas, she’s lost to Europe.

More painful is the list of Nadia Nadim. A more intelligent and talented girl who’s also lost to the West. Nadia’s father was also killed by the Taliban when she’s a child. Under a false identity, the girl fled Afghanistan on a truck at just 11 years. She’s currently living in Denmark, studying reconstructive surgery. Nadia, like Malala, is lost to the West. Her colossal talent would have been more beneficial to Afghanistan because she’s a prospective scientist. Nadia speaks 11 languages. She also plays football for the Danish National Team, scores 200 goals, making her a celebrity.

If Nadia’s father lived, she would have been left to pursue her career, would have been in Afghanistan practising Islam. She could have been a medical doctor, possibly assisting thousands of Afghan women in need of medical care. But, alas, she’s lost to football, playing a celebrity role, her beauty being explored, etc. 

The above are a few lessons to Nigerian youth who sympathise with terrorist groups like Boko Haram. Such groups are in for regression rather than progression.

While the so-called Doha Peace Conference between the Afghan government and Taliban is in progress, the country is hotly on the brink of another civil war. The Taliban is advancing towards Kabul, inciting more antagonism while the country suffers from brain drain; indeed, it’s Talibans’ folly, but Western gains.

Salisu Yusuf teaches at the Department of English, Federal College of Education, Katsina. He can be reached via salisuyusuf111@gmail.com.