Taliban-1996-2001
"Anyone who carries objectionable literature will be executed"
The Taliban (students/seekers) held power in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.1
When the Taliban took control of the capital— Kabul—on September 26, 1996, the Islamic State of Afghanistan began a period of regulation regarded by many as the most restricted in the world.2
Among the many restrictions on daily life were these:
Anyone who carries objectionable literature will be executed.
Banned listening to music
Banned watching television
There are many academic books to read about the Taliban control of Afghanistan (1996-2001), but one short novel starkly portrays daily life—and it is fearsome: The Swallows of Kabul. It was written by a retired Algerian military officer, Mohammed Moulessehoul, under the pen name,Yasmina Khadra.
The novel is set some time before the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, in a Kabul crushed under dust and tedium and ravaged by 20 years of war. Taliban mullahs control everything. They stage brutal executions of errant souls, force women into mute submission beneath burqas, and suppress all worldly pleasures, even forbidding children to fly kites. "Men have gone mad," … "they have turned their backs on the day in order to face the night." 3
In 2019 an animated film based on the novel was screened at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival.
Matinuddin, Kamal, The Taliban Phenomenon, Afghanistan 1994–1997, Oxford University Press, (1999),
Afghanistan. Press reference.
"Beneath the burqa." Globe & Mail [Toronto, Canada], 3 Apr. 2004, p. D9.
I'm not qualified to opine about the war, but I will never forget the desperation of the thousands of people we promised visas to and then abandoned back into the hands of the Taliban.
Thanks for alerting me to another book I want to read. I hope the Taliban leaders of today have learned to be less dogmatic than their fathers and grandfathers were. Perhaps women in Afghanistan will be able to hang on to some of the gains made over the last 20 years.