This is true that Taliban’s sudden and mysterious takeover of Kabul was of course a surprise for the whole world, but for our people it was not of too much surprise as we witnessed how in one week, city after city fell under the control of the Taliban without any resistance or fighting back, and on the other hand, the shameful deal made between the US and Taliban in Doha was clear that they will bring the terrorist Taliban back to power.

By removing their names from its blacklist, opening an office for them in Qatar, releasing the Taliban prisoners from the Guantanamo and releasing of 5000 killers and suicide bombers of Taliban from the Afghanistan prison were the obvious facts, that the US by giving amnesty and international recognition to its creatures, proved that it has an inseparable bond with its lackeys. The Submission of Afghanistan to the terrorist Taliban is a big treason of the U.S to Afghan people specially women. The same treason was committed exactly 20 years ago under the name of democracy when they replaced the Taliban by the Jihadis Fundamentalists who were responsible for savage civil war back in 90s, now again they brought the Taliban to power under the name of a so called “peace”. Unfortunately, history is repeated in Afghanistan and now we are where we were 20 years ago. In this dealing and wheeling of U.S with its lackeys our innocent and defenseless people are suffering. I am sure soon or later all these imperialist countries will recognize the Taliban regime as well.

The world thinks that U.S.A was defeated by the Taliban, but it should be clear that the US left Afghanistan out of its own weaknesses not defeated by its minions Taliban. This is true that the withdrawal was in shameless way. The main two reasons are: first because of its internal crisis and second the Afghan war was so expensive war in the history of the US whose cost had gone into trillions, and they could not afford any more such huge military expenses. Now with very less cost they changed their colonial strategy. So, they changed one puppet regime with another.

Now the whole world is shocked of their actions against women but their behaviors towards women was not at a surprise at least for Afghan women who immediately began to feel a sense of déjà vu, reminding them of the gloomy past. As was to be expected, Taliban had no hesitation in emplacing a systematic segregation or better to say gender apartheid as soon as they seized power; and their very first target was innocent school girls who were barred from going to school. And then they went after the female employees and women activists. then they barred women in sports, music, arts, higher education and finally from economic and political spheres. This all happened in this modern era; in front of our own eyes while the world is just watching them, or in a better case issuing statements.

The world must understand that Afghan women have always borne the brunt of a tragedy created by the U.S. The West led by the U.S. invented these monsters for their own vested interests without thinking for a second what will happen to women once they are unleashed. Islamic fundamentalists of all brands, whether Taliban, Daesh, Al-Qaida or Jihadis, are the by-products of the U.S. policy in Afghanistan, and the U.S. government along with NATO must, therefore, be held accountable for the current tragedy, and all the miseries Afghan people particularly women have been going through in the past 4 decades.

In the past four decades the U.S and other western powers backed different factions of the Islamic fundamentalists. They were their best lackeys to implement their colonial strategies. Imperialism and fundamentalism are the two sides of a coin. I can say that the U.S. created and promoted the Islamic fundamentalism merely to stop the spread of communism, progressive, revolutionary and women movements across the globe. At the end of cold war II, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan helped the U.S. mission to a greater extend, providing them a golden opportunity to train and arm the religious fundamentalism. Cheryle Benard in her book on Afghanistan mentioned that we the U.S.A allowed the Mujuhiddin to kill the intellectuals and progressives so it will be easy for the Mujahiddin to implement the U.S policy. Back in 90s thousands of revolutionary intellectuals specially the left has been killed by Mujahiddin both in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Islamic fundamentalists are not only the enemy of the progressives but are the first enemy of women. Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan and other middle east countries have been trained to oppress women as with the growing awareness of women, fundamentalist and reactionary forces in every society see the writing on the wall. Therefore, a prominent feature of such forces is to suppress the emancipation movements of women and imprison this half of society within the confines of the home. The CIA, MI6, Mossad and other western intelligence agencies by supporting these reactionary forces in the past 4 decades committed the biggest crime against women in our history. In 2001 they occupied Afghanistan under the banner of women liberation, and now once again the US and its mass media is screaming that we protected Afghan women, now that women are on the streets it is result of 20 years of their occupation….

The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan resulted quite the opposite of “creating a new generation of educated women and girls who are more prepared to fight for their rights than those in the 90s.” They “educated” a small group of Afghan women who were not “prepared to fight for their rights” but to collude and hobnob with the misogynists and depraved criminals, mafia, and the corrupted politicians. They were mealy-mouthed for the money and resources they were earning from the parliament, ministerial positions, and foreign trips. In fact, these U.S.-fostered women and girls stabbed Afghan women from behind, weakening the struggle of Afghan women for their rights.

The mass media backed by the US did a better job than the U.S. administration in portraying a rosy picture of Afghan women under the U.S. occupation. By bringing few show-ladies into their limelight, they could easily win the heart and mind of Americans, blind-minding them of the actual reality on the ground. The ruthless murder of Furkhunda, beheading of Tabasum and stoning-to-death of Rukhshana should have been enough evidence to reveal the truth about the U.S. tyrannical policy in Afghanistan, and the depth and intensity of the misery Afghan women had gone under the U.S.-occupied Afghanistan.

But Afghan women did not kept silent, they struggle and fights for their even basic rights, because they were the first victims under the domination of all puppet regimes and we can say “where there is oppression there is resistance” so amidst of all the heart-wrenching news coming daily from Afghanistan, there is a different story to tell about Afghan women. The story of courage, resistance, and struggle.  Thousands of girls and women on daily basis marching on streets across the country protesting the Taliban’s suppressive misogyny, which gave them a clear message that they will never daunt Afghan’s women’s struggle, no matter how brutal they could be. Taliban couldn’t tolerate and used whips to suppress the protesters many times. Such a display of courage and resistance by the Afghan women was a thorn in the eye of all Islamic fundamentalists may well find out – sooner rather than later – these suppressing women is no longer met with silence and could lead to their downfall.

Women are not the only victims of the medieval regime of the Taliban. The entire population is now at a high risk of starvation, unemployment, racial and ethnic discriminations. Hanging of four dead bodies from a crane in public is a clear indication of a barbaric regime, and a trademark of the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate. While 97% of population is estimated to be living below the poverty line by next year under the Taliban rule based on the UNDP recent study, the rate of crime will proportionally increase, which would then make the Taliban to exercise such brutal punishments more frequently. In these two months the Taliban brutality against our people show that they did not change, nor have they become moderate, soft spoken and humane, the killing of female activists, disappearance of many journalists, social activists, forced relocation of Panjshir, Kandahar, Mazar and Diakundi residents and dozens of other tragic cases on daily basis are the prominent examples of the deadly regime of the Taliban.

How long more we, the Afghan people and Afghan women, must suffer? Enough is enough! It is time for all progressive women and men to get united on a single platform against a common enemy, the Islamic fundamentalists who continue to threat, not only Afghan women, but the world at large. In the current calamitous condition of the country, history has laid on the shoulders of progressive forces and individuals the formidable duty of prioritizing in their work and struggles the awareness and mobilization of women, because no struggle can be victorious without the active participation of this half of society.

 It’s also a time that all the international left, and revolutionary especially feminist and women movements should unit to denounce the criminal Taliban regime and put pressures on their governments not to recognize the Taliban government. Provide humanitarian support to the Afghan people, do any action in support of Afghan women and condemning the violence of Taliban against women, call upon International human rights organizations to document the crime of the Taliban and ask for a tribunal in the international court, Support education of girls at any level trough all means. We must be each other voice and together we can make this world a better place for women to live.

Long live women struggle!