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By Ramzy Baroud
Scenes of 1000’s of Afghans flooding the Kabul Worldwide Airport to flee the nation as Taliban fighters had been shortly consolidating their management over the capital, raised many questions, main amongst them: who’re these folks and why are they operating away?
Within the US and different Western media, solutions had been available: they had been principally ‘translators’, Afghans who ‘collaborated’ with the US and different NATO nations; ‘activists’ who had been escaping from the brutality awaiting them as soon as the People and their allies left the nation, and so forth.
Truly, the reply is much extra advanced than that provided by Western officers and media, which finally – though inaccurately – conveyed the impression that NATO armies had been in Afghanistan to safeguard human rights, to coach ladies and to carry civilization to a seemingly barbaric tradition.
Although political dissent is a fundamental human proper, there’s a clear and definitive line between the authentic proper to problem one’s authorities/regime and willingly collaborating with one other – particularly when that collaboration can have dire penalties on one’s personal folks.
In the USA and Europe, there are literally thousands of political dissidents from many elements of the world – from South America, the Center East, East Asia, and others – who’re, sadly, used as cheerleaders for political and army interventions, both immediately by sure governments, or not directly, by means of foyer and stress teams, tutorial circles and mainstream media.
These people, usually promoted as ‘consultants’, seem and disappear each time they’re helpful and when their usefulness expires. Some may even be honest and well-intentioned once they communicate out towards, for instance, human rights violations dedicated by sure regimes in their very own dwelling nations, however the end result of their testimonies is nearly all the time translated to self-serving insurance policies.
Hundreds of Afghans – political dissidents, NATO collaborators, college students, athletes and employees in search of alternatives – have already arrived in numerous western capitals. Expectedly, many are being utilized by the media and numerous stress teams to retrospectively justify the battle on Afghanistan, as if it was an ethical battle. Determined to reside as much as the expectations, Afghan ‘activists’ are already popping up on western political platforms, talking in regards to the Taliban’s dismal document of human rights and, particularly, ladies’s rights.
However what’s the level of interesting to the western ethical consciousness after 20 years of a NATO-led lethal invasion that has price Afghanistan tons of of 1000’s of harmless folks?
In Afghanistan, an alternate narrative is evolving.
On September 11, tons of of Afghan ladies protested in Kabul College, not towards the Taliban, however towards different Afghan ladies who purport to talk from western capitals about all Afghan ladies.
“We’re towards these ladies who’re protesting on the streets, claiming they’re consultant of girls,” one of many audio system stated, Company France Press reported.
Whereas AFP made a degree of repeating that the ladies protesters have “pledged” their dedication to “all Taliban’s hardline insurance policies on gender segregation”, emphasizing how they had been all lined “head to toe,” the occasion was important. Amongst many points, it raises the query: who represents Afghan ladies, those that left or those that stayed?
A big banner held by the protesters in Kabul learn: “Girls who left Afghanistan can’t symbolize us.”
The reality is nobody represents Afghan ladies besides those that are democratically elected by Afghan society to symbolize all sectors of that society, ladies included. Till actual democracy is practiced in Afghanistan, the wrestle will proceed for actual freedom, human rights, equality and, clearly, illustration.
This combat can solely happen inside an natural, grassroots Afghan context – whether or not in Afghanistan or outdoors of the nation – however actually not by means of Fox Information, the BBC or US Senate hearings.
The late Palestinian-American scholar, Professor Edward Mentioned, had repeatedly warned of the pseudo-reality painted by the ‘native informants’ – supposed political dissidents recruited by western governments to offer a handy depiction of the truth within the Center East and elsewhere, as an ethical justification for battle. The results, because the 2003 Iraq battle and invasion have demonstrated, might be horrific.
Mentioned challenged a selected ‘native informant’, the late Fouad Ajami, a Lebanese tutorial, whose concepts in regards to the Iraqi enthusiasm for the US battle, although proved disastrously incorrect, had been utilized by George W. Bush and others as proof that the approaching battle was destined to be a ‘cakewalk’.
Ajami’s concepts had been lengthy discredited, however the political machinations that also want ‘native informants’ to real human rights defenders and good scholarship stay in place. Most of the Afghan escapees are certain to be strategically positioned by means of the identical channels, which proceed to advertise interventions and sanctions as sound insurance policies.
The battle in Afghanistan has ended, hopefully for good, however the battle on who represents the folks of that war-torn nation stays unresolved. It behooves the Taliban to ship on its guarantees relating to equal illustration and political plurality, in any other case, there are a lot of others overseas who might be prepared to assert the position of authentic illustration.
Within the Center East, specifically, we’ve already witnessed this phenomenon of the west-based ‘authentic’ democratic representations. In the end, these ‘governments-in-exile’ wrought nothing however additional political deception, division, corruption, and continued battle.
Conflict-torn Afghanistan – exhausted, wounded and badly needing a respite – deserves higher.
– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He’s the writer of 5 books. His newest is “These Chains Will Be Damaged: Palestinian Tales of Battle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Readability Press). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Analysis Fellow on the Heart for Islam and World Affairs (CIGA) and in addition on the Afro-Center East Heart (AMEC). His web site is www.ramzybaroud.web
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