"Since coming to power, the Taliban have held 36 to 38 million Afghans hostage under their yoke"

Jean-Charles Jauffret is professor emeritus of contemporary history at the Institute of Political Studies in Aix-en-Provence.

He is the author of

“

” (ed. Autrement, 2010).

Le Figaro.

- After five months of Taliban occupation, what is the face of Kabul at the dawn of 2022?

JEAN-JACQUES JAUFFRET

 : Compared to last August and the fall of Kabul, order now reigns. There is no longer a road cut, the Taliban order has restored traffic. Thieves were hanged from cranes. On the other hand, we are in a society completely frozen, not only by the cold which becomes intense but also by the political power in place which makes women its main victim.

, summed up Yasmina Khadra in her bestselling novel

, 20 years ago.

This is exactly what Afghanistan is about to experience again.

Afghan society is therefore currently ruled by a theocratic dictatorship of absolute authority.

It does not follow the logic of other Islamic regimes, including Iranian.

The Taliban feel their power comes from God.

Therefore, their victory is divine therefore incontestable.

We thus fall back into a situation similar to that of 1996/2001 during which Afghanistan was a country totally stopped and held at arm's length by the NGOs.

Jean-Charles Jauffret

If order reigns in Kabul, misery is raging.

The Taliban take foreign humanitarian aid for granted.

We thus fall back into a situation similar to that of 1996/2001 during which Afghanistan was a country totally stopped and held at arm's length by the NGOs.

The current situation is catastrophic.

Around one million children are starving to death, and another two million face the same fate in the coming weeks.

According to figures given by various UN bodies, 23 million Afghans are threatened with famine in the next three months.

In question, certainly the bad harvests and the drought of 2021, but especially the inability of the Taliban to manage this country.

During the first press conference of the Taliban representatives on August 17, 2021, the new leaders of the country affirmed to have gained in “maturity” and reassured the Afghan citizens and the international community as for their will to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms. In your opinion, have the Taliban kept their word?

I would answer with a rather trivial formula:

At each international meeting, the Taliban pitifully justifies themselves with

But be careful not to be mistaken , they remained in a perspective of super-containment and suffocation of society. They have not evolved and remain in an optic of total and legitimate victory because divine. They consider that aid from the international community is owed to them without consideration. Women are of course the main victims. Education and now the economy are suffering, the unemployment rate is appalling.

Recently, the G20 asked the European Union to release one billion euros in aid to Afghanistan, which has been done. Subsequently, the so-called Moscow Format met on October 20 in Moscow. There were around the table a number of countries very interested in the future development of Afghanistan. And yet, at present, among the large countries, only China has kept its embassy open. Russian aid is conditional on stopping drug trafficking - the Russians not to mention the Iranians are the main victims - which is still not the case today. The Taliban make promises they break and drug trafficking is proof of that. The Russians have nonetheless released aid,because they too are showing great interest in what China is already mining, namely copper and rare earths.

In addition, the American president made an honorable gesture by releasing emergency aid of 144 million dollars. Did the Taliban say thank you? No. This aid was released following a meeting in Doha on October 9. Here again, same case. The Taliban are smiling and giving the impression that the aid provided will be used correctly. But they do nothing in the sense of respect for rights and human dignity.

In mid-October, I believed that, perhaps, the Taliban regime could evolve towards an Iranian pattern.

On the Richter scale of Islamist horrors, Iran remains well below Afghanistan.

Although forced to wear the veil, girls can access education, go to university and even work in a number of occupations.

In Afghanistan, this is not the case, so I was wrong.

Despite the promises, Afghanistan is caught in an apocalyptic system based on the most extreme religious irrationality.

Jean-Charles Jauffret

The Taliban contented themselves with propaganda representations for the sake of communication.

So, we could see pseudo-students dressed in black abayas and niqabs in an amphitheater in Kabul, but they did nothing more.

Despite the promises, Afghanistan is caught in an apocalyptic system based on the most extreme religious irrationality.

This theocracy is gradually suffocating the country.

Until when will a hundred thousand Taliban be able to hold 36 to 38 million Afghans hostage under their yoke?

The Taliban Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice has ordered a series of new measures that violate women's freedom. From now on, soap operas in which women act will no longer be broadcast on national television and Afghan journalists are ordered to wear the Islamic veil. In addition, in the event of a trip of more than 72 km, women must be accompanied by a chaperone. Are women the No. 1 enemy of the Taliban and why?

The writer Kamel Daoud has studied the issue of women particularly well and speaks of a male inferiority complex in countries which claim to be Islamist towards women. The psychology of women, outside the strict boundaries of the family home, escapes their machismo. The mere idea that women can socialize and go out unaccompanied is an abomination, an attack on their macho power. Franco-Afghan author Atiq Rahimi describes in his novel

, winner of the Goncourt prize in 2008, how the Taliban are steeped in misogynistic convictions. They have no awareness of what a woman's body is, what she might feel.

Only 10% of the Taliban have received an education, all the rest have been trained in ready-to-think, ready-to-pray, ready-to-kill.

Jean-Charles Jauffret

Contrary to what is sometimes written, “taliban”, plural of “taleb” does not actually mean “student in religion” but “ignorant in everything”.

Only 10% of the Taliban have received an education, all the rest have been trained in ready-to-think, ready-to-pray, ready-to-kill.

This society is run by the most ignorant and this is extremely worrying as it is sinking.

Is the abolition of international aid a good solution, in your opinion?

What would be the consequences ?

No, aid must continue to be distributed at the risk of seeing the country bogged down in an even more appalling situation.

We cannot make the Afghan people pay for the cowardice of the decision to withdraw American troops.

We cannot make the Afghan people pay for a defeat which is a defeat for the West.

On the other hand, this international aid is the strength of the Taliban.

China, which is doing excellent business, has donated $ 26 million for emergency humanitarian aid.

Qatar and other Arab and Muslim countries also gave emergency aid at the end of August.

How do you see the situation in the country developing?

For the moment everything is frozen. I remind you that about 70% of women and about 55/60% of men are totally illiterate. The Afghans, in majority, are in a misunderstanding of what the contemporary world is. Deep in the countryside, they still do not understand why Westerners intervened in their country, only to leave after 20 years? Bin Laden, for them, was and remains a foreigner. Afghanistan today is the realm of the Absurd, while the Taliban are still in a victorious euphoria and continue to believe that all is their due.

In order to remedy this situation, I believe that the near or more distant neighbors are the solution which appears, in my opinion, to be the most obvious, Iran, Russia and China included.

I am thinking above all of Pakistan, which provides a very large part of the Afghan supplies through the Khyber pass in the north and, in the south, by the road that passes through Quetta and Kandahar.

Pakistan, which fears an expansion of Daesh implanted in eastern Afghanistan, has the arguments to put pressure on the Taliban regime.

So far, we have attended several international conferences which have only resulted in an end of disallowance on the part of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Will we have to wait until we see hundreds, if not thousands of children who die of hunger and cold, before observing a reaction from the “international community”?

Jean-Charles Jauffret

Will we have to wait until we see hundreds, if not thousands of children who die of hunger and cold, before observing a reaction from the “international community”?

A very important humanitarian airlift seems inevitable to me by the end of winter.

This explains why Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the UN, asked that we continue to dialogue with the Kabul regime despite its broken promises.

We can also wonder about the reactions of civil society, not a rural majority still illiterate and trapped in a traditional Islam, but what we call "the NATO generation", young people aged 20-30, men and women who went to college, university? How long will they endure the paralysis of the country, summary executions, autodafés and other deprivations of liberty? What about the different ethnic groups not represented in a government without any legitimacy and monochrome on the Pashtun side (especially from the Kandahar region)? And among the minorities, will the Hazaras always bear to be denigrated or even persecuted by Daesh and the Taliban without in turn reacting? What also about the renewal of a "resistance", in particular by what was sketched in the valley of Panshir untilto September 5, 2021 by the Tajiks of Commander Massoud's son?