On the ‘respect’ the Taliban are seeking, I think the best response is an Afghan proverb: ‘You reap what you sow’. There has to be respect for different political views, but what is not acceptable is the imposition of one over another through use of violence and terror. Afghan women (rural and urban) are demanding nothing more than a respect for their rights, which are well described in the Constitution.
Back to my initial question: who are the Taliban? They do not represent an ethnic group or a religious faction or a geographical location. They do not represent rural Afghans – the Taliban have claimed responsibility for the systematic murder of tribal elders in the south. A few months ago I visited a village in north Nangarhar where I met the local mullah who teaches girls and boys at the village school. He told me that they find it hard to call their students ‘Talib’ [which means, literally, ‘student’] because of the tremendous damage done to the term by the Taliban. ‘They [the Taliban] are not students of Madrasa [religious school], they are hirelings paid and provoked by our enemies’, he said to me.
