The New Taliban, the Old Afghanistan

"Thousands of Afghan civilians are trying to enter the military section [of the Kabul airport] and troops are trying to prevent that."

"They just used a cargo plane to clear the runway and it was barely able to fly above the crowds."

Emir Sayit, passenger, Turkish Airlines 

"Every moment I am waiting to see the Taliban enter my house. They have destroyed everything, my work, my studies, my dreams."

"I feel as though I've lost everything. I'm terrified for my future. We cannot believe the Taliban's words. They talked about securing the city and made assurances that they wouldn't go into houses but this morning they started searching homes."

Marzia Panahi, owner, Namad art gallery, Kabul

"It's impossible [trying to arrange passports] because everything is closed [foreign missions]. Our plan is to go to Pakistan and go to Turkey from there, because a Turkish visa is now $8,000 just for one person. From Pakistan, it's easier."

"The situation is horrible, the Taliban are everywhere. Many of us believe we have just lost our achievements over the past 20 years, especially for women. Now we just have to sit and wait."

Nabi, Kabul

"Everyone is scared of the Taliban. This is the first day so we still don't know what to expect. In a few days, we will know better."

"The government just saved themselves. I fear for my three-year-old daughter's education but I don't think they are the same people as the last Taliban. We can hope."

Haji Timur Shah, 43, grocery owner, Shahr-e Naw, Afghanistan 

A man holds a certificate acknowledging his work for Americans as hundreds of people gather outside the international airport in Kabul, Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2021.  AP

 

Taliban spokesmen after all, did offer soothing words to the population of the country whose legitimate government they had just overturned in favour of returning themselves to that position, taking up where they left off under duress twenty years earlier. They are not the same people as the last Taliban, as Haji Timur Shah hoped; they are two decades older, there is a vast number of new recruits, the leadership has changed. But it is the same Taliban bringing a fundamentalist theocracy to Afghanistan.

In their previous incarnation the populace was oppressed and brutalized, punishment was swift and uncompromising. This new Taliban has amply demonstrated there is little difference from the past to the present; the atrocities they committed in the past months, the killing by suicide bombings and stealth ambushes of Afghan police and military, the attempts to do the same with foreign diplomats meant to send a message of no tolerance for the presence of either representative agents of the government or foreign entities spoke volumes.

It is a reputation the Taliban assiduously built, to ensure that they would be known as theistically intractable, prepared to go to any lengths to support their fundamental version of Islam and to impose strict sharia as the pillars of their governance. That, and the memory of past experience under their rule ensured that panic would ensue at their swift and violent occupation of the key cities which fell one after another into their hands. The Taliban celebrate their victory, Afghans mourn their loss of freedom.

 

Getty Images

 

The dense crowds of frantic Afghans anxious to leave the country, to be taken far away, anywhere else on the globe, to escape the Taliban speaks to the place of the Taliban in the hearts and minds of the people who fail to trust the 'new' Taliban's assurance that they will respect the rights of the population, and of women, as permitted under Islamic law. An assurance that failed to resonate so that calm would settle gently over the agitation that their entry to Kabul caused.

The drama of young men racing down a runway, trying to hold fast to a departing plane, of some among them attaching themselves to be airborne, then predictably plummeting to their death as the plane gained height also answers the assurances given by the Taliban. "If this is not Saigon 2.0, I don't know what is, is this how we thought we'd depart Afghanistan?" moaned Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the U.K. Commons defence committee. 

Outside of the airport in Kabul, the city streets were quiet, people remained indoors in a state of suspended animation and high suspense. All feared hearing a knock on the door. It was reported that thieves have advantaged themselves, posing as Taliban as they enter homes and ransack them for possessions. Rest assured, the Taliban say, they intend to reimpose law and order. Posing as Taliban? 

Rewards to the faithful? Shops remain closed.

Vehicles poured into the city filled with Taliban 'fighters' who greeted each other in celebratory mood. The city's Green Zone where foreign embassies operated under the illusion they were hugely protected and where from time to time the Taliban launched attacks causing death and destruction is a place of ghostly embassies, deserted, overrun with Taliban, setting up checkpoints.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images