Born into occupation, young Afghans fear the Taliban will crush their freedoms when U.S. troops exit
KABUL, Afghanistan — His hair in a bun, face shadowed by his hoodie, Jawad Sezdah raps with his “homies” about Afghanistan’s darkening future.
He and his friends sit in a circle at what they call their club, a second-floor makeshift studio in west Kabul’s Pul-e-surkhta neighborhood. They smoke weed, drink tea and practice freestyle lyrics. A picture of Tupac Shakur is taped on the wall.
But the lives the 22-year-old Kabul University student and others of his generation have forged in the nearly two decades since America invaded their country are at risk as never before. The U.s.-led invasion has brought the trappings of the West and a small degree of its promised freedoms, but many here are fearful those gains are about to evaporate.
They are a generation not so much adrift as stuck between opposing forces. They live with fresh graves and echoes of firefights and marketplaces spoiled by suicide bombers. Theirs is land that has not been conquered, a nation that has attuned them to hardship and the hope that the Taliban and the government will peacefully coexist after U.S. troops crate their weapons, fold their banners and leave.
Born into occupation, Sezdah is a man with a wary eye on what lies ahead. He and his friends’ latest rap — a haunting fiveminute cry for tolerance posted on Youtube — opens with aerial shots of the city’s teeming markets and mosques. His message is to the Taliban fighters seeking to reimpose strict Islamic law that would leave little room for his art.
“I’m yearning for peace, for empathy, for a nation standing with my revolution,” he raps over a mournful melody. “So many of us got martyred for what we have now.”
The names of the dead live in his voice: Ali, a friend killed with 34 others by gunmen who attacked Kabul University this month while Sezdah was in class. Another friend, 18-year-old Amir, who died two years ago when an Islamic State suicide bomber struck a nearby college prep center.
Nearly 6,000 Afghan civilians, young and old, urban and rural, were killed or wounded in the first nine months of the year, 30% fewer than in 2019, according to the United Nations. But that trend isn’t likely to last.
A return of the Taliban, who ruled Kabul and much of the country between 1996 and 2001, has never seemed closer. Attacks and assassinations are spiking.
Peace talks between the insurgents and the Afghan government appear stillborn. And U.S. troops, their numbers falling below 5,000 this month, are due to depart completely by May 2021 — never truly defeating what Washington spent trillions of dollars and nearly 2,400 American lives to crush.
Many young people are adamant about staying and fighting, hoping the Taliban — if it returns — cannot rule a capital that now allows girls into classrooms and a relatively free press. Many others are less sure. They are packing to leave.
“What will happen to our achievements?” says 16-yearold Khurshid Muhammadi, a player on the 10-year-old Afghan women’s national soccer team.
“We may not be able to work and again have to wear head-to-toe burkas the Taliban once forced women to wear in public.”
The Taliban has acknowledged past shortcomings. Its leaders say they are not the same as before.
Yet many young Afghans remain skeptical that militants who have chopped the hands off thieves, blown up ancient Buddha statues and given sanctuary to Osama bin Laden will be anything but cruel and extreme.
“For the past 20 years, people have aspired to lives that are very different, but Taliban are cut off from this reality,” said Shaharzad Akbar, chairperson of Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission. “They are very strict in their understanding of what’s right and wrong, and they believe it is their God-given right to impose it on everyone else.”
While many — especially in urban centers — have seen progress, other lives have taken a turn for the worse.
Safiullah Sangari, 22, says his native village in Nangarhar province’s Shinwar district has tumbled into rubble. “U.S. airstrikes have destroyed most houses,” he said, leading him to take up arms four years ago when he joined the Taliban to fight the “foreign invaders.”
“It was our struggle to fight them,” he said. “Now they (the U.S.) don’t have a choice but to sit at the table with us. Everyone knows that we won this fight.”
Sangari grew up in the dun-colored hills of eastern Afghanistan, his village built from mud bricks, surrounded by farmland and cannabis fields. A child of conflict, he has seen little to make his life better, despite decades of international aid intended to extend Kabul’s government services into rural areas. His education ended after sixth grade.
“Of course foreign investment is necessary to bring the country forward,” he admitted, “but it shouldn’t be in the form of tanks and guns. I’ve only seen fighting. I haven’t seen opportunities for education and business.”
Sangari receives no salary from the Taliban, but he is committed to helping them rule. His last operation took him to nearby Khogyani district, where he attacked an Afghan army outpost. He doesn’t know if he’s ever killed anyone. “Maybe,” he shrugged. “Some of my bullets might have hit the soldiers.”
Living just a three-hour drive from the Afghan capital, Sangari, unmarried and devout, admitted that he’d never visited Kabul. But he shares one sentiment with his generation across the country: “Everyone wants peace,” he said. “We don’t want to keep fighting.”