A human catastrophe is playing out in Afghanistan

MIDDLE Eastern countries have some of the world’s most beautiful women and Afghanistan may not be different. But sadly, due to religious attire regulations, the world never gets to see this radiance.

The implementation of Sharia law under Taliban rule in Afghanistan will see women suffer Kafkaesque degradation and humiliation. They have already separated the different sexes at universities. A women’s rights demonstration was also efficiently thwarted, and not one woman holds a senior post in the newly-formed interim government.

The Taliban seeks international legitimacy but behind the verbal placebos and plastic smiles lurks the raw animal magnetism of terror.

They have made it known in no uncertain terms they will govern according to Sharia law.

They are a new force in the corridors of international politics and they have no experience in running a country, so there are bound to be internal and external conflicts.

A Herculean human catastrophe is playing out in Afghanistan.

One in three people don’t know where their next meal will come from and millions of children face death by starvation as the country faces an unprecedented economic and social collapse. The glaring fissures are there for all to see.

The withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan has allowed the Taliban an easy walk into the capital, Kabul, and a takeover after the president, Ashraf Ghani, fled. Since then, the evacuation withdrawal has seen close to 130 000 foreigners and Afghans flown to peregrine lands.

For now, the Americans seem to have kept to their promise of seeking a safe passage for all Afghans who worked for them over their 20-year occupation. Hopefully, it will be a new beginning full of promise.

But for those who were left behind and those who chose to stay back, the world can only pray for normality and dignity in their lives.

KEVIN GOVENDER

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