Afghanistan, A Country of Nuance

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A Country of Nuance (A Journal I Wrote in Between Towns)

Nuance. The very word humans despise. Afghanistan is a place you simply cannot wrap your head around, and you will keep asking yourself what you saw and experienced. You see progress, yet inequality. You see safety, yet desperation. You will break down, and then feel numb. You will feel bad, then go into the survival instinct of “leave me alone.”

Here are some facts with nuance, because what I have learned from two years of travel is that nothing is black and white.

Afghanistan is safer now than it’s been since 1979, when the Soviets invaded. Every decade since has been a power struggle. You could argue that countries that aren’t Afghanistan started the chaos.

I was surprised to see women everywhere, although I’ve been told that’s a new thing. Women are working in large numbers in airports, restaurants, etc, even though the Taliban think a woman’s responsibility is in the home, looking good for when the man comes home. So you question whether they’re learning what can work in the modern era, versus when they were in control in the late ’90s and it was very different.

Then you have arguably the most beautiful little girls begging for money, or five-year-olds no taller than your kneecaps dodging traffic with a squeegee and a soap bottle, and you’re wondering how the hell they’re even able to clean a window. Orphanages seem to exist, but the street kids don’t seem to stay. The private ones are getting banned in favor of mass government-run ones that focus only on Quran teachings. Possibly making it easy to control the future.

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Girl of Bamyan

The West is giving the Taliban ultimatums: if they want to be recognized, they need to adhere to specific human rights. Russia already recognized them, and China is doing business with them anyway, so there is some money coming in. Right out of the airport you have Chinese market construction. There is construction of buildings and roads everywhere. There’s progress, in that there is building over destruction for once in 50 years. Although you question whether, once they’re recognized, they go back to their old ways and push their old agenda instead of being more “progressive.”

I can only share what I’ve observed. I can only talk about my observations. My opinions should be left for you to decide.

On 9/11 I’m standing at the foot of a once destroyed Buddhist statue, with Taliban greeting me and telling me I’m always welcome. They know where I’m from, and I’m sure they know it’s 9/11, but they mention nothing of the sort. They’re friendly and open to chatting, but you’re also unsure if they’re just trying to gather intel on you. They want tourists safe so more come, however they don’t want YouTubers (to an extent), media, or former US military. For a multitude of reasons. Money, of course, but also showing the western world they’re more “normal.” And then, of course, more money from countries recognizing them.

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You’ll see teachers in parks. Not all face coverings, in fact Burqas are only more common in certain provinces. What’s interesting is little girls don’t typically wear any sort of head covering at all, I saw many always hanging out the sunroof of a 4Runner with their hair blowing in the wind. You can’t help but sense that’s the most free they will feel. They don’t dress like American girls whose parents allow butt cheeks hanging out and bellies showing (I mean, come on), but they’re certainly dressed westernized and it doesn’t seem to be an issue.

The women are beautiful too. But you can’t approach them. They must approach you first. Hence why arranged marriages are the most common, though typically both sides get to say yes or no. Interesting, though. Perhaps some American women would agree they don’t ever want to be approached by a man, lol.

Afghan men are also extremely nice, but they will stare the hell out of you like you’ve never seen. Some will offer you food for free, or buy your lunch. They want you to feel welcome. They’re just curious, so the stare is curiosity, not planning some crazy plot (or so I’d hope). I even had a couple of old guys want me to take photos of them, not for them, but for me. Odd, in a day and age where social media is the purpose of every capture (guilty).

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Saw My Camera and Asked for a Photo

It’s funny coming to a place where, quite literally, I could have had my head sawed off 20 years ago, and now they’re itching to tell me to get more people to come, feeding me, having conversations.

In the main park, under the giant Taliban flag, an old Taliban member with a long white beard came up and asked how my safety was, and if I’d felt safe. I told him yes. He said good, he wants to make sure I feel safe, and I can tell all my friends they’re also welcome to come here, because it’s safe.

Worth noting, I expected to see guns everywhere, which I did to an extent, but places like these parks where it seems only Taliban hang out, have to check in their guns before even entering as they are banned from bringing in certain areas. That’s not to say, I definitely saw Taliban bringing AK-47s into restaurants, laying them on the table, playing with them at dinner and glancing over at us from time to time. I just got used to waving and saying hi so they’d stop staring, or so they’d know I know they’re looking at me. You just get comfortable after a while, lol. The fear nodule in your brain kind of stops, and you slowly get used to it as a way of life. Funny how your mind can do that. I imagine that’s how it is for the people there.

Women at the airport told me they “love my people” and that I’m always welcome, as they’re pretending to check my camera’s photos and videos.

Where the hospitality comes from:

The hospitality isn’t a nicety. It’s old, it’s codified, and it predates the Taliban by centuries.

Start with geography. Before roads, getting stranded in these deserts and mountains could kill you. So an unwritten rule took hold: shelter the stranger today, because tomorrow the stranger might be you. Turning someone away from your door was close to a death sentence.

Then the Silk Road. For thousands of years, merchants, pilgrims, and armies from Greece, Persia, India, and China moved through here. Treating outsiders well was good for trade and good for alliances.

Then Pashtunwali, the unwritten code of the Pashtuns, Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group. One of its pillars is melmastia: food, shelter, and respect for any guest, free, no matter who they are or where they’re from. Another, nanawatai, obligates you to protect someone who asks for refuge, even an enemy. Breaking either brings shame on the family and the village. Islam layered on top of all this, treating a guest as a blessing from God.

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Bread Maker in Bamyan

Which brings it back to the Taliban. The Taliban is overwhelmingly Pashtun, with most estimates putting its leadership and fighters at around 90 percent or more. Flip it around, though, and almost no Pashtuns are Taliban. There are roughly 50 to 60 million Pashtuns in the world, most of them in Pakistan. Taliban fighters are estimated somewhere between 75,000 and 200,000.

And the relationship isn’t clean. The Taliban’s strict Deobandi ideology often overrides Pashtunwali. They replaced tribal councils, called jirgas, with religious courts, which is why plenty of tribal elders opposed them. But the guest code runs deeper than any one regime. Which is how a guy from the country that spent 20 years fighting them ends up being told he’s always welcome.

You do have some small instances where you’re asked if you’re Muslim. When I respond “no, I have no religion,” they immediately turn away and won’t react when I say hi, bye, or thank you. Suddenly they want nothing to do with me, but their direct friends still want to hang out. I was traveling with a Black American who was Muslim, and they immediately wanted to take pictures with him. It brought the temperature down around the Taliban. They don’t care what kind of Muslim or to what effect. Just being Muslim alone was enough for them.

At checkpoints it’s funny. The Taliban are confused about why I want to visit the Buddha. Are you not Buddhist? Why would you visit something that isn’t your religion? Good question, honestly. I just search for more old shit with no personal effect on me, just to see what people hundreds of years ago built, even though that very thing was destroyed. They ask this all the while reading the permits upside down (many can’t read). But funny enough, they want tourism there. It’s already a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but apparently UNESCO won’t allow the Buddhas to be rebuilt unless it’s done with the existing destroyed materials. A true shame, and a sad cost of war they even seemingly regret now (always for money).

The little kids. You want to save them all, yet you can’t give them money, and sometimes they refuse food and just want money, most likely because they’re told to. You simply would not believe the color of their eyes. People like to say it’s from the invasions of Russia and the USA, and perhaps that could be part of it, but it shouldn’t take away from the beauty that is truly hidden behind the media and the burqas.

Nuance even comes with how taxpayer money was used, and you see it every day. Again, with nuance. The American occupation came wanting to bring democracy, but like America does, it implemented a “democracy”, put people in place who were woefully uneducated, and corruption bled. Now the Taliban is in place, and there has never been this level of construction in history. At what cost, right? They can use it as an excuse: obviously we’re doing the right things, because there’s zero corruption in the government. You see it in front of your eyes every day. So while you can see progress, it can come at a cost. How long can it last? Will women be given more rights slowly as they build things out? Who will take advantage and want more power from within? Humans will always take advantage of any system in place (arguably the current downfall of America, being basically an oligarchy now). Afghans seem almost willing to bring back the Americans so they can be given more rights, even if that means less safety. The roads we took throughout Afghanistan would have simply been impossible just 5 years ago.

All these kids in all these villages grow up together and are truly family. And it’s just a shame thinking they might not have a future they want or deserve. You see little girls walking home with old UNICEF backpacks, probably passed down over years. An area the Taliban doesn’t care about but still controls. Imagine being a minority under the Taliban. Not even the USA fought here, because it wasn’t worth the control. A Buddha blown up in a Muslim town just to make a point, but now something for the locals, and one of the only reasons money comes in.

Content creators sensationalize Afghanistan, giving the Taliban a voice and saying, see they're totally fine. Speaking with some Afghans I asked if things like Afghans marrying kids to the Taliban was true. Allegedly, there are “good” and “bad” Taliban, oddly enough. I was told only about 1 to 2 percent actually marry kids (still 1-2 percent too many), but seems to be getting more common as families look for money to survive and selling their daughters at insanely young ages become the desperation move. However, engagement parties at 15 and marriage at 17 or 18 are slightly more common if the girl looks like she’s going to be “good looking” at an older age (crazy right?). Families selling their kids to the Taliban for money and connections at such a young age happens.

It is not human nature to accept nuance. In Pitch Anything, Oren Klaff describes three parts of the brain. The croc brain comes first. Danger or not danger. If it’s not dangerous or new, ignore it. If it’s complicated, boil it down to something simple. Nuance needs the third part, the neocortex, and it needs information. You use that information to analyze the pieces that can be good and bad at the same time.

Women go out alone all the time, very common, but if they see a woman with a guy, there is a chance they will randomly question you to make sure you’re married or related. If not, there will be problems. They may make you get married too, lol. Dating is not an option. This is kept hidden behind closed doors and families. While you get to decide who you marry, your options may become limited past a certain age.

Met a guy who made wedding dresses his whole life. When he left Pakistan to come back to Afghanistan, he left his shop to his students for free. The Taliban recently said his wedding dresses weren’t up to standard and destroyed his shop, because the sleeves weren’t proper. Comes back to Afghanistan because it was safe (one party rule) and gets his shop destroyed. He was at the airport bringing his dad north, where they’ll cross the border into Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan keeps their passports while his dad sees doctors, then they come back over. Care isn’t good here, so Uzbekistan allows this in some cases. So while it’s even worse for women since there isn’t a lot of women doctors, even the men can’t get quality care there. They all left when the Americans did.

There were instances where we go to get permits, and there’s a 10-year-old on a couch just chilling, taking it in, and he just stamps it. The father wasn’t there. They just leave these kids to throw a stamp on shit.

There were some instances where content creators went viral doing things like dancing in the lake or swinging on swings in cool desert places, and then the spots get banned and destroyed by the Taliban. On top of that, the local women are banned from having access to swimming in most areas or only for certain times. Some parks have times where women are allowed and men are allowed. Completely separating the two at all times.

Young boys at a mosque we were at wanted to practice their english. Holding hands with the other boys (common in Afghanistan). One of them went viral before and got in trouble with one of the heads of state, but still continues. We were even broken up by the Taliban a few times, but the kids refused to listen and kept chasing us down. The level of wanting to learn from all the kids is insane. I felt bad because some of them wanted my number, but you have to be careful, because you don’t want to A. get them in trouble, B. Get your guide in trouble, or C. Start getting calls from the Taliban lol.

You sense a bit of anarchy brewing. People saying quietly that Afghans love Americans, making it known, but under the radar of their superiors.

One of my last nights, I spoke with a former Afghan soldier whose dad was killed by the Taliban. He runs a restaurant now. He says people are scared of the Taliban, so that’s why it’s safe. They don’t like the rules, but it’s also safer than it’s been.

They banned music, but you can find a coffee shop on Fridays that will be blasting it occasionally. Typically people will listen, then turn it off at checkpoints. Always workarounds, and a bit of rebellion of that sort. We’re humans after all. No matter the restriction, we’re going to do it. Humans don’t like rules, but they want safety, security, and financial freedom.

Advertisements throughout the city have faces blurred out so women don’t “get turned on” by them. I swear there’s a level of absolute insecurity with these guys and I’m still trying to figure out where it comes from because that’s just INSANE to me. I could understand men with 6 pack abs or something on an ad to some extent, but we’re talking even kids full clothed in the traditional dress, even have their faces blurred out.

A restaurant owner told me hash is illegal, and if you get caught with it you get sent to jail for 7 days, beaten something like 10 times a day with a whip or a stick, then released. He still carries some with him anyway, lol. So bizarre.

A shopkeeper at Band-e-Amir told me he’s never been a soldier, and his family fought the Taliban. He’s still a shopkeeper and seems to be friends with them, which was weird. He also said he hates guns.

These guys don’t even know how to read, and yet they’re taking away girls’ education. My completely semi-uneducated opinion is many of these countries need to split from each other. There is too much difference in culture and religion and it seems that would solve so many problems. I guess you could consider me a libertarian in that respect. Leave me alone and let me live the way I want, or I’ll leave and find somewhere I can. That’s typically how I feel about many of these countries.

I also spoke with women running their own shops. They spoke really good English and weren’t afraid to say they really wish they could continue their education. They do it privately, but now they’re a bit trapped, with no way of knowing where to go next. I guess at least they can work now, it seems.

So while I saw progress (or what I could define as progress) and safety, there are obviously still limits on women. They can’t move between provinces without the presence of a male relative. They can’t swim in the lake if the Taliban security is there. They can’t drive (although I saw a couple of them driving, maybe because they were related to Taliban or just don’t care?). I saw many women working and owning shops that spoke great English, although can’t continue education openly.

When you travel there is a sixth sense you find. There’s an energy that you can just feel. That tense buildup. I can’t help but think there is a limit in how long women and men will put up with strict rules. Funny enough, though, the Taliban need money too. They’re not capitalists, but they let the bazaars run, chase Chinese mining deals, collect taxes and customs like hawks, and want tourists. They may learn they need to loosen restrictions, like Saudi Arabia did when it let women drive and opened up concerts and cinemas to make money beyond oil. Then again, they banned opium, one of the country’s biggest moneymakers, and they keep women out of school and much of the workforce at a huge cost to the economy. So far, when money and ideology clash, ideology wins.

I can’t help but express there was a woman that stopped us and said “How do you like our country” and we said, we love it, it is a very beautiful country full of beautiful nature and beautiful people. She responded “No, it’s not beautiful. I can’t get an education. I can’t move on from this place and become who I want to be. Please go back and tell people in your country the truth about our freedoms as women are limited.” So I end with that as I said I would.

Lastly, should you visit?

If you are, now is the time. It’s really hard to say what the next phase is. I personally sense there is too much difference of people within the country to put up with a lot of the “rules”. Unless the Taliban DRASTICALLY adapts and progresses, there seems to be no way it’s sustainable.

If you are former or current military, absolutely not. If you’re a Youtuber, don’t wear mics in some areas like entering mosques and stuff and be more under the radar as they are imprisoning people for wrong permits and wrong visas. They’re being a little harsher on information to the public, hence why you seem to see more Taliban loving influencers out there.