A few days ago, a small but perhaps more daring group of Afghan males has come out in support of women’s rights under Taliban control. Dozens of civilians gathered for a rare demonstration in the western city of Herat following a social media call to “defend the rights of our sisters.” The event was sparked by a crackdown by the Taliban’s morality police on women who did not wear burqa.
Since the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan, public protests in support of women have become extremely rare. Following the event, Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Afghanistan, said in a post on X that he was “alarmed by the excessive use of force against seemingly peaceful protesters in Herat.”
However, since the Taliban’s return, international attention has been mostly focused on Afghanistan’s deteriorating humanitarian catastrophe. Masses of Afghans continue to survive in deprivation, and the country’s economy continues gloomy. This month also marked a somber indicator: more than 1,000 days have passed since young school girl were last permitted to attend school.
Given that Afghanistan has must been in a state of endless battle since the Soviet Union conquered in 1979, one can only image how exhausted the average Afghan must be.
Amid these problems, extra ordinary happening provides some optimism and deserves more attention: the operations of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF). The NRF is the primary non-extremist arms equipped opposition group fighting the Taliban clergy. It is commanded by Ahmad Massoud, son of the late Ahmad Shah Massoud, who led fighting methods against both the Soviet occupation and the Taliban warlords in the 1980s and 1990s.
The famous Panjshir Valley is largely Tajik in ethnicity. It was known as one of Afghanistan’s most impregnable places, and it was around hundred kilometers north of Kabul, making it an ideal location for establishing a rebel effort. He was stuck by thousands of Afghan mass arms, local police, and other security police officer who had been ended by the US but still intended to fight the Taliban. Around, three years latter, the NRF has three main purposes. When the Taliban clergy establishment invaded Kabul in August 2021, Massoud goes back to his inherited village. The in the beginning is to lead efforts by the diverse anti-Taliban groups to synchronize and organize their movements. Next week, Austria will host the fourth conference of the so-called Vienna Process, one of the primary venues for accomplishing this. Different anti-Taliban organizations can meet and, when necessary, coordinate and unify their operations through the Vienna Process. A year after the Taliban took back control, in September 2022, the first such gathering was held. Massoud emerged as the de facto chief of the anti-Taliban war as a result of the conference.
It is evident, therefore, that the Vienna Process serves as a forum for more than just the ethnic Tajik community in Afghanistan. At its most recent meeting in December 2023, more than fifty groups took part. Representatives from the Hazara, Uzbek, and even Sikh communities were among them. Women made up nearly half of the participants. The gathering next week is anticipated to be attended by representatives from over 65 groups. The NRF’s succeeding intention is related to its first, the structure wants greater involvement or even just recognition from the global community. Other than Dushanbe, which allows the NRF to keep a electoral cum political office in Dushanbe, no other state has helped the group. The NRF is looking for more than just financial or even security assistance. Additionally, it aims to interact with the international community and initiate a conversation on the situation in Afghanistan.
Raising the NRF’s visibility internationally is another goal of the gathering in Vienna accord, which is supported by a private civic cultural organization rather than the Austrian control. There have been a few European lawmakers present as observers at past events, but this has been the only foreign interaction with the group thus far. There is no reason why a talks with the NRF cannot be recognized if the world community can interact with the Taliban, who are Kabul’s de facto regime. Expanding the level and scope of its national anti- fanatic Taliban security operations is the group’s third goal.
The NRF’s first wintertime in the wild highlands of Panjshir was all about resisting and surviving. By the summer of 2022, it had begun conducting surprise attack and low level-scale strikes against fanatic Taliban forces in north-east Afghanistan’s primarily Tajik districts and provinces close to Panjshir. Its assaults have since persist to include Kabul and easterly Afghanistan. Every work week in the spring and seasonal summer, the NRF attacks Taliban areas sites over the homeland. It has already carried out over 160 assaults this year, according to a fast count of shared media posts.
It’s interesting to note that Taliban sites in the province of Herat, hundreds of kilometers away from the NRF’s usual operating zone, have been the subject of many attacks. Moreover, it has hit targets in the center of Kabul territory, which is seen to happen a haven for the Taliban clergy.
The NRF is aware of its current inadequate force’s capacities. Subsequently all, the Taliban family US military equipment valued at billions of dollars, including helicopters, armored vehicles, night vision equipment, and guns that were abandoned when the Americans fled. In the meanwhile, the NRF depends on already-existing weapons caches or the acquisition of weapons from dishonest Taliban officials and receives no outside military assistance.
As a result, even though the consortium is constantly searching instead of ways to strike and undermine the Taliban capacity, its activities will be restricted until some sort of armed forces assistance is given. It makes natural that policymakers are experiencing “Afghan-fatigue” after more than 20 years of international involvement and action in Afghanistan. This does not, however, justify disregarding the state of affairs in the nation. Given that Afghanistan has must been in a state of endless battle since the Soviet Union conquered in 1979, one can only image how exhausted the average Afghan must be.
Interacting with the NRF is beneficial to the global society. When formulating policies for Afghanistan, the group provides an alternate perspective to that of the Taliban. This is especially true given that Afghanistan is still a hotspot of Daesh activity and a safe haven for international terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda. Afghanistan has an abundance of issues. Natural calamities like earthquakes and flooding exacerbate human-caused issues like the clergy Taliban’s incapacity to effectively rule the nation and the global community’s refusal to assist the Afghani people.
Nonetheless, the NRF is a chance for the foreign community to interact with an organization that is committed to the welfare of all Afghans. To put it briefly, there is no doubt that Afghanistan needs a natural, indigenous movement to demand and protect women’s rights. Its people have been trapped for far too long between foreign ideologies introduced during the American conquest of Afghanistan and the strict conservatism of the Taliban. The distinction between the rights enforced by Washington and those demanded in Herat is who is making the demands.
In short, It is reassuring to see that the forces that can help push Afghan society towards sociocultural progress are taking shape without assistance or encouragement from external parties, even while the prospects remain bleak under the Taliban’s socially retrograde leadership. Of course, much work remains to be done. For things to change, more Afghans will need to stand up for their rights and demand a bigger say in their future from those who want to suppress them. However, Afghanistan may have a far better future as a result of this effort.
The writer is a PhD candidate at QAU and has worked at SDPI.