A year ago, the city of Kabul fell into the hands of the Taliban. The Islamist fundamentalists seized the capital without fighting after a lightning offensive carried out throughout the territory of Afghanistan. A year later, the country faces growing poverty, drought, malnutrition and exclusion
women. However, some demonstrate or walk in the street with their faces uncovered and alone, and men do not hesitate to speak their minds in a country where freedom of expression has disappeared. “There is hope, we feel a kind of passive resistance”testified on Monday August 15 on franceinfo Solène Chalvon-Fioriti, a great reporter who has been traveling through Afghanistan for more than ten years.
franceinfo: Where is Afghanistan, a year after the Taliban took Kabul?
Solene Chalvon-Fioriti: The difference with the country before is not as obvious as day and night, but it comes close nonetheless. It is a country that is collapsing because the poverty is so striking that when you get off the plane, you already have access to it.
“You have people begging in Kabul that you have never seen before, they are engineers, teachers, middle class.”
Solène Chalvon-Fioriti, senior reporterat franceinfo
They pile up in front of the bakeries, the streets. You also have the Taliban, these armed men, with checkpoints every 200 meters and who punctuate daily life in Afghanistan.
Are women visible?
They make themselves visible and not only in the demonstrations which bring together only a few dozen very courageous women. At times, in working-class neighborhoods, you see an 18-year-old woman at night who doesn’t hide her face even though it’s compulsory, and she walks alone. That’s it, passive resistance, even if alas, the Taliban’s enterprise, which consists of hiding women inside houses, is very successful: there are fewer women outside. Why go out if you’re out of work, have to hide your face, are plagued by threats, and everyone reminds you that you’re not covered enough? Afghan women have largely deserted the public space.
Is it easy to chat with people? Are they critical?
The Afghans do it but when we talk about the media it has become very complicated. There is a disintegration of freedom of expression in Afghanistan, particularly in the past six months. The first three to four months, people could still write what they wanted, but now it’s impossible, even foreign journalists are arrested.
“Speech is not at all free. In some media, it is state speech. But thanks to social networks, we see that Afghans say what they think.”
Solene Chalvon-Fioritiat franceinfo
Apart from the networks too, traders, people in the countryside… You still have people who are not afraid to be outspoken.
What climate do you work in?
It is very difficult because it is constantly evolving. Where, three months ago, you felt like you had taken the necessary protective measures for your sources, you realize over the months that the people who help you work are very annoyed afterwards. They are visited, their father is locked up, and threats rain down. It is much more difficult to work and the worst is to interview former security forces. These are people you put in direct danger.
Is the desire for exile still as strong?
It’s almost worse, it’s an overflowing desire, it’s very sad. There are 38 million people in Afghanistan, so you can imagine they haven’t all left. Lots of people decided to stay, believing that there was perhaps the possibility of creating a banking and economic system. But it’s impossible. All the people you meet want to leave and they do so by the thousands, via Iran or Pakistan, even if the question of visas is much tighter. Forecasts estimate that 97% of Afghans will suffer from poverty.
Is there any hope left?
There is hope, we feel a kind of passive resistance. The 18-year-old girl who does not have her face covered gives faith in humanity. When Afghan women continue to walk in the streets for a year, it makes you want to believe, when you see people in Kabul who sometimes make fun of the Taliban, don’t let it go, you tell yourself that this youth is not going well let it go. I hope it comes from youth.