I spoke with Dr. Alam Payind on Wednesday, July 21 at 10:00am Eastern Daylight Time to discuss the current troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Unfortunately, Taliban rule is taking hold and women’s rights, minority rights are already under threat. Thousands are fleeing the country due to Taliban brutality. The Taliban promises to bring shar’ia law, to stop drugs, and their propagandistic claims of being the “winner” in the fight against foreign occupation are effective in many areas who are accepting their leadership. Dr. Payind explained this as a case of “the drowning person grasping at foam,” a Persian saying. In Afghanistan, the past appears only to repeat itself. So many invaders have come “failing to leave a workable central government,” in Dr. Payind’s words. The closest Afghanistan came to doing this was the era of Zahir Shah, who was the king of Afghanistan from 1933 to 1973. Dr. Payind referred to this time as a “Golden Age.” We went into the history of the current situation going back to the Cold War era and the perennial issue of foreign invaders empower certain groups over others, whether in Afghanistan or other parts of the Middle East and the world.
Dr. Payind teaches International Studies 2241, “Introduction to the Modern Middle East,” and International Studies/NELC 5645, “Contemporary Issues in the Middle East.”
Local Bazaar, by The U.S. Army, CC 2.0 via Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiersmediacenter/6539169527/