"I Believe"

I believe that there is a logical reason for every action that a person chooses to do. Whether this action is done to better oneself or one’s community, there is always the risk of something going wrong. Actions do not always go as planned and sometimes people end up making the situation worse when they thought that the action would be good for everyone. Therefore, I believe that even though the Taliban thought that their actions were going to make the country a better place to live, and that many Afghan people were for them, the lives of the women became so badly oppressed that is was almost like they did not exist.

The Taliban had a goal and that was to take over the country of Afghanistan. And they believed that the only way that they were going to be able to gain power over all of the Afghanistan people was to keep the people’s privileges to a minimum. For example, in the book My Forbidden Face, women were only allowed to leave their houses under two conditions which both had to be met, one was if they were accompanied by a man or mahram at all times and if they wore a chadri, a facial cloth that covered an Afghan women’s whole face. The rules that the Taliban came up with for the women were much harder than those for the men. Women would be beaten for being the slightest it out of line. Also, women were not allowed to wear make-up. In the book, some of the women get badly beaten for wearing white shoes because white is the color of the Taliban flag, and by wearing white shoes, it was as if they were stepping on the flag. Women were almost reduced to nothing under the Taliban, even if they were put in the situation of being raped; the women were either forced to marry their rapist or to kill themselves. Men had to be relied on as the main source for income because women were no longer allowed to work, shattering the dream jobs and future dreams for all women. Men were still allowed to work and walk the streets on their own. The future for women looked pretty dull, partly because the opportunity for education was one of the first to go under the Taliban regime.

However, by doing this, the Taliban thought that they were taking action and making rules that would benefit the country as a whole. They felt that they best way for this country, Afghanistan, to run was when they were in charge. Behind every action they took, their seemed to be a logical explanation. By not allowing education to the people of Afghanistan, there was no way that they could know what “freedom” was going on around the world in other countries. The Taliban knew that once the people started to find out how other countries were living and how different it was, everyone would want to leave for a chance at a better and more fulfilling lifestyle. That is why the Taliban had the rule of not being allowed any link to the media. No noise was allowed to be heard from outside the house after hours, this included the television and the radio. This gave the Taliban the opportunity to take rule over the people of Afghanistan and get them to do whatever they wanted. Because if any of these rules were ever broken the consequences were deadly. Failing to follow even the smallest detail resulted in a spanking or a beating. There were so many Taliban that kept an eye on every move that was being taken by the non-Taliban, especially when they were in their homes. They spied to make sure that no loud noises or bright lights could be heard or seen from anywhere around the homes.

I believe that the Taliban thought that by inputting these new rules, they would be able to rule and run the country of Afghanistan how they wanted to. The Taliban would be one hundred percent in total control of the Afghan people. However, instead of making Afghanistan a better place to live, the Taliban ended any sort of “normal” lifestyle. Women were not allowed to do anything, but stay in their homes unless they were with a man. These rule completely took away the independence of the women, families fully relied on the men and never on the women. This made women think that they were not worth anything which forced depression and sickness on the women as a result. The Taliban wanted a better life for the Afghan people; they were not just about themselves and what was best for them. However, the rules made the Afghan people feel so inferior to the Taliban that they anything and everything the Taliban wanted should be done.