Pakistan in recent weeks has begun deporting hundreds of thousands of Afghan migrants and refugees in response, it claims, to an uptick in extremist violence. Security analysts see an unfolding humanitarian crisis and warn of wider insecurity in an already fragile region. “Afghan authorities are ill prepared to receive massive numbers of returnees,” the International Crisis Group observed on Monday.
An estimated 4 million Afghans live in Pakistan. Many fled war or – more recently – harsh social and economic restrictions reimposed by the Taliban following their return to power two years ago. Many more were born there. As many as half now face expulsion. Meeting their immediate basic needs in Afghanistan will be a challenge. Few facilities are in place to care for them, and Pakistani authorities have imposed severe limits on what they can take with them.
If the returnees are light of possessions, however, they bring expectations that the Taliban may find increasingly difficult to dismiss. They include women of diverse educational backgrounds and occupations who are unlikely to submit quietly to the Taliban’s stern strictures governing what they can and cannot do. As one migrant, Bibi Gul, told Radio Free Europe at a border crossing, her family fled Afghanistan “because my daughter was deprived of an education. Now that we have returned, she must be able to continue her studies.”
Women like Ms. Gul are part of a generation demanding equality and democratic reform in an arc of Muslim countries stretching from Pakistan to Sudan. In gestures large and small, they are resisting regimes that have sought to order their societies on the basis of strict religious creeds. One measure of their resonance is evident in the way that Iranians view the resurgent conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza.
“In an increasingly secular Iranian society it is hard to argue, as the regime and those who support it would like to, that one should support Palestinians solely because they are Muslims,” Najmeh Bozorgmehr, an Iranian journalist based in Tehran, wrote this week in the Financial Times. “‘I don’t care about each side’s religion. I care about humanity,’” a taxi driver told her recently.
When the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, their promises to rule moderately were short-lived. They banned education for girls after the age of 12. Women who work outside the home must be accompanied by men. Females must be fully covered in public.
Those measures stirred women to protest under the slogan “Bread, Work, Freedom” – reflecting their diversity as teachers, mothers, entrepreneurs, and former government officials. More than once, the Taliban have had to back down. Earlier this year they lifted a ban on female foreign aid workers. They raised the education limit to the 14th grade for girls in religious schools.
“Despite all the unfairness, oppression, injustice and difficulties I keep going on,” a young woman who was studying physics at Jawzjan University wrote on a United Nations website where Afghan women can share their stories of life under the Taliban. “I want to be a changemaker. ... We still have hope.”
Authoritarian regimes seldom face a mass return of their people. Now the Taliban do. In their defense of dignity and demand for equality, returning Afghans are bringing home a lesson in the true substance of power.
Mark Sappenfield
