Lydia Talks To... Qais Alamdar, Afghan Political Acitivist and Researchera

Lydia Talks to: Qais Alamdar, Afghan Political Activist and Researcher.

Live Interview 19th August 2022 – Full Transcript.

Lydia: Good evening and welcome. It's now just over a year since the Taliban took over Afghanistan following the Western withdrawal of forces. And this time last year, we were looking at horrendous of scenes of people desperately trying to flee the Taliban as the new regime came in. My guest this evening is Afghan himself. He has worked with many evidence based organisations and I'm just thinking a little disjointedly because I was looking for him joining so that I can invite him to join. And I will also introduce myself as well, since where is that going? Hi, good evening.

Qais: Hi, Lydia.

Lydia: Hi, how are you?

Qais: I'm good, how are you?

Lydia: I'm very well indeed. I was just starting a very disjointed preamble while I need to arrive. I was just observing that we are now one year since the Taliban took over Afghanistan following the west withdrawal. And this time last year we were seeing horrendous scenes around Kabul airport of people trying to flee and a huge amount of chaos going on. And I understand your family was also involved in that, they there at the airport at some point, which is something which we will no doubt talk about later. But thank you for coming to join me. I'd first of all like to start by just introducing ourselves because I think there are quite a few people that have joined and followed who don't know me at all. So I'm just some random white woman [laughs] I'm a former UK government employee who used to work for UK government in Brussels in the EU and now talk about Westminster politics and also UK foreign policy. And also my husband was in the military, he was a naval officer and was head of press for ISAF A NATO forces, Afghanistan, in 2009, and was head of press for them.

So that's for people who don't know me. But would you like to introduce yourself and tell us a little about who you are and what you do?

Qais: I'm Qais Alamdar. I was born and grew up in Afghanistan, witnessed the development that happened over the past 20 years in the country. I became a social activist, later political activist. I left Afghanistan in 2018 and since then I've been studying and also working on human rights abuses. What's happening in the country. That's a brief intro, I can talk more, but I should be brief.

Lydia: Well, no doubt a lot of your personal and work experience will come out during much of this conversation. And I think particularly valuable for our audience is that I and my husband have only ever been able to produce a Western perspective through the Western lens, and therefore there will always be elements and nuances we cannot touch. And so therefore, having you here is very valuable. And I think to start our conversation and recognising that much of our audience will have a Western lens. Some may have been to Afghanistan once upon a time. It was on the Hippie trail back in 60s, I certainly know people that were there at that time. Some may have served there, some may have visited. But as someone who lived there, who grew up there, who talks about Afghanistan, what are the things that we need to know? What are the essential pieces of context to help us understand Afghanistan as a country, whether now in its history?

Qais: Well, one of the misconceptions is that we have this global narrative by parts of people that it's better to leave people how it is it's better to leave the Taliban, leave the country, and just no foreign troops should be there. In order to answer that properly, just to give a very brief context of the past 40 to 50 years of conflict in Afghanistan, we must think of the lack of political stability in Afghanistan. They imagine within 50 years of the recent history in Afghanistan, we shifted from monarchy first Republic to communist government, and then again we went to a civil war. And then we had the Taliban regime in the 90s, which was way in contrast to what we had in the past and so on, that led to the rise of global terrorism within that country. It became a paradise of terrorists, a place where they trained, they were equipped, and they were sent back to carry out attacks around the world. And unfortunately, they were mostly not Afghans. I would say there's also another conception where when we talk about the Taliban, we think of them as being the natives of that country, but we also where they come from, where they get their support.

So that has been back then and since the US intervention. After the attacks on the US soil in September in 2001, we suddenly saw a huge change within Afghanistan's dynamics, including the social structure, but also political structure. Though the political structure had always had its issues, over the past 20 years, activist advocates always raised the issue of corruption, use and management of civilians, both by the Taliban, by Western forces, and also by the government. Mainly in places where the conflict occurred in villages and destroys, and across Afghanistan, but in urban areas generally in other places, slowly life started shaping. And the reason was, until 2001, afghanistan was completely destroyed. Completely by consecutive wars, by consecutive conflicts. The country had lost its no health care was in place, no schools had furniture or even a roof. I myself studied until my 6th grade. Sitting on the ground, I witnessed how gradually it changed over the years. We didn't have, for instance, doors and windows for our school. And my school was in Kabul, the capital. Capital, right. But that was the case. I had to carry out a pillow from home and go and sit because half of the day I was at school.

So my bum would hurt. But it slowly changed. Chairs, desks were brought in money were poured into Afghanistan, areas of development started shaping. We had very functional school system, we had girls attending higher education and then pursuing their own dreams, becoming doctors, becoming journalists, becoming activists, becoming politicians, becoming police officers, joining the army. And as well as the arts team, we had singers, we had printers. And I'm trying to exclude men here, just trying to focus on the women's aspect, how they had these opportunities. However, there was also this sort of restriction on women generally, and that has to do with the very misogynistic aspect of the Afghan society caused by the 40 years of war. But still, they had the space to fight, they had the space to gain their own rights. And that changed completely on August 15, 2021.

Lydia: And certainly how this has affected women in particular is something which all of us are immensely interested in. I think possibly one of the most important aspects, and I believe also a huge justification for Western intervention was the rights of women and the ability to further human rights within Afghanistan, with the emphasis being on women's rights. But just to go back a little bit, you talked about the instability that Afghanistan had experienced for several years and there's certainly been a narrative that has been put about that Afghanistan was ungovernable and that the collapse of the Afghan army and of the government as soon as Western forces withdrew was kind of seen as evidence of this, saying "well Afghanistan is a hopeless case and we were only propping it up from a Western perspective. And as soon as we left, I'll look at it all just fell apart wirthout us." And I have seen it challenged, but I would be very interested on your perspective of that.

Qais: Well, the country, since it's beginning as becoming a country almost 250 years ago, 300 years ago, which is also very problematic, and many people argued that it's not a country that existed, but it was a country that was created. This is a country where it's always a buffer zone. So the system that is placed here is always somehow that it shouldn't be governable because everyone should be able to come and go whenever they want. As per what happened in Afghanistan just over 100 years ago with the British leaving the country. Although many people celebrate 19 August as Afghanistan's Independence Day. But I question that as well. Because it wasn't an independence at all. But rather a ceasefire between the British and the Afghan king back then. And when it comes to political stability and why it's not governable, we have to think of the ethnic margins of the country, the ethnicities, the geography, the cultures that exist in different parts of the country, which all conclude in shaping what is this country. It always had a very centralised government and power was never localised. People had little faith who should be their governor, who should be their district leader, for instance, who should be their president.

Even with the last president of Afghanistan, Asraf Ghani, nobody actually accepted him as a legitimate president because he claimed to be a president just with under 1 million votes, over 30 million population and with roughly 15 to 20 million of eligible.

Lydia: Are you saying that people were being appointed from the centre and therefore that centralised control? And this is why when the Taliban took over Kabul then that was the moment at which they had all of Afghanistan.

Qais: So the order was always coming from the centre of the country, from the capital and that's, I think the main cause of the collapse. People have never associated themselves or never had the feeling of ownership to the country. They were always excluded from the power, they never had the say. So I think that's the reason why they are being used in many areas, why Taliban were successful over the past 20 years recruiting people from those areas into their ranks, into their basically force to fight the Western troops, but also the Afghan army.

Lydia: One thing we touched on already is the sort of huge chunks of time where there was one conflict that was then replaced by another conflict. Whether it was the overthrow of the monarchy and then followed by civil war. Followed by a communist government. Followed by the invasion of the Soviets and then we had the Mujahideen funded by the Americans and then my understanding is that the Taliban then displaced Mujahideen in the that this was a moment at which they were also looking around for.. That Al Qaeda and other terrorist forces were then looking for places where they could set up camps and so on. I was listening to a very interesting podcast. I don't know if you know. But there's a guy called Aimen Dean who was an Al Qaeda operative who then ended up being double agents for Mi6 and he does a podcast called "Conflicted" and he was talking about some of his experiences and one of the things that he described was actually the Taliban takeover in the 90s and some of us will have read the Kite Runner and 1000 Splendid Suns and Khaled Hosseini has been a very well known author and has in some ways given us a small window into Afghanistan.

To what extent do you think that what happened in that era has any kind of impact on all the things that have followed? Are the fingers of that time still very much there or are we looking at a new Taliban that has taken over?

Qais: Well, personally I would think the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan had destabilised the country and also the Communist Party. We have to understand Afghanistan has always been a very tribal, traditional country. It believed on its traditions, it believed on its religion and it holded dear throughout time and that's how it runs still in most places. With the Communists coming to Afghanistan, they say nobody can pray, nobody can attend religious ceremonies. So that kind of fuelled this anti religious sentiment for the Communists. And that was used by the CIA, by the Western countries, especially the US. During the Cold War, to kind of use that opportunity to tell them that 'you see across that border, they're the Soviets, the Russians, they are there to destroy your religion, take away your religion.' While millions of people left Afghanistan and sought refuge in Pakistan, so they started polarising them in refugee camps in Pakistan. However, we also have to understand the different frauds that were created in Afghanistan. There were some grassroots resistance against the Soviets which stayed across their boundaries. But there were also groups like Al Qaeda and the Taliban that they were mainly equipped, trained in Pakistan.

We see these examples of Osama bin Laden's who was fighting the Soviets, who was actually providing aid for the Taliban and for people while he was trying to actually, his life story is interesting. He was kind of kicked out of Sudan because of his affiliations with Al Qaeda in the beginning and activities which save haven and the border regions of Afghanistan. So that's how it emerges. Once the Mujahideen known as the Northern Alliance, they weren't very active in the south, but they had connections with eastern Majahideens. So they formed this government in Afghanistan which lasts only two years. And that's the time with the Taliban emerged as one single group. While in the beginning they were just fighting, they were not known. And the reason why when we say the Taliban, the Taliban means a person who studies or seeks knowledge, particularly refers to the students of madrasas or religious they just teach Quran and Sharia to them. So that's how they emerge. But the details are very vague and somehow and I'm not in a position to touch more on this.

Lydia: Part of this. And this is something that I think will come to as we're talking about the Western justification for going to Afghanistan, was first of all, to create, to prevent Afghanistan being a place where terrorism could affect Americans and American security, but also to put in a stable government. And because propaganda exists in all wars, there were two enemies, weren't there? There was one, which was Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden because of the 911 attacks, but also the Taliban and taking them out of power in order that A, they didn't shield other terrorists, but also because of their particular actions in Afghanistan and their particular oppression of human rights of particularly women. I mean, from an outside perspective, what we see and I think this is entirely true, a very oppressive regime, but one of the things I think I want to question and understand both then and now, was how much popular support was really there for the Taliban in government? Is it a case that they held power through oppression and that was it? Was there an element of the Western forces being a liberating force?

Of course, the liberating force quickly becomes an occupying force. But was there an element of, yes, we do want to get rid of the Taliban? And to what extent was it a popular regime that had local support or had significant support within Afghanistan?

Qais: Well, the thing that we need to take, that we need to be careful, understand carefully, is that whichever government came to Afghanistan or was emerged, they excluded other parts of society and refuelled another narrative, which they needed a new change. Always. It's a country that is always looking for a change, always looking for a change. So what happened with the Mujahideen was they committed certain human rights abuses and crimes against humanity during the civil war. Many citizens were killed in Kabul, basically, and many fled the country. So when the Taliban came, people thought that, "oh, okay, let's see what they will be doing." So they came and they surrounded Kabul for a few time until they fought their way into Kabul, basically back then. So in the beginning, they were welcomed, as always, like every group that is welcomed in the beginning as change makers. But suddenly people started hating them because public execution started. They were chopping thieves hands and putting them on the butcher shops, just publicly beating and executing women. And imagine a football stadium before a football match. They would do an execution and then the football match would start. A scene of horror, a scene of poverty, and a scene that people, especially people of Kabul, because it's the capital in its majority population, less than the urban areas in Afghanistan, but also remote areas.

And they're way different than each other because urban areas, they're more educated, they have access to certain facilities, they know what's happening around the world, where people in the villages and districts, they live in the same way, the same way of life as they have lived 100 years ago, even today. And Taliban are a great manifestation of that. Taliban, they represented the country as they are being, okay, we represent the country, which was also not true. They were representing a very small part of the country, not the whole. It is a country made of ethnic groups, made of different cultures. Even the weather is different across the country. At the same time, the rains are different. So when the US led intervention in Afghanistan in the beginning, people were cheering them up on the streets. I remember kids were running behind their vehicles and they were throwing water, juice and stuff like that. If you would see the streets and roads, nothing was stable. Everything was destroyed completely. And even the vehicles back then were not very armoured. Vehicles were very simple opened vehicles. Soldiers were in touch with people. As soon as the first government established in 2001, the interim government, followed by national gathering, which is known as Loya Jirga, where it's a very thing, again in Afghanistan, not a very democratic thing, which they agreed on how to create a government within Afghanistan first and then followed by the Bonn conference.

So in that case, I would just say that people have lost the ability to think what is actually best for them, who actually represents them, and there was no government actually representing the people in Afghanistan. So exclusion is a major part of that.

Lydia: one of the things that I watched this week that's interesting in terms of who made up that first government. And you also mentioned the Bonn conference as well. One of the things that I really noticed was that quite a few members of that government in 2001 had been living abroad in America or elsewhere and came back to serve in that government and also the Bonn conference. And we've talked about this a little bit behind the scenes about whether the Taliban should have been involved in that Bonn conference that set out the aims and objectives of that early government. And because they were excluded, that was perhaps an opportunity lost to secure continuity for later. What would be your view on that? I mean, I know you want to talk about generally about the Afghan diaspora across the world and I'd be quite interested in your perspective on that.

Qais: Yeah. Obviously with regime change a group of people leaves the country because of danger to their lives for political reasons. And that has happened throughout the time. When the first communist revolution happened in Afghanistan, people were supporting the monarchy or they were associated with the monarchy, many of them left and so on with the Soviet invasion and so on left the country. A lot of educated people left the country, a lot of them. In 2001, imagine all these different layers of political spectrum come together and trying to create a new government. There was a discussion that Taliban should have not been shouldn't be excluded from there, but it happened. But Taliban had the chance to be part of it. But what happened later, they became more brutal. They started their suicide bombings. They became the terrorists that they are now, the people that know them as terrorists. But back then they sheltered terrorists like known as Al Qaeda. And no one among the diaspora actually believed that the Taliban should have been included. The problem was not their inclusion in that conference because they don't represent the whole country, they don't represent even their part of it. Their birthplace was in Khandahar from where they emerged.

But imagine there are other tribes within Khandahar who are against the Taliban. The famous commander of Anti Taliban commander in Khandahar was assassinated, I think two or three years ago because his whole family was killed by the Taliban in the beginning. And then he is the face of the anti Taliban commander, which a lot of human rights activists in Human Independent Human Rights Commission accused him of war crimes because he would kill them, he would take them as a prisoner. He was very brutal commander as well, but later on assassinated as well and many people consider him as a hero. So that person was from the same province as Taliban emerged. So there are a lot of complexities if we go into details of it, because to make it simple, we have to understand how it works. And that's based on tribal issues.

South Afghanistan consists of two main tribes of Pashtuns the Duranis and the Ghalji, which they always had issues with each other throughout the time and there are many more tribes, but when we see central Afghans and Northern Afghans, that's another case.

Lydia: Yeah. And I can see why the Western perspective would seek to simplify. But if it's something that we would do and perhaps there's also some kind of naivety. But certainly in the UK and America we have had revolutions. But we haven't had frequent revolutions. We haven't had very many in recent memory in the same way that maybe other parts of Europe have. Where you've had authoritarian regimes in place. And so perhaps that understanding of just how seismic a change a revolution is and to have such enormous changes actually relatively frequently within the space of 100 years of all the different regimes have happened, that actually we have a very naive view of those levels of complexity. It's not like the current Conservative Party having conversations with the Labour Party if they were changing power, for example, it's an entirely different level and far more danger to individuals as well. Just sort of thinking about the experience. A lot of people have come to this, having watched the conflict over years and possibly known people who were involved in it from the military perspective and so on. Certainly the narrative emerged and it was there at the time.

But it definitely has come out more strongly that the US and the Western forces were there as an invading force. But an occupying force. A colonial force. And that they were spending money in Afghanistan. But they were spending money particularly the Americans with their own contractors. With their own companies and therefore not actually enriching Afghanistan. What is your view or your assessment of that period while the Western forces were there?

Qais: I believe mistakes have been made by Western forces, especially the US when it comes to pouring a lot of billions of dollars to Afghanistan, as you mentioned, with contractors. Most of them, they went back to the US, the money went back to the US, they worked there and they went back. The focus was on short term solutions, not long term solutions. When it comes to the development areas, especially infrastructure, the country still lacks economic infrastructure, energy infrastructure. Money was not spent on those areas. But rather on areas of, for instance. Logistics. Billions of dollars spent on logistics. On contractors and when it comes to advisors, they hired  consultant advisors would hire them for thousands of dollars per month and then you would see also the corruption. When it comes to blaming other fees. I would start blaming the Afghan government in the first place. That the people who had this opportunity to seize this opportunity to invest more on the people. Invest more on infrastructure. But rather what they did, they invested on their houses. They invested on their properties. They invested on their suits. On their bulletproof cars and on buying properties in Dubai. In Qatar and London.

So I think that's how the country still struggles. So the blame, I put it on the Afghan government itself, on people who work there as change makers. So they were the main part of the corruption because without them none of the contracts would go get approval. There is another term people use, the warlords or people who fought or the jihadi leaders, they were also part of this corruption and everybody like ordinary people know that very well. But on the politic side, people may take sides but that's how it worked, that's the truth of it. It starts from the people itself, the people who are ruling that they lost this opportunity, this golden opportunity. 40 plus countries were there and every day they were spending billions of dollars.

Lydia: I forget the actual figure but it was many billions of dollars. [I'm just being brought a note. Thank you darling. Sorry my noise is off. I was hoping it was going to tell me how many billions the US spent in Afghanistan but it doesn't say that unfortunately ] but it was a lot of billions and I certainly remember one of the things that my husband said when Hillary Clinton first went out to Afghanistan and kind of looked around and said "sorry, we've spent how much?" And without seeing the results and what were the tangible results and you talked about this a little bit. But the opportunities that were afforded in that time, yes there was a very corrupt government and of course there was still fierce fighting going on. There were two big phases of that but certainly from 2009 onwards it was very violent in many parts of the country and we've also talked about the Taliban acting as terrorists during all of that time as well. But during that time a lot of western observers would say that there were leaps and bounds made in terms of education and enabling people to make more of their lives without the impression that they had had.

Qais: Yeah, definitely. And one of the example is the employment opportunity for people who could at least make ends meet for their families. Imagine in 2005, 2006 up until 2014, a high school graduate from Afghanistan who could just know English, could speak, they could at least earn a few bucks per month and they have a very good life. But suddenly in 2014, when the ground operation of the US forces started from native forces as well, a huge number of people, they found themselves unemployed. They had only the knowledge of English, but they weren't trained to work at offices. They weren't skilled enough to at least find good opportunities. The market became very competitive, very competitive. So the focus shifted on workforce development through US Aid and other organisation. They focused on capacity building, trying to run very minimum, very basic things like financial management, business management, things like that. However, when it comes to education, when it comes to women's rights, there was this lack of understanding how to approach things. And mainly when we see that in villages for instance, people need health care, people need job, people need food. Once they have jobs, they are able to feed their families and they can afford healthcare.

Right. So most Afghanistan hasn't been basically, I would say that it's still behind the industrialization because still people like a man and a cow on the field. Farming.

Lydia: Yeah. And the aims of having the development that enables health care and infrastructure and jobs and so on, but also having the social conservatism that has, in some ways still held women back from attaining maybe all that they would want to do. And one of the things that you and I discussed, and I've seen it discussed a few places, there were enormous leaps and bounds in terms of that education and that some of those things were done, but not nearly enough, and that so much of it was concentrated in Kabul rather than, as you say, around all of the regions. But one of the things I heard that was really interesting today, talking about women's education was there were several parts of Afghanistan where women never actually were able to go to school. There might have been some primary education, but secondary education wasn't universally available across the country during that period. It certainly was in lots of places, but not everywhere. And of course, now that has been contracted down so much that secondary education is really only happening in very secret circumstances.

Qais: Yes. Well, that basically doesn't justify that the country doesn't need education. Work must happen. People must work and ensure that girls and women can seek education. And one things, again, I want to touch upon the structure of the country, and that is lack of transportation, lack of roads, lack of access to schools, and even in places where schools were built, imagine a young girl would walk for hours to get that to attend the class. But the next day, when she walked, the school was burned down. The next day when she walked, as it were, acid was poured on her face.

Lydia: In what period are you talking?

Qais: Over the past 20 years?

Lydia: Including when the Western forces were still there?

Qais: Yes, yes, and that's primarily blamed on the Taliban and also the islamic Party was basically currently in Afghanistan. They were blamed for pouring acid on women's faces in other parts of the country. It's not that the women don't want to get education, it's that the man on one side, families, do not know the value of education. And that is due to lack of awareness, due to lack of example, due to lack of transportation, roads.

Lydia: Lack of Access.

Qais: Just one point, there are villages that people still don't know where they live, what's the country that they're in, how disconnected they are. So lack of connectivity, I believe, was the main obstacle over the past ten years.

Lydia: Interesting. One of the things that I thought was very interesting to hear, and I've had several reports say this week as lots of people are looking back on Afghanistan, is that there is actually a strong feeling that people do want their girls to go to school. And just to clarify, and then maybe unaware of the detail, primary education is available for girls, and apparently university education is available for girls, but not secondary in the middle, which, I'm sorry, makes no sense to me. But several articles I've read this week and several reports have said that there is a demand for the population to get girls back into education. And just on the slight flip side of employment. That lots of women have been forced out of their jobs. And the Taliban has told them that they need to get their male relatives to apply for their jobs. And yet they are still in some jobs that include things like midwives. Nurses. Doctors as well. Clearly things where they definitely need person power. Whether it's a man or woman. I wonder if that's part of the driver. But this goes back to my question I was asking earlier about to what extent is this happening because of popular support for not only the Taliban, but for their policies, and to what extent is this being imposed by the Taliban against the will of the people?

Qais: Well, people experiencing lack of education really drives into poverty. Primary example over the past 20 years, girls get educated, they would go to higher education, and they would at least at least become a teacher. And then they had a salary and that they could support their families. Imagine families without male guardians or male members. How would they survive? So obviously, even in the remember that female doctors, especially doctors, had to do with women and stuff, with their health. And also certain places where they had to search women, they have them even still today. Like, if you go to Kabul airport, there are womens' security where they check women. Taliban also have women in their ranks now in their police structure, basically, where they and also doctors, because these are essentials and they touch upon this very tradition where they say that a woman should be seen by another woman, but not by a man. When it comes to health and security. And stuff like that

Lydia: that's interesting. Did that exist when they were in power in the 90s? Did that exist or is that new now?

Qais: Yes, it did happen in the 19th as well.

Yeah, there was no restrictions for doctors because obviously they need them, so once they meet them, they're unable to stop them from attending because also the Taliban they have wives. They don't want their wives to be seen by a male doctor. That's an important thing. But unfortunately, Taliban still didn't realise that what the country is going through right now with the human terror crisis has to do with lack of women at job market.

Lydia: Yeah, certainly. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the countries that have the most economic development are also, very broadly speaking, those that educate and enable women to take part in the workforce. But just one thing that's happened in recent months, of course, the Taliban sort of giving the impression, both within Afghanistan and to foreign partners, that they are going to restore educational women. And what I find very bizarre is this narrative. They keep kind of going, oh, well, we're trying, we're trying to bring it back. And you're going, Are you really trying to bring it back? Because it doesn't appear and then there was a decision, I believe, on the 23 March that girls are going to go back to school and then they changed their minds, literally at the last minute, and girls were already sitting in classrooms when they were told that they have to go home. This is something I find... To what extent and this links to the financial crisis and the humanitarian crisis .. Is to what extent does the Taliban really want to court Western approval to enable, to free up the aid that is currently frozen and the money that is owed to Afghanistan from America and so on?

And yet they see that people want education for girls and they see that the international community wants education for girls, and yet this isn't happening. And is it purely ideological? Is it purely theological in their minds?

Qais: What would you expect from a group that is led by a passport size picture?

Lydia: Well, yes, I'm looking for a reason. I'm hoping that there is some, but I don't necessarily have to be.

Qais: This has happened in the 90s as well. When the Taliban closed schools, they promised, always said, we're working on it, we're working on it. And five years past, five years past, and also at this time as well, we always warned the Western partners of Afghanistan, but also activists and media generally that "don't believe the Taliban they never did what they promised." We have seen that not just one time, but many times, even people start believing them and they say, oh, Taliban has changed. Give them some time so they can okay, they give some time. Gradually, gradually, they introduce new restrictions. Instead of improving people's lives, instead of providing opportunities. They were focused on how to put restriction on women's lives, including restriction on movements, on their recovering and on their education, on their political participation and social participation, even. Imagine woman who started protest, very peaceful, very civil protests demanding only three things education, work, food.

Lydia: These are pretty basic things.

Qais: Pretty basic things. And very universal human rights. We in the west, we fight for payment equality for women, for women representation. In cinema, for instance, we do have a lot of male characters as heroes. Where we work to have more female characters as heroines, we need more woman representation. And generally politics and other areas, we fight for that. But in Afghanistan they even don't have that basic thing. So a group that deprived women from their basic right, how could the Western partners trust them in the first place? Or how would they be trusted when they are proud of the suicide bombings that they carried out?

Lydia: To go back to the question of how can the west trust the Taliban, we look at the Doha agreement that came to mind. I mean, my understanding was that that was conducted between the US administration, which was under Trump at the time, and the Taliban, and that the Ghani government wasn't involved in that. And there was a phrase that somebody used and they said it was a Taliban proverb, but I'm not sure if it was. But it was basically "you have the watches, but we have the time". And the understanding being that Western forces would eventually leave at some point and that they would always go. And therefore it was just a case of waiting. And that if they could hang on whether that be for pushing away rights that they had promised or whatever they would be doing, that they always had the expectation that they could out- wait or out- patience any force that was there trying to stop them. Do you think that this is the question that we kind of keep coming back to was, was this kind of fall of the Ghani government and the Afghan army inevitable by the time that the Western administration basically handed the keys to the Taliban at that state?

Because there seemed to be so much surprise last August that this has happened and yet at the same time are kind of well, what did you expect?

Qais: Well, there are many factors and one of the reasons, obviously, when they say when the US started negotiating with the Taliban, first, before the negotiations even a couple of years back, they opened their first political office in Doha. The moment that happened, we knew that the world had changed its view on the Taliban. I think of them as a terrorist group. It changed that perspective to being a political group, being of a politically armed group so far. And obviously the Afghan government was excluded. But however, there was another way of negotiation that was called intra Afghan negotiations. And with representatives of different groups went there to speak to them. However, that was very very very problematic and I take issue with that as well. These representatives were not representing Afghanistan. For instance, one of them was the son of Atta Mohammad Noor, known as the Emperor of the north because he was also a jihadi leader. So his son goes to negotiate with Taliban who even cannot speak very well, who cannot formulate his argument, who cannot even have confidence of standing in front of media. He went there and very young, like around 24 years old, to Taliban. Now one thing and some others were also in the same case, like Dostum. Son, notorious the Uzbek leader, his son went.

So instead of representing new faces, instead of representing civil society, women rights activists, people who are concerned with the rights and with people rather than that, they send those that their father fought with the Taliban.

Lydia: Yeah. So there's a huge element of self interest and power preservation happening there.

Qais: Absolutely.

Lydia: Would the words stitched up be appropriate? All the way along. And you said this several times in our conversation, that people were not acting, they were not representative, they were not acting for the interests of people. They were interested in their own riches and their own power, whether that be amongst a tribe or a group or whether it was in an individual family or so on. And I think all of us who are looking at this from a very Western perspective. And certainly in the coverage that I've seen in the past week or so. There's been a very sort of large element focused on women's education. Entirely understandably and also interestingly. Certainly from the UK media. A lot of female journalists have been sent out. Which is suitable because a lot of them will be talking to women. As you have mentioned. But I think there's also a kind of digging around and a hope that there can be something that's going to get better. And I think I'd like to talk about the prospect of things getting better. We've talked about this freeze on assets, that Afghan money has been held back because people are worried that the Taliban are going to misappropriate it.

And so there's a massive banking crisis. And we also know that at least half the population of Afghanistan are in threat of hunger and have huge food insecurity. Is there kind of any grounds for hope that some of these things can change? Is there a kind of popular uprising? What could change at this stage?

Qais: Well, in the world, no one is more helpful than the people of Afghanistan and obviously they will be changed. But this change is easy. Unless the Taliban accept inclusion, let others be part of collective government. They create a decentralised power structure which they are against it. Unless they let girls go to school, unless they let women go to work, unless they accept the differences within a society, unless they respect those differences within a society, the country would not see any hopeful future. And that has to do with every time, when we raise this issue, I always go to the issue of power structure in Afghanistan. So this is a very centralised power structure, which means there are a lot of resistance that's shaping around the country. And it's just a matter of the time when they received their first support from any of the Western countries, Taliban will collapse again because they lack this recognition. No country recognises them right now. In the 90s, however, they have two recognitions from Pakistan and from Saudi Arabia. But right now, Pakistan is struggling internally within its own politics and trying not to step up in hot waters with the Taliban.

Saudi Arabia as well. And I think that's something that Taliban became not only more brutal, but also more fragile. They come into an Afghanistan, that has changed dramatically. That the past 20 years, people have travelled around the world. The country has seen development. People know what's happening around the world with the technology that is in place. Internet is, still working in Afghanistan, the media was cut off completely, the camera was not allowed, even communication was lacking. Imagine you would send a letter and two months after someone would receive your letter. So I think there are positive things, including technology, including the educated youth, and including attention to Afghanistan. Although it's not enough, whatever the Taliban are doing, it is being watched now in a matter of time, that if Taliban attacked one of the West Country's interest in the region and so on, things will change dramatically for them. So, yeah, there is hope, but I don't see that in the very near future.

Lydia: we've talked for a while and there's still some questions I want to ask, if that's okay. One of the things is that this evening you have very kindly donated your fee to a cause for children in Afghanistan. One thing that I'd like to understand, and I'm sure other people will, who would like to support people in Afghanistan, is the concern that with the funds going towards charities, to what extent they can truly get to where they need to go.

Qais: Well, there is this lack of transparency with some organisations because they are particularly coordinated with the Taliban on the ground. And the Taliban have distributed those aid to their own fighters families, to the suicide bombers families. But people who truly need those aid, they still haven't received that. There are some organisations, the one which I included in today's conversation, currently, they're independent, they run by volunteers on the ground and they always take pictures. They have the list of people that they donate to. And the best charity, the best aid to Afghanistan, is raising awareness on what's happening, trying to show solidarity for the girls, for the millions of girls and women. I think that's the biggest aid someone can give.

Lydia: I think also this is something that I often talk about when it comes to how do people make political change, and understanding that it can be slow and it can be immensely frustrating. But one of the things that Western governments are interested in is the support from their own people for certain causes. And we've seen it recently with Ukraine that one of the reasons that Boris Johnson has put so much support into Ukraine is because it's popular amongst his population. He's also very popular in Ukraine itself. And while I don't want to go too much off topic, but there is a personal poltical gain in helping and that help is needed. Whether it is put forward selfishly by governments and individuals, maybe it doesn't really matter, as long as the aid gets to where it wants to go. And so keeping the causes that are important in politicians minds and showing that it's important for population does help.

The other thing is I'm going to want to touch on something more personal to you, which is let us know this week that your family arrived in Germany with you from Afghanistan. I hope that they're doing well in their first week. It must be a massive thing to be there.

Qais: Well, it was a whole chaotic journey for the past 1 year. They were at the airport on 26 of August last year, where they got injured during this stampede. And later on, an explosion of suicide bombing happened. Fortunately, my family left there because of the injuries they got during the stampede back home. The moment they got home, the suicide bombing happened at the abdicate of the cover.

Lydia: And did you know they were there at the time when you heard this news?

Qais: I was in contact with my family every bit of a second because I was deeply worried. But what was important for me was their safety. And unfortunately, that was the last day of especially of the German evacuation team. And they stopped evacuation after the suicide bombing. But then I was trying so hard. It has been a chaotic journey. Lots of lobbying behind the closed doors, lots of emailing, lots of nights without sleep. Finally, I received the news that Germany accepted them. And they also had a very difficult journey. They were once turned back by the Taliban when they were trying to cross the border. Taliban didn't allow them, so they tried again two weeks later from another part of the country and they crossed Pakistan and went to Islamabad and they ride to Germany. And this week I've been very busy with bureaucracy here in Germany, which, for me at least, I'm here, no longer worried about their safety, especially my sister and young brothers.

Lydia: I'm so glad for your sake and their sake that they are safe. Were they trying to get to the borders on foot? Were they driving? Were they able to have transport? We're talking about huge distances here.

Qais: Yeah, well, a couple of people are leaving the country in every way possible. But fortunately, they were part of this mass evacuation by one of the organisations in Germany, which they tried to evacuate 300 people at once. They were turned back by the Taliban in one of the close borders to Kabul in Torkham by car, obviously, they went by big vans. And then the second time they tried it via Kandahar, which is a very difficult way, it took them 15 hours of drive to get there because the road from Kabul to Khandahar has been bombed almost every day over the past years. The most deadliest road in Afghanistan, with lots of crashes happening on that road. So it's completely destroyed. So it took them 15 hours. So basically it took them 24 hours to get to Pakistan, starting from Kabul, which is anyway, it's like 3 hours drive.

Lydia: It's so far out of our perception in so many ways. That experience. And I'd like to touch on just while we're on the subject of refugees in general from Afghanistan. And I'm not quite sure of the situation in Germany to what extent the German government has made special schemes and so on. But many people watching this will know that in the UK that our refugee schemes are extremely limited and that we open two specific schemes. One, which is ARAP the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy, which is very much for people who were employed by Her Majesty's Government, whether that's the army, civil service, whoever. And then there's the ACRS. The Afghan citizen race settlement scheme. And I tried to find some kind of recent numbers, but we reckon it's probably about between the two schemes, about 17,000 people have been accepted. But of those who have arrived, at least 10 to 12,000 of those are still living in hotels. And you said to me that you have visited some of these hotels in UK. Certainly in our press, people should know that they are not great places to live and have a lot of issues. And of course, mental health and inability to access work and all sorts of services makes it even worse.

Is the situation better in Germany?

Qais: Well, I travelled across a couple of European countries in the past year as well, and I must say, UK is treating refugees is way better. They're providing hotels, while in Germany, in Netherlands, they send you to a very remote abandoned building where they turned it to a refugee camp. So that's something different. What I noticed, I saw people from Afghanistan, they were living in some hotels in Kensington

Lydia: Is that as nice as it sounds? Part of me just finds that difficult to believe.

Qais: In terms of living conditions. But in terms of mental health, even if we compare UK with with Germany, most people don't need lots of integration in the UK, because you have this very universal system which people already know, or at least know the language, which is English. European countries, the EU countries, basically they were different. The integration, you have to do cultural integration, you have to do language, and also the bureaucracy is different, it will take more time for them. But I think Germany has been more kind in terms of their evacuation, though it's still hard to find a specific passage or specific way to apply for evacuation. But they have been very helpful in evacuating not only those who worked with them, but also activists, journalists and I think the number of people being evacuated by Germany is more than the UK, which the UK is roughly 20,000. I'm not sure.

Lydia: I think that's the aim, but whether that is also a limit is currently unclear. It's certainly been the case in the past where we've had refugee schemes, where, for example, in Syria, where the UK government said we'll take 20,000 people and as soon as the 20,000 limit was reached, we're like, that's it, we're done, and then accepted no one else. And our schemes have all become considerably narrower and we're still accepting UNHCR resettlement, which means that people are basically identified as very vulnerable within refugee camps and then brought to the UK as part of resettlement schemes. But literally our capacity for that has been drilled right down. So it's very difficult still to come to the UK as any kind of refugee. And basically, if you're not an Afghan flying through these schemes, or indeed Ukrainian, then it's almost impossible.

Qais: Yes, with the UNHCR resettlement scheme, all the referrals, as they say, through the UNHCR. I think it's also a bit problematic because imagine people who are at risk in Afghanistan and how would they go to the UNHCR in Afghanistan? They can't, they have to take somewhere in Pakistan or Iran where there are millions of other registered refugees from Afghanistan, these two countries. And I think it's a bit tricky. But what I urge from just all of the Western countries who are involved in the evacuation of US to focus on the vulnerability of people than the number of people that they want to evacuate. Because there are people who I receive messages every day that they tell me like they are at risk, the journalists, TV presenters, people who are active in the arts industry, but they don't know where to go. And obviously it's very hard. I hope this has become at least easier for people to apply and present their cases, in their case, be evaluated with evidence, if it's available.

Lydia: At the moment, it doesn't look as though we're likely to have a sort of uptick in acceptance of refugees. Unfortunately that may change, but I suspect not until at least after the next election for us in the UK. And I think something I try and encourage people to understand is that Europe in general is a hostile environment, certainly to anyone that is entering that is not white. I think quite a few people would describe the EU is genuinely upholding many of the racist structures that has prevented people coming to the EU in ways that the EU does not approe of and often in very violent ways, are forced back or indeed sent back. And I would like to see some change that is much more understanding of not only what Western forces have impacted on other countries, but also the value of people that want to come and live in our society. But actually that's something to welcome rather than to be afraid of.

Qais: Yeah. Just based on my example, I'm being a refugee who left Afghanistan in 2018. I was educated, I had communication skills, I knew how to approach things. Even in the Western world, it wasn't that different. But for me, even work ten times more harder to get to that level so that I feel at least confident in the society to say that I can present myself now. Imagine people having less privileges. Privileges also something that a person may be based on, where they are, may have more privileges. Just in terms of nationality, I had to apply for UK visa and I had to provide lots of documentation. Right. But, for instance, for someone from another country, they would go from the same procedure standard tourist visa, and they don't need lots of documentation, they would get it.

Lydia: And what nationalities do you have in mind?

Afghan nationality, for instance.

Okay.

Qais: Afghan ;It's the worst.

Lydia: Ah they're living in other countries.

Qais: Yeah. Just the moment you apply for a visa, for a country that you need a visa only, you have to first answer all these anti counterterrorism questions, whether you were organisation.

Lydia:  To which you'll obviously answer, yes, tick tick tick. What you would do on a form [laughter - sarcasm]

Qais: And the irony of that is that yet, with all of that, the Taliban have the privileges to travel around the world with all their human rights abuses being a terrorist organisation, their Interior Minister being the most wanted person on the FBI top tourist list, and yet ordinary people have to go through all of those questions and procedures. There is irony in all of that. But I'm glad that at least by end of the day, if we work hard, if we pay attention to what's happening around us in our life, we have a way.

Lydia: I hope so. I think we should also recognise that, yes, it is an uphill battle and all power to you, really. Just touching, I know we've kind of gone over time. But there's one thing I just wanted to touch on. Which was something that you and I discussed quickly. That in last year's evacuation. There were lots of rumours and things that I saw Afghans sharing. Saying that there were definitely Taliban individuals and people who were definitely guilty of human rights abuses actually exiting on the Western evacuation flights. You said to me that this was something that you had evidence of.

Qais: Well, it's true. It's true for for many reasons. And there is this us military base in Germany called Ramstein, where they evacuated thousands of people, obviously used them evacuated straight to the US, but rather send them to their bases across different regions.

And in Germany, they called for interpreters and translators and they hired many translators. Some of my friends from here, from Berlin, went there as well. And then they reported that there were people speaking Urdu and people in Afghanistan, they don't speak Urdu. Yes, we do have more than ten or 15 languages in the country, but none of that is Urdu. So that was one case. And there were cases people praising the Taliban and saying, we have an Islamic system, we have Sharia now, or don't touch our woman, or threatening people, things like that. And there are also rumours of that even in the UK currently, we see that there are a lot of Taliban supporters. And I tweeted the other day, that why the UK is letting these terrorists to step on the UK's values. Carry Taliban flags. The video was shared showing a black vehicle carrying Taliban flag all the way high in Birmingham.

Lydia: I haven't seen that.

Qais: A couple of months ago, a person wearing Taliban style clothing, like with a black turban, he was walking with the Taliban flag in London and stood in front of the Afghan embassy. So they don't have the embassy in their hand, which is very fortunate. It actually scares us here in Europe, scares people, human rights defenders who are speaking against the Taliban. We are scared. We sought refuge here. What will happen to us then?

Lydia: Yeah, I can imagine. And I think one of the things that suddenly this is one of the extra reasons that I always encourage people to follow as many accounts as they can from people talking about topics that they want to learn about. And certainly with Afghanistan, having several Afghan accounts means that you're more able to see things that you might not be able to see. I mean, possibly people in Birmingham might not have known what a Taliban flag was, but as soon as someone that does know, like, oh, hang on.. I think a lot of these terrorist narratives or hate narratives and symbols and so on, in some ways they became quite hidden because things had pushed onto the radar and so on. And so when these things reappear, people may not recognise them immediately. And this is why having abroad, following abroad, taking in different people from different cultures, it means that you can actually better understand some of these nuances. So it's another good reason to follow more Afgahns frankly. I certainly put your name up a few times in terms of really the only way that I stayed in touch with what is happening in Afghanistan is through following Afghan accounts on Instagram.

It's not in our news every day, it is not on our TV screens. And so staying in touch with people to who this is their personal reality has been important. So thank you for continuing to take the time. Always. We've talked a long time around tonight, which I've definitely enjoyed. But is there anything, as we come to the end of this that you really like still to say that we haven't really covered?

Qais: I think just for something, and that has to do with those young Afghan diaspora to have a collective narrative against the Taliban, to have a collective narrative for the people of Afghanistan and to focus on equality, representation and social justice for the people of Afghanistan. And that's my desire to see that among Afghanistan here in the west.

Lydia: I hope so, and certainly for those of us that are watching to continue to amplify that as well and to speak to our own governments wherever we can as we talk so long this evening, I don't think we should carry on and take questions because we could be here a whole another hour. But what I will encourage people to do is to follow you and to raise questions for you. And also I will take out my other Afghan accounts. I will share again, and of course, I will be here for questions, but frankly, you're far more informed on this than I am. And that is why it's been such a pleasure to talk to you this evening. And, yeah, I still have many things that I would like to talk about and I hope that we can talk again and have a slightly more hopeful outlook on what could be happening in Afghanistan the next time we talk.

Qais: Indeed, likewise. It's a pleasure talking to you, Lydia, and thanks for having this discussion. It's very timely, very important to raise awareness on the situation of Afghanistan and I truly appreciate that.

Lydia: Thank you. And again, the charity that you have given your fee to, I have put a link to that on my stories and I will also reference it again once I've shared this, and there will still be a full transcript provided of our chat so that people can access it that way. I'm so glad to hear that there are ways that we can support and that will go to the right place. And any questions that people have, then this is a great time to ask us offline. And whether you're speaking to Qais or to me, then always questions encouraged. Thank you again, and I genuinely hope that your family continue to settle in well and just enjoy being with you all together in Germany. I can't quite imagine the immensity of that moment of coming back together.

Qais: Yeah, I'm trying to process it, but I'm happy for my siblings, especially for their future and for the opportunities that they will have here in the west.

Lydia: Yeah. This is a very personal question, but do you ever envisage that you might want to even be able to return to Afghanistan?

Qais: Well, I was hopeful before the Taliban take over, I was hopeful. Perhaps I thought maybe after a couple of years, I'll be able to return. Maybe after another election when things get a bit better. But it got worse and worse. But now I cannot imagine. I still am on the Taliban's Kill list, I do know that. So I have to stay away for as long as I should. But it is my home. One day, sooner or later, I may go there to visit and help people on the ground. Or if I can't do that, I'll just continue raising awareness. I'll continue helping Western governments to take right approaches towards Afghanistan, to have right policies. But whatever it is, I'm not a person without the cars. I do have the cars in. That social justice for my country.

Lydia: Yeah. And we very much stand with you. And that the process of people having representation and their human rights. That's what we should all be standing for. Thank you so much for this evening. I've really benefited from this discussion. I hope that other people have found it as interesting as we have, and I know we will be talking again at some point. So thank you. Take care, and so much joy to your family as well.