For the past year and a half, the Taliban have taken the international community and the Afghan people on a ride so wild that even its own senior officials are reeling. The Taliban government consistently goes back on promises and deprives citizens of more and more rights.
The policies it has introduced are getting worse and worse – each new policy overshadows the previous one with dire consequences. Girls’ and women’s education has gradually been restricted, women’s employment has been restricted, freedom of expression has been violated, dissidents have been arrested and tortured, and the intelligence service has only grown stronger.
The Taliban’s socio-economic failures and rights abuses have naturally – and rightly so – attracted the most international attention. But there is another very important area where the Taliban have also failed to make progress: national dialogue and the formation of an inclusive government.
Being inclusive in government is a big ask from an Islamist group that came to power after an all-out military victory. And it is not surprising that after initial talks with some political groups, the Taliban announced a cabinet that eliminated them all.
Since then, there has been little willingness on the part of the Taliban to engage in meaningful formal dialogue with other Afghans over the governance of the country. And yet much of the international community has made inclusiveness a precondition for the normalization of relations and government recognition.
In addition, a national dialogue will have to take place when the Taliban finally decide to sit down and draft a new constitution. Currently, the country has no constitution because the constitution adopted in 2004, under which the previous regime operated, was suspended after the Taliban takeover. For the writing of a constitution to be legitimate, other political actors must be involved.
That said, the continued attempts by some sides to push for such a national dialogue by forcing certain individuals or groups to negotiate with the Taliban are counterproductive, to say the least.
There are plenty of bad ideas from the West about who the Taliban should talk to. There have been meetings between Western officials and exiled Afghan warlords in an attempt to give them relevance. There is Western support for groups such as the National Resistance Front, led by Ahmad Massoud, the son of a deceased anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban military leader, Ahmad Shah Massoud. His group recently organized a conference in Tajikistan, which was attended by Western diplomats.
Other prominent Afghans associated with the Afghan Republic have also been busy forming political parties and associations, hoping to gain Western support and eventually a seat at the negotiating table. Among them are Rahmatullah Nabil, former head of the National Security Directorate, Hanif Atmar, a former foreign minister and a few failed warlords. Most of these “new” political parties and other groups of Afghans are merely a repackaging of old figures that have been central to the failure of the past 20 years.
If the main reason for demanding inclusiveness is better representation of the interests of the Afghan people in government, then these individuals and groups are clearly the wrong answer.
A quick look at Afghanistan’s history over the past 40 years would show that most of the people lining up for an invitation to the National Dialogue do not represent the Afghan people. Their participation in coups d’état, the civil war and the failed and corrupt democratic system brings them into disrepute.
Even the leaders and parties of the Afghan struggle against the Soviets, such as Hezbi Islami, Jamiat Islami and others, who used to enjoy the support of a large part of the population, have now lost their legitimacy.
Most of these individuals were eventually granted immunity for their past crimes and were given a fresh start at the 2001 Bonn Conference, where the post-Taliban Afghan government was arranged. Over the next 20 years, they and others formed a kleptocratic elite and achieved positions of power through electoral fraud. The result was an unstable, inefficient regime that collapsed like a house of cards in the face of the wave of the Taliban.
One of the blessings of the Taliban takeover was the ousting of these corrupt politicians and warlords. There is little wisdom in politically resuscitating groups and individuals who have been rejected by the nation and are facing natural political death.
The international community’s obsession with taking in those who have never done the country any good distracts us from the few who have done honorable work in the country. There are individuals such as former MP Ramazan Bashardost, former MP Syed Selab and Chief Executive of the National Development State Owned Corporation Abdur Rehman Attash, who did not flee the country after the fall of Kabul and continue to serve the country through their public commentary. auxiliary work and government functions, respectively.
The international community also seems to be ignoring the fact that Afghanistan has every potential to grow an indigenous, grassroots opposition led by the young generation. Many young people and members of civil society have decided to stay behind and work hard to make a difference. Their efforts should be recognized and they should be given room for growth and development. They are now laying the groundwork for forces that the Taliban will eventually have to recognize and act against.
Until then, the best the international community – and in particular the West – can do for the Afghan people is to stop trying to force the Taliban into unworthy partners in the national dialogue.
It should put pressure on the Taliban to agree in principle to a national dialogue and let it choose who it wants to talk to and take into government. Loose conditions should be set for ethnic and gender inclusion that the Taliban must meet on their own initiative. Those chosen to be included are unlikely to get meaningful roles anyway.
Better a national dialogue led by the Taliban with little progress than one imposed with bad apples from the past. The latter would just plunge the country back into bottomless corruption, but this time without any international oversight. At the same time, it gives the Taliban time to lead the process for an organic opposition to take root in the country, eventually leading to genuine national dialogue and legitimate political processes in Afghanistan.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial view of Al Jazeera.