After years of civil war and invasion by the Soviet Union, most of Afghanistan is under the control of a group known as the Taliban, which has imposed a strict regimen of religious behavior. While Islam holds that church and state should not be separate, the Taliban have enforced a series of harsh and dangerous rules which, while not necessarily rooted in Islam, have had a terrible impact on the women of Afghanistan. And the U.S. helped.

Some of those rules do apply to men. They are required to wear beards and pray five times a day. But those rules are much more severe for women. These are the laws of the land:

When women are out in public, they must wear veils called burqas, which cover the body and only leave a small slit to see through. Women's heeled shoes make noise which could distract men, so women can only wear slippers in public.
Women in Afghanistan are not allowed to go out in public without a husband or male relative. They cannot speak to other men in public.
Women are not allowed to work outside the home.
Young girls are not allowed to go to school, or are only permitted enough education to read the Qur'an.
Women cannot receive medical care from male physicians.

Besides simply being harsh or repressive, many of these laws are life-threatening. Many men were killed in the Afghan civil war; if a woman is a widow, she is effectively trapped inside her own home. If she has no man who can provide income, how will she support herself or her children? If women are not allowed to work, even as medical practioners, and women cannot see male doctors, what will a sick woman do? There are still some female physicians and nurses, but not many. Occasionally, male doctors are allowed to see female patients, if the doctor's wife is present. Without running water or access to public bathhouses--banned as un-Islamic--women cannot even keep clean (ironically, cleanliness is an important part of Islam).

Afghanistan has been receiving aid from foreign humanitarian groups, but women are not allowed to leave their homes to receive the aid, and many of the aid workers themselves are women, and are being harassed or forced to leave the country.

Breaking these rules has consequences. Women who go out alone, or who do not wear burqas, are often beaten or whipped by Taliban militiamen and others, and are occasionally killed. Women who speak to shopkeepers are likewise beaten, and the shopkeepers are often arrested and have their shops closed.

The Taliban's "Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" creates and enforces these rules, claiming that they are Islamic law. But many Muslims disagree. Islam does believe that men and women are different, but doesn't mandate that one sex dominate the other, or that one should be put in such a state of isolation and dependence. While the Taliban may be following their legitimate beliefs, these rules also have more pragmatic, political motivations.

The Taliban movement began in Pakistan in 1994, under the leadership of Mullah Mohammad Omar. It claimed to be a group that wanted to end the corruption of the Mujahideen who ruled Afghanistan. The Pakistani Taliban were primarily of an ethnic group called Pathan, as is about half of Afghanistan. This made recruitment of Afghans to the Taliban easy. The Pakistani government--perhaps with CIA assistance--also helped to organize and fund the Taliban as a fighting force, and to recruit members from Afghan refugee camps.

In addition, the Taliban is heavily involved in the heroin trade in central Asia, producing more than 2000 tons of dry opium a year, almost as much as is produced in the infamous "Golden Triangle." They grow opium and tax civilian farmers who grow it; the opium is then turned into heroin in Pakistan, further linking the movement with Pakistani governmental and economic interests, and supplying a vital economic lifeline for the Taliban. This casts further doubt on the religious integrity of the group. The Taliban have no trouble justifying this; they claim that the Qur'an does not prohibit the sale of drugs. Other Muslims disagree.

Typically, when an oppressive regime takes power, their first moves are to crush dissidents, intellectuals, students, and progressive organizations-- groups which may be seen as threatening to the new government's power. But instead, the Taliban focused on women, who were not an organized threat (at least not all of them). But these actions are pragmatic: due to the long civil war in Afghanistan, more than 60% of the population is female. By issuing decrees severely curtailing the freedom of women, the Taliban puts 60% of the population--even more if you count the children of those women-- under strict control. And keeping the public focused on following strict rules involving gender-specific behavior, or making sure that others follow these strict rules, cuts back on time that could be spent on dissent or complaint.

The economic incentives are obvious. The U.S.-based oil company Unocal has been planning to build a petroleum and natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan and into Pakistan. Statements last year from Unocal claim that "the project enjoys strong support from the governments and leadership of the three countries directly involved," although they say that "Unocal will not conduct business with any party in Afghanistan until peace is achieved and a government recognized by international lending agencies is in place. We have neither signed nor negotiated any business deals with any faction within Afghanistan." (emphasis mine). Unocal isn't waiting for the approval of the U.N. or international consensus to deem the Taliban legitmate--they are waiting for "international lending agencies" like the IMF, World Bank, and private investors to deem the government legitimate. Stability means money, no matter the human cost.

The money and powerful ties associated with a project of this scale encouraged Pakistan, the site of the pipelines' terminals, to install a Pakistan-friendly, stable government into Afghanistan. And it probably motivated Unocal to support the maintenance or creation of the Taliban government, regardless of the consequences for the people of Afghanistan.

One of the pillars of the "Pushtunwali," the way of the Pathan, is "mamus," "the defense of one's women." This implies an ownership of women, and the idea that women must be protected and defended (from what?) by men, perhaps even at the expense of those women.

Are the Taliban following Islam? Are they simply using the religion as a tool? Should it matter? Should any religion or cultural tradition that so brutally and lethally oppresses a majority of its population be tolerated by the world?

--Jake Sexton, an avid ETS! fan, is also editor of NewsWatch, a fine, more or less bi-weekly e-zine. To subscribe, send e-mail to Jake at jsexton@ucla.edu.