In the car on the way to the airport after covering two weeks in Kabul, I thought.
‘After the Korean War ended, Seoul in the 50s must have been like this…
'
It was early September 2002.
19 years ago from now.
On September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center in New York was destroyed in a terrorist attack, and the United States was engulfed in revenge madness.
Afghanistan is a land surrounded only by land.
'If you don't cooperate, I will turn you into a stone age.'
The United States opened the way and attacked neighboring Pakistan.
Three months after 9/11, the Taliban were expelled from the capital Kabul.
They were driven out, but did not disappear, so they hid in the countryside and into the mountains on the Pakistani border.
Afghanistan's new government wanted to show the world that it had been freed from the Taliban's reign of terror.
The Busan Asian Games at the end of September 2002 was a good opportunity.
The Taliban's total rule was six years from 1996, but he said that it was the first time in 20 years that Afghanistan appeared on the international sports stage because of various civil wars before that.
I went on a business trip after being instructed to make a documentary about the situation in Afghanistan.
Maybe South Korea in the 50's was like this... The appearance of Kabul that gave me a lot of thought
The streets of Kabul from the 1950s to the 1990s coexisted.
Armored vehicles and oxcarts of the Western Army mingled in the streets.
There was a mix of men in shabby military uniforms and stylish fashionistas, men in strange outfits in suits over shabby traditional attire, women in burkas and daring women who occasionally showed their faces.
Although the US-led coalition forces and the new government forces centered on the Northern Alliance maintained basic security, the remnants of the Taliban continued to bombard them day by day.
The first scene the reporter encountered after leaving the airport was also a bombing.
Still, people tried to maintain their daily routine.
You could make international calls from your cell phone, but most locals had to walk and deliver the news in person.
Many government offices also had their phone lines cut off.
Life was unstable, but people welcomed freedom.
The Taliban interpreted Islamic law in the strictest way, forcing people to live as they did hundreds of years ago.
Those who broke the law had their hands and feet cut off and their heads cut off in public.
The pursuit of pleasure was forbidden.
If they were caught singing or even listening to music, they were beaten by the religious police.
No matter what the outside world said, the Taliban didn't care.
It's been 9 months since the Taliban were expelled.
70% of the buildings were destroyed and it was difficult to make a living, but in September 2002 the people of Kabul were gradually getting used to living without fear.
Kabul people in 2002 enjoying their reclaimed freedom
The women took off the burqa that covered their whole body.
Even in a limited indoor space, they could play table tennis with men or play volleyball among themselves.
mask
Revan's six-year reign of terror was not only harsh on women.
To a much lesser extent, there were many restrictions on men as well.
At that time, the national wrestling team player said, 'Under the Taliban, you could only wrestle with long pants'.
He said that wrestling was not banned because it was a men's sport that was helpful in battle, but men were also prohibited from showing their legs, and if caught while exercising, they would be taken to the religious police and beaten, so he wore long pants and wrestled.
He said he couldn't believe he was able to exercise again at the Kabul Public Stadium (Jamsil Olympic Stadium in Seoul).
A year ago, the stadium was a place where people were gathered and executed or publicly executed.
Believe it or not, Kabul had a swimming pool reopening at the time.
The water was changed once a week and there were no proper swimsuits, but children and teenagers were enjoying the fun they could not dream of during the Taliban days.
The manager at the time was a former Afghan swimmer.
He said that he lived as a plumber under the Taliban.
He pointed out that 'the new government is planning a women's swimming pool'.
Years passed and I remembered that time in 2019 when I saw photos of Kabul women swimming in the New York Times.
Young people were running to meet the outside world and seize new opportunities.
It is said that over 1,000 children and young people come to the cement block building to learn English after it collapsed.
One of them was Sodek, a member of the Afghan boxing team.
Sodek's dream was to become a player who played in the world beyond Afghanistan.
No, it was about going beyond borders and into the wider world, using boxing as a window of opportunity.
It was not only Sodek's dream to go out into a wider world.
Three weeks later, I met them again in Busan.
For the first time in my life, I was reminded of their faces when they appeared in another country - Korea, where they live much better.
Sodek begged that he somehow find a way to stay in Korea.
It was sad, but there was no way.
Due to the broadcast schedule, I couldn't watch their game properly and returned to Seoul.
They fought hard, but the results were not good as they had already moved far from the international level.
That's why the title of the program 'Applause to the last - Afghan players' came out.
I didn't see them on their way home.
After that, sometimes when news of Afghanistan appeared on the news, my eyes went, but I didn't know that there would be anything to be sorry for as I looked back at the faces of each of them.
Unlike civil war or refugee crisis in other countries in the Third World, the reason why Koreans have a particularly strong reaction to the situation in Afghanistan is that the desperate escape from Kabul seems to overlap with the withdrawal from Heungnam during the Korean War.
▲Photo: Getty Images Korea
The lives of the Kabul youngsters I met in 2002 were not very different from the lives experienced by Korean youths after the Korean War.
They hoped that their country would find its way like Korea and that they could pursue their dreams, but within 20 years, the country was turned upside down again.
What are the similarities and differences between Korea and Afghanistan?
The history of Afghanistan...The road of conquering empires
The land on which Afghanistan is located has been a road for empires since ancient times.
To the west was the Persian Empire (now Iran).
To the east was the ancient Indian Empire, to the northeast was China and to the West, and to the north was Russia.
Alexander the Great, conqueror of ancient Greece, passed through Afghanistan on his way to India after striking the Mediterranean world.
Then part of the army he had brought with him remained in Afghanistan without returning to Greece later.
That is why, in Afghanistan, there were more people who looked European.
It is said that the main areas of Heratni Kandaharni were also based on the settlements of Alexander's army.
Among the people the reporter met, there were some who said, "We are the descendants of Alexander the Great. We fight well. No matter who comes in, we can't be defeated."
Afghanistan was also a roadblock when Genghis Khan's Mongol forces advanced west.
How many countries in the world have experienced both the army of Alexander and Genghis Khan, the most powerful conqueror of the ancient world?
Even after that, Afghanistan was a key point in Central Asia.
In the 19th century, it became a sharp scene of the rivalry between Russia, who sought to find an immovable port, and Britain, who tried to block it and maintain the supremacy of the maritime empire (the so-called 'Great Game').
The present-day Afghan border was also confirmed by a treaty that the British de facto imposed on the then-Afghan king at the end of the 19th century.
'I have to go over there, so please lend me the way.'
Why did they say they were going to fight the order and caused the Imjin War?
'Before we start a full-scale war with that side, we have to sort this out.'
Before ending the Ming period, the Qing riots were started to stabilize the Joseon dynasty behind them.
The hardship of a country that sits on the path of great powers is the communion between Korea and Afghanistan.
Afghanistan gained independence from Britain in 1919 after three wars with Britain.
It remained neutral during World War II and the Cold War.
Although there were many ups and downs politically, Afghanistan in the middle of the 20th century went the path of a secular Islamic state that was progressively pursuing modernization and westernization.
A photo that symbolically shows Afghanistan in the 70s is women walking down the street wearing miniskirts.
▲ Photo: Getty Images Korea
But since the late 1970s, Afghanistan has been engulfed in a complex chaos that is difficult to summarize.
Communist Revolution - Islamic Mujahideen rebel uprising against it - Soviet invasion (1979) - U.S. support for Islamic rebels - Intensifying civil war - Withdrawal of Soviet troops (1989) - Intensifying civil war between Afghan warlords - Taliban conquest of the country (1996) .
The Taliban, who entered Kabul in 1996, seized Najibula, the former president of the pro-Soviet regime, castrated him, dragged him bleeding into the street, and hung his body on a traffic light pole.
Najibullah was of the same ethnicity as the Taliban.
President Ghani, who ran away this time, said he was afraid that he would be the same.
Why it was impossible to drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan
Many countries across Africa, the Middle East, Southwest Asia, and Central Asia do not have the same ethnic composition and current borders.
People always live with the consciousness of a tribal unit, but there are many cases of conflicts because the borders do not match.
Afghanistan is one such country.
People in some large cities in Afghanistan may think of themselves as 'citizens of the modern state of Afghanistan', but those living in most provinces say that they feel a stronger tribal identity.
If you look at the map of Afghanistan, the huge Hindu Kush Mountains descend from the upper right (northeast) and divide the north and the south.
The Hindu Kush Mountains are also one of the most rugged mountain ranges in the world, leading to the 'roof of the world' Pamir Plateau.
In the north of this mountain range, peoples such as Tajiks and Uzbeks live.
Most of the territory south of Kabul is the land of the Pashtuns. Kandahar is the central city in the south. The Pashtuns are of Iranian (Persian) descent, and their language is similar to Persian. They make up 48% of Afghanistan's population. According to the etymology, the word 'Afghanistan' is said to refer to a Pashtun. In Central Asian language, '-Stan' means 'the land of', and 'Afghanistan' means 'the land of the Pashtuns'. The Taliban is a fundamentalist religious military organization based on such Pashtuns and southern regions.
America is in trouble. I thought the Afghan problem would be solved if we got rid of the strange people called the Taliban, but Afghanistan is their land? Yes. The Taliban are the combined force of the most powerful tribal group in Afghanistan. That is why he was able to fight with such tough vitality.
In addition, the Pashtun life span extends beyond the mountains of the southeast to western Pakistan. The Pashtuns have always been living in the land, but one day, one side was divided into Afghanistan and the other side in Pakistan because of the border drawn by Britain at the end of the 19th century. The Pashtun are the second largest ethnic group in Pakistan, accounting for 17% of Pakistan's population.
Even though the borders were drawn, the Pashtun people lived in homogeneity across the mountains.
When the US forces pushed, the Taliban units fled over the mountains to Pakistani territory, obtaining replenishment and supplies from the same tribesmen.
Pakistani intelligence did not allow the Taliban to rise and threaten internal affairs in Pakistan, but they also did not want the Taliban to be overthrown.
If the Taliban could be managed properly, Pakistan could have friendly forces at the back door of the country and a key point in Central Asia (Afghanistan), and it would be able to hold a flower show in relations with the United States.
The US hated Pakistan, but it could not make Pakistan an enemy and wage war.
(It was because of this distrust and hatred that the United States did not inform Pakistan at all when it killed Osama bin Laden, who was hiding in Pakistani territory.)
Which internal forces in Afghanistan will fight/fight against the Taliban?
At the end of 2001, when the US drove out the Taliban and entered Kabul, what was the 'Northern Alliance' that fought with the US military?
Let's look at the map of powers when the Taliban took over the Afghan regime in 1996.
The Northern Alliance was a coalition of warlords such as Massoud and Dostum. They are a different ethnic group from the Pashtuns of the south. Whether or not those who fought against the harsh Taliban rule were truly a righteous group, they were not. From the point of view of local people engaged in agriculture and livestock farming, it can be said that 'the guy was the guy'. However, the U.S. military in revenge on 9/11 needed a local armed group to take the lead, and that was just the Northern Alliance. The Northern Alliance, which became the backbone of the new Afghan government with the mighty power of the US military on its back, returned to its original mode of corruption when the Taliban weakened.
A country with a long history of being divided into tribes like Afghanistan, whose borders are artificially set by great powers, needs special leadership to take a leap forward. There are usually two. It is either a sage type of leadership with an aura that can be admired by everyone (eg Gandhi or Nelson Mandela), or a developmental dictatorship type of leadership that can be found in many cases in East Asia. After the Taliban withdrew, the leaders of the new government that filled the void in power were Afghans overseas, or those of the Northern Alliance, who were brought in by the US military. They lacked either leadership, were incompetent, and corrupt. The city dwellers who wanted to move forward into the world, the local tribesmen who wanted to go back to the past, for different reasons, but the central government of Kabul had no choice but to be disappointed.
The influence of the new government in Afghanistan did not work well with the exception of the capital, Kabul, a few large cities in the north, and some urban areas under direct US military influence.
The public sentiments of the local tribal patriarchs were again inclined to the Taliban, which provided a clear vision of living in our own way, income from opium cultivation, and stability through power.
This is the background behind the collapse of the Afghan government army without properly fighting it this time.
There are occasional reports that the northern tribes will come to their senses and try to rally again after the United States shakes off their hands, but it is unclear how much meaningful resistance they will be able to organize.
How about in the future? Inconsistent words and actions of the Taliban
A Taliban spokeswoman said in an interview with the media on the 15th that "while wearing a hijab, women will have access to studies and jobs, and women will be allowed to leave the house alone."
The intention was to respect women's human rights under Islamic law.
The international community interpreted this as a lesson learned from the failures caused by the politics of terror in the 1990s.
There are also a number of people who have tasted Western-style freedom and human rights over the past 20 years, and it is also analyzed that it is acknowledging the reality that it is difficult for institutions and businesses to return to normal without female workers.
However, there is a strong objection that this is only the hope of the West.
Few Afghans believe the Taliban spokesperson's statement.
The fundamentalist rule of the past was too harsh for that.
Moreover, during these turbulent times, organizations like the Taliban tend to gather tough, hard-to-control people.
It is not easy to control them in the field so that they do not wield guns at civilians, even if it is assumed that the Taliban commander has a strong will.
In fact, on the 17th alone, in the northeastern Talokan, a woman was shot and killed by a Taliban soldier while wearing a one-piece dress instead of a burqa.
Near Kabul Airport, a soldier swung a whip at a family member passing by, seriously injuring the child.
▲ Photo: Getty Images Korea
It doesn't seem like the leadership's policies are coherently implemented from the bottom up.
At the same time, there are reports of Taliban soldiers with guns visiting door to door and forcing women to go to work, and reports of being threatened by the Taliban with guns and unable to go to work and return home.
What they had in common was that the Taliban soldiers with guns coerced them.
In Kabul on the 17th, there were several life-threatening protests demanding the maintenance of basic rights, and the photos were posted on Twitter.
Taliban soldiers with guns were right next to them, but fortunately they didn't shoot or use violence.
Still, perhaps because it is a large city exposed to the international community, the human rights situation in the capital, Kabul, looks better than in the provinces.
These women are wearing hijabs.
Was it to test the words of a Taliban spokesperson who said that wearing a hijab would guarantee education and jobs?
There are various types of traditional Islamic clothes that cover the parts of a woman's body that reveal femininity, depending on the degree of coverage.
The hijab covers only the head and neck.
Even women in secular countries tend to accept the hijab as a cultural tradition.
Chador only shows his face and wraps his whole body.
The niqab covers only the eyes and covers everything else.
Even the burqa's eyes are covered with a dark net.
inhuman
In a country where it is already suffocating to breathe, it is difficult to breathe properly when wearing a burqa.
There are reports that women in provincial cities have already started looking for the burqa again as a means to save their lives, and the price has jumped tenfold.
Whether it's a hijab or a chador, there has never been a woman who likes a burqa before.
Whether it was because of the restraints of a convention under the guise of tradition or because of life-threatening violent punishment, they wore it out of fear.
A society that is maintained only by violently oppressing the socially weak cannot and cannot last long.
"Democracy has nothing to do with this place"... The country of the Taliban, its future
As of Friday the 20th, the situation is still confusing.
Protests with the flag of Afghanistan took place in Kabul and elsewhere in the northeast.
In some areas, the Taliban opened fire on these protesters, resulting in deaths.
The Taliban see the Afghan flag as a sign of loyalty to the old government and are working to replace it with the Taliban flag.
The Taliban began the task of bringing in former government military technical personnel, such as pilots capable of handling combat aircraft, to the Taliban, but on the other hand, the operation to find and kill former government security forces, police, foreign military and foreign organizations collaborators, etc. are doing
On the 19th, Reuters released an interview with Wahidullah Hashimi, a high-ranking official familiar with the policy-making process at the top of the Taliban.
"Afghanistan will not be run by a democratic system, because it (Western democracy) has no basis in our country. There is no need to ask which political system we will apply in Afghanistan. Sharia law."
Meanwhile, Taliban spokesman Zabihula Mujahid said to the outside world during the 102nd Independence Day ceremony.
"The Taliban want friendly relations with all countries around the world, including the United States. We are not hostile to any country."
The two interviews can be interpreted as follows.
We will focus our efforts on governing the country in our own way.
I'm not exporting terrorism to the West, so please don't interfere.
However, all kinds of Islamic terrorist organizations have already hid in Afghanistan, and the terrorists imprisoned by US and former government forces have been released.
It is questionable whether they will follow the Taliban command's intentions.
Taliban re-takeover of national independence?
South Korea and the United States were noisy as it was argued that if the US military stepped out, South Korea would collapse helplessly in front of the North Korean army. The US withdrawing its troops from Iraq or Afghanistan is partly because of domestic public opinion that is irritating that it is a 'meaningless sacrifice', and it is also a strategic foundation for concentrating its power on competition with China. There are no US casualties on the Korean Peninsula. Strategically, it is nothing more than an aircraft carrier in front of China. It has an alliance treaty with the United States under which it has mutual defense obligations. The possibility of the US withdrawal from the Republic of Korea is very low for now. President Biden confirmed this in a media interview. The Korean army cannot be compared to the Afghan government army.
However, there is an even more important issue that precedes such a military-strategic judgment. What kind of world do we want to live in?
Some domestic figures and online media wrote articles praising the return of the Taliban as the realization of national independence and the overthrow of imperialism. Is nationalism really good in judging other people's lives with their own ideology and ethics, using violent methods to realize their ideals, and not paying attention to the lives of individuals that are being slaughtered as a result?
He recalls the relationships he had 19 years ago, when he pursued freedom and happiness by cherishing his or her life even in difficult circumstances right after the war. Carpet master Shir wrestling; boxer Sodek dreaming of going abroad while learning English; Neira and Myra who were delighted that they thought they would fly when they were able to exercise after taking off their burqa for the first time in 7 years; Drivers interested in music and movies Pardin...
Will they ever be able to live like us?
(Composition: Senior Correspondent Lee Hyun-sik, Reporter Jang Seon-i, Editor Kim Hwi-ran / Designers: Myung Ha-eun, Lee Ji-soo)
*The last picture is of boxer Sodek, who posed for the interview in September 2002.