KABUL, Afghanistan – A chuckle rang out from under the blue burqa as the mother of eight rifled through a mound of children’s sweat shirts. “Yes,” the woman said, “life is better today. I can go shopping by myself.”
An Afghan barber smiled as he recalled a shop full of customers waiting to shave their Taliban-mandated beards. The eyes of a janitor lit up as he described Northern Alliance fighters rolling into town.
“That’s when the music started,” said the janitor, Jan Mohammed.
On Nov. 13, 2001, the Taliban regime that had imposed a harsh brand of Islam fled Kabul as Northern Alliance fighters backed by a U.S.-led coalition poured in. Residents celebrated in the streets with music and laughter. Men flocked to barber shops to shave their long beards.
No official celebrations were held Monday, and no Afghans approached in street interviews knew it was the five-year anniversary. Many smiled when reminded of the Taliban’s fall, though some also lamented the deteriorating security in the country.
A high-level report released Sunday found that violence has risen fourfold over 2005 and that more than 3,700 people have died in 2006 because of insurgency-related violence.
Still, Pashtun, a 40-year-old who goes by one name, said she appreciates being able to go shopping by herself before winter settles in.
“The years the Taliban was in Kabul, I was like a prisoner,” she said, as other female shoppers nodded in agreement. “For five years I had to stay at home.”
Pashtun still wears the all-covering burqa favored by a majority of women in Kabul. She said it’s tradition for women in her family to wear it, but she has friends who now only wear a head scarf.
The Taliban forced all women to cover themselves and did not allow them to leave home without a male escort, meaning widows had to rely on other family to survive.
The regime also banned music and movies, didn’t allow kite flying and forced all men to wear long beards.
“I came to work that day and started shaving beards,” said Mohammed Hesa, a 22-year-old barber. “People were lined up outside the shop.” None of his 10 customers in the shop brought up the five-year anniversary.
“Today we have a lot more freedom,” he said. “Then your beard was not under your control. Your wife was not even under your control. If you walked with her in the street the Taliban would stop you and ask ‘What is your relationship with her?’”
At the city’s central cinema, janitor Jan Mohammed said he was happy when the Taliban fell, thinking Afghanistan would see a new era of freedom and security.
“But it’s not that good now,” he said. “The other big problem today is figuring out how to feed your children.”
Five years after the Taliban’s ouster, poverty is still endemic in Afghanistan, and the cost of living has risen sharply. Many women still suffer from abuse and discrimination, and the drug trade is out of control. And despite the presence of some 40,000 U.S. and NATO troops, the insurgency is unabated.
However, a senior Western official involved with the monitoring board said the report also showed the Afghan government is making progress.
“Despite the insurgency, we are starting to have an impact on the bulk of the lives in the country,” the official said. “Literacy, education and health measurements are starting to move.”
Azizullah, a money changer in Kabul’s main currency market, said Afghans were too busy with daily life, and the struggle to make money, to remember the anniversary of the Taliban’s fall. Like many in Afghanistan, he is losing patience with the government and the pace of reconstruction.
“The economy is bad, there is no work,” he said. “If President (Hamid) Karzai were to run for office again today, he wouldn’t even get 10 votes.”
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