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Taleban point of view
Why we destroy statues? - ii
 Sayyid
Rahmatullah Hashemi, the roving Ambassador of Afghanistan, gave a talk at
the University of Southern California on 10 March which was reproduced in
the previous issue. A session of questions and answers followed the talk.
Following are excerpts: |
Q. Does it mean the statues of Hindus and Sikhs will also be
destroyed? Since the destruction of the statues was done in retaliation,
was it really saving the children?
A.: We are not against Buddhists. Absolutely wrong. We are not against any
religion. There are Hindus living in Afghanistan; there are different
religions. There is one man who is a Jew living in Afghanistan. So we are
not against any religion. And there is no Buddhist in Afghanistan, this I
can say. In our religion, if anything, you can leave anything until it is
not harmful to you. These Buddhas were not harmful to us so far. But now
when the money is going to Buddhas’ reconstruction, and the children are
dying next door, we think it is harmful now. Not we think, this is what
the people think. And I told you that this decision is taken by the
council of scholars and the council of people and has been approved by the
Supreme Court. Yet the media is saying everywhere that it is an edict by
our leadership. Have you ever seen our leadership on TV? Have you ever
seen or heard him [Mullah Umar] on international radio? He has never been
on radio.
Q.: There is infighting between Mujahideen now. In the past we knew
that there was one common enemy [the Russians] and it was easy to support
the Mujahideen but now its the groups of Mujahideen fighting one another.
How do you explain this?
A.: They [Mujahideen groups] killed so many people, and there were so many
problems. That’s why we started our movement. They didn’t fight for
Shari'ah, they didn’t fight for Afghanistan, they only fought for their
future posts in power. So we finished that. And now, we have only one
opposition headed by Ahmed Shah Masood. And we don’t have much problems
with him. We had talks with his representative in Ashkabad in Ramadan this
year, and I was there. We asked him, despite that he controls nothing,
except five percent in the mountains, and we have said we are still
open-minded. We agree that he should have a post, because he has fought
the Russians. And in 1998, we agreed on a joint government. I was also
there, so we agreed on giving them three ministries and accepting their
judicial system merging with ours, and giving them three or four district
or province governorships or something like that. And they agreed on that.
On our part, we asked them to give us their weapons, because the problem
in Afghanistan is not political differences. The problem in Afghanistan is
the weapons. Everybody has weapons, and now if they are fighting us, it is
not because of our ideological differences; its because of weapons. There
were a lot of weapons before, and you know, the Afghans know that so many
times they tried to have one government and then after a week or so, they
fought, because all of them got different weapons and they would fight. So
now we have said that the problem in Afghanistan is not the political
problem; it is the arms which exist. We will accept them to be in our
government if he accepts to give up his arms to the Ministry of Defense.
Q.: Why it took you so long to destroy these statues?
A.: We don’t have any Buddhists as I told you. We have to look at
the problems of the Muslim minorities in some countries. So we do not want
to create problems for them. That’s why we are still waiting, and we
hope that we will resolve this problem.
Q.: What is your opinion about killing the Iranian officers in Herat in
1998?
A.: There is this story about seven or nine Iranians, one of them was
a journalist, and the rest of them were called diplomats. It happened in
1998 when we were capturing a city in the north of Afghanistan called
Mazar-e-Shareef. We announced before our campaign to liberate that city
that all diplomats of organizations, including the UN, the diplomatic
missions, and NGOs should evacuate because of the possible fighting that
may occur in the city. So, all of them evacuated, the United Nations, the
NGOs, and even those people who actually bombed them, they also evacuated.
So the only people who remained there were some seven, or eight, Iranians,
who were actually not diplomats. They were actually military advisors to
their puppets in Afghanistan. We didn’t kill them in the diplomatic
mission; they were killed on their way to Bamiyan. Bamiyan is another city
in central Afghanistan, and we didn’t want to kill them; they just died
because of the shelling that happened. And we declared that we were sorry
for what happened. And now the Iranian government has also sent their
mission. They reopened their consulate and I think they have re-thought
their policies now and maybe they will have a new chapter of friendship
with us.
Q.: Will one be under physical threat if he were to shave his beard and
walk into Afghanistan, or if a sister would be under a physical threat if
she were to wear Hijab according to the Islamic standards, not Burqa?
A.: As I told you, we have other priorities. Our priority is to save the
children. Our priority is to de-mine our country. Our priority is to
reunify our country. Our priority is to stop the foreign interference. Our
priority is to fight [the enemy] which is already operating in our
country. What would you do if you were in this situation?
And it is not easy to do public relations. You have to spend a lot of
money. I will tell you a story of CNN. CNN was in Afghanistan interviewing
Bin Laden, in 1998. You have to be careful in listening to this. I was
there, and they asked Bin Laden as to what was his thinking about the
killing of civilians in Iraq. It was part of three hours of formal
conversation, and the camera was rolling. He said that if all American
citizens and if all British citizens are willing, or supporting, to kill
all Iraqi civilians, then all American citizens and all British citizens
deserve the same thing or to be killed. CNN cut everything. Three-hours
conversation was not there. The only thing they put, and it was not
complete, the only clause that they said was that all American and British
citizens must be killed. This is what came out on the air. But he didn’t
mean this. And I know that all Americans do not support the killing [of]
civilians there. Not even a quarter of that. That was impossible. But now
what they taught their people was that Bin Laden is saying that all
American civilians must be killed. That is the story of media, and the
media here is very irresponsible. They are commercialized, and they do
anything for selling advertisements.
[About the beard and the veil], first of all, this rule does not apply to
all non-Afghans. There are many non-Afghans who are working there; there
are actually Americans who are working there in the UN, there are many
people from different parts of the world. And they do whatever they want,
they don’t care. And we don’t have a law for them. But Afghanistan is
a country that has gone through 23 years of war, and there is still war.
Then you must have some sort of strict law, in order to ensure security
and peace in Afghanistan. So, maybe it is ridiculous for you that we ask
people to grow beards, but this is in Afghanistan, and the Afghans do grow
beards, whether you tell them or not. And it s something natural.
And regarding the veil, or the Burqas, or the Islamic dress code, that is
something that exists in Afghanistan for centuries. It does exist in Iran,
it does exist in Saudi Arabia as it exists in many Islamic countries. It
has nothing to do only with Afghanistan. And it does exist even here. So
you can’t force people not to wear burqas, and we do have that
constitution that at this time, women should cover up. For us our priority
is that they should be safe.
I myself, I’m 24, and serving my country. I could play football now, and
I could even play here, and I could stay in the United States, but I
don’t do any of these things; I serve my country. So I agree that
whatever, all those things that exist in Afghanistan, maybe there are many
things that we don’t want, but they do exist. So we are not sponsors for
that. They did exist for two decades.
The best thing I would say is to educate people. Instead of criticism,
they can come there! and open a school. They can open a school for girls,
for boys. Unfortunately some of our Afghans are sitting in their
air-conditioned rooms here, play their TVs, and when they have nothing to
do, they criticize us because we can’t make Europe for them. They have
to come and help us, in all the sectors. We do need all the Afghans from
here. If they really criticize our policies, they should come there and
criticize our policies, not from here. So the best thing for you people is
to raise funds. Do not give it to us, one of you should come there, help
the people.
Q.: Do you respect our right to tell you that if you didn’t believe
in PR, you wouldn’t be here right now. I’d like to ask you, does your
version of Islam preach hate?
A.: I don’t know what to say but you only expressed your emotions.
Islam means peace. You have to understand that a peaceful religion will
never preach hate. And we do not preach hate. And you said that if we
didn’t believe in public relations, I wouldn’t be here. Its my first
time here, and I’ve waited for an American visa for a long time, and
I’m not used to doing these things. I brought a letter from my
leadership that I explained before that I will be submitting to the leader
of the administration here, and hoping that they will re-think their
policies. So I do believe that we must believe in public relations because
they are very important. What I am saying is that PR needs a lot of
resources, and that at this time we have resources for the plight of our
people.
Q.: Is it true that women are required to have a male escort whenever
they go out. If I were to go to Afghanistan wearing what I am now [a
jilbab and hijab] would I be under any physical threat?
A.:You say whether a woman is allowed to go without a male escort?
I’m here, and my wife is shopping in Kandahar now. So they don’t have
to be escorted, this is absolutely wrong. Yes, they were, in those cities
that we captured first, because that was for their safety. Now, they
don’t have to. And I don’t have any problem with whatever you wear,
and women do wear the same thing that you do wear, and they don’t have
any problems. And I say that those cities, which are close to the
frontline and there are military operations going on in the vicinity,
there are thousands of military soldiers of ours, we do ask women to avoid
the social areas. Now you do not understand what I mean, but some of our
friends here do understand. In a country that is in a war, the military is
mixed with the people, and there are certain limitations. So I can’t go
beyond that, and I say that women do not have to be escorted. I’m here
now and my wife may be shopping in Kandahar.
Q.: What is Afghanistan’s priority in regards to establishing an
Islamic state for all Muslims, not just for Afghans?
A.: We have our first headache in Afghanistan, and that’s a big
headache. We have a full-time job there. If we worked 24 hours a day, we
will hardly ever be able to re-construct an Islamic system in our own
country. And we have no intention of going beyond our borders, and neither
we can. So, all these people who exist in other countries, or their
policies, they have nothing to do with us. We are only concerned about
Afghanistan.
And please do not try to make assumptions. Ask me questions. I was in Bay
Area yesterday, a journalist asked me: why do you hate women? And I asked
him: why do you beat your wife? And he replied: I don’t beat my wife. I
said: I don’t hate women.
Q.: My country (Iran) is suffering from drug-trafficking from
Afghanistan.
A.: I said Afghanistan produced 75% of all world’s opium. And we
eradicated it last year. I do not say that we eradicated it five years
ago. This year, the United Nations Drug Control Program, announced that
there was 0% opium cultivation; Iran, too, admitted that. So if you
don’t know, that’s your problem. New York Times announced this. So if
you don’t know this, then it’s your problem.
Q.: You need technocrats..
A.: You can go there, if women can go there. What is the problem? But
if you ask us to give you the government, then that’s difficult. I agree
with you that we need technocrats, but we don’t need politicians.
(Concluded)
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