TRIGGERnometry - Afghanistan Crisis Explained with Shabnam Nasimi

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00:00:15.400 What was interesting was that when Trump was in power and he started this whole thing,

00:00:19.420 everyone thought, well, he's an evil man, he's this horrible individual,

00:00:23.060 and he started this and he doesn't care.

00:00:25.440 And everyone had so much hope that when Biden comes in,

00:00:28.680 He's going to reverse this decision. He will put conditions on this peace process.

00:00:34.840 He will do something or he will just extend the withdrawal date to make sure there's a meaningful discussion.

00:00:40.760 And actually, he made it a thousand times worse.

00:00:48.900 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.

00:00:53.440 I'm Constantine Kissin.

00:00:54.520 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:01:00.600 A brilliant and important guest we have for you today.

00:01:03.460 She is the founder of Conservative Friends of Afghanistan.

00:01:06.500 Shabna Simi, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:01:08.280 Thank you for having me.

00:01:09.240 It's so great to have you on the show.

00:01:11.020 Thanks for coming on.

00:01:11.920 It's obviously a very difficult time at the moment as we speak.

00:01:14.960 Before we get into the issue of Afghanistan itself, talk to us a little bit about who you are.

00:01:19.640 What is your story?

00:01:20.720 What is your journey through life?

00:01:21.780 How do you find yourself sitting here talking to us?

00:01:23.700 Thank you. Well, originally, my family came to the UK in 1999, which was just two years prior

00:01:30.360 to the 9-11 attacks. And they had studied in the former Soviet Union, then directly affiliating

00:01:38.640 themselves with Russia and its system. Great people. Very. And as a result of that,

00:01:46.620 they knew that they were directly targeted by the Taliban and its regime who do not agree with

00:01:54.940 anyone who have Western values or I guess seen as with Soviet Union people thought you were an

00:02:01.480 atheist who didn't believe in Islam and you know that's how you're targeted and that's the same

00:02:08.720 case today as well but you know we grew up in in London in southeast and I have two younger

00:02:18.120 sisters and one brother and I think with most minority ethnic groups from a young age when you

00:02:25.120 know you've come from a country that has very little opportunity you work a lot harder a lot

00:02:31.660 a lot harder to get to a point where you're recognized and you're heard and I think particularly

00:02:37.560 for Afghans. It's even more so because we come from one of the most war-torn countries in the

00:02:44.420 world, one of the most impoverished, that in comparison to even our neighbours of Pakistan,

00:02:51.940 Iran and India and Central Asia, Afghans tend to struggle a lot more in terms of integration

00:02:59.320 and getting adjusted in the societies they end up resettling in. So yeah, it's not been an easy

00:03:06.240 journey. I'm proud of where I am today, but we'll get on to that in a bit. But that's sort of my

00:03:13.980 story in a very nutshell. And your family escaped Afghanistan and came here as refugees via a bunch

00:03:22.360 of countries, didn't they? They did. It was the normal route the refugees normally take. You sort

00:03:27.420 of give up your life, your home, your belongings, your family, and you trek through Pakistan or

00:03:33.440 either Iran and move across to Europe, first getting into, arriving at Greece, Italy, France,

00:03:41.040 Dover, and then the UK. And we actually came in a container at the time. So it was a container that

00:03:47.160 was carried in one of those ferries that comes to the UK from Calais. And it was sort of pitch

00:03:53.760 black. The only thing, the only thing I can remember from that point is it was very difficult

00:03:58.400 to breathe and my my dad wanted to make sure that we were calm um so he had matchsticks and kept

00:04:03.800 lighting them up so that we could he could we could see a little bit um and it was only me and

00:04:08.500 my sister at the time my younger brother and sister were born here but um yeah no it's not

00:04:14.200 it's not a journey you take out of choice that's that's um that's definitely the case and it's

00:04:19.200 something that a lot of people feel that you're giving up your dignity and your respect to come

00:04:23.620 in that way to another country.

00:04:25.600 And I think it's probably

00:04:26.740 with the current situation in Afghanistan,

00:04:29.740 it's really important to stress

00:04:31.300 that what's happening

00:04:32.500 and the fact that a lot of countries

00:04:33.940 are now offering resettlement,

00:04:35.820 that it's not out of choice.

00:04:37.460 No one really wants to leave your home,

00:04:39.600 your comfort to go somewhere else

00:04:41.500 and in such difficult situations.

00:04:43.880 Well, look, we'll talk about the refugee issue

00:04:45.740 probably later on,

00:04:46.980 but let's just go back for people watching this.

00:04:50.240 They've seen Afghanistan in the news.

00:04:51.960 Let's be honest,

00:04:52.480 Most people in the West couldn't find Afghanistan on a map, right?

00:04:55.820 So just take us back through the last 20 years particularly.

00:05:00.020 So your family left in 1999.

00:05:01.800 Soon after that, Al-Qaeda attack the Twin Towers in New York, destroy them, kill thousands of people in America.

00:05:11.220 America retaliates, you could say, or goes into Afghanistan to deal with the problem of the terrorists

00:05:18.360 that were being allowed to set up bases there to train, etc.

00:05:22.480 Talk us through that and everything that's happened since

00:05:25.660 so that we have a good grounding for the conversation that we have.

00:05:28.240 Sure.

00:05:28.820 So on the year of 2001, the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan,

00:05:34.880 which was led by the former Ahmad Shah Massoud and Durstam,

00:05:38.220 one is from the Tajik ethnic group and the other from the Uzbek ethnic group,

00:05:42.520 both actually began fighting against the Taliban,

00:05:46.240 quite, you know, formed a strong resistance in a movement.

00:05:49.580 then as a result the Taliban collapsed in their regime and that's when the US stepped in and

00:05:56.040 provided that aircraft the logistics the power the forces to help Afghans completely remove

00:06:03.120 the Taliban and oust them from Afghanistan and the mission was primarily targeted at

00:06:10.180 destroying the al-Qaeda and its networks and the Taliban as well which was partially successful

00:06:16.940 Of course, you can't really get rid of an extremist group completely.

00:06:21.600 Leaving even a seed of them does mean that they will continue to flourish.

00:06:27.100 And with the Taliban, they're trained, particularly on the other side of the border of Pakistan, in madrasas, really extreme Islamic schools from a very young age.

00:06:38.260 So it's why they've been able to return today.

00:06:41.860 But going back to what happened in 2001, once NATO and the international community went in, the whole world's attention was in Afghanistan.

00:06:51.700 Trillions in aid was spent, money, interest, effort, sacrifices.

00:06:58.520 I mean, 2,000 American forces died and 450 British soldiers died.

00:07:02.260 So people made heavy sacrifices in Afghanistan, an effort and a lot of time because they wanted to not only remove the extremism and the terrorist groups, but also nation build.

00:07:16.100 And so the mission wasn't focused on just destroying extremism, but also creating society and a system.

00:07:23.600 So when they went into Afghanistan, they had to start from scratch.

00:07:27.060 there was practically no infrastructure no health system no education no schools the roads had to be

00:07:33.340 fixed everything it was a blank canvas so what the reason why this last few days have been so

00:07:40.540 difficult is because if you had just gone in there to remove the Taliban and you were only fighting

00:07:46.600 with them it would have been a different story but you went in there to develop a country you

00:07:52.600 developed a nation that had hope, that were fighting for something.

00:07:58.280 And in the last 20 years, Afghanistan progressed incredibly.

00:08:02.040 It wasn't perfect.

00:08:03.020 I don't think any country anywhere in the world would say that in 20 years

00:08:07.220 they became a developed country and changed.

00:08:12.500 Europe wasn't made in 20 years, neither was the US or anywhere else.

00:08:16.620 But 20 years in Afghanistan, because so much attention was put

00:08:20.360 into the country all at once.

00:08:22.600 schools were built, there was almost 40-50% of the students in universities and schools were girls,

00:08:29.920 and there were female journalists, there were actresses, there were musicians, singers that

00:08:36.000 were performing without scarves, which is quite extraordinary. One of my Iranian friends

00:08:41.300 that saw videos of female singers in Afghanistan performing, they said, we can't do that in Iran

00:08:47.960 without a scarf how come you guys can women can perform and sit amongst men without without a

00:08:54.720 head cover um so it was astonishing for iranians and it was also astonishing for a lot of central

00:08:59.340 asian and pakistani countries as pakistan as well sort of south asian countries because they said

00:09:03.540 that you had such a free press you were able to criticize the president you were able to

00:09:08.800 criticize the government and officials without any um consequences whereas most of these countries

00:09:14.800 Because it's not the same, you know, Russia today is still, you can't really speak against Putin.

00:09:21.620 A nice little dig at my people.

00:09:23.420 You can, just don't drink the tea.

00:09:25.300 Yeah, exactly.

00:09:26.580 But Afghanistan, yeah, and that was the case.

00:09:28.860 You know, I travelled to Afghanistan a few times over the last 20 years, every year or every other year, visited family, visited friends.

00:09:36.160 And there were points where I went out and walked outside without any family members.

00:09:42.100 In the beginning, I was a bit terrified.

00:09:43.720 I thought maybe my uncle or my aunt or my cousin had to go with me because I didn't know I was a

00:09:47.520 bit unfamiliar I thought but um slowly eventually I could I could just walk around anywhere on my

00:09:53.280 own so that was the progress uh women were outside in cafe shops and restaurants sitting like we are

00:09:59.420 today comfortably um and that's been taken away so that's what the last 20 years what was created

00:10:08.200 was a nation that was moving forward.

00:10:12.860 And more importantly, 75% of Afghanistan is under the age of 25, approximately.

00:10:21.540 The majority of the new generation today never lived under the Taliban rule.

00:10:27.720 All they knew was the last 20 years.

00:10:30.000 So this was a new generation, like a complete new chapter,

00:10:32.940 starting fresh who have only seen progress and moving up so the mentality changed the psyche

00:10:43.560 changed people lived in under western liberal liberalized democratic values and I think what

00:10:51.980 one thing that people fail to understand is that it wasn't forced upon them you know a lot of

00:10:56.560 stop the coalition or stop the war sort of war coalition groups and people who are against the

00:11:00.800 intervention say you know we can't go there and impose our system on others it doesn't work

00:11:05.360 in countries like Afghanistan yes you've got to understand that this is a tribal country there's

00:11:10.540 lots of different sects lots of different groups you've got to embrace culture and the people

00:11:16.080 but you went there and you introduced democracy and people wanted it they didn't kick you out

00:11:21.720 they didn't force you out they didn't fight with you they embraced it really strongly they loved

00:11:28.040 living in a free society so it wasn't imposed um they accepted it so to sort of start to

00:11:34.720 summarize a lot was done a lot had changed a lot of sacrifice was made um and so this is why the

00:11:44.240 last few days and the consequences of the withdrawal has been so hard to accept and before we get into

00:11:50.240 that the question i really wanted to ask is who are the taliban because people often we talk about

00:11:55.420 them, but no one really explains who they are, where they're from, their belief system,

00:11:59.860 why is it that they want to, you know, overthrow, you know, the current government and how were

00:12:05.700 they in power before? The Taliban are an extreme Islamist group. They are tribal in their mentality,

00:12:15.600 so there is an honour code that they go through, sort of their practice. So in terms of ethnicity,

00:12:21.640 of them are from the Pashtun ethnic group of Afghanistan. Today, they're a little bit more

00:12:27.980 diverse. They're recruiting from all sects, but originally from that ethnic group. And

00:12:34.560 they live in sort of societies that are very patriarchal. Men are allowed outside, girls

00:12:44.220 aren't. Girls do not have, or women do not have the right to study, to work. Their responsibility

00:12:51.940 is basically to look after their family members and their husband and to produce children.

00:12:57.820 And their system and what they want for Afghanistan is basically a very, very fundamental

00:13:05.420 form of Islam that allows no freedom. In some ways, I feel they're trying to act like God.

00:13:12.940 and they think they are god you know punishing a woman who steps outside without the right clothes

00:13:19.800 and if um she is hurt to have had any relations with a man any type even a conversation without

00:13:28.200 justification without a proper sort of legal um court proceeding in terms of finding out whether

00:13:34.740 adultery for instance actually happened or anything like that they would stone a woman um

00:13:39.960 and I mean in terms of the religious aspect of it I don't think I can go into too detail

00:13:46.500 to sort of understand what script they're using and the different types of Islamic practices

00:13:53.100 but what I do know is that there isn't with the Taliban it's very similar to Al-Qaeda and ISIS

00:14:03.100 but the only difference is that they're very tribal in their mentality and they're a group that

00:14:09.400 in Afghanistan have come primarily from Pakistan and are also trained in madrasas from a very young

00:14:20.460 age, very young, so teenagers. And so they're so brainwashed that when by the time they grow up to

00:14:30.440 20, 30 years old, they know nothing other than violence and brutality and killing. So it's

00:14:37.520 basically a fundamental extremist Islamic group. So what you have is modern society, well very

00:14:44.740 modern for what we know from Afghanistan, and then we have the Taliban. How is it that the Taliban

00:14:51.120 with less resources, without the American dollars, without American technology, have managed to

00:14:58.020 overthrow the Afghan army backed by the US, the UK, etc, etc? Well this is the question that's

00:15:06.500 been asked a few times this past week, even Biden actually said, well, why are we going to fight

00:15:11.040 when the Afghan forces aren't fighting? First of all, NATO actually haven't been fighting since

00:15:17.700 2014. They've been their non-combat role. They've simply been there to provide morale,

00:15:23.300 support, logistics and training. Unfortunately, though, Afghanistan has had a very corrupt

00:15:32.200 to government, in that the support that the government should have been given the armed

00:15:38.280 forces wasn't available. So a lot of soldiers, from what I was hearing, were not receiving

00:15:43.120 their salaries, they weren't being funded properly, they weren't being supported by

00:15:46.420 the government either. So they were quite isolated and left alone. And then in the last

00:15:50.800 year or so, when NATO and the US announced they're leaving, the Taliban were on their

00:15:55.820 own fighting with neither the government's support nor NATO's. I mean, a lot of people

00:16:01.980 question and say well if we haven't been able to create a strong army in the last 20 years

00:16:06.600 well where did all that money go the first couple of years i guess the first 10 years was when you

00:16:12.760 the intense training was what was happening and the latter half of this two decades they were

00:16:19.460 given the logistics and the support again i don't think there are there's any military in the world

00:16:24.280 that would have been able to do what they have done in the last 20 years so you can't just take

00:16:29.360 away the logistics the aircraft the equipment and say okay here you go get on with it and that's

00:16:36.840 practically what was done you took everything from them and you let them fight on their own

00:16:40.500 with very little equipment let's no weapons hold on i'm sorry to interrupt what about the taliban

00:16:46.020 it's not like they have you know american war planes and drones and and sophisticated equipment

00:16:53.400 I think they're funded very well, though. They're funded really well. Most of the soldiers in the Afghan army come from very impoverished homes. They're very poor. A lot of my own father's family are serving in the army. And from what I hear, it was either become a soldier or die from hunger because there was no other choice.

00:17:17.000 to join was to simply be able to make an income. So they weren't all very skilled.

00:17:24.580 It wasn't a choice or motivated. It was simply to make a living. And I think this last couple of

00:17:33.060 months, there's a lot of political issues with this as well, in that province after province

00:17:40.300 was just given to the Taliban quite easily. People weren't fighting. There wasn't resistance.

00:17:44.780 a lot of soldiers knew that if they fought and and there was a lot of sentiment that the Taliban

00:17:52.180 going to win there was a lot of morale that you saw in the media I think also that worsened the

00:17:57.420 situation and that when you're saying that they're going to win you're already changing people's

00:18:02.340 mindset so they're not going to have the confidence to continue fighting um so it was actually a

00:18:08.920 conversation that I had with the foreign office recently where we were working on seeing if we

00:18:12.920 can do a counter Taliban propaganda campaign. Because by talking about the Taliban winning,

00:18:18.940 you're already instilling that narrative on people's minds. And people will just run away

00:18:23.500 rather than fight. I think it's the same with the soldiers as well. They just believe that it's

00:18:28.140 going to happen. Why fight and die if no one really cares and no one's going to help us.

00:18:34.600 And today, any soldier that is captured by the Taliban is killed in a really, really brutal way.

00:18:42.620 And there have already been cases that I've seen, videos that I've seen.

00:18:47.460 So I'm sure many of those soldiers knew that because we were fighting directly against the Taliban

00:18:54.440 and we were fighting for a foreign-backed army, that we will be killed.

00:19:00.600 So a lot of them just ran away.

00:19:02.320 And I think details are important.

00:19:04.360 When you say killed in a really brutal way, what are we actually talking about here?

00:19:08.020 Well, actually, I saw a video today of an army general being caught, his hand tied, blindfolded, on his knees and shot about 100 times in Kandahar.

00:19:24.600 So it's just very difficult to even imagine, to even speak about.

00:19:29.980 Another friend of mine who served in Afghanistan, two tours, posted on social media that 12 men that he had been working with have been executed in Lashkar Ghar and Kandahar as well.

00:19:47.860 So that's already started and the brutality and the way they kill other family members that I know and friends.

00:19:54.680 the soldiers have had to go into hiding but the Taliban are going door to door patrolling and

00:20:02.140 doing house searches so they'll go into the house they'll look around they'll see who's at home

00:20:08.180 they'll take the cars and any property and there was actually one house they were going to take

00:20:15.840 the house as well but they found a way to negotiate excuse me and and allow them to the

00:20:22.440 family members to stay but if that soldier was captured and they're clearly looking for him

00:20:29.520 he would face the same type of savage brutality and murder do you have a website or do you plan

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00:21:40.560 case how can you possibly have a modern country when you have these types of religious extremists

00:21:49.140 I mean, what do you do with these people? Can you rehabilitate them? Do you simply have to wipe them off the surface of the earth? Or are you constantly going to be in this quasi civil war with them?

00:22:00.200 Well, it's a difficult one because a lot of people argue that the West made the mistake of not including the Taliban in peace talks right from the beginning and seeing whether they would be willing to be part of Afghan society, have a part in this government and start to be assimilated, integrated into the police and the army and work alongside others.

00:22:28.680 I don't know whether that would have been the case

00:22:30.320 because clearly they have no interest in working or compromising at all.

00:22:36.520 In the last few days, they said we want unconditional power.

00:22:39.500 Initially, the agreement was there'll be a transitional government

00:22:42.320 for six months where someone will just step in

00:22:44.960 until an agreement is made in terms of it will be a 50-50 arrangement,

00:22:49.880 whose responsibility will be, you know, what.

00:22:52.740 But they said we're not coming back without 100%.

00:22:55.920 And that's it.

00:22:57.980 And we wanted the Emirate, Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, nothing less than that.

00:23:02.880 So it's a difficult question to answer.

00:23:05.620 I think probably a lot of people thinking that with a group like that existing, if we

00:23:12.600 stay 20, 30, 40, 50 years, if they're still going to come back and retrain and regroup,

00:23:19.220 what's the point?

00:23:20.280 But I think if we had stayed for longer, like we have in, you know, the US are still in

00:23:27.960 South Korea you know we stayed for a very long time in Germany we're in Cyprus and you've got

00:23:32.660 Hong Kong you know we've got army and soldiers all around but by persisting and enduring you

00:23:40.640 develop a society that eventually can can fight on its own I think 20 years was too early had you

00:23:48.020 given it 40 years or probably a little bit more than that potentially you would have created a

00:23:52.920 society that was resilient and would have been able to stand on its own two feet and fight

00:23:59.340 independently. But you've pulled everything way too quickly, expecting them to just deal with it

00:24:04.980 on their own. Well, the counter argument and a lot of people have made, including, we've recorded

00:24:10.340 the interview, but he will be our former guest because we recorded him before, Raki Bexan from

00:24:15.500 the Henry Jackson Society. And he's written a piece in Spiked talking about the fact that actually

00:24:21.740 many of the things that you've put

00:24:23.840 and of course you're entitled to put them to us

00:24:26.040 about the progress that's been made

00:24:27.920 in Afghanistan over the last 20 years

00:24:29.760 is Western wistful thinking

00:24:32.200 more than reality. For example

00:24:33.920 he quotes polls from only a few years

00:24:36.020 ago which show that 99%

00:24:38.260 of Muslims in Afghanistan want

00:24:39.940 Sharia law, 94%

00:24:41.980 think that wives should always obey

00:24:43.900 their husbands, 85%

00:24:45.900 think the penalty for adultery should be

00:24:47.780 stoning and on and on we go.

00:24:49.620 So if we've been in Afghanistan that long, and with all of the things you've talked about, girls going to school and university, being free from wearing headscarf, whatever, really, have we made that much progress there?

00:25:03.540 Has society moved on?

00:25:05.380 Particularly, and maybe it's also, there's two questions in what I'm saying.

00:25:09.060 That's the first part.

00:25:09.980 Have we made enough progress?

00:25:11.100 And the second part is, is it maybe just a weakness of Western liberal democratic thinking that if you are an Islamic, Islamist fundamentalist and you believe that if you sacrifice yourself on the battlefield you're going to go to heaven where you're going to be surrounded by virgins and you're fighting against someone who's fighting for human rights and freedom, it's not quite a strong and motivating force to fight and to die and to sacrifice your life for something.

00:25:39.080 Do you see what I'm saying?

00:25:39.880 So those two questions, talk to us about that.

00:25:42.620 The first, I would say, if that was the case

00:25:45.060 and we actually haven't made much of a difference,

00:25:47.120 you wouldn't be seeing people fleeing today.

00:25:49.780 If they wanted to live under such a system,

00:25:52.360 why is it that you're constantly seeing videos

00:25:54.720 of people running towards airplanes?

00:25:58.900 Well, because they worked with the West

00:26:00.240 and now they're going to be punished.

00:26:01.440 A lot of them haven't.

00:26:02.460 Most of those people that were running

00:26:04.420 hadn't worked with the West

00:26:05.820 and they were just ordinary Afghans.

00:26:07.600 Some who just wanted to get away.

00:26:09.640 I think one of the issues in the last couple of days that I've seen is that a lot of the people that were in the airport weren't actually from Kabul.

00:26:17.820 And the majority weren't people who had fought and worked with the West.

00:26:22.740 It was just ordinary Afghans who were trying to find an opportunity just to get into the airplane with no documents, no passport, anything like that.

00:26:30.260 So if that was the case, they wouldn't be running.

00:26:33.400 And I say this, I think the other problem I'm having is that I come from Afghanistan.

00:26:38.420 I have family I have friends I've traveled there and yet when I hear people telling me that that

00:26:45.320 country hasn't progressed or the mentality hasn't I dispute that because I feel like we need to hear

00:26:50.460 from Afghans a lot more and that's the other problem with this is that when I was talking

00:26:55.320 about the fact that Afghans are a very marginalized group even in the west their voices aren't heard

00:27:01.680 very much I mean you've got Caribbean you've got the black community you've got South Asian

00:27:06.060 like to wet South Asia, to wet Indian and Pakistanis,

00:27:08.860 and so many others.

00:27:09.980 And a lot of them have, of course,

00:27:11.240 been here much, much longer in Britain.

00:27:14.000 Afghans are newly arrived, you know, 15, 20 years.

00:27:17.420 You're being heard now, Shavna.

00:27:18.700 You're right here.

00:27:19.160 Which is great.

00:27:19.920 It took us 20 years, yes.

00:27:22.260 We've come to the point now.

00:27:23.360 We've only been doing this for three years.

00:27:25.400 So you're the first Afghan on the show, I believe,

00:27:27.800 and you're very welcome here.

00:27:28.900 But look, what I'm talking about is opinion polls, right?

00:27:31.060 This isn't he said, she said, et cetera.

00:27:33.460 And of course, there will be people fleeing war.

00:27:35.640 there'll be people fleeing the Taliban, there'll be people who don't want to live under Sharia

00:27:39.240 law, as your parents and your family didn't. But has, what I'm asking is, has Afghan society

00:27:45.160 really moved on as much as we'd like to think? I think I'm not going to disagree that Afghanistan

00:27:55.720 is a very complex society. And I think I mentioned a little bit earlier that it's a tribal society

00:28:00.300 that lives under tribal practices

00:28:03.520 and, you know, that the woman's role is not out in the public,

00:28:08.240 that, you know, women should have more than, you know, five children

00:28:12.580 and, you know, very religious, very fundamental.

00:28:16.600 But it doesn't, it takes time to help people get out of that mindset.

00:28:21.840 The other problem is that a lot of the change were in cities like Kabul.

00:28:26.040 That's what I was going to ask you about.

00:28:27.120 And there wasn't much intervention.

00:28:30.300 And these sort of big NGOs were being funded by foreign governments, but their work was being delivered in the capital cities.

00:28:40.620 And I find the issue with that as well.

00:28:42.700 We weren't actually funding community-led activities by activists all across Afghanistan on a grassroots level.

00:28:50.700 This was all done by Save the Children or Oxfam, all these major organizations that were working with community groups and civic society activists in cities with well-established groups already, with people that spoke English.

00:29:08.780 I guess they wanted, it was easier for them, wasn't it?

00:29:11.080 You know, to work with people that understood the system, that they could communicate with them.

00:29:15.340 It would have been a lot harder to go to a rural place where English wasn't spoken

00:29:18.620 and then trying to deal and figure out how to work around that.

00:29:21.680 So, you know, they took the easier option and the easiest way out to change

00:29:28.460 and bring about change in Afghanistan.

00:29:31.080 So that could have been one of the cause for the fact that the poll said

00:29:34.060 that a lot of people were still quite traditional in their mindset.

00:29:36.960 But it takes time. It really does. It's not an easy...

00:29:40.060 I think people fail to understand how backward Afghanistan really was

00:29:47.040 and probably still is, like you said, in rural areas.

00:29:50.840 There is no country around the world that has suffered from 40,

00:29:58.880 over 40 years of conflict, from 1978, ongoing,

00:30:02.920 that does not have any system.

00:30:07.600 I remember when I first went, even in 2001,

00:30:10.060 there were sewers out in the open you know people would go to the toilet and it would come out into

00:30:16.000 the road um the roads needed fixed and the houses are very old made out of clay and mud so to think

00:30:24.400 that you can change a country like that that is tribal that is traditional that is practically

00:30:29.680 living in the first century so quickly is very naive it's something you know we've we've we've

00:30:36.460 failed to really study Afghanistan properly, first of all, to understand its people, its culture,

00:30:41.520 where we've started, what kind of country we're actually intervening in. And for example,

00:30:45.400 people compare it to Iraq, but Iraq was a very developed country before Saddam. And so was Syria.

00:30:50.440 You know, Afghanistan is not the same. It's completely different. And the interventions

00:30:55.040 were different. We were fighting extremism in Iraq and Syria and fighting Daesh. But before

00:31:01.240 our interventions before saddam before assad um these were very very modern westernized liberal

00:31:07.200 societies stable very stable business economy freedom afghanistan is not the same and i you

00:31:13.980 know what i try to emphasize to anyone that compares is please don't compare because afghanistan

00:31:19.340 is a unique case it's never been a developed society and you weren't there to fix a small

00:31:26.340 problem you were trying you were there to fix decades all right let me ask you one more bad

00:31:31.620 cop question yeah uh before francis uh jumps in which is with all of that being the case and

00:31:37.300 i recognize that from what i know about that part of the world i mean you weren't like hearing this

00:31:43.680 but there'll be a lot of people listening to you going well i mean we were there for 20 years

00:31:48.000 we spent two trillion dollars on on trying to build up this country to make it a more

00:31:53.380 western more liberal society i mean how how much more money are british and american taxpayers how

00:31:59.460 many more lives how you know it's it i'm not saying this is an easy decision but that is how

00:32:05.320 people will be thinking i mean another 20 years 40 years sick how long does it take to take

00:32:10.080 someone in a rural area of afghanistan uh who's maybe never seen electricity let alone modern

00:32:18.220 Western liberal? How long does it take to get that to where you can just leave it and the Taliban

00:32:23.640 aren't going to come back and take over? Because quite a lot of people are quite happy with what

00:32:27.060 they're going to do. Oh, I understand what you're saying. And the reason why those people ask those

00:32:33.220 questions is because they think this is an Afghan crisis. They don't see this as a regional or

00:32:38.960 global crisis. In the 21st century, we shouldn't even have a country that lives like that.

00:32:44.260 it's a human issue we need to actually ask questions why even a country like that exists

00:32:49.540 first of all second of all as we've seen from past history what happens in Afghanistan affects

00:32:56.680 the west directly it's one of the reasons why you know we went there in in there in the first place

00:33:01.520 we were trying to ensure that our shores and our land is safe from extremism so we had to go there

00:33:07.480 to bring stability it affects us directly here so you're not going there to fix their problem

00:33:13.140 You're there to fix them so they benefit you and your safety and your security.

00:33:18.520 And thirdly, Afghanistan is quite positioned in a really important geographical area.

00:33:26.600 You've got Pakistan and India, which is a former British Raj.

00:33:30.140 You've got Iran, which is no friend of the West.

00:33:33.400 You've got Central Asia, which is under Soviet Union control.

00:33:36.500 You've got China.

00:33:37.860 So it's a very important spot.

00:33:40.520 When you're there, strategically, you can maintain order anywhere.

00:33:47.440 By leaving, you've left a vacuum.

00:33:49.920 And already China and Russia are saying they're going to step in and fund the Taliban.

00:33:56.740 You know, China's developing that new silk belt road across the region

00:34:01.380 in order to feed their sort of economic domination ambitions they have.

00:34:07.300 So, you know, it's not a small matter.

00:34:09.200 And I think when you fail to understand the political side of this, the economic side of the security, the diplomatic aspects of the Afghanistan intervention, that's when you understand that you're not there fixing someone else's problem.

00:34:24.340 You're there to fix your own problem.

00:34:27.260 But in addition to that, you're also trying to give the Afghan people some hope and peace and freedom.

00:34:32.380 um you know afghans have never kicked out anyone by force it's always been military intervention

00:34:42.120 and political sort of games being played and in the land um they are very a vulnerable group

00:34:47.440 they're very marginalized they're very you know i'm sure hopefully well you're not going to be

00:34:51.480 able to travel now if you haven't in the last 20 years but let's see what happens but if you do

00:34:55.420 travel you'll see how simple they live their lives are very simple um and i think the only

00:35:01.880 wish I would have had is the political elite in Afghanistan, which is less than 1%, are the ones

00:35:08.860 who have caused this problem as well. The majority of the Afghan population have no hand in what's

00:35:14.660 going on. A lot of them are illiterate, have no understanding of what's happening around them.

00:35:20.280 It's the political elite, who most of them have come from the West in the last 20 years, actually.

00:35:24.760 That's the other problem, is that you have a president and ministers who've been educated and

00:35:31.000 live their whole lives in the US and UK and Europe, step in and say, we're going to fix

00:35:36.280 Afghanistan, but never going through the struggle and the pain of the war. So how can they really

00:35:42.160 be in touch with what's happening? And as you've seen, most of them have actually left

00:35:46.220 abandoning the country without any fight. People are very, very infuriated with the president

00:35:53.100 who left even without notice of resignation.

00:35:56.420 um managed to take about 136 million dollars in cash with them yeah that that's exactly um i mean

00:36:04.220 it's it's it's traumatic and it's hard to accept that this is i think we made huge mistakes right

00:36:10.760 from the beginning as well by working with people who um well you know it was easier for the west

00:36:18.080 to work with people like them because again there were western individuals who had grown up and

00:36:23.600 studied in the West and it's a lot easier to communicate and deal with them but I think there's

00:36:28.140 not there wasn't a lot of energy and hard work and getting actual people in Afghanistan like the

00:36:33.280 actual Afghans get them to a point where they can be leaders the investment wasn't made to make

00:36:38.220 new leaders the investment was on existing people who you've just brought from the West

00:36:44.020 to take up these positions um and who wouldn't last really because you know you've got to do

00:36:49.560 passport, you'll run away any moment when catastrophe strikes. Don't you think as well,

00:36:54.800 Shabnam, that the widespread corruption made the society fundamentally unsustainable?

00:37:01.160 You can't have society where people aren't getting paid because all the money is getting stolen.

00:37:06.720 Oh, absolutely. I agree. It's something I've been campaigning against and I've raised a number of

00:37:11.780 times that there needs to be a lot more monitoring of funding that goes in. It wouldn't have been

00:37:18.640 difficult for for example the UK to set up a body that would ensure that any money that goes in

00:37:26.060 where it goes who who it goes to you know you gave money to to a government and it wasn't just

00:37:32.320 you know the UK it was Europe and the US and the world pledged billions of pounds to Afghanistan

00:37:39.120 without surveillance or a system or monitoring system of where it goes and how who it goes to

00:37:45.580 And particularly, you know, people that were in government, any contracts that came in, there was a lot of opportunity, honestly.

00:37:52.420 I think Afghanistan had, if we, for example, went to Afghanistan the last 20 years, we would have been millionaires by now.

00:37:58.840 There was so much opportunity. Contracts were being offered and development opportunities.

00:38:05.940 What happened, though, is a lot of that was given to close circles.

00:38:08.900 So, you know, you've got the president, he will give it to his brother or his son or a relative, and they would have this multimillion contract to develop a factory or, you know, buildings and roads and would pocket half of that.

00:38:24.620 And I mean, that's the way it worked.

00:38:26.900 And I think the fault is both ways, both the fact that we had a very corrupt government, an irresponsible one, and then also the fact that the international community gave aid without any bother.

00:38:40.120 Like, where is it going? And I think also that's what's probably infuriated the British public, for instance.

00:38:44.780 You're spending all of our taxpayers' money, but you're not monitoring where it's going, who it's going to.

00:38:49.800 And a lot of that money didn't go to the people that should have had it.

00:38:54.420 And that's the other argument over the fact that if we haven't been able to develop Afghanistan in 20 years, then what hope is there for any more?

00:39:02.780 But that money didn't go to Afghans. It didn't go to the everyday people that we should have been working with to change their mentality, to allow their girls to go to school, to change their understanding of how society runs and to allow them to become more educated.

00:39:16.780 so if the money isn't going to the everyday afghan and it's going in the pockets of the elite or

00:39:23.680 the people that live in capital cities how could you expect there to be any shift in mentality

00:39:29.500 or understanding so there were huge failures i'm not saying it's perfect there was a lot of

00:39:34.160 mistakes that were made over the last 20 years in many aspects in terms of aid in terms of

00:39:39.660 understanding the society understanding the fact that there are different ethnic groups i mean

00:39:44.520 Ethnicity was another huge problem in Afghanistan.

00:39:46.540 You've got the Tajiks, you've got Uzbeks, Pashtuns, Hazaras.

00:39:53.100 All of these ethnic groups also wanted to be represented and included in the process.

00:39:59.600 Afghanistan is a very centralised system.

00:40:03.120 It has every power, everything was in the centralised government.

00:40:06.940 For example, the police would, sorry, the president would even recruit police officers or the teachers.

00:40:12.400 I mean, that's how much control the president had.

00:40:15.820 No one would be able to make a decision without him.

00:40:18.700 Sounds familiar.

00:40:21.600 And so people felt neglected.

00:40:25.160 People felt underrepresented.

00:40:27.400 They felt this was not a system that was inclusive.

00:40:33.020 Was there a bit of resentment as well?

00:40:34.800 The fact that, you know, hang on a second.

00:40:37.120 You know, none of the people from this country are actually being truly represented

00:40:40.600 because you've just flown someone in from America.

00:40:44.020 So wasn't there a large part of them that just saw this as a puppet regime?

00:40:47.900 Oh, for sure.

00:40:49.040 The majority of the country did think that.

00:40:52.540 They thought, you know, you've got a president

00:40:54.640 who actually made a few mistakes as well.

00:40:58.140 One was actually when he was, there was a prayer,

00:41:03.000 during Eid, I think it was, he didn't know how to pray.

00:41:06.300 sort of the Islamic way of you know going down or there was an error there and then there was also

00:41:13.820 I think he recited one of the Islamic verses incorrectly incorrectly so he made a few mistakes

00:41:21.680 I think probably why he ran away so quickly was that he knew that if he fell in the hands of the

00:41:28.300 Taliban he would have been done but yes that was the the major problem and something I've been

00:41:36.220 dealing with in that a lot of Afghans would say, how can we trust a government that has not actually

00:41:43.700 come from within the society? And these are all people, you know, the National Security Advisor

00:41:49.380 came from the UK. Most of the ministers were either from the US or from the UK. President

00:41:55.420 Ghani was from the US. These are very well educated. And Karzai before him. And Karzai was from the US

00:42:01.580 as well. So really, in the last 20 years, there wasn't actually anyone, there weren't many people

00:42:06.120 that were from Afghanistan and had lived there and raised there that were in government.

00:42:12.800 Hey, Konstantin, do you love trigonometry?

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00:43:14.620 I've got to be honest with you, Shabnam.

00:43:16.560 As much empathy as I feel for the people of Afghanistan, of course I do,

00:43:20.280 you're not convincing me that the US and the UK should stay.

00:43:24.560 It just sounds like such a nightmare.

00:43:26.640 And how are you going to distribute funds without an elite?

00:43:29.460 Do you see what I'm saying?

00:43:31.200 It just sounds like such a massive mess.

00:43:33.860 It was a mess because we didn't do it the right way the first time.

00:43:37.300 I think staying, listening, understanding what Afghanistan is,

00:43:43.960 what kind of nation it is,

00:43:45.560 listening to the very people that we've ignored for so long,

00:43:48.360 it would have been a shift and a change.

00:43:50.580 And I'm not convincing you because you're still looking at it

00:43:54.720 in terms of the nation building part of it.

00:43:57.120 And we need to, we need, I understand there were failures when it comes to the country itself.

00:44:02.820 But when it comes to British foreign policy.

00:44:05.720 Oh, that way I agree with you on the security aspect.

00:44:09.000 Security, economic, diplomatic around.

00:44:12.160 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree.

00:44:12.780 But by staying in Afghanistan, despite its failures, you were giving back whilst gaining a lot more.

00:44:23.360 Yeah, I get that.

00:44:24.700 So, yes, it takes a lot of effort.

00:44:28.540 It's difficult.

00:44:30.080 And my suggestions and recommendations have always been,

00:44:34.440 let's work with the communities that have been sort of isolated for so long.

00:44:39.260 The people that you do not and have not consulted with,

00:44:42.400 even in the last three years of the peace process,

00:44:45.140 no one's actually, none of the negotiations,

00:44:48.960 whether it was in Doha or Russia or in Iran,

00:44:51.400 on these high-level meetings,

00:44:55.060 they were all with the top political elite,

00:44:57.620 Karzai and his group and the people in government.

00:45:00.380 There was no reps from the youth.

00:45:02.040 There was no representatives from the women,

00:45:05.540 the new generation, the different ethnic groups.

00:45:08.960 So many failures, and I think it came out of either comfort

00:45:13.920 or the fact that you've worked with one group for so long,

00:45:17.420 you rely on them to do everything.

00:45:19.920 That it takes a lot more effort and time and management to train individuals who aren't used to Western ways of working, I guess, or can't speak English very well, or just aren't familiar with how to negotiate, how to speak, how to be politically educated.

00:45:43.100 so I know it takes a lot more time and effort but I think we took the easier way out by working with

00:45:49.420 a group that just was familiar for us was a group that we've either trained or worked with in the

00:45:56.240 west and have formed existing relationship with so let me ask you about another what you might

00:46:01.940 describe as a simple way not necessarily easy way out but the one that that I'm starting to see in

00:46:07.180 the british media being taken we saw only a couple of days ago i retweeted this clip of

00:46:12.820 i think he's the chief of the general staff so he's the head of the british army on sky news

00:46:18.080 he's being interviewed and i think it's kay burley asked him about uh the taliban you know

00:46:23.640 how do we deal with this enemy and he says oh we mustn't call them the enemy uh because we

00:46:28.820 wouldn't want to that they promised to have an inclusive approach to yeah yeah yeah it seems to

00:46:35.160 me like the west is considering taking what you will certainly and i consider a very cynical

00:46:42.380 approach which is saying look the taliban have taken over right this is who's going to be there

00:46:46.520 and in terms of our geostrategic interest they are the people we have to deal with now like and

00:46:51.720 they're going to do what they're going to do and it's horrible and we're going to put hashtags on

00:46:55.240 instagram and whatever but the reality is we're going to deal with these people we're going to

00:46:59.400 bribe them or threaten them or do whatever we need to do to to get them not to harbor terrorists

00:47:05.620 and apart from that that what are you going to do is that do you think what's going to happen here

00:47:10.560 it's something i don't want to happen no one wants it to happen but i fear and you're right um

00:47:17.920 the fact that we we withdrew from afghanistan so quickly we took u.s lead here um by claiming this

00:47:27.480 was a US-led intervention, it had nothing to do with us. And, you know, they made the call,

00:47:33.360 and we just had to follow, and we couldn't do this on our own. You know, I get that. But

00:47:36.580 where does global Britain come into this? Where does this influential, leading humanitarian

00:47:42.640 actor that we are around the world come into this? And the fact that we have a history,

00:47:48.280 a proud history of doing things like this on our own, why is it suddenly we've become so

00:47:52.100 reliant on the US, first of all. Second of all, what's difficult for me, I think, as someone from

00:47:57.920 Afghanistan is accepting that we've withdrawn militarily. But if you're going to withdraw

00:48:03.120 politically and diplomatically and in terms of humanitarian way as well, I think that's

00:48:09.700 shameful. To only think of your political interest in something like this and not the human side of

00:48:17.540 this um it is catastrophic you know we I don't want the Taliban to be first of all seen as a

00:48:27.160 legitimate government but if even if it is I expect that once that you've done this you this

00:48:34.640 catastrophe has always happened already happened but the the least that I would expect is that you

00:48:41.620 would monitor what's happening you will keep an eye out you will pressure them to not go back into

00:48:47.900 their old ways um and you will hold them to account how how do you pressure the taliban not to go into

00:48:53.600 their old ways how do you do that well i mean you i mean you work you developed a relationship with

00:48:58.340 them of course that's important you've got to engage with them um but by ensuring that you know

00:49:04.880 there are repercussions for what if if they do go back there are so you have to threaten them that

00:49:09.560 you're going to bomb them.

00:49:11.000 Well, I was going to say back to the Stone Age.

00:49:12.300 I think that's what the US has said that it would do,

00:49:14.920 that if you do allow the country to become a safe haven for terrorism again,

00:49:20.880 we will do that.

00:49:23.060 But it's sad because the country just goes through cycle after cycle of war.

00:49:29.140 It's just never-ending.

00:49:30.160 I feel for the people because it's not their call.

00:49:33.780 It's not something.

00:49:35.040 um and sometimes we blame afghans and say you know well this is your country and you haven't

00:49:41.420 been able to fix it but it really isn't up to them it's never been up to the afghan people

00:49:45.680 i know i'm coming across very cold and heartless and it's because i am but but but and i'm russian

00:49:51.820 but but actually i'm asking you these questions because i know this is what people are thinking

00:49:56.080 at home right uh because that's what people are thinking and i think we're seeing certainly the

00:50:02.300 political leaders going down the path of going well look the Taliban have taken over we like you

00:50:06.700 said we've got to engage with them and if they start allowing terrorists coming into camps and

00:50:11.940 whatever we'll bomb you but apart from that I just think we've kind of lost any levers of influence

00:50:17.220 haven't we at this point as the west we have by allowing them to step in unconditionally I think

00:50:24.920 the mistakes were made when the peace process started um they asked for their prisoners to be

00:50:31.820 released before they even started conversations we agreed without negotiation and imagine allowing

00:50:38.460 a group of 5 000 prisoners to be released who were extremist terrorist murderers um to be released

00:50:46.080 from prison during the negotiations um because they said well we're not going to sit around the

00:50:50.880 table and talk to you until you do that um that was an error how could you give into something

00:50:57.160 like that so quickly totally um second of all the u.s signs an agreement and says we're gonna leave

00:51:04.500 but sets no conditions and and there's no talk about compromise no talk about changing ideology

00:51:13.340 no talk about accepting this this new afghanistan you just said as long as you don't touch our you

00:51:20.280 know, US troops, you can do what you want. It's shameful. I think the my anger is more towards

00:51:28.580 the US than anything else. They've already shaped what kind of country they want to be

00:51:34.520 moving forward. I don't think anyone's ever going to trust them to be a friend or an ally again.

00:51:39.440 And I think Trump's isolationism theory and the way he wanted America to be is what Biden is

00:51:47.940 delivering on. I think what was interesting was that when Trump was in power and he started this

00:51:52.500 whole thing, everyone thought, well, he's an evil man. He's this horrible individual. And he started

00:51:57.940 this and he doesn't care. And everyone had so much hope that when Biden comes in, he's going to

00:52:03.980 reverse this decision. He will put conditions on this peace process. He will do something or he

00:52:10.520 will just extend the withdrawal date to make sure there's a meaningful discussion. And actually,

00:52:15.540 he made it a thousand times worse. And every speech I hear from him about Afghanistan is so

00:52:21.180 uncompassionate. So there's no understanding, there's no care for what happens to the people

00:52:26.400 of Afghanistan. And I think that's what makes it this even worse. It's infuriating to listen to

00:52:31.820 someone who just doesn't give any, who doesn't care. And yeah, I think America has already

00:52:40.000 shown us what kind of country it's going to be. And it's not going to be one that's a friend

00:52:44.480 ever again, I think, to anyone. No one's going to trust the US again. Who's going to trust that the

00:52:48.200 US will endure and persevere and stick it out when it's hard anywhere else in the world? And I think

00:52:54.440 this is where Britain can step in. This is where, when we talk about global Britain, when we talk

00:52:59.940 about this new identity that we have outside of the EU, we want to be more global, we want to work

00:53:06.880 with other countries outside of Europe, along comes with that a lot of responsibility. And I

00:53:14.260 think potentially this will be an era for the UK to show a lot more independence, a lot more

00:53:20.080 leadership that doesn't rely on the US. And Shabnam, what is the future now going to hold

00:53:25.760 for Afghanistan? I think from, I mean, in terms of on the ground, it's going to be a very bleak

00:53:37.340 future. It's going to be a very difficult one. I know that for sure. Under Taliban rule, this is

00:53:44.360 not going to be an easy society. I mean, we saw the press conference from the Taliban, was it

00:53:52.500 yesterday or the day before that? We know them saying that we've changed, we're going to allow

00:53:58.400 women and girls to study and to work and that we will allow free press. But when it comes to what

00:54:03.540 they've actually been doing in action um it's completely different um we've i've heard you

00:54:09.460 know stories of women uh being told they would they won't be working in as as presenters from

00:54:14.540 monday um you know women and girls have been told to go back home and not go to school um and you

00:54:21.740 know every argument they make is you know if you ask them if we'll have you the people who have

00:54:25.680 their rights they say well under sharia law you you will so what does actually that what does that

00:54:30.180 mean because actually the the last 20 years the government of afghanistan actually had an islamic

00:54:36.560 constitution it was an islamic government so what what why is taliban islamic uh practices so

00:54:43.420 different what makes it different that's still unclear we still don't know what what's the

00:54:47.420 difference but in terms of afghanistan uh moving forward it's going to be a very very very difficult

00:54:53.640 next few years, if not next decade. I do foresee that Britain will step in. I think potentially

00:55:01.700 it will form a new coalition. It's something that I'm hearing from MPs and from people who,

00:55:08.620 Tobias Elwood and Ben Wallace and a few others are looking at potentially seeing how the UK

00:55:13.380 can step in without the US when the time comes and when it's needed. And that is what I'd like

00:55:19.300 to see. I think there will be a time for sure that we will need to step in. Afghanistan historically

00:55:26.060 has never been a country where it's been on its own for too long. It hasn't been able to survive

00:55:33.280 on its own. And it's one of the most dependent countries on foreign aid in the world. It can't

00:55:41.920 survive. The institution and the infrastructure isn't there for it to have its own economy,

00:55:47.500 to feed its people to have a society and a system it needs a foreign intervention to survive and

00:55:54.140 unfortunately you know that's not something i want i'm sure that's not what the people of

00:55:58.200 afghanistan want and i'm sure most of the people of afghanistan didn't want nato in the west to be

00:56:02.140 stationed there forever um but when you do go and you spend 20 years why would you wash that down

00:56:10.120 the drain and then potentially start again from scratch in the next 10 years or less.

00:56:17.300 It's just the reality of the country. It's the way it's always been.

00:56:22.300 And what do you think China and Russia's role will be in this new Afghanistan?

00:56:27.980 It's not going to be a good one, that's for sure. China is looking at its own economic

00:56:37.040 domination in the region so we'll be funding the Taliban we'll be spending money in Afghanistan

00:56:43.520 as long as potentially they agree not to meddle in their plans you always ask so much fucking

00:56:51.920 depressing questions mate and Russia the same I guess Russian intervention has never been a

00:56:57.880 positive one anywhere in the world so what about Venezuela how are they doing mate

00:57:03.960 Sorry, Shabnam.

00:57:04.860 No, it's OK.

00:57:06.720 And, you know, you've got Iran on the other side, who is so anti-West

00:57:11.620 that it will do anything to make sure that we don't go back in there.

00:57:17.120 And then you've got a proxy war with Pakistan, who, you know,

00:57:20.420 support, clearly have shown support to the Taliban.

00:57:23.540 So Afghanistan is very, you know, it's stuck in the middle.

00:57:26.960 Unfortunately, it's got neighbours that don't really have its best interest at heart.

00:57:32.480 And even in the last couple of days and week, you know, let alone the West opening its borders, its neighbours haven't opened its borders.

00:57:42.960 No one's allowing anyone to get out to some Central Asian countries, Iran or anywhere else.

00:57:48.980 I think India's just started to see if it can issue visas.

00:57:52.000 But what can you expect from anyone else when your own neighbours don't really want to let you through?

00:57:56.940 So, yeah, it's going to be a difficult one.

00:57:59.280 Well, look, you bring up an important issue, and I wish we had more time, but we'll finish talking about the refugee situation.

00:58:05.760 And obviously, your family having come to the UK and all of you are doing very well, you're making a huge contribution.

00:58:12.220 It's such a pleasure to have you on the show.

00:58:14.700 I know you'll feel strongly about it personally, but there's also a bigger conversation to be had about it as well.

00:58:20.280 So let's try and have that because, you know, my view is anyone who's worked with British or American forces deserves to be given the opportunity to be safe from what will certainly be reprisals and they're going to be murdered.

00:58:34.880 But I've always, as a first generation immigrant like you, I've always felt that it is the job of the British government to ensure that the immigration system is fair and is seen to be fair, including by the people of Britain.

00:58:48.540 because when things like this happen,

00:58:51.180 when there's genuine refugees,

00:58:53.860 and there will be, you know, a few tens of thousands,

00:58:55.960 it's not a huge number by the standards of a country,

00:58:58.480 but if you've had this kind of drip, drip, drip effect

00:59:00.900 over the last 15, 20 years

00:59:02.400 where people feel like it hasn't quite been calibrated correctly.

00:59:06.060 I mean, Brexit, which I know you were a big fan of,

00:59:08.600 partly was driven by the desire to control the immigration system.

00:59:12.580 Do you fear now that some of the people who,

00:59:16.040 I think you and I both agree,

00:59:17.880 should be given the opportunity to come and to be safe

00:59:21.980 and to be rewarded for risking their lives essentially

00:59:24.900 to work with British and American forces

00:59:27.060 are probably not going to be given that opportunity

00:59:29.580 because of the system that we've had

00:59:31.240 or do you think we will look after the people that we should look after?

00:59:34.280 I think in terms of immigration, I completely agree with you.

00:59:37.140 We've got to make sure that genuine asylum seekers

00:59:39.620 who are fleeing war and conflict are given priority.

00:59:42.560 Unfortunately, though, being part of the European Union

00:59:46.560 has meant that over the years we've accepted people

00:59:50.620 that were here as economic migrants

00:59:52.360 and simply wanted a job or to study

00:59:55.160 and then applied for asylum.

01:00:00.380 And it did anger a lot of British nationals

01:00:03.100 in terms of how can everyone coming here?

01:00:05.540 And it does damage the British infrastructure

01:00:07.600 and its economy and its society.

01:00:09.680 The UK is such a small island.

01:00:11.560 It's tiny in comparison to Canada or the US.

01:00:14.620 Or Russia.

01:00:15.400 or so many of the European countries, Germany, France, that we expect the UK to take everything.

01:00:24.180 Now, I agree with that. You know, it's not fair. We have to also look after our own. A

01:00:29.820 surge in immigration does mean that our health system takes the brunt. People then are in waiting

01:00:37.000 lists for the NHS and schools and housing. So I completely understand that I'm for that.

01:00:42.860 But I think when it comes to a crisis like this, you've got to step in and show responsibility, particularly when the burden is on you because of the actions that you took and the decision you took.

01:00:56.440 And, you know, in Britain's case, you left and you withdraw Afghanistan.

01:01:01.200 You weren't kicked out. You weren't forced out.

01:01:03.240 You took that decision independently.

01:01:04.960 And as a result of that, the country's in crisis now.

01:01:07.320 So I think it's important for us to make sure that we have, you know, we take our moral obligation is more important than anything else in a situation like this.

01:01:18.080 So I would like to see the UK step up, first of all, support those who served with the British government, with the army and supported its mission in Afghanistan.

01:01:27.180 but also those I think the eligibility in terms of resettlement is a bit vague at the moment and

01:01:33.220 it's not the remit isn't as expanded as it should be because the young generation of Afghans who

01:01:38.460 worked as journalists who worked as teachers as activists as worked in NGOs those people who are

01:01:45.500 very outspoken very active in the social sort of in the public space those people will be particularly

01:01:52.400 I mean, their lives will be under threat because we went in there and supported them.

01:01:58.300 We gave them the morale, we gave them the funding, the hope that this is the Afghanistan we've shaped for you.

01:02:05.760 And then you take that away, these people will be attacked because they developed under your supervision.

01:02:12.600 So even though they didn't actually directly work with you, they became who they are through your support.

01:02:18.920 So I think there's also that responsibility to make sure that those people that, you know, become educated and flourished in this Afghanistan don't end up being killed because not only will we have to start from scratch in the next couple of years if we do go back, but we'll also have to retrain and re-educate everyone again because the generation that we supported so much have all been lost and killed.

01:02:47.240 So I think, generally speaking, there is a huge moral obligation now

01:02:51.280 to resettle and support those that need us.

01:02:55.740 Shabnam, thank you so much for coming on the show.

01:02:58.440 We really do appreciate it.

01:02:59.600 We've got a few questions for our locals.

01:03:01.860 But before we do that, we always end the interview with our final question,

01:03:05.320 which is, what's the one thing we're not talking about,

01:03:07.540 but we really should be?

01:03:08.400 I think for me, it's making sure that we hear from the people of Afghanistan, not only in the inside, but outside.

01:03:20.460 I think too much sacrifice, too much time has been spent in the country.

01:03:28.420 And so, I mean, Afghans are the second ranked refugees now, population around the world.

01:03:34.860 And they will be increasing now because of this.

01:03:39.240 We've got to make sure that when it comes to the topic on Afghanistan, that we first and foremost hear from them.

01:03:46.460 You know, sometimes these conversations happen. We hear from academics, we hear from politicians, we hear from anyone and everyone that isn't from Afghanistan, from spaces that I've sort of been in.

01:03:56.460 And yes, you know, you've said to me that I'm here today and, you know, you've invited me and I'm an Afghan voice, but one person isn't enough.

01:04:03.480 You need a lot more. You need a huge focus on the Afghan crisis, not only inside, but outside,

01:04:10.100 because this issue isn't going away anytime soon. And in order to find a better approach,

01:04:15.660 if we do look at Afghanistan again, anytime in the future, you've got to understand its people,

01:04:21.400 its culture, you know, who they are, where they come from, what they believe in. And that's the

01:04:26.640 only way to make sure that we don't make the same mistakes we made in the last 20 years.

01:04:30.040 thanks for coming on Shabnam

01:04:31.780 where can people find you

01:04:33.140 and your work online

01:04:34.000 follow your commentary etc

01:04:35.180 they can follow me on Twitter

01:04:36.820 at Nassimi Shabnam

01:04:39.440 most of my work is on there

01:04:41.340 but yeah

01:04:42.280 and just follow me online

01:04:44.020 all right fantastic

01:04:45.140 well thanks for coming on

01:04:46.020 and thank you all for watching at home

01:04:47.800 and listening at home

01:04:48.900 we will see you very soon

01:04:50.280 with another brilliant episode

01:04:51.380 and of course if you're on Locals

01:04:52.520 we'll ask some bonus questions

01:04:53.980 of Shabnam in a second

01:04:55.140 take care and see you soon

01:04:56.280 we hope you've enjoyed

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TRIGGERnometry - August 23, 2021

Afghanistan Crisis Explained with Shabnam Nasimi

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