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Hypocrisy at the heart of the Taliban : The Guardian
Waiting in a television studio for his turn to read the news, Shahbaddin Tarakhil seems the most western of his colleagues. He speaks English, flirts with anything in a burqa and wears jeans, a black leather jacket and an Errol Flynn moustache.
Waiting in a television studio for his turn to read the news, Shahbaddin Tarakhil seems the most western of his colleagues. He speaks English, flirts with anything in a burqa and wears jeans, a black leather jacket and an Errol Flynn moustache.
The Taliban soldiers who roamed the corridors are gone and Shahbaddin intends to use radio and television to report on and contribute to Afghanistan's rebuilding. He will not broadcast the fact that he was a Taliban mullah.
From the day he stood on his roof and watched the dust from their pickups blow towards Kabul for the first time, he served the Islamic regime. He led Taliban soldiers in prayer and guided them on patrols around a city he knew well. He was their Mr Fix-it.
Since the Northern Alliance blew back into Kabul last month Shahbaddin, 27, has been fixing himself. The goatee - he could never muster a full beard - vanished with his black turban and out came the jeans and a new haircut. Meeting his colleagues and neighbours, it is clear that his integration into a new society has been a success. They do not know or do not care about his past. The few other Taliban who stayed rather than fled south have been as successful, says Shahbaddin.
"Nobody challenges us, nobody shouts. We have had no problems. People understand that we did what we did to be able to live under the Taliban." Three other former Taliban interviewed for this article - a lorry driver, a tank mechanic and wheat merchant - said they, too, were comfortable staying in Kabul.
How a regime which seemed so solid evaporated so quickly has puzzled many, but not Shahbaddin. Where the west saw fanatical warriors willing to kill and die for an Islamic utopia, he saw frauds and hypocrites hungry for dollars. For five years he served the Taliban, but he is safe from retribution. Kabul distinguishes between "real" Taliban, hicks from the south who beat and robbed, and those neighbours who collaborated to make a living. In Shahbaddin's district, Qalai Zaman Khan, not one person would tell the Guardian which houses belongedto those whom the Northern Alliance briefly jailed last month as collaborators. "That is history, we are neighbours now, so just forget it," one said.
Shahbaddin said he knew the Taliban were destined for oblivion and was low-key about his activities. "Before cycling into my neighbourhood I used to stick the turban in a plastic bag."
Neither his father, a retired civil servant, nor his mother, a housewife, wanted him to join a movement they considered vile, but he argued that his Pashtun ethnicity was a passport to opportunities. Today they agree he was right.
From the day he stood on his roof and watched the dust from their pickups blow towards Kabul for the first time, he served the Islamic regime. He led Taliban soldiers in prayer and guided them on patrols around a city he knew well. He was their Mr Fix-it.
Since the Northern Alliance blew back into Kabul last month Shahbaddin, 27, has been fixing himself. The goatee - he could never muster a full beard - vanished with his black turban and out came the jeans and a new haircut. Meeting his colleagues and neighbours, it is clear that his integration into a new society has been a success. They do not know or do not care about his past. The few other Taliban who stayed rather than fled south have been as successful, says Shahbaddin.
"Nobody challenges us, nobody shouts. We have had no problems. People understand that we did what we did to be able to live under the Taliban." Three other former Taliban interviewed for this article - a lorry driver, a tank mechanic and wheat merchant - said they, too, were comfortable staying in Kabul.
How a regime which seemed so solid evaporated so quickly has puzzled many, but not Shahbaddin. Where the west saw fanatical warriors willing to kill and die for an Islamic utopia, he saw frauds and hypocrites hungry for dollars. For five years he served the Taliban, but he is safe from retribution. Kabul distinguishes between "real" Taliban, hicks from the south who beat and robbed, and those neighbours who collaborated to make a living. In Shahbaddin's district, Qalai Zaman Khan, not one person would tell the Guardian which houses belongedto those whom the Northern Alliance briefly jailed last month as collaborators. "That is history, we are neighbours now, so just forget it," one said.
Shahbaddin said he knew the Taliban were destined for oblivion and was low-key about his activities. "Before cycling into my neighbourhood I used to stick the turban in a plastic bag."
Neither his father, a retired civil servant, nor his mother, a housewife, wanted him to join a movement they considered vile, but he argued that his Pashtun ethnicity was a passport to opportunities. Today they agree he was right.