The Taliban in America December 22, 2022 Dr. Roger Ray
It was disappointing but not surprising that the Afghan Taliban decided to ban all women from higher education. It has been just over 10 years since the Pakistani, Malala Yousafzai, was shot in the face by a Taliban assassin in retaliation for the 15-year-old’s advocacy for educational access for women. She had become the world’s most famous teenager and even won a Nobel Peace Prize as the civilized world turned its ire towards the Taliban’s blatant misogyny.
Ending the American occupation of Afghanistan was overdue and though there were loud objections from some quarters when President Biden moved quickly in 2020 to make good on his campaign promise to get out of Afghanistan, it was impossible to build a cogent case in defense of staying. For our military departure, we exacted promises from the Taliban that they would not take away civil rights from women, including access to education, and they would not allow the Afghan wilderness to again become a retreat for terrorists.
For religious extremists, honesty has never seemed to be a cherished value, and other than the financial limitations that come with global condemnation, they have not been much concerned with their status as a pariah of the world. Their misogyny is not, realistically, inspired by Islam. Had it not been for Muhamad’s literate wife, Aisha, “the Mother of Believers,” there never would have been a Quran. Far be it from me (or anyone else) to speak for the prophet, but I’m pretty sure that Muhamad’s view of the Taliban would be one of summary rejection.
It's not Islam, and it doesn’t take Freud to see their misogyny as fear of the power of an educated woman. But beyond the obvious civil rights issues, economically, how can any country hope to compete in a global economy based on innovation and technology when they remove, ipso facto, half of their population’s talent and intellect? What was obvious to almost everyone in the west when we got the news of this tragic decision by the Taliban, is that their future now looks bleak and they are destined to remain an impoverished, undeveloped country in which the population will be vulnerable to every bump in the road of food production and distribution, and the advances of life enhancing technologies. By keeping half of their population from advanced education, they have become their own worst enemies, cutting off any path towards improvement of their standard of living and place in the world. The Taliban have arranged to stay in power, but their rule will be over an increasingly poor and vulnerable country.
As important as this self-immolating move in Afghanistan is, this is not an article about the Taliban. I’m just mentioning them to make the point that restricting access to higher education to half of your population is a form of national suicide. It is obvious to us because such blatant gender prejudice is so foreign to us, a hurdle we largely got over in our grandparent’s generation.
So, since America is well beyond closing our universities to one gender, does that mean that every American has access to higher education? Sure, in the same way that we are all able to go buy a new Mercedes GLC. You have every right to buy an expensive luxury car as long as you have the money to pay for it. That’s fair, isn’t it? No one has a right to have a luxury car given to them, so, most of us find a way to do without one, or, for that matter, any new car, and about 10% of us don’t even have the ability to buy an older used car. Earning even a state university degree can cost $50,000 and a private “elite” university? The sky is the limit.
We don’t say that half of our population cannot attend a college or university but only about 37% of us hold a university degree. Sure, everyone doesn’t want to go, and everyone doesn’t need to go, but when we ask ourselves who is going to be the next generation’s Einstein, Curie, Steven Weinberg, or Walter Willett, can we ignore the 63% of our population who never sat in a university science classroom? What if our most talented potential medical researchers, physicists, chemists, or inventors are not given access to the education that would form the basis for their later important contributions to the world? What if we, by refusing to make higher education tuition free, are doing the same thing, in effect, as the Taliban is doing in Afghanistan, preventing more than half of our population from keeping us competitive in the world’s markets? Why, after all, do you believe that the list of countries that have made higher education tuition free includes: Argentina, Austria, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Kenya, Luxemburg, Malaysia, Norway, Panama, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, and Uruguay and a half a dozen more are close to deciding to offer universal higher education?
Why does the USA continue to raise higher and higher barriers to education through increased costs? Forgiving all current student debt in the USA would be very expensive but, in fact, it would cost less than half of what our 18-year war in Afghanistan cost us and which, do you believe, would be the best for the American economy? Clearly, whatever keeps us from making higher education available to all Americans, it isn’t the cost. As the saying goes, if you think education is expensive, you need to consider the cost of ignorance.
The Taliban are afraid of the power of an educated woman. Their male dominated society can only survive if women remain captive to their oppressive laws and values. One need only to consider the challenges that a similarly conservative government in Iran is now facing from the educated women in their country to realize that change, while it may come slowly, is now inevitable.
So, who benefits from restricting access to education in the United States? Where can we see the face of the Taliban in our country? In our nation, national elections are typically decided by just 51% of the vote, so subtle differences in voting habits will decide our future elections and political pundits look at voters from every angle including urban and rural, black, white, Latino, and other. They factor in gender, religion, sexual orientation, class, and nation of origin. But the one factor that seems to cut across all of those classic identifiers is education. The more education a voter has, the more likely they are to vote for a Democrat. If we got to even 45% of the voting public holding a college degree, Republicans would never win an election again. Only by making it increasingly difficult to obtain a bachelor’s degree do Republicans have any hope of holding power in the future.
The Taliban government in Afghanistan is very eager to rebuild their economy and to be competitive in world trade but they are even more eager to maintain political control and they know that they won’t be able to do that if women are educated. In that sense, the Taliban and the Republican Party are singing off the same page of they hymnal. Keeping Americans from being informed is the only way Republicans can remain relevant unless, of course, they choose instead to change their policies and platforms in a way that would make them more attractive to educated voters which, in this writer’s opinion is what they should do to save themselves and to keep America competitive on the world stage.
