Career opportunities with the Taliban
This small, determined force of perhaps just 75,000 has recently taken over Afghanistan, displacing the government supported by the US, UK and many other nations, which have invested some US$1?trillion (1, 000, 000, 000, 000) over the past 20 years in building up an independent nation.?The approximate human cost of this conflict: 111,000 Afghan civilians killed or injured since 2009; since 2001 maybe over 64,000 Afghan military and police killed; since 2001 more than 3,500 coalition deaths including more than 2,300 US soldiers and 20,660 US soldiers injured.[1] 457 UK troops died and there were 616 serious UK casualties.[2] ??Despite this, Amnesty’s most recent annual report on Afghanistan makes dismal reading.[3] By way of background, UK troops invaded in Afghanistan in 1839-1842[4] and 1878-80, and in 1919 Afghan troops attacked then British India. Kabul is over 3,500 miles from London.[5]
It’s not immediately apparent what ‘the Taliban’ does – despite 30 years in and around the headlines. They have no website nor mission statement (or at least I can’t access them[6]), and they don’t advertise on LinkedIn.?Just now, faced with the challenges of running an entire country, I guess they will need to do ‘everything’, which should generate significant employment opportunities. Prior to takeover, in the areas they controlled they established a shadow administration that included courts, taxation, education, and other services.[7]
Previously, they were estimated to have an annual income of perhaps $1.5 billion per annum, from opium cultivation, mining, and overseas ‘charitable donations’.[8]?However, they appear to be neither miners nor farmers, and so their income seems to be derived principally from ‘taxation’ – ie the threat of violence if payment is not forthcoming.?Farming and mining entail very fixed assets, so are ripe for extortion since producers cannot move. All taxation is ultimately coerced, although in the UK non-payment is met only with shame,[9] fines, confiscation orders and possibly imprisonment,[10] rather than violence.
In terms of activities and promotion opportunities, as of 2012, “the Taliban operates in a layered, hierarchical structure. The lower tiers, although largely autonomous, answer to a top level that ensures cohesiveness and large operational capacities. […] Preaching, propaganda, intimidation, targeting and the use of violence are the tools applied […] to gain influence and control over growing areas of Afghan soil.”[11] So, broadly, it looks as if the basic income-generating work entails intimidation and extortion. ?Pay and conditions do not look good: perhaps $10 per day for fighters in 2010.[12]
It’s unclear what the new regime will do in terms of imposing social values, but it does not appear likely to be liberal or democratic.[13]?Spokesman Dr Suhail Shaheen has sketched out a peaceful future.[14] But the enormities of their 1996 to 2001 time in power are well-known,[15] and more recent reports regarding the areas they control do not bode well, in terms of women’s rights and girls’ education (it looks as though women are, more or less, placed under house arrest), access to justice, and basic personal liberties (even unto haircuts, dress, TV, music, owning a smartphone).[16]
Perhaps the Taliban’s values are not your values??Well, how tolerant are you, and how do your values limit your career choices??If you think UK culture is too ‘woke’, are the Taliban too extreme for you? Or alternatively, if you think you are liberal, what is the extent of your toleration??Where and how do you draw the line? If the Taliban are beyond the pale, are you keen to promote cancer, or obesity, or pollution and climate change, or, simply, death? ?At one point, I worked for clients that made cigarettes, fizzy sugary drinks, petroleum, and military missiles…?All these are legal activities and everyone is entitled to a lawyer (in countries respecting the rule of law at least) and I had bills to pay and certain aspirations (OK!)?There is an interesting trade-off between income and values.?Would you be willing to have sex with Robert Redford for $1?million?[17] ?Or would you work for charity for a minimum wage? So where, between those extremes (maybe not so extreme; he is an attractive man), do you place your price point? As we know, markets will find a clearing price for anything.[18]?
If you are still keen, how do you even apply to join the Taliban? There appear to be significant hurdles. Alongside the usual difficulties of travel during Covid, the Taliban is a proscribed organisation subject to sanctions[19], which means that you may be committing a criminal offence, possibly even treason, under UK law if you seek to join, and you may risk losing UK citizenship.[20]
If you did make it to Afghanistan, you are likely to have to dispel suspicions of being a spy, and so may also be at significant personal risk if your application does not go well. The Taliban do not appear to be an equal opportunities employer, so there may be limited roles if you are female and particular difficulties if you are LGBTQ+. If you are reading this, you are unlikely to be in their target recruitment pool: “in general, the local operational cell is the base of recruitment. The Taliban rely on family and clan loyalty, tribal ties, personal friendships, social and religious networks, madrassas and communal interests. Though exceptions exist, Taliban commanders normally recruit fighters within their own tribe. The tribal organisation, although weakened through the years of conflict, remains deeply rooted in the Pashtun communities that still provide by far the most Taliban ranks.”[21]?However, they are in need of more people who are able to read and write for the expansion of their communication and propaganda efforts. New and more advanced weapon systems require more technical knowledge and there is the need for more educated medical staff. So, engineering and medical students, especially, are wanted by the Taliban.[22]?
Given all these barriers, the prospects are not looking good (though far be it from me to crush your dreams[23]). ?If you are still interested, then I suggest that if you can’t join them, beat them.?I imagine that the UK government shares your interest, so if you are good at puzzles and there are not too many embarrassing pictures of you on the internet, you could try applying to the UK Secret Intelligence Service. It does have a website, a D&I policy, and more regular hours.[24] ?I don’t know about the pay, though.
Notes:
[3] https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/asia-and-the-pacific/south-asia/afghanistan/report-afghanistan/
[4] See William Dalrymple’s ‘Return of a King’, 2013.?
[5] Nearly 4,700 miles by road, and it should take you 85 hours, traffic permitting, according to the ever-optimistic Google maps.
[6] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/taliban-websites-go-offline-broader-tech-crackdown-rcna1735
[7] Antonio Giustozzi and Christoph Reuter, “The Insurgents of the Afghan North,” Afghanistan Analysts Network, April 2011 https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2012/10/AAN-2011-Northern-Insurgents.pdf?
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[8] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-46554097??The Taliban don’t publish accounts.
[11]??https://easo.europa.eu/file/10087/download?token=IWlr1Bg0??2012 report of European Asylum Support Office. Executive Summary page 9. I have no insight on promotion opportunities, beyond fiction: (Scarface, The Wire), and possibly Chapter 3 in ‘Freakonomics’ (Levitt and Dubner, Penguin 2006) “Why do drug dealers still live with their Moms?” They reported that the corporate structure and economics of a Chicago crack-cocaine dealing gang were similar to those of the McDonalds burger chain.
[13] https://www.ft.com/content/d30d1991-252e-4060-aa98-b5831e3f470c
[14] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJg2q4-2C8I??See also interview with former Taliban Ambassador Abdul Salam Zaeef?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9SO0tZQMPs
[15] This programme feature interviews with Marzi Babakarkhail, a female judge forced to flee by the Taliban: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct2kyg
[16] https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/06/30/you-have-no-right-complain/education-social-restrictions-and-justice-taliban-held#_ftn116
[18] https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/competition-sustainability-we-bad-guys-mark-bethell/ ?I wrote there that markets are ‘amoral’.?I don’t think that is quite right, since markets have human actors – so they have the morality of the person who is willing to provide a service or product at the lowest price.?It might be that there is no one, but it was not the lack of willing traders that lead to the abolition of the slave trade.
[19] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/afghanistan-sanctions-guidance/afghanistan-sanctions-guidance#prohibitions-and-requirements-imposed-by-the-afghanistan-sanctions-eu-exit-regulations-2020
[21] 2012 report of European Asylum Support Office. Page 25
[22] Ibid p 26
[23] What would Lewis Hamilton do??“[D]on’t listen to anybody that tells you you can’t achieve something. Dream the impossible and speak it into existence. You’ve got to work for it. You’ve got to chase it and you’ve got to never give up and never doubt yourself.”?https://f1chronicle.com/lewis-hamilton-inspires-others-to-dream-f1-opinion/?Now he certainly wasn’t talking about joining the Taliban, but what is the limit for an acceptable dream?