After the second seizure of power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban started to build an Islamism-based state, similarly to their first reign in the second half of the 1990s. Islamism was an unconditional priority in the Taliban’s ideology. The establishment of the Sharia-based system in its conservative interpretation became the Taliban’s aim. During both periods of their reign, Islamist motivation defined the policy of restrictions against women’s rights (in the contemporary sense), increasing clericalization of the state institutions, prevention of splits in society and imposition of strict moral rules. A vast majority of the Taliban’s approaches to the socio-political issues have been renewed after their return to power. However, since August 2021 the Taliban has demonstrated relative leniency in regard to the Islamic punishments, compared to their first reign. Despite the Taliban’s apparent ideological and practical propensity to Islamism, a vast majority of their militants were and are ethnic Pashtuns from the southern area of Afghanistan, where local tribal traditions still exist. At the level of rhetoric, the Taliban perceives ethnic divisions negatively. In practice their policy is Pashtun-oriented but framed by Islamic values and slogans. Similarly, the Taliban elites prefer to rely on representatives of their own ethnic or tribal (in case of Pashtuns) group in the administration of state institutions. Despite the Taliban’s attempts to solve the issue of Afghanistan’s ethnic complexity and diversity using Islam as a consolidating ideology, ethnic factor still remains evident in the country’s public life.
Nikolay Sazhenov (Wed,) studied this question.