Good, bad and ugly: the Taliban and Afghanistan

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Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. Where is Morocco's king? From last year's statistics, the odds are he's abroad somewhere. Ever since he fell in with some social media savvy mixed martial artists, he hasn't shown the kind of leadership that Moroccans are increasingly clamoring for. And from the moment science fiction authors dreamed them up, portable communication devices became plot devices. But since 1977, when the mobile phone first hit screens, it's been changing. Plots, characterization, even how films are made. First up though, Right now in Afghanistan, 28 million people are in need of humanitarian aid. According to the UN three times as many as in 2020. Some 97% of Afghans live below the poverty line. A bad situation was made much, much worse in August 2021 when American troops suddenly withdrew.

This historic moment, the last US Troops have withdrawn from Afghanistan, ending America's longest war.

Military planners had hoped to pass control seamlessly to an elected government in Kabul that failed spectacularly.

What you are looking at right now is Taliban fighters inside the presidential palace.

Instead, the 20 year long conflict ended with pictures of desperate people clinging to the landing gear of a plane fleeing Kabul. The Taliban had regained control of the country. The Question had been whether the Taliban would lead as it had previously, that is to say, mercilessly and chauvinistically. The answer is now clear. The threat of amputations is back. Women and girls have been barred from work and education.

The Taliban government of Afghanistan has ordered an indefinite ban on university education for women.

Yet for all that, wholesale collapse hasn't materialized.

I was in Afghanistan late March, early April, first time since September 2021.

John Boone writes about Afghanistan for the Economist.

The main surprise was that the situation, particularly in Kabul, wasn't as bad as I'd been expecting. It's still a congested, busy city full of people. The Taliban has widened roads, it's regularizing the street hawkers, making them ply their trade and specific areas. It's got various big companies to sponsor corporate art on some of the roundabouts in the major parts of the city. So they're making a big attempt to present an image of competence and efficiency.

So how have they managed these at least surface level improvements?

Very striking is that the Taliban have managed to increase revenue from customs. It is now extremely risky to try and bribe a customs official at the border, and that has led to a huge increase in the amount of revenue that the state is getting. A very striking example of this are the money transfer service run through the hawala system. Their businesses were used to transmit the proceeds of crime, the proceeds of the narcotics industry. Under the previous government of Ashraf Ghani, there was a big attempt to reform these guys, but it never happened. Remarkably, the Taliban came in, and now it is impossible to do the traditional no questions asked, money transfers around the world. And these are huge changes which happen very quickly, as the Hawalidars told me, because if you're facing Sharia law, punishment, which might include hand amputation, then you do not take the risk of committing crime or asking for a bribe.

So you're describing a lot of organization, a lot of cleaning up and so on. But what is life like for the average Afghan person now?

I think it depends. There's definitely appreciation in those parts of the country where there was a great deal of fighting that the war is over. But overall, the economy is in desperate straits. One estimate reckons 700,000 jobs have been entirely lost. I saw some of this firsthand going to one of the food distributions run by the World Food Program.

Sometimes he doesn't eat and give to children, and sometimes when the food is so less, so they make less to eat and survive.

You know, I talked to one lady through a translator who explained that the Loss of jobs in her family had hit her extremely badly.

So he has 10,000 salary per month. So the situation was good. At least they can eat better. And she was working in school as a cleaner and.

Sorry. So what's the son doing now, Jobless? They were distributing sacks of flour, bottles of cooking oil and little pouches of salt, which was what the people that were attending would have to survive on for a month or more.

Great.

Well, thank you very much. Thank you for talking. This was a common story. I encountered it from young student called Fareed Hamad.

Yeah, sometimes we get it. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes we have team from it, but there are many people we cannot.

I met him in Wardak Province, although he was actually a student at Kabul University.

There are many people that did graduated from universities and they don't have so far any job.

So no jobs.

No jobs.

And what about the price of everything? Is everything just too expensive?

Yeah, everything is going up day by day. You know, food is so expensive here. Previous government, we have one packet of food, almost thousand Afghanistan, but now we have this kind of food. 2,000 afghanis. Yeah, it's going up.

One of the most striking examples of people living in massively straitened circumstances was a former television presenter who, since the Taliban came to power, has had to turn to prostitution when women are being pushed off the streets. But she told me she found ways to get around this by bearing her glossy shoes so that people could see them under her burqa. Although increasingly she now has a list of clients and they. They share her number with other people.

So implicit in what you're suggesting there is that the Taliban is being just as awful to women as was feared when they first came to power.

There's certainly been a lot of extremely repressive policies introduced. Women have been banned from secondary schools, from universities, from NGOs, more recently the UN and many workplaces. These measures are very bad news, particularly for aid agencies that are trying to deliver aid. And it has a huge economic impact as well because it further reduces the number of people in work. But it's not a completely monolithic movement. We know that the supreme leader, Abatullah Akanzada, he and his circle are the force behind these curbs. It's very unpopular. No one I met would justify this, including many Talibs. I talked to district governors, people in Kabul, and they would all say it's just a matter of time before kids, girls are allowed to go back to school. But Akansader is a real hardliner. He even once recruited his own son to become a suicide bomber. He has an absolute veto on policy. And for the time being, that means that it's unlikely that we're going to see any change on women and girls.

But you say the rules are deeply unpopular. Is that to say that his rules are being uniformly enforced, even by people holding their noses doing it?

Implementation of these policies is pretty haphazard. Some companies have not yet been banned from using women, particularly the big telecom companies and the banks, because in many jobs, women are absolutely essential, and the Taliban recognize that. And there's a movement to educate girls in a clandestine way.

We.

We think there are thousands of secret underground schools across the country, and I went to visit one of them in Kabul. The school was really just a single story house, a dingy room lit by a single electric light in a courtyard in a road deep in the outskirts of Kabul. Each day, about 30 girls attend for just a couple of hours, and they will do a mixture of maths, language, handicraft, and sewing. It was an inspiring sight to see these young girls taking the daily risk to go to school, but they are a minority. And the activists who brought me to the school felt that the local Taliban were turning something of a blind eye to this activity, but she feared that it wouldn't last.

So the picture that you paint is a mixed one, but it must be said the Taliban is still repressive, is at times barbaric. What's to be done to improve the lives of all of these people that you've spoken to?

The US and its allies are in a huge bind on this. They want to help the Afghan people, but it's expensive, it's unsustainable, and they're struggling to raise the money they need from donor governments around the world. Another element to this is the question of whether we should be doing more to talk directly to the Taliban. And I was struck by the number of people I met in Kabul who are by no means supporters of the Taliban, who want to see this precisely because they think it might just be possible to try and empower the more pragmatic voices, particularly on issues like girls education, and to try and sideline the hardliners. They all recognize that this might be wishful thinking, but there's a sense among these people that the current policy is not working. And if we want to help the women of Afghanistan, the people of Afghanistan, then the Taliban is just a reality that's going to have to be dealt with.

John, thank you very much for your time.

Thank you very much.

A crisis is brewing in Morocco and an absentee king and his entourage are at the heart of it. But to tell the story of Morocco's 54 year old monarch, Mohammed VI, or M6, as some call him, I need to start by telling you about some of his friends.

Nicholas Pelham is a Middle east correspondent for the Economist.

Abu Al Zeita is a 32 year old mixed martial arts or MMA champion, as well as a veteran of the German prison system. Abu and his identical twin Omar come from a small town called Frechen on the outskirts of Cologne. A lot of big support today in the arena from Morocco and from Germany. You know, I born, I was born in Germany, I raised in Germany. Their parents originally came from the Reef mountains in Morocco's north, populated largely by the country's indigenous Berbers. The Azeiters emigrated under Germany's Gastarbeiter program, a visa scheme introduced after the Second World War when the West German government wanted cheap temporary foreign labour. As it turned out, two of the quickest ways to escape the Gastarbeiter underclass were crime and sport. The Isaita brothers pursued both vocations. As teenagers, they got involved in the violent fringes of Cologne's nightclub scene. Abu later admitted to a German newspaper that he was beating people up and robbing them, as he put it, almost every day. In 2004, he was sentenced to two years in prison for taking part in an attack on a businessman who was doused in lighter fuel before they took his Ferrari. Abu was back in court shortly after his release for punching his girlfriend at a Christmas market and puncturing her eardrum. Everybody makes shit, you know, like when we are young, everybody do something wrong, you know. Afterwards he threw himself into sport, first kickboxing, then mma. His younger brother Othman was a competitive MMA fighter. Abu's twin Omar managed them both. Five years ago, it caught many by surprise when Morocco's king began fraternizing with the Azaitas. King Mohammed reportedly took the Aziters cruising on the Lusail, the Qatari emir's yacht, and parted with them in the Seychelles. Spanish media have reported the King has lent them his own private jets. And over the last five years, Abu's MMA matches have grown rarer. He seemed to prefer the palace to the ring. Nobody knows what gonna happen tomorrow and you know, we get older and our power gone and the money goes and you never know what become tomorrow and we have to work for the future.

And I have to make my family proud.

He's been given some official duties, such as heading up a sports association and the Azaitas have also joined the king's itinerant household. The cage fighters installed a gym in the palace, and the king started to work out. The king, who was somewhat overweight at the time he met the brothers, has suffered from asthma and pulmonary complaints. As the workouts progressed, his face began to lose its puffiness, and he looked increasingly relaxed, almost fit. A former friend spoke of how the king, as he put it, has made it pretty clear to all his ministers that the Azaitas can speak on his behalf. Abu even had the royal coat of arms sewn into his garments. Morocco is regarded as one of the Arab world's successors. It has a thriving car industry, and its medieval souks and tranquil riads beguile Western tourists. Morocco seems to have all the charm of the Middle east and none of its turmoil. Some academics believe that the institution of monarchy helped Morocco avoid the revolutions that swept the Arab world in 2011. Unlike the presidents of neighboring republics, the king could quickly introduce reforms while still representing stability and continuity. But Morocco's 37 million people face the same problems now that have roiled so much of the Arab world over the past decade insufficient jobs, soaring inflation and oppressive security services. Turbulence might well be on the horizon, and the king, insiders say, is hardly to be seen. One former official estimates that the king was out of the country for 200 days last year, and he's been gone for much of this year. In Gabon, he liked to travel and take holidays before he met the Al Zeiters. But the tendency appears to become much more pronounced since he met them darting from the Moroccan countryside to West Africa to Paris. In theory, Morocco has a constitutional monarchy. In reality, King Mohammed has the final say on every matter of importance, and without him, the country's political factions tend to descend into impotent bickering. And yet Muhammad is the most publicity shy of Middle east leaders. Since becoming king in 1999, he's never hosted a press conference or given a television interview. When he has to give a public address on throne Day, he can fumble his words. His demeanor, down to the T shirts and trainers he wears, suggests a desire to be something other than a ruler. King Mohammed's approach differs significantly from that of his late father, Hassan ii. Hassan was an imposing figure. He was never happier than when grandstanding at Arab summits with a cigarette in his hand. And King Hassan also exercised regal power to the full and was feared for it. He corralled the mahzin, the governing institution in Morocco, into punishing his enemies. He hung subjects up from their ankles in secret prisons. King Muhammad grew up in the shadow of his demanding and sometimes terrifying father. He was educated at a college built especially for him. His father wanted Mohammed to feel the pressure of competition, so he filled his son's school with 12 classmates, hand picked for their brilliance. According to Le Roi Predeterre, a biography of Mohammed published by two French journalists, Hassan was once heard ordering his henchmen to give his son 20 lashes. And when he seemed to be falling behind with his studies, he excelled at languages and went abroad shortly after finishing his master's in public law in Rabat. Officially, he was interning at the European Commission, but Europe's nightlife seems to have appealed to him more than its committee rooms. The king's dissatisfaction with his son grew, a chromosome error, he was once reported to have remarked in despair. Hassan died in July 1999. Mohammed dutifully cried during the funeral procession, but friends sensed that a load had been lifted. For a while, it seemed as though he was destined to become an energetic, modernizing king. He reformed the madawina, the Islamic legal code, making it easier for women to divorce their husbands. He built a network of motorways and railways across the country. And yet Muhammad's enthusiasm for ruling Wayne during his first two years in power, the mohsen seemed to have hemmed him in, and the old desire to thumb his nose at authority returned. Morocco, meanwhile, was becoming restive. If the mahsin could be represented by a single person, that might well be Abdel Latif Alhamouchi. He's Morocco's security czar, and he has rolled back many of the liberal reforms the first years of Mohammed's reign. Morocco's security services have long used coercive methods to silence critics. But Hamouchi's reign is associated with one practice in sexual blackmail. In February 2020, when they sent videos of me with my fiance in our.

Bed to about 100 people on WhatsApp.

Kouad Abdelmomeni is a retired economist and expert in micro financing. He was also once caught up in a case of sexual blackmail. Blackmail is one of the main tools.

That the police services are using against activists in Morocco to make them shut their mouth.

The king's distractedness was causing problems. Many Moroccans assumed that Hamuchi had been collecting evidence on the azaitas. The question was not whether Hamuchi had dirt on the brothers, some Moroccans thought, but how he would use it. The first indication that the mahsen was fighting back against those it held responsible for diverting the king's attention came in December 2020 when an article appeared about the brothers in the Moroccan press. Balaman is a website that tows the Mahsin's line. One of its headlines the bad reputation of the Azeito trio. It described them as notorious crooks. Trooftv broadcast footage of the brothers pushing themselves to the front of a queue at a government hospital. Few doubt that Hamuchi's agents are involved. If the stories about the Azaitas were intended to shame the king into resuming a traditional role, they've backfired. He was too indisposed to attend Queen Elizabeth II's funeral in London, or the Arab League summit in Algeria, or Mareko's string of successes at the World Cup. Though he did drive through the streets of Rabat to celebrate with fans. It is likely that if the Mahzoum wants its king back, it will have to accept his terms and embrace the Isaiters. The Mahsen is unlikely to meekly accept such a move. Hassan security chiefs tried twice to overthrow him. A military coup is not impossible. The unknown variable in all these calculations is the dynamic. On the streets you feel you're living on a powder keg, one insider told me. Moments like this call for leadership, but Mohammed and the brothers have gone to the beach.

Our correspondent Nicholas Palam on the Moroccan monarchy. The Economist put the allegations made by Nicholas to both the Azaitars and the Moroccan government, but received no response.

It's April 3, 1973, and Martin Cooper, the chief inventor at Martin Motorola, is standing on a street in Manhattan.

John Bleasdale writes about films for the Economist.

He holds in his hand a bulky, heavy object which will be nicknamed the shoe or the brick in the years to come. And telephones his rival at the AT&T Telecoms firm. He told his rival. And so the first mobile phone call was made to troll his competitor and rival. The dream of mobile communication had long been forecast by TV shows, radio, comic strips and books. Mr. Cooper himself said that Dick Tracy came as an inspiration with his two way wrist radio. But other mobile phone progenitors can be seen in the TV series Star Trek, when Captain Kirk and the crew of the Starship Enterprise asked to be beamed up.

Beam me aboard. Energize. Energize.

When mobile phones first became commercially available, they were something of a luxury item, costing almost $4,000 in 1984. And so in movies, mobile phones were an indicator of wealth and privilege. The first to wield a mobile phone on screen was Michael Douglas in the Oliver Stone film Wall street in 1977, he played Gordon Gekko, the iconic financier of Wall street, the villain of feral capitalism who famously proclaimed, the point is.

Ladies and gentlemen, that greedy, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works.

Entering the 90s, phones are still expensive, but more readily available. Alicia Silverstone's Scher and her friends in the classic Rom com Clueless carry their mobile phones as a vital tool for social communication as well as a fashion accessory and status symbol.

I'll call you, okay?

Phone companies now saw the opportunities of product placement in movies. The most obvious of which comes with the Nokia 8110, which features in the Matrix. The phone had been modified especially for the film with a spring loaded front pad which ejected to reveal the keypad below. Sales were boosted by the film's popularity, despite the phone being relatively expensive. As technology improved, phones became sleeker and smaller. Size was the thing. This movement was parodied in Ben Stiller's Zoolander when his dopey supermodel Derek Zulander that wields a telephone so small, it's about the size of his finger.

Turn off my phone. Turn off my phone.

One genre of movies which featured phones in a problematic way were the horror movies of the era. Horror movies depend upon characters being isolated and the mobile phone was a technological innovation which withdrew the that major threat.

We gotta be in some kind of sunspot or something. There's no signal getting out.

97% nationwide coverage and we find ourselves in that 3% no bars. I hate this help.

The line my phone is dead quickly became a cliche of the genre. But it wasn't just horror films. Films involving espionage spy thrillers have always been up to to date with cutting edge technology. For years, James Bond has had the latest in telephony. Whether it was a car phone in From Russia with Love or the new high tech software which allowed him to remotely drive his car in Tomorrow Never Dies. The Bourne Identity showed a group of sleeper agents being activated to go and assassinate the titular hero via text messages as well as in front of the camera, behind the camera. Mobile phones have had an impact on cinema. Filmmakers such as Sean Baker have shot entire movies on their iPhones. Hey, Alexander, come here. In his case, the film was called Tangerine and came out in 2015.

He's back on the block.

Oh yeah, she's back, she's back and she's going hard.

Several films have been concentrating on the phones themselves and the history of their development. Most recently, BlackBerry is arguably the first biopic of a mobile phone, choosing as its subject the mobile phone made famous by President Barack Obama when he entered the White House. It's only a matter of time before iPhone the Motion Picture is hitting our screens. And if anybody ever feels like writing an origin story for the mobile phone, then surely a scene with Martin Cooper on a street in Manhattan phoning his rival must be a key moment.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence if you're not a subscriber to the Economist, you're really missing out. But dive in with the deal. We've got at the Moment, a free 30 day digital subscription. Just go to economist.com com intelligenceoffer or click the link in the Show Notes. We'll see you back here tomorrow.