Resumo de The Taliban - PETER MARSDEN

Written at the end of 1997, barely a year after the Taliban
took Kabul,
this study is obviously somewhat dated. It is also rather slender, but fits
quite a bit into its 150 pages. It offers a decent overview of the historical
and religious background to the Taliban, and it considers some ethical and
practical issues in their relationship with outside organizations and states.
Marsden also has a unique perspective, having worked for eight years as an NGO
coordinator for Afghanistan,
and covers some topics that are often ignored.

Marsden begins with a general history of the area, starting with the
Achaemenids but only going into detail with the twentieth century: with king
Zahir Shah, who ruled for forty years to 1973, the 1978 coup by the People''s
Democratic Party of Afghanistan, and the Soviet invasion. He then describes the
various Mujahidin parties, their backing by Pakistan, Iran,
Saudi Arabia, and the United States,
and the conflicts between them that followed the Russian withdrawal. This is
the background to an account of the rise of the Taliban, from their first
appearance in Kandahar
in December 1994 down to the time of writing (December 1997). This concentrates
on events within Afghanistan;
a final chapter looks at regional politics, at relationships with Pakistan, Iran, and the central Asian states,
and at the complications of oil pipelines and narcotics.

Three chapters focus on the Taliban ideology or creed. Marsden describes its
basic features, but stresses ways in which it is not as fixed as sometimes
perceived: there are drastic differences, for example, between the Taliban
treatment of the populations of Kabul and Herat and those of
traditional rural areas. He considers connections to outside movements ? the
Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Saudi Wahhabism, the Iranian Revolution, and South
Asian sources such as the Deoband school and Maududi ? and locally to
traditional Afghan Islam and Pushtunwali, the moral code of the Pathans.
He makes no attempt, however, to provide a general introduction to Islam.

Three chapters address issues in the conflict of cultures in interactions
between the Taliban and the international community, especially the West. The
first looks at Taliban gender policies and the problems these have posed,
especially for agencies working in education; the second looks at the Taliban''s
relationship with humanitarian agencies more generally; and the third considers
their broader relations with the international community, especially with the
United Nations (and ideologically with the Declaration of Human Rights), the
European Union, and the United States. Marsden concludes by suggesting that aid
agencies should try to build a business relationship focused on
negotiations over specific problems, avoiding the constraints of abstract
notions.

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