Let us take a moment to appreciate the sheer, breathtaking efficiency of the Taliban’s economic policy. They have, in record time, reimagined the nation as a giant, dusty pawn shop where children are the preferred currency. Reports now filter out of Kabul of fathers selling their own daughters, their sons, their very futures, just to keep the wolf from the door. Or rather, the wolf has already moved in, redecorated, and is now charging rent.
One can almost hear the frantic bargaining in the bazaars. ‘How much for this one? She has a good set of lungs, very useful for crying over the price of bread.’ ‘This boy? Strong. Can carry sacks of rice until his spine gives out at age 12.’ It is a grotesque inversion of the ancient trade of the souk, where now the most valuable commodity is a heartbeat that hasn’t yet stopped.
The statistics are a dirge: more than half the population facing acute hunger, unemployment above 80 per cent, and a banking system that has more in common with a Monopoly game where someone has already eaten all the hotels. The Taliban, in their infinite wisdom, have achieved what Western sanctions and decades of war could not: they have made survival a luxury good.
Meanwhile, the government’s central bank governor has fled, presumably with the last notes of value tucked into his trousers. The nation’s reserves are frozen, its people frozen in a tableau of desperation. On the streets, men who once fought as soldiers now fight for scraps of bread. It is a cycle of absurdity that would make a Monty Python sketch seem like a documentary.
But let us not be too harsh. The Taliban have a plan. They are, as ever, committed to the principles of Islamic law, which apparently includes a new clause: ‘Thou shalt sell thy children for a loaf of naan, for the cupboard is bare and the IMF hath forsaken us.’ It is a theology of last resort, a faith based on empty pockets.
The international community wrings its hands, sends a few more crates of red tape, and arranges its features into expressions of deep concern. But the fathers of Afghanistan do not need concern. They need money, food, and a miracle that is not currently in stock. They have resorted to the oldest profession in the book not selling bodies but selling the bodies they brought into this world.
This, dear reader, is the Taliban’s economic miracle. It is a miracle of misery, a miracle of desperation, a miracle that turns parents into peddlers of their own progeny. The only growth industry in Afghanistan is grief. And business, as they say, is booming.
