前阿富汗总统卡尔扎伊谈塔利班回归与教育禁令

How do we build a good country? By divisions and conflict, or by cooperation and understanding each other's point of view, just like you do in your own country? Why should we be the only country in the world fighting it out? Hamid Karzai, who came to power in Afghanistan after 9/11 only to see the Taliban return. Are you having to consider sending your own children overseas to try and complete their education? As a father, it is my responsibility to provide them the best education, especially to girls.

But as a citizen of Afghanistan, it is also my responsibility to have my own country ready for educating girls. If I take my daughter out abroad, it will mean that we have given up on this right. From Bloomberg Weekend, this is The Mishal Husain Show. At exactly this moment 25 years ago, the summer of 2001, the 9/11 attacks was still a few weeks away. The world had not yet changed as it would that day, and the person at the center of this episode, probably at that point, had little hope of change in his country.

Afghanistan, where the Taliban group, with their hardline interpretation of Islam, had been in control for some years. But as it turned out, everything changed in Hamid Karzai's life in the weeks after 9/11 from being a little known tribal leader, he was named as his country's interim leader and was then elected president. His nearly 13 years in office were difficult on a number of fronts. Security, corruption allegations, a deteriorating relationship with Washington, and ultimately the resurgence of the Taliban who retook Afghanistan five years ago.

By then, Hamid Karzai was no longer president. But unlike most of his peers, he did not leave the country at that point. He remained in Kabul, where he still lives today, in circumstances you'll hear him describe, and which I would call a form of house arrest. He does few interviews, and in fact, he wasn't at all sure about the podcast world when we reached out. But with the 9/11 anniversary approaching, it felt like an important moment to understand what he sees as he looks back and to talk about the everyday life in Kabul now, his family, the fact that his daughters, like all Afghan girls, are banned from going to school after the age of 12.

A final note before we dive in. Bloomberg subscribers can access my written notes on this episode, and that's where you get a deeper picture of what we discussed. The extra details. Other people's views. The context around my questions and Hamid Karzai's answers. So with that, here's what happened when he joined us from his book lined study in Kabul. Hi. Mr. Karzai. How are you? You know, we have never done a podcast.

This is the first time. It's the future of media. It is. The other one that we haven't done yet is documentaries that I refuse to do. But the podcast with you is the first one and welcome. And let's hope it becomes the best. available to us. Well, I welcome you. And it's also really nice to see you wearing your cloak. I would call it a choga. I don't know what you call it in Pashto. Chapan. Both in Pashto and in Farsi.

Okay. It's beautiful. And it will be very familiar to people watching this. I was thinking that I'd like to begin with an image that has stayed with me for the last five years, and which has really come back to me this summer. And it's the image of you in August 2021. Those days of uncertainty as the Taliban were approaching Kabul and you released a video where you're standing with your three little daughters and you're asking everyone to stay calm and hoping for the best.

And I watched it again just now. And I want to know what you were thinking that day that you were not able to say. Well, things for me, they were very unexpected. Even about an hour and a half before I did that video over lunch I was arguing with my colleagues and friends that things were all right, though I had been receiving calls from all around that things were collapsing, but I did not believe it and felt that there would be some form of a conclusion to the peace process and that the state will stay, but an arrangement with the Taliban would be made for a government that includes all Afghans towards stability and peace in the country.

That didn't happen. At about 2:45 PM as I was preparing for a meeting with the ambassador of Russia was supposed to visit me at 4:00 PM. I learned that this country was empty of the responsible personnel and the state structure. The president had left. Your successor had left the country. Had left. And the presidential security service came to my house who are providing also security to me, telling me that this has happened.

Now they asked me what to do with the palace. Are you coming there? What should we do? I told them no, I'm an individual now, a citizen of the country. I have no authority to do a thing like that. But you go and hold on to the palace and protect it until someone responsible emerges at the gates and then your job is done. But then my colleagues told me that, well, that's not enough. There's this whole country that's now in uncertainty, and we must do something.

And then I thought, well the only thing, and the best thing that I can do is to stand up and call on Afghan people and both on the Taliban who are arriving and on the Republican personnel, security personnel, who are still in the country, who are still around, to protect the people and to provide security and ask the people to be strong and be vigilant. The way you're describing that day, you remember every moment, you know, and I can understand why, because it must be one of the most intense days in your life, and I know you've had many of those.

What were the girls saying to you? Because in the video, you can hear the sound of the helicopters overhead. You have that sense of something happening in the city. The younger ones were not very aware. They knew something was going on. But the older one, of course, was aware and she was worried and you know, a little scared of what would happen. Did you consider going to the airport and getting on one of those planes?

Because you could have done. No, I did not consider that. I was approached by some friendly governments a day before that and the weeks before that, that they would provide us a plane in case a thing like that happened, that me and my family would be taken out to those capitals. I refused. And have you had cause to regret that? Because five years on, as you said, the power sharing did not happen. No no, no. Women are not working.

Girls, as you know, for yourself and your own family, have to learn at home because they're not able to go to school after the age of 12. No, I rather am very happy I didn't do that. this is our home, this country, and you don't leave your home when things go difficult, you stay on and get it corrected. I know we don't have our girls studying. Women are not working, and there's a lot more that troubles the country. But this is our country, and we must build back.

And we must build back by cooperation. All of us, all the Afghan people. The Taliban are also Afghans. They belong to this country. We are also Afghans. We belong to this country. All other Afghans. Those who are in opposition to the Taliban are Afghans. We all, the opposition to the Taliban, the Taliban, and people like us who live in this country, we must all join hands and give an end to this perpetual conflict or the danger of conflict and work it out together.

So hearing you speak in that way, obviously, I'm curious about whether you are saying something is happening, a new movement. Who are the opposition that you speak of? Is this the remnants of the former Afghan National Army? People like you? What is happening that makes you think there is an era of cooperation that is coming? I'm thinking of all Afghans. I can't speak for all Afghans. Look, during my time in office, I called on the Taliban as brothers, because they belong to this country.

Because I wanted to convey to them that w