As an Afghan-born Australian woman, I am devastated

Displaced Afghans sit in a tent at a makeshift IDP camp in Kabul, Afghanistan. Picture: Getty Images

I have just received a message from a dear friend. Five lines that read: “It is over. Kabul falling. Devastated. Working on an evac­uation of girls. Airport closing.”

For me, an Afghan-born Australian woman and one of the few, if not the only one, who can claim successful renunciation of Afghan citizenship by the decree of the president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, the past 72 hours have been devastating, to say the least.

Not a single day goes by where small acts do not remind me to be grateful for the safety and security of Australia and how different life would have been if my mother had not fled with a single suitcase and four children, aged five and under, in 1989.

Whether it’s catching a glimpse of my bare ankles to putting on white socks, I am constantly reminded of the horrors the Taliban imposed on Afghan women and girls. Bare ankles and white socks were just two legitimate reasons for the public caning of women as these aroused sexual desire in the Taliban.

News of girls as young as 12 being used as Taliban sex slaves has horrified me as a mother of an 11-year-old daughter who can easily pass for a 15-year-old. These 12-year-old girls are President Joe Biden’s collateral damage. A small price to pay for his self-imposed September 11 deadline. Biden’s hasty retreat from Afghanistan makes no strategic sense. Surely his administration understands how bad this looks for the US and its allies, including Australia. Why, then, is he continuing down this rapid path to destruction of any minuscule gain the free world made in that region over the past 20 year of investment, of lives lost, of time wasted?

The only logical answer is the appeasement of China. China has always played the long game. An evolved hegemon, the Chinese Communist Party does not see any benefit in military intervention when it can simply make investments in all kinds of critical infrastructure around the globe, from roads, rail and telecommunications to hospitals and tertiary institutions.

We only have to look at our own backyard to understand the extent of China’s covert influence and deep reach. While economically developed, Australia is young and still playing catch-up with the rest of the developed world. It therefore is understandable that Chinese investment initiatives such as the Belt and Road scheme have been welcomed by some state governments.

If Australia, a developed nation, can fall prey to China’s investment tentacles, what hope does a war-ravaged country such as Afghanistan have?

In recent weeks while we have all been following the Tokyo Olympics, there was another set of games taking place; games that began far earlier under the guise of peace talks – Taliban talks with Russia and former Russian states that border Afghanistan, and talks with senior CCP officials.

This week Scott Morrison said there was no place more complex than Afghanistan. He’s not wrong. It is complex, geopolitically and culturally. Afghanistan long has been dubbed the “graveyard of empires”. But it has become a plaything of the world: a game plan masterminded by Russia, still sore over its defeat in the Cold War; funded by China, which has much to gain from the strategic geographic location of Afghanistan; and executed by Pakistan, which gains legitimacy through Afghanistan’s demise.

Pakistan will crumble under the pressure of mass exodus from Afghanistan. China and Russia are the only countries that remain to gain from this game. But the world underestimates Taliban 2.0. This version of the Taliban is far better funded, no longer led by a one-eyed, uneducated sage, and it has been planning this takeover for 20 years across the border in Pakistan.

The Taliban will be the world’s Frankenstein monster – a monster we allowed to thrive in Pakistan with the support of the Pakistan government, which still has not received so much as a slap on the wrist for its incubation of terrorism.

While we are grateful for our safety and security today, the next September 11-style attack on our freedoms is not far away. Australia’s greatest strategic partner in the region, India, is at significant risk and so are we. Australia cannot go it alone without the US. The fate of the entire free world lies in the hands of a seemingly senile man who has thus far left a lot to be desired: Biden.

Mina Zaki is a former citizen of Afghanistan and is now an Australian citizen. She was the Liberal candidate for the seat of Canberra at the 2019 federal election.