RASC News Agency: Dr. Batool Haidari, a distinguished Afghanistani psychologist, has asserted that the Taliban are gripped by an inferiority complex and pervasive feelings of humiliation. Isolated by both the Afghanistani populace and the international community, the group is consumed by a profound sense of inadequacy, which manifests in their deliberate and vindictive imposition of restrictions on women.
Dr. Haidari observed, “For the Taliban, women have become a mere instrument for reclaiming media visibility and remaining in the headlines. They exploit women by issuing decrees that are not only archaic but have also long outlived their relevance in contemporary society.” In Dr. Haidari’s view, the Taliban’s actions are driven by the psychological wounds inflicted by their global ostracization and the collective contempt they face. In response to this deeply entrenched inferiority, they consciously and deliberately intensify their oppression of women, utilizing it as a mechanism to compensate for the psychological trauma that has been festering within their ranks for years.
She elaborated, “The Taliban believe that by exerting control over women’s lives, they can once again capture the world’s attention and leverage that visibility to extract concessions from the international community in order to sustain their power. This explains their constant production and dissemination of absurd and repressive regulations concerning women’s presence and existence.”
Dr. Haidari further critiqued the media’s role, noting, “Unfortunately, media coverage of these decrees inadvertently aids the Taliban’s desperate attempts to address their inferiority complex and seek attention.” She explained on her Facebook page, “The psychological trauma of rejection drives them to choose the suppression of women as a means to dominate headlines, instill fear, and spread anxiety across social and traditional media, which, in turn, brings them closer to their perverse goal of gaining visibility.”
This analysis comes in the wake of the Taliban leader, Mullah Haibatullah, ratifying the “Propogation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice” law, which enforces even more draconian restrictions on women, prompting widespread criticism. The newly ratified law prohibits hearing the voice of non-mahram women and mandates the complete covering of women’s faces, citing the prevention of “fitna” (temptation) as justification. Additionally, the law prohibits women from wearing thin or short clothing, mandates they conceal their faces from non-mahram men, and bans any interaction between Muslim women and non-Muslim women. Furthermore, it forbids men from gazing at unrelated adult women, and vice versa.
Three years into the Taliban’s control of Afghanistan, the severe restrictions imposed on women remain a central focus of the group. Experts believe this obsession is rooted in the Taliban’s deep-seated inferiority complex and feelings of humiliation, with the extensive media coverage of their actions serving as a means to extract further concessions from the international community.
