An argued but disconcerting documentary of Claire Billet describes the return of Islamists as – finally – the least bad solution of a national destiny marked by war.
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The return of the Taliban, on August 15, 2021, at the head of Afghanistan gave rise to the publication of numerous works. This time, it’s a television documentary, Afghanistan. The Peace Prize, directed by Claire Billet, which tries the exercise of the inventory right.
This complete work offers an argued vision of Afghan history between 1992 and 2021, from the departure of the Soviets to that of the Americans. It addresses the complexity of a society too often caricatured by an ethnocentric discourse or a cultural relativism which prohibits any critical analysis. This concern for truth can disconcert, as the Taliban are described there as, ultimately, the least bad solution of a national destiny marked by war.
The documentary recalls that the Afghan Islamist movement, born in 1994, of the rubble of the Soviet occupation and a deadly civil war, conquered Kabul, in 1996, in the name of the restoration of order and Sharia law. In 2021, the Taliban took over the capital of a country which has not been able to rebuild itself or ward off violence. Hence the Afghanistan title. The price of peace, a way of saying, with spite, that Islamists would be the only ones capable of guaranteeing security and opening the era of reconstruction. And this, even if women are deprived of their rights.
The realistic description of the Western presence between 2001 and 2021 can consolidate this thesis. The appeal, by the United States, to the “lords” of war has prohibited any form of construction of a sovereign state. Poverty has remained endemic. The corruption of the regime has increased, the campaigns left away from a concentrated aid on cities. Afghanistan would have almost become a narco-state. And the first army in the world lost war against a Taliban movement presented as organized and effective. Enough to make a witness say: “If they rebuild and serve the country, then I am ready to forgive them.”
Concrete Conclusion
If the facts are correct, space exists, however, to challenge the conclusion. This analysis is not new. She echoes the academic Gilles Dorronsoro, also a historic advisor to the documentary. Author of the transnational government of Afghanistan. Such a predictable defeat (Karthala, 2021), he believed that, during Afghan history, only the Taliban had been able to start a “real national construction”.
Now, their first year of governance showed their inability to manage the country, failing to have the administrative management of villages for that of an entire territory. Corruption has reappeared. Finally, why would the Afghans be condemned to sacrifice their freedoms in the name of peace? Is there only an authoritarian state capable of building a country?