There is an old story that keeps coming back to me as I watch the carnal coverage of Afghanistan. It is the story of a collapsing world – the lower levels are safer than most, until a point. Those who are still tenants are lucky, but not for long, it seems. It starts crumbling at the top and those who don’t wish to be part of the wreckage flee by jumping to some island of consciousness a few steps away. Each concept has a built-in obsolescence to it. But, the strange strangulation of this crumbling structure by the media poses a double problem: it smothers this crumbling building in half-painted narratives, sometimes hiding the rot it seeks to uncover. Consequently, some accuse it of attempting to leash the frightful wrath of the Taliban, while others think the media itself is a physiological irritation that the world would be better rid of.

A striking image making the rounds and framing the narrative of Afghan oppression was that of countless Afghans rushing the airport, “desperately trying to flee,” as Geo News said. The resulting tragedy of three individuals falling to their deaths in a failed attempt to flee the Taliban takeover (a video circulated on Twitter before making the rounds on all major news channels) has become a watershed image for the human rights situation in the country.

Some 20 years ago, there were the 9/11 attacks. Many inexplicable disasters later, the US was ready to throw in the towel. Turns out that its attempt at nation-building was shredded to bits; just as they left, the ballet was under way. Like pawns on a chessboard, the Taliban returned. If the past few days have shown us anything about the media, it’s that there is not enough media coverage in the world, or perhaps, that all media is useless. This sounds like an overstatement, but today’s media is just an anchor of entertainment, with each outlet fulfilling a purpose. However, this does not excuse the media from being necessary.

With Afghanistan, the lines of thinking are more slavish, because it has been arguably one of the most covered regions for 40 years. Other circumstances dictating these lines go beyond thinking. Certain creeds are chosen as the only way for a community to express itself, and to do so completely requires something in print. And who is to say it is not personal – contributions of artists and writers from across Afghanistan, published on Twitter or on other social media forums, illustrate a point of view at odds with the official narrative. This layer of observation delivers a second world – one that regards the Taliban administration as an organisation overreaching to unite with the narrative that conceived it.

We rarely write with the level of automatism with which media channels have been covering the news over the past few decades. Similar trends reveal themselves over time in the archives. Two of the most striking issues are women’s rights as a litmus test for human rights and the “backwardness” of the Taliban, unaware of the stratagems of political rhetoric. This is why the terseness of its new stratifications, expressed by an equally stone-faced spokesperson, is so surprising. Zabihullah Mujahid, heralded as the face of the new Taliban, appears outwards facing and more tactful. Previously, the official narrative described the Taliban as a primitive militant group, lacking any sureness of touch or faith in their own power, relying on the contingencies of war. This narrative leaves little room for any stimuli other than the next check-post, the next conquest. Diverting their attention to statehood and its twists and turns, the Taliban are amongst new ways of existing, of behaving in the modern world.

At the same time, we are only hearing the first cries of this new media strategy, still in its infancy. Yet, the stability and nobility it projects are devious; contrasting reports in international media show a regional media in three dimensions. The Afghan media has rapidly cultivated a vocabulary that relates it to Pakistan. Even the most arid landscape can be imbued with colour, the smallest detail highlighted, the most insignificant object treated with meaning and independently asserted with a mention of either Islam or the US.

There is also a physical excitement with which the ubiquity of these images has been received over the past weeks. Beneath this succession of images are the secrets of war. News coverage of the last few decades has shown the US as an integral legitimising force, holding together the infrastructure of a fledgling democracy. The American media has had a commendable role to play in these cover-ups. Chomsky’s seminal phrase “manufacturing consent” is a tagline for this effort.

The post-9/11 American media persuaded the masses that the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq were crucial to sustain democracy and prevent another terrorist attack. The Cold War, centred around the paradigm of modernisation theory, contended that the seed of democracy was inextricably tied to the germ of modernisation – that the developing states had to be brought into the fold of the ‘modern’ before they could be globally democratic. The non-participation of the masses in these ‘backward’ constituencies, at least in the interim, was a must. By any means necessary, most likely authoritarian, US policy planners had to be welcomed into these regions. Perhaps this is why the riposte is so unyielding. After a marginalised concept of democracy inflicted on them for years – with one of its agents being American media – with the rise of the Taliban, regional outlets were quick to turn the other way.

It started with Radio Shariat, the Taliban’s public broadcasting station. Its headquarters were the first to be targetted by the invading force, replacing them with the coalition’s own propaganda channel. “Information dominance” was key to changing the status quo. Middle Eastern stations like Al Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV were lambasted by the US for violating the ban on satellite uplinks from the war zone. Most of the national and international coverage of Afghanistan has been governed by the same iron hand, the USAID/OTI coalition.

In Democracy or Polyarchy? US-funded Media Developments in Afghanistan and Iraq Post 9/11, Michael J Barker notes that, “The largest OTI media grant was provided to the American NGO Internews, which received $4 million to create a nationwide network of independent community radio stations.”

The resultant staid media was either funded by the US and its affiliates or consisted of independent home-grown media channels like Radio Arman and Tolo News. Since the US was the largest stockholder, smaller media channels focused more on entertainment than public sector broadcasts. The message was clear.

In a similar fashion, the Taliban administration had largely controlled local media between 1996 and 2001. Strict laws were the norm then, too, with music being prohibited on national broadcasts. The destruction of TV sets and imprisonment for selling bootleg movies was routine.

A more nuanced approach is being practiced by the resurgent Taliban of 2021. In its last spell of power, brutality was one way to control the media. It failed to create the order that an effective propaganda machine needs. This time, the machine seems intent on ordering the media. A statement from spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid reveals the Taliban plan for the impending future of the press, caveated by compliance to their own interpretation of Shariah.

Having been under the spell of US aid for a while, Pakistan has followed a similar trajectory to Afghanistan. It stands to reason, then, that the Pakistani national identity is also passionately tied in with Afghan sovereignty. Even external differences between the two states hide a similar cultural core. The paternalistic hand extended to the neighbour comes from genuine but misplaced affection.

Pakistan had been a key ally of the US, drawn into the War on Terror as an auxiliary. Its role for the past 20 years has vacillated between that of a valiant lion and a sacrificial lamb. This has resulted in Pakistan opening its borders, contending with an influx of refugees and a changing concept of identity, one increasingly reliant on national newspaper discourse. Another strong tie is religious, or rather, cultural. Mosques around Pakistan – sites as crucial for the dissemination of information as the mainstream media – hailed the Taliban victory as an act of fighting back the West and upholding the standards of Islam that had slipped in the past two decades. This is hardly surprising in a nation whose prime minister has overtly approved of the Taliban along the same lines. The fall of Kabul was framed uniformly as a victory – not just against the US, but India too.

The Pakistani media’s positive self-representation casts the US as the Other. This defaults them as allies of the Afghan cause. PM Khan’s statement heralding the Taliban’s resurgence points to that image. Pakistan’s efforts to bring peace to Afghanistan and dealing with the fallout of the war has also reinforced this view. News stories, thus, are more likely to target the Afghan forces – agents of the US, trained by the US – as the negative Other. Adding to the polyarchy of the media, citizen journalism has actively filled the void left by public broadcasts. Most of the recent news coverage has been primarily sourced on the ground, with virtual communication between journalists and communities.

Therefore, the burqa and its unveiling have been significant in this media quandary on both sides. 20 years ago, President Bush had referred to the “women of cover” in Afghanistan. Suddenly, magazine covers were replete with burqa-clad activists denouncing the victimisation of women by the Taliban. They were the focal point in the debate on human rights. Women’s liberation held a different definition for the Taliban, who regarded the cause as a cynical ploy for the US to justify its invasion. This context, mirrored in Pakistani media accounts, is being reaffirmed by the Taliban’s resurgence. On the other end of the spectrum, consider the central framework employed by recent articles – for example, this LA Times headline: As Afghans try to figure out Taliban’s new rules, burqas are barometers of sorts.

For the Taliban too, a more feminine reporting is inherent now. The recent press briefings centre women in the discourse. The Buddhist-statue vandalising and patriarchal Taliban of yore have actually been responding to a list of overtures by the Pakistani government, and seeking greater global legitimacy through a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Another facet of a more sophisticated media machinery is Zabihullah Mujahid as the face of the entity. A BBC News report on August 17 by George Wright noted that spokesman “Zabihullah Mujahid was doing most of the talking” in the Taliban’s first news conference, answering questions from female journalists. He has been doing so for over a decade, the report said, without showing his face, without any explicit prejudice towards BBC’s Yalda Hakim, or any other female journalist. Hakim says that this iteration of the Taliban leadership is “charming, which makes them deceptive.”

A Guardian report featured female Afghan journalists, who have faced workplace discrimination. It was dire enough to have “prompted the Australian journalists’ union to call for protection for their Afghan colleagues.” This narrative is reified by the voices of Afghan journalists like Zahra Joya, who has been running her own Rukhshanda Media, built for and backed by Afghan women. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has also decried the dismissal of Khadija Amin and Shabnam Dawran, “who spoke to CPJ via a messaging app.” Other casualties in this war on information are also mentioned. But the focal issue is framed as that of discrimination against women. Naomi Zeveloff of the CPJ followed this up with an on-the-record interview with a female Afghan journalist, though her identity has been anonymised.

The takeover of the Tolo News compound, the most prominent Afghan news channel, is a matter of course for a new takeover – mirroring the course charted by invading US forces. There are reports that the Taliban have closed down some media offices and substituted their staff with their own personnel. This action, imitating rhetoric, is a sign of adaptation on one hand; it signals risks to minorities and women on the other.

The framing of workplace discrimination against women is also broad; it is lumped together with the broader policies of the Taliban regime towards the media and its freedoms. Both are inviolable sanctums for many and key targets for any invading force. On the other hand, the same Tolo News has been using female journalists in its reporting. Host Beheshta Argand has interviewed senior Taliban representatives on two occasions, at least.

This eerily familiar life shares a lot of the principles in Pakistan, a country replete with gender discrimination. At least in the European imagination, media representations have imbued them with imperceptible mystery described as mysticism, a lack of modernisation and, hence, an inadequate understanding of human rights. Thus, a yearning for a light in the darkness of the Afghans is indicated.

But, if the role of media is to bring us nearer to the substance of the story, then these chyrons have done the opposite of that. The media has a rapid language that has little tolerance for pondering the deeper civilisational logic. It chooses to be direct, which appears ever more real. Ironically, the Taliban operate by the same logic: painting and poetry are to be shunned, because they are the opposite of neutrality. There are many variables here for a nascent state to contend with.

In the early 2010s, the Voice of America showed us a glimpse of a healthy media, a hidden domain just under the surface of normal representations of America. It tried to make American subjects as plausible and real as the Other. Ostensibly de-Westernised, it felt like a breath of fresh air. Though publicly funded, it was criticised by Trump’s White House as speaking too often “for America’s adversaries – not its citizens.” This subtle search for a hidden life leads us to the citizen journalism that has pervaded social media over the last month. Local eyewitness accounts tell stories that are vastly different from the Pakistani media’s representations, which have focused increasingly on Taliban overtures for reconciliation.

You must have seen the image of the Talib here, immortalised in a meme of himself, represented without the paunch of the TTP, shoulders back, head turned to one side in a smirking stare and the barrel of his gun almost invisible – an afterthought, a prop. The clumsy use of stereotypes aside, News18 hailed this representation as that of the “modern” Taliban.

In the imbroglio of Taliban representations, I was unable to reconcile the now contracted and unnatural expressions with the self-righteous madness that they had previously been painted with. But buffoonery has been the classic portrayal of the Taliban – buffoonery that has always missed its mark. His view of the world always seems fragmented and unfinished. The monstrous play of suffering, remorse and fear is drowned out by his obsession, and the torrent of tragedy is completed by the utter moral terror of his reign. While his imposture and puffery remain, it is his insincerity that is a debate between the two sides of the media: whatever transgression he commits can be forgiven if the act is sincere.

Doubtless, the media will show the public the freshness of a new and revolutionary Taliban in due course. Their cure for the Taliban is to eschew that continuity of the old sorcerers and mountain-dwellers and contend with the Taliban as a legitimate force. The masses may be starting to resist the unsubtle media dialogue, which has so far regarded itself as intellectually superior to the commoners, counter-intuitively enabling the dynamism of the cries and violent gestures of the Taliban. Of course, plundered for years by agents on both sides, the inner essence of events reveals itself fairly easily to the jaded Afghan masses. The rise of the Taliban, then, is no accident. It is a paroxysm of regional and sociocultural vibrations, and the media myths have had a great part to play in lending them their emotional combustive power.

The writer is a student of history and comparative literature at LUMS