The finale of my first foray into journalism

A few words from me

For my “Beyond Headlines” class with Tara Kangarlou, my group submitted this article as our final project in December 2022.

Because this would be my last piece for the single journalism class I took in undergrad (and a huge chunk of our grade no less), I was extremely nervous about getting it right: the right voices, the right words, the right framing. We had been told for weeks to keep the story tight, something us international relations students had a hard time with. And education in Afghanistan is a topic filled with such nuance that, for inexperienced students of journalism like us, was daunting to present in a way that did the topic justice.

But together with Aryaman Sharma and Isabel Escarrer, we wrote this piece on boys’ education in Afghanistan with the hopes of bringing light to an underreported aspect of a crucial topic.

The Forgotten Boys of Afghanistan

Written by: Aryaman Sharma, Jesse Lin, and Isabel Escarrer

Much attention has been focused on the millions of Afghan girls barred from attending school beyond 6th grade and, more recently, from universities entirely. But for Afghan boys, the Taliban’s manipulation of the education system also puts them at more risk than ever. 

A year and a half into the new regime, the Taliban’s narrative is spilling over from madrasas into formal education institutions. As explained by former Minister of Women’s Affairs and Internal Affairs Hosna Jalil, boys, who make up nearly a quarter of Afghanistan’s population, are seeing subjects considered ‘non-Islamic’ or ‘Western’ disappear, with religious content that feeds the Taliban’s agenda taking their place.

Asked if the Taliban ultimately seek to transform normal schools into madrasas, Jalil, who left Afghanistan in June 2021 but is still concerned about the state of education for Afghan boys and girls responded, “It looks that way, after more than a year.” 

“Religious studies should not replace other subjects taught in school,” she says. “There’s a place for that.” 

That place is the ‘madrasa,’ like the one Massi Faizi, a twenty-eight-year-old Afghan refugee born in Kabul now living in North Dakota, had attended from the age of five. There, Faizi learned the alphabet and other foundational skills by reciting verses from the Quran before entering the formal school system. 

Once Faizi was old enough to enter public school, he said there were two choices for his education. “I could either pursue a Westernized, formal education with STEM courses and religion or attend a Taliban madrasa.”  

At its core, ‘madrasa’ is an Arabic word that means ‘school’ in English, a place to educate, usually located inside mosques. But because most mosques are unregistered with the government, most madrasas are as well, making official figures hard to come by. Unofficial estimates place their number at 13,000 in Afghanistan. 

Traditional madrasas are characterized by their focus on the Quran and inclusion of women. Zahra Wakilzada, an Afghan refugee and student at Georgetown University, describes her own time at a traditional madrasa in her hometown of Herat. 

“Whether they call it a mosque or madrasa, its sole purpose was to learn the Quran, which is how it’s supposed to be. Girls and guys were together in one space. We had a mentor-mentee system teaching each other how to read and recite the Quran. Where I was, madrasas were mainly taught by women to financially support themselves,” she said.

However, “Since the Taliban hijacked the education system,” Jalil says, “no one dares to call a mosque a madrasa anymore.” The Taliban’s madrasas radically veer from traditional madrasas by disallowing girls from attending and employing extremist rhetoric, but as former Deputy Minister of Education Attaullah Wahidyar explains, “Families want their kids to be sent to madrasas–in addition to the mosque–to become closer with God.”

Faizi’s father, like many other devout Muslims, wished for him to memorize the entire Quran. “Many parents believe if their children can learn to memorize the Quran, their family as a whole will have a gateway to Heaven,” Wakilzada explains. In addition, “Everyone factors in what others will think when making decisions,” says Faizi, a statement backed up by Dr. Wahidyar. “The entire essence of Afghan culture is built upon social status and what people will think of you and your family.” 

So, out of the societal pressures to appear pious and be religiously devoted on behalf of one’s family, Faizi was sent to the Taliban madrasa by his father in third grade. The conservative religious environment was drastically different from the mosque Faizi had attended, however.

For one, the madrasa was made up exclusively of boys. Boys attending Taliban madrasas are among the most vulnerable in Afghan society, largely coming from poverty and Afghanistan’s rural regions where the Afghan government historically lacked resources to provide education. The Taliban madrasas are often, thus, the only reliable source of food and shelter for these boys. 

But more alarming was the content taught (and not taught) in the madrasa. “Madrasas don’t teach you science or math. The focus is on religion,” says Faizi. The religious content was imbued with extremist rhetoric that would foster the next generation of religiously conservative supporters of the Taliban’s agenda. 

Jalil explains that madrasas are extremely vulnerable to exploitation by Taliban influence because they are unregulated and unsupervised. As a result, the Taliban can easily exploit the madrasa’s religious education and the religious motivations of families for attending madrasas, coupling the content with disinformation and extremist rhetoric. “You can brainwash the kids and then recruit them as soldiers later,” Jalil says. 

Faizi didn’t think much of the Taliban’s extremist rhetoric at first. “Everyone was attending madrasas and subject to the Taliban’s influence on them. I didn’t know any better,” he said.

But the rhetoric used in the madrasas has long been integral to a sinister strategy that the Taliban has employed to retain power. “The Taliban have wanted to rule Afghanistan in their own way without popular support, even among their own tribe and [Pashtun] ethnicity,” Jalil says. She explains that while this makes the Taliban politically vulnerable at home, partnering with international terrorist groups–such as al-Qaeda–ensures the Taliban’s domestic survival and political ambitions. 

In return, Afghan boys in madrasas play a crucial role in maintaining this relationship for the Taliban. “These boys are feeding terrorist organizations internationally,” says Jalil. “They lack technical skills but are familiar with extremist religious rhetoric, making them the most vulnerable to recruitment by international terrorist groups.”

However, for Faizi, the Taliban’s monolithic narrative in the madrasa against anything Western began to contrast with his own experience as he grew a personal relationship with the “enemy.” When his father struggled to make ends meet as a teacher, American soldiers supported Faizi’s family by bringing food and water. Faizi formed a personal bond with one soldier in particular who would take time out of his daily patrol to kick a soccer ball with him when he was only seven years old. That same soldier also gifted Faizi his New York Yankees baseball cap. 

For Faizi, this experience was a tipping point. “I was sick of being controlled by the Taliban and being taught in school that the West is full of bad people when I knew from personal experience that was not true.” Feeling inspired, he decided to challenge one of the more seemingly superficial restrictions in the madrasa, where Western clothing was forbidden.

Tired of the turban he was required to wear daily, Faizi decided to wear the Yankees baseball cap he was given instead, for which the instructor beat him with a stick and suspended him for insubordination. “I will never forget that day,” Faizi says. 

After the baseball cap incident, he left the madrasa for the Franco-Afghan Esteqlal High School in Kabul and learned French, English, and computer skills. However, due to the high school’s secular nature and Western curriculum, Faizi said the Taliban often conducted acid attacks and bombings against the school’s students to deter students from attending the school. 

Upon graduation, Faizi’s family stability and finances became his primary concern. His aging father could no longer work, so the responsibility of being the breadwinner fell on the young man’s shoulders. At the time, U.S. military jobs were the highest-paying, and Faizi prioritized stability above all else. He used his computer skills and familiarity with English to his advantage, landing the lucrative–yet, dangerous–job as a U.S. military interpreter. 

This immediately labeled him as an Afghan working for the enemy and a “betrayer of Afghanistan,” says Faizi. “I had no other choice being the only source of income for my parents, wife, and two kids. I had to lead a life of secrecy, sometimes moving from house to house to keep me and my family safe from the Taliban.”

The sense of insecurity Faizi felt ultimately led him to immigrate to the United States with his wife and two children during the initial American withdrawal in 2014. “It was the best decision of my life,” he says. Still, he feels guilty leaving his parents and sister, as well as “young, brilliant minds” in the hands of the Taliban.

Under the second Taliban regime, these young, brilliant minds are unable to capitalize on their technical skills like Faizi did. 

Soon into the new regime, the new Minister of Education Noorullah Munir declared, “No Ph.D. degree, master’s degree is valuable today,” virtually stripping traditional education of the prestige it once held. University graduates might instead find themselves as vegetable cart pushers or humble chauffeurs, while the white-collar jobs and government posts that they would have held are being filled by madrasa graduates, known as “mullahs.” 

Those still in the traditional education system will find their options to learn technical skills narrowed as the Taliban strive to make schools resemble madrasas like the one Faizi attended. 

“The Taliban don’t have any ambition for Afghanistan’s development,” says Jalil. “They know what development looks like, but it is a choice they make…They want to stay in power at any cost without moving the country forward.” 

Manipulating the hearts and minds of young Afghan boys through the education system is one critical avenue for the Taliban to stay in power. Ultimately, what is taught in schools is what boys carry out into society, changing its values and ways of life. History has already shown the grave consequences of such rhetoric. 

“It’s very important to see what they are being taught,” says Wakilzada, “because the way men were treated and what they were taught during the first Taliban regime impacted us for the next twenty years. They were taught what the Taliban believed about women, about systems, about education.”

Access to education is important. So is the content of that education. It will be mothers, fathers, sisters, and fellow Afghans who bear the burden of boys’ vulnerability to the Taliban’s agenda for decades to come.