Controversial policy: A schoolgirl walking home from school in the Fayzabad district of Badakhshan Province. Afghanistan is the only country in the world that does not allow girls and women to attend secondary school and university, and forbids women from working. — AFP

EDUCATION Minister Fadhlina Sidek found herself in a tight spot over the move to host officials from the Taliban-led Afghanistan government here last week.

Some MPs queried her over the visit and their reservations are understandable given the oppressive and extremist nature of that government.

It is the only country in the world that does not allow girls and women to attend secondary school and university and forbids women from working in many jobs.

Kabul has very few friends, but the reality is that the Taliban are in power and while many countries are dragging their feet to recognise them, they are running the government.

DAP MP Lim Guan Eng raised concerns that Malaysia might be seen as condoning Afghanistan’s policies, particularly the ban on women’s education, but several defensive PAS MPs criticised the Bagan MP.

Kuala Kerian MP Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man, the PAS deputy president, said the current Afghanistan administration is “not a Taliban government.’’ He is wrong. Of course it is a Taliban government, but meeting Taliban leaders and officials is not tantamount to agreeing with their policies, just like meeting Communist Party of China leaders does not mean we support communism; or engaging with openly gay foreign leaders does not make us advocates of their lifestyles.

If only some of our lawmakers could think with their heads instead of just wanting to score points. There is no doubt that there is global concern over how the Taliban run their country. Unless they change, the world will continue to shun Afghanistan.

Since 2023, funds to develop the country from international aid organisations have been put on hold because of its policies, which has put its 15.8 million people in continued misery. It has been reported that over 25 government-run hospitals lost their international funding and the World Food Programme has also cut its assistance to 10 million Afghans.

That aside, the people in rural areas have had to deal with the drastic implications of flooding, droughts and earthquakes, which have decimated their produce.

The United States, which fought against the Taliban, had been the largest international donor to Afghanistan having provided over US$2.6bil (RM11.6bil) via the United Nations and other non-governmental organisations.

However, after the fall of Kabul in 2021, the Biden administration froze the funds as it said it was unclear who had the legal authority to access the account.

The Taliban government, which is said to be divided among various factions, has been insistent on continuing its policy of banning women from formal education, but its willingness to meet a female Malaysian education minister should be seen as an opportunity.

The MOE’s statement on the matter has certain key words – “we showcased an inclusive education system focused on increasing access and equity across socioeconomic status, gender, ethnicity, and geography.

“This includes eliminating gender disparities and ensuring equal and inclusive access at all education levels.

“The MOE’s commitment aligns with the statement last year by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who expressed readiness to enhance cooperation with Afghanistan. At the same time, education rights cannot be denied.

“Malaysia is committed to and fully supports the right to education and access to education for girls.’’

During the week-long visit from Nov 4, the Afghans visited SMKA Putrajaya, Institut Pendidikan Guru Perempuan Melayu in Melaka, Bukit Jalil Sports School and Sekolah Seri Puteri, Cyberjaya. It was an eye-opener as the visits included co-ed institutions.

”They saw how Islamic Studies and English, together with sciences, can be taught in proper Islamic schools,” one official said.

He said the Afghans were open to all “except for music classes.” The Taliban have banned music and all forms of entertainment since taking over in 2021.

The Malaysian stand, however, is clear. Meeting these Afghans enables us to convince them that providing education to females is important – surely, these Taliban, too, have daughters, sisters and mothers.

Do they want to deprive a whole generation of females of proper schooling because of their extreme interpretation of religion, or a fear that their authority will be challenged?

According to news reports, the delegation was led by Shahabuddin Saqib, the director-general of the Afghan education ministry. Fadhlina said the delegation also took part in several discussions with MOE, where her ministry “shared insights on education.’’

Rather than frown upon their visit, I feel it is good that they chose Malaysia as a place where they could learn.

Perhaps, the delegation can convince the hardliners back home to have a rethink. It could perhaps start off by allowing females in the urban areas to attend classes online.

If that can happen, although it sounds like a long shot, it will enable Kabul to negotiate for the resumption of funds.

A harsh winter is coming, and the Taliban will have plenty of time to think although unfortunately, the people will be facing tough times. But these are resilient people. They have defeated the British, Russians and Americans in wars.

It doesn’t help that the people in power are mostly war veterans not trained in the subtleties of diplomacy, finance and economics, skills needed to turn the country around.

Malaysia no longer has an embassy in Kabul while the Afghan embassy here was established before the Taliban government was formed. Its representatives are invited to functions and no one can miss them in their traditional clothes.

However, Putrajaya continues to take a “cautious approach” on its relations with Afghanistan and waits for signals from international bodies like the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) before deciding on whether to resume official diplomatic ties.

The US has a “interest section’’ in Kabul which it operates under the Qatar government. Normally, if a country does not have diplomatic relations with another, it will have an “interest section” run by another friendly country. In some cases, it could be just a one-man show “liaison office.”

In Baghdad, during the United Nations sanctions against Iraq under the late Saddam Hussein, the US had its interest section under the Polish embassy.

In short, no matter what happens, the engagement remains. At least a listening post stays open. Intelligence gathering is sometimes carried out via an existing “humanitarian NGO” operating in Afghanistan or through a third-party, particularly Muslim countries which still have embassies there.

Most countries have continued their engagement with the Afghans in unofficial capacities and these, even on a personal level, are beneficial.

China, for one, is among the strongest supporters of Afghanistan. It has an embassy in Kabul and has extended economic aid and multi-dollar loans to develop the country, with which it shares a 92km border.

Chinese tourists to Afghanistan have grown since 2021 after the Taliban took control with over 7,000 Chinese tourists in 2023, a remarkable increase of 913% from 2012, according to the Tourism Directorate in Kabul.

Indonesia has shut down its embassy in Kabul but its ambassador in Islamabad, Pakistan, is also accredited to Kabul. That means Indonesia still has full diplomatic ties with Kabul.

As much as my writings have been critical of the Taliban, it has not prevented me from making friends with journalists who work at Bakhtar News Agency, the official news agency of Afghanistan.

If the Afghans want to come to Malaysia to learn and open their eyes and ears – we lose nothing by using this window of opportunity to convince them to let their girls and women have a proper education.

UPNM should not tolerate even one incident of bullying, let alone another one in such a short period of time. — The Star

IT has happened again. Yet another bullying case has been reported at the National Defence University (UPNM), with a 19-year-old cadet allegedly stomped on by a senior.

The victim reportedly suffered cracks in his ribs and on his spine as a result.

This is unacceptable. How can bullying continue in a military college that is supposed to instil discipline, care, and patriotism with the aim of producing potential future leaders of the armed forces?

To put it mildly, it’s pathetic.

Such blatant physical assaults have happened too often. These bullies are not the only ones to be blamed, though. The supervisors of this institution must take the rap too.

Surely there is a need for accountability and responsibility.

These administrators should have given advance, if not continuous, warnings to the trainees. Each time there is a fresh intake, such intimidations by tyrants can be expected to occur. We would have expected pre-emptive action to be taken.

The public, especially the parents, cannot be blamed if we feel the superiors have a lackadaisical attitude about this issue. When parents send their children to these institutions or other similar set-ups in the hope that they will become officers and gentlemen, they surrender the parenting duties to these superiors.

Repeated promises to act are of no use if such unfortunate physical abuses continue to take place.

Last week, Amirul Iskandar Norhanizan, 22, claimed trial to assaulting Salman Saiful Surash, 20, by placing a hot iron on his chest at the UPNM hostel on Oct 22. The victim suffered second degree burns on his chest.

Amirul faces a maximum jail term of 10 years or a fine, and could also be whipped if convicted.

These two cases have come just months after the courts handed the death penalty to six former students over the killing of a fellow cadet at the institution.

The UPNM case gripped the nation in 2017 after the death of Zulfarhan Osman Zulkarnain, 21. Six course mates had taken turns to press a steam iron on the victim’s body, including on his private parts. Zulfarhan succumbed to his injuries 10 days after these cruel and beastly actions. The accused – Muhammad Akmal Zuhairi Azmal, Muhammad Azamuddin Mad Sofi, Muhammad Najib Mohd Razi, Muhammad Afif Najmudin Azahat, Mohamad Shobirin Sabri, and Abdoul Hakeem Mohd Ali – now face the gallows for their despicable actions.

We would have expected UPNM to have learnt a painful lesson from the tragedy of Zulkarnain, a promising young cadet with high hopes of a bright future. He suffered extensive bruising and burns on his chest, hands, and feet as a result of the torture using the iron.

The New Straits Times, in an editorial in June, wrote that “the tragic incident was more than just a personal loss. It poses troubling questions about values within our military institutions in their effort to forge leaders of courage, integrity, and compassion.

“It is unfair to lump all military institutions as facing the same issue, but the tragedy has exposed a culture of cruelty, intimidation, and a complete disregard for human life.

“Generally speaking, this incident raises profound questions about our military education.’’

UPNM has failed in all these aspects. I am sure it has produced many brilliant officers, but it should not tolerate even one incident, let alone another one in such a short period of time.

As soldiers, even at university level, there should have been watchful and alert eyes to weed out such bullies. Bullies are often known and feared by other students. Gathering intelligence is part of military training, and we would expect the university to haul them up and tell them off. Bullying fellow university mates isn’t about physical and mental toughness, let’s not try to justify any possible excuses for these pathetic actions.

We expect UPNM and other military schools to churn out potential heroes – not cowards acting tough. These are just people picking on students who are weaker than them physically, or a group attacking one individual.

As expected, there has been a promise of a probe. Isn’t that already obvious?

In fact, it may be necessary to have a comprehensive review of the curriculum, training programmes, the overall culture, and even how interviews are conducted.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim took it a step further, saying bullying has become a culture in the country, as it is tolerated and at times, defended.

He said it was “sickening’’ that bullying is generally accepted and that “it [bullying] cannot happen if such a culture is rejected’’.

The university has promised to take strong disciplinary or legal action against those found responsible.

The fact is: a crime has taken place. The police must be called in, and the culprit – or culprits – be arrested and face charges. They should also be suspended immediately, pending being sacked from the university.

Over the years, there have been other bullying cases.

They include T. Nhaveen, 18, and his friend, T. Previn, 19, who were attacked at a burger stall in Penang. Nhaveen was brutally beaten, burned with cigarettes, and sexually assaulted. He succumbed to his injuries, which included blunt force trauma.

More recently, social media influencer Rajeswary Appahu took her own life on July 5 this year, after filing a police report detailing threats and defamation.

But look around – we are also seeing political bullies who have made threats on social media against minorities. Can the minorities be blamed if they feel they are being targeted? Just because these people hold positions in political parties, or even serve as a Yang Berhormat, it does not mean they are not bullies.

They may not even think they are one, and consider themselves heroes, but this is the kind of culture we have allowed to become prevalent.

They are not role models. The last thing our youth should emulate are these politicians.

As for the repeated bullying at the UPNM, there is relevant advice from the late French philosopher Georges Calguiham, who once said: “To err is human, to persist in error is diabolical.”

Big shock?: Election results being broadcast on news tickers in Times Square, New York, last Tuesday night. — ©2024 The New York Times Company

IT’S a repeat of what happened in 2016. Then, the United States media predicted – wrongly – that Donald Trump would lose the presidential election. Trump went on to beat Hilary Clinton, the Democrat candidate.

The US media, particularly CNN and the other national media in the country, were caught flat-footed.

Fast forward to 2024 and history has repeated itself.

The same US media, which the world relied on for information, convinced us that it would be a neck-and-neck contest between Democrat contender Kamala Harris and Trump.

Even until election day, the world was told that it was an election that would be too close to call. They were so wrong.

In the end, Trump won convincingly and decisively, and Harris was left far behind with the US map almost completely covered in red, the colour of the Republicans.

The Republicans have captured the Senate while the fight continues for the House of Representatives, which has become another cliffhanger.

CNN continuously painted Trump as a politician who constantly lied and shamelessly heaped insults on his opponent.

He was made out to be an unstable person who was not fit to run the world’s most powerful country. In short, he was a danger and the voters shouldn’t gamble on him.

Voters were reminded that Trump was a felon with more charges coming up.

It didn’t work. The powerful media wasn’t covering the polls – it was actively campaigning for Harris.

It would appear that the media was not listening hard enough to the people. It missed the heartbeat of the nation, especially those struggling in their daily lives.

The economy is what matters most for the working class.

Why would they care if Taylor Swift, Jennifer Lopez or Beyonce, multimillionaires in Hollywood, decided to endorse Harris?

The biggest surprise has been the reports that black working class people and youths were going to vote for Trump, which had been early red flags.

These were ordinary workers having a hard time putting food on the table and paying the bills, or even just finding jobs.

Trump’s final message was simple – Americans don’t have to live this way. It was a message that must have resonated with the voters.

So what happened in 2016 when Trump won and the media lost?

“The distance between the nation’s political press corps and its people has never seemed so stark.

“The pundits swung and missed. The polls failed,” journalist David Folkenflik wrote at npr.org then.

He said the nation’s journalists “have come off as petty, grasping, and out of touch, all part of the great establishment party from which many Trump voters felt excluded.”

The reality is that most of the US media’s national offices are in Washington DC, New York City, and Los Angeles.

It is not wrong, as the powers-that-be are concentrated in these cities, plus their mostly urban audiences also live there.

But like most media – including those in Malaysia – they neglect the voices of the heartland.

In the United States, the national media – including the so-called experts, analysts, and pollsters – again ignored the sentiments of the mid-West.

The media only spoke to politicians, who were supposedly informed and reliable, but not the real voters, especially in the farmlands.

Worse, such voters were often written off as rural, ill-informed simpletons, as voters “with no college degrees” in surveys, or perceived as people who cannot make correct political decisions.

This time, the Republicans even won many urban votes, which stunned the Democrats.

Judging from the tone of the US media this time around, none of them learned from the fiasco of 2016.

In 2016, the defeated Clinton called supporters of Trump “a basket of deplorables” and in 2024, president Joe Biden dismissed them as “garbage”.

The Malaysian media, too, has had its share of misses. Most of us, including this writer, didn’t see Barisan Nasional’s defeat coming in the 2018 general elections.

We didn’t listen hard enough and our credibility took a beating.

Like the US media, the mainstream media no longer has a monopoly on news.

But news portals and podcasts are not viable options either, as they are often tainted with the suspicion that they are politically financed.

The lesson to learn from the US election is that the economy matters the most.

When the voices of the working people are ignored, the populists and right wingers will fill the gap. For Malaysia, the thoughts of religious-based politicians winning is more frightening.

What is clear is that voters will not tolerate condescending politicians who talk down to the very people who elected them into office.

THE discovery of a MyKad and driver’s license – apparently belonging to a youth from Padang Besar, Perlis – that was found in Levadne, Zaporizhia, a conflict zone in Ukraine, has garnered much interest.

The family of the 20-year-old Malaysian said he was a student, but Wisma Putra was unable to confirm its authenticity and is seeking more information from relevant authorities for confirmation.

The found documents were among the “trophies” taken by Russian forces.

In January, Free Malaysia Today reported the Ukrainian military as claiming that Malaysians were among those serving as mercenaries alongside Russians in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.

The report claimed that mercenaries from Malaysia, accompanied by a translator, were spotted in the region, a large area under the control of Russian forces and their proxies since 2014.

The Malaysian in question is said to be associated with the 16th Rifle Battalion of Ukraine, which is engaged in combat against the Russian army.

Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Razarudin Husain told Bernama that Special Branch officers from Bukit Aman have reached out to the Russian Embassy on the matter.

Paid foreign mercenaries and adventure seekers have been part of the ongoing war since it broke out in 2022.

There have been numerous reports of Britons who showed up in Ukraine to fight the Russians after answering President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call to foreigners. There have also been reported fatalities involving these Britons.

At least 50 Americans, mostly US Army veterans, have died, according to the list published by the Task & Purpose portal, which reports on US military matters.

It reported that most of the Americans were killed in battle while others died while providing humanitarian assistance.

The first wave of foreign fighters, reportedly over 17,000 of them, came in from 2014-2019 during the war in Donbas, with a second wave starting from 2022.

Since 2022, foreigners supporting Russians include those from Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Latvia, according to reports. Some are members of the Russian diaspora, who signed up for ideological reasons, while others are said to be mercenaries.

The BBC reported on Sept 18 that 91 Indians joined the Russians – but the Indian fighters later claimed they had been duped and asked to be rescued.

Al-Jazeera reported in April that the Russians were paying Indians, Sri Lankans and Nepalese to fight in the war, which had the approval of Russian President Vladimir Putin. It also quoted a Nepali mercenary saying that Tajik and Afghan fighters had been sent straight to the frontline.

What about Americans and Europeans? The official line is that no US Army marines are involved in front-line combat but one report said there were 97 special forces fighters from NATO countries operating in Ukraine, including 14 from the United States.

When asked by the Guardian newspaper for confirmation, the US Department of Defense (DOD) said: “We are not going to discuss or confirm classified information due to the potential impact on national security as well as the safety and security of our personnel and those of our allies and our partners.” The Pentagon has not issued any denial either.

While 14 special forces fighters sounds like a drop in the bucket, these revelations are just a drop in the trickle of other information over the last year that, when added up, leaves more questions than answers. The bottom line, says military analyst (Ret) Lt Col Daniel Davis, is that Americans have a right to know.

”It is entirely appropriate that the American people know, authoritatively,” reported the Responsible Statecraft, the online magazine of the Quincy Institute.

The US Department of State has officially said it has provided more than US$64.1bil in military assistance since Russia launched its premeditated, unprovoked and brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb 24, 2022, and approximately US$66.9bil in military assistance since Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014.

”We have now used the emergency Presidential Drawdown Authority on 55 occasions since August 2021 to provide Ukraine military assistance totalling approximately US$31.7bil from DOD stockpiles,” it said.

Now, we read of about 8,000 to 10,000 North Koreans, paid or otherwise, in Russia near the Ukraine border.

It’s a large number and the world can assume that they are well trained. Unlike the rickety combatants from poor South Asian countries, US veterans or mercenaries, the appearance of the North Koreans, if true, is a different game altogether.

The outcome of the US presidential elections will also be another factor. If Trump wins, he may stop having any interest in Ukraine as he does not see it as a US problem. The plus side is he may push for an end to the war by bringing both Putin and Zalesky to the negotiating table.