The neoliberal era, which arrived as the US lost the Vietnam war, has ended with America losing the war in Afghanistan. And the war on terror. And the war on drugs.
Images on Twitter timelines, TV screens and in group chats tell a gruesome story for those who face slaughter and subjugation by the Taliban. Women, Shia people and anyone who collaborated with US and UK forces or with the now-essentially defeated regime face a grim future, as the “hooligans of the absolute”, as the political thinker Tom Nairn dubbed them, take control of the country once more.
I can’t help but think of the Afghans I met in a refugee camp in Belgrade in 2015. One man had been shot in the leg while serving in the national army alongside British troops. He was flown to a hospital in Cardiff, where he spent a year recovering. But he was denied asylum, and sent back to Afghanistan. Knowing Taliban forces would kill him and his family, he had walked all the way to Europe on his gammy leg, with his sister and her children.
