A statement, edited for length, by the secular, progressive, and pro-women’s rights organization Left Radical of Afghanistan (LRA).
A bloody war has once again erupted between Afghanistan, controlled by the reactionary Taliban, and the fascist state of Pakistan. A war that has left hundreds dead and wounded, and displaced and destituted thousands of families. Both the Pakistani state and the Taliban regime, with their false slogans of “defending the homeland” and “destroying terrorist groups,” are sending the impoverished masses to their deaths to guarantee the sinister and vile interests of their ruling classes.
Over the past four years, the Taliban has turned Afghanistan into a vast prison, especially for women. Depriving women of education, work, and social participation, the brutal suppression of any dissenting voice, and the implementation of medieval laws, all reveal the fascist nature of this regime.
The Pakistani state is also grappling with deep economic crises, widespread poverty, and rising unemployment. Instead of responding to the legitimate demands of the Pashtun, Baloch, Kashmiri, and Sindhi minorities, Pakistan answers their protests with bullets and prisons. By fanning the flames of extreme nationalism, it attempts to divert the masses’ anger from internal corruption and failures towards an “external enemy” (the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban) which it itself has created.
The truth is that the Afghan worker and the Pakistani worker, the Afghan peasant and the Pakistani peasant, the Afghan youth and the Pakistani youth have no enmity towards one another. Their real enemy is the corrupt ruling class and the capitalists who, in Kabul, Islamabad, and other capitals of the world, are destroying everyone’s lives to increase their own profits. The youth of the two countries must not lose their lives to protect artificial borders drawn by colonialists.
Workers, laborers, and progressive forces on both sides of the border must resolutely condemn this reactionary war and not allow the ruling class to impose the human and financial cost of war on the people of the two countries by inciting nationalist and religious sentiments. The real war is the class war between the exploited and the exploiters.
Progressive and leftist organizations and parties in Afghanistan and Pakistan must maintain their solidarity and raise their unified voice of protest. They must clarify the real objectives of this war and fight against warmongering propaganda.
Let us, instead of war between nations, organize the class war, and instead of peace between classes, organize the struggle for the overthrow of class systems!
Long live unity between the workers and laborers of Afghanistan and Pakistan! Down with the reactionary and misogynistic Taliban regime and the fascist Pakistani state!
