Five years after seizing Kabul, the Taliban gathered beneath flags and patriotic music to declare themselves a government arrived and enduring — yet the ceremony unfolded against a country quietly coming apart. For millions of Afghans, and especially for women and girls, the anniversary marked not a milestone of stability but five years of systematic exclusion from education, work, and public life. History has seen many moments when the machinery of power celebrates itself while the society beneath it hollows out, and Afghanistan in 2026 stands as a searching contemporary example of that ancie
Taliban marks five years in power as Afghanistan faces humanitarian crisis
Afghan women face severe restrictions on education, employment, and freedoms; widespread economic hardship affects civilian survival and future prospects.
She held onto her right to a future even as that right was being revoked
Mark
When the Taliban held those anniversary celebrations, what were they actually trying to communicate?
Mimi
That they were here to stay. That they'd moved from being a fighting force to being a government. That stability had returned, even if it was their kind of stability.
Mark
But the economic collapse was happening at the same time. How do you celebrate while your country is falling apart?
Mimi
You separate the two things. The state ceremony happens in one space, with flags and music and officials. The actual lives of ordinary people happen somewhere else entirely. The Taliban controls the first space completely. The second space is just chaos and survival.
Mark
What does it mean for women that the Taliban has consolidated power so thoroughly?
Mimi
It means the restrictions aren't temporary or negotiable anymore. They're becoming permanent policy. A girl who's twelve now will never go to secondary school. A woman who was a teacher five years ago will never teach again. That's not a crisis moment—that's the new normal.
Mark
Is there any sense that this could change, or are people resigned?
Mimi
People aren't resigned. That woman who said she'd keep believing in her right to a future—she meant it. But believing and having are two different things. The belief is what keeps you human. Having is something else entirely.
The Pulse
- The Taliban staged anniversary celebrations in Kabul projecting confidence and permanence, even as the country they govern faces economic freefall, endemic hunger, and fractured institutions.
- Women who once worked as teachers, doctors, and lawyers have been locked out of their professions entirely, and girls are barred from education beyond sixth grade — not by isolated decrees but by a comprehensive architecture of exclusion.
- One woman's account — working to feed her family on almost nothing while watching her daughters' futures narrow month by month — is not exceptional; it is the common condition of millions.
- The Taliban have consolidated military, judicial, and media control with growing ruthlessness, yet that control rests atop a society in collapse, with international funding withdrawn and malnutrition spreading.
- The question now shadowing Afghanistan is whether the Taliban's victory was ever truly a victory — or merely the seizure of a failing state whose deterioration no flag or anthem can arrest.
Five years after seizing Kabul, the Taliban gathered beneath flags and patriotic music to declare themselves a government arrived and enduring — yet the ceremony unfolded against a country quietly coming apart. For millions of Afghans, and especially for women and girls, the anniversary marked not a milestone of stability but five years of systematic exclusion from education, work, and public life. History has seen many moments when the machinery of power celebrates itself while the society beneath it hollows out, and Afghanistan in 2026 stands as a searching contemporary example of that ancient tension.
In Kabul this week, the Taliban marked five years in power with the full apparatus of state ceremony — flags, patriotic music, officials gathered to project an image of consolidated authority. The message was clear: the movement had become a government, and it intended to endure.
But outside those official gatherings, a different reality prevailed. Afghanistan's economy had contracted sharply, unemployment had soared, and hunger had become endemic. For women and girls in particular, the past five years had meant the systematic dismantling of rights that had seemed, however tentatively, to be taking hold. Women were barred from their professions. Girls were excluded from secondary school. These were not isolated policies but a coherent architecture of exclusion, enforced by a state apparatus that had grown more confident and more ruthless with time.
One woman's story, documented by international journalists, captured what survival looks like under these conditions — struggling to feed her family on almost nothing, watching her daughters' horizons shrink, clinging to what she called her right to a future even as the evidence around her suggested that right had been revoked. Hers was not an exceptional story. It was the story of millions.
The Taliban had, by narrow measures, succeeded. They controlled the military, the courts, the media, and had silenced dissent. But that control sat atop a society in free fall — international support withdrawn, the banking system fractured, malnutrition and disease spreading. The anniversary celebrations were real, but they existed in a parallel reality to the one most Afghans inhabited.
The deeper question hanging over the country is not whether the Taliban won, but whether winning meant anything at all — whether they had seized a state already failing, and whether the flags and music could obscure the fact that the victory itself might be hollow.
In Kabul this week, the Taliban marked five years since seizing control of Afghanistan with the familiar apparatus of state ceremony—flags unfurled across the capital, patriotic music echoing through streets, officials gathered to project an image of consolidated power and stability. The anniversary celebrations were meant to signal that the movement had transformed from insurgency to government, that it had arrived and would endure.
Yet the photographs and statements emerging from those commemorations told only part of the story. Outside the official gatherings, Afghanistan was collapsing in ways both visible and invisible. The economy had contracted sharply. Unemployment had soared. Hunger had become endemic. And for millions of Afghans—particularly women and girls—the past five years had meant the systematic erasure of rights that had seemed, however fragile, to be taking root.
Women who had worked as teachers, lawyers, doctors, and journalists found themselves locked out of those professions. Girls who had attended secondary school discovered that education beyond the sixth grade was no longer permitted to them. The restrictions came not as isolated policies but as a comprehensive architecture of exclusion, justified by the Taliban's interpretation of Islamic law and enforced through a state apparatus that had grown more confident and more ruthless with each passing year.
One woman's account, documented by international journalists, captured the texture of survival under these conditions. She had worked. She had studied. She had imagined a future that extended beyond the walls of her home. Now she was trying to keep her family fed on almost nothing, watching her daughters' horizons narrow with each passing month, holding onto what she called her right to a future even as the evidence around her suggested that right had been revoked. Her story was not exceptional. It was the story of millions.
The Taliban's consolidation of power had been thorough. They controlled the military, the police, the courts, the media. They had eliminated their rivals and silenced dissent. In the narrow terms of state control, they had succeeded. But that control sat atop a society in free fall. The international community had largely withdrawn its financial support. The banking system was fractured. Remittances from Afghans abroad had become a lifeline for families with no other income. Malnutrition was spreading. Disease was spreading. The sense that things could only worsen was spreading.
The anniversary celebrations in Kabul were real. The flags were real. The music was real. But they existed in a kind of parallel reality to the one most Afghans inhabited—a reality of scarcity, restriction, and diminishing possibility. The Taliban had won the war. The question that hung over the country now was whether they could govern it, or whether the victory itself had been hollow, a seizure of a state that was already failing and would continue to fail regardless of who held its formal levers of power.
Notable Quotes
I'll keep believing in my right to a future— Afghan woman describing life under Taliban rule
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