My Life with the Taliban.

• Author: Parsons, Nigel
• Position: Book review

MY LIFE WITH THE TALIBAN

Author: Abdul Salam Zaeef

Published by: Scribe, Melbourne, 2010, 368pp, A$45.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

For a left-leaning liberal, the Taliban present something of a conundrum. On the one hand, a principled, indigenous nationalist movement bent on resisting foreign military occupation tends to inspire support. Furthermore, on their own terms at least, this movement seems genuinely preoccupied with establishing honest government and the rule of law. On the other hand, if only in terms of abstract values, this reviewer probably had much more in common with the Soviet-backed People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), and former president Muhammad Najibullah, whom the Taliban castrated and had strung up in public. Renowned in the West as a reactionary, misogynistic and bigoted militia with a track record of cruel repression and needless cultural destruction, the Taliban are at best difficult to warm to.

The conundrum presented by the movement at large takes human form in the person of eminent talib Abdul Salam Zaeef, best known to the outside world as Afghanistan's ambassador to Pakistan at the moment of 9/11. Released in 2005 after four years in Guantanamo Bay, Zaeef now emerges as the author of a compelling, and politically significant, autobiography. Zaeef's narrative sees him move through the broad sweep of modern Afghan history to the specifics of Taliban administration and the post-9/11 quagmire that followed. From a child refugee in Pakistan, the teenage Zaeef absconds to become a mujahid in the war against Soviet-backed communism. He learns much along the way, including how to handle modern artillery courtesy of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Emerging a battle scarred and respected war veteran, Zaeef goes on to hold a number of positions in the short-lived Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, an isolated entity recognised only by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and promptly toppled post9/11. Within the emirate, Zaeef's remit variously extended to banking, the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Mines, Industry and Natural Resources, Ministry of Transport, and finally the embassy in Islamabad. His account is frill of fascinating detail on the inner workings of the Taliban. Personal favourites include Zaeef's frustration with emirate head Mullah Muhammad Omar (whom he undoubtedly respects) for a high-handed appointments policy. The relationship with the ISI emerges as far from...