LUXURY, RESOLD NO-HIT WONDER CHANNELING CHOPIN GLOBAL BRANDS FINE START FOR RISING PIANIST RECORDS VS. GRAY MARKETS ARIZONA ROOKIE COMPOSER’S NOCTURNES PAGE 12 | STYLE PAGE 13 | SPORTS PAGE 14 | CULTURE .. INTERNATIONAL EDITION | THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 2021 Afghan girls have much The warning signs were there to fear again Spy reports Malala Yousafzai pointed to OPINION rapid win In the last two decades, millions of Afghan women and girls received an for Taliban education. Now the future they were promised is dangerously close to slip- WASHINGTON ping away. The Taliban — who until losing power 20 years ago barred nearly all girls and women from at- tending school and doled out harsh Despite Biden’s assurance, punishment to those who defied them — are back in control. Like many wom- intelligence assessments en, I fear for my Afghan sisters. painted a grimmer picture I cannot help but think of my own childhood. When the Taliban took over BY MARK MAZZETTI, my hometown in Pakistan’s Swat Val- JULIAN E. BARNES ley in 2007 and AND ADAM GOLDMAN The future shortly thereafter promised to banned girls from Classified assessments by American getting an education, spy agencies over the summer painted the millions I hid my books under an increasingly grim picture of the of girls and my long, hefty shawl prospect of a Taliban takeover of Af- women and walked to school ghanistan and warned of the rapid col- educated in in fear. Five years lapse of the Afghan military, even as the past 20 later, when I was 15, President Biden and his advisers said years is now the Taliban tried to publicly that was unlikely to happen as in danger. kill me for speaking quickly, according to current and former out about my right to American government officials. go to school. By July, many intelligence reports I cannot help but grew more pessimistic, questioning be grateful for my life now. After grad- whether any Afghan security forces uating from college last year and start- would muster serious resistance and ing to carve out my own career path, I whether the government could hold on cannot imagine losing it all — going in Kabul, the capital. President Biden back to a life defined for me by men said on July 8 that the Afghan govern- with guns. JIM HUYLEBROEK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES ment was unlikely to fall and that there Afghan girls and young women are A Taliban soldier directing traffic in Kabul on Wednesday. At the core of the American failures in Afghanistan was the inability to build a security force that could stand on its own. would be no chaotic evacuations of once again where I have been — in Americans similar to the end of the Viet- despair over the thought that they nam War. might never be allowed to see a class- The drumbeat of warnings over the room or hold a book again. Some mem- summer raise questions about why Bi- bers of the Taliban say they will not den administration officials, and mili- deny women and girls education or the tary planners in Afghanistan, seemed right to work. But given the Taliban’s ‘We haven’t slept, we haven’t eaten’ ill-prepared to deal with the Taliban’s fi- history of violently suppressing wom- nal push into Kabul, including a failure en’s rights, Afghan women’s fears are SACRAMENTO streets of Afghan cities nor the state- to ensure security at the main airport real. Already, we are hearing reports of ments by the Taliban that they are plan- and rushing thousands more troops female students being turned away ning an “inclusive government.” back to the country to protect the United from their universities, female workers Mohammad Sahil, a former employee States’ final exit. from their offices. Afghans in U.S. anguish at the United States Agency for Interna- One report in July — as dozens of Af- None of this is new for the people of tional Development in Afghanistan who ghan districts were falling and Taliban Afghanistan, who have been trapped over relatives’ safety as resettled in Sacramento several years fighters were laying siege to several ma- for generations in proxy wars of global they watch chaos from afar ago, said the images of desperate resi- jor cities — laid out the growing risks to and regional powers. Children have dents clinging to airplanes in Kabul Kabul, noting that the Afghan govern- been born into battle. Families have BY THOMAS FULLER, could seem almost unreal to Americans. ment was unprepared for a Taliban as- been living for years in refugee camps GIULIA HEYWARD “This is kind of a movie or a drama for sault, according to a person familiar — thousands more have fled their AND HOLLY SECON the United States,” Mr. Sahil said. with the intelligence. homes in recent days. “When you watch a movie, maybe you Intelligence agencies predicted that The Kalashnikovs carried by the They call themselves the lucky people, are scared, but then you walk out of the should the Taliban seize cities, a cascad- Taliban are a heavy burden on the the Afghans who made it out in time. movie theater.” ing collapse could happen rapidly and shoulders of all Afghan people. The Lucky, they say, but guilt-ridden, “But this is real for us,” Mr. Sahil said, the Afghan security forces were at high countries who have used Afghans as shocked and angry. referring to the trauma of knowing that risk of falling apart. It is unclear pawns in their wars of ideology and Tens of thousands of Afghans have re- his relatives are still in Afghanistan. whether other reports during this peri- greed have left them to bear the weight settled in the United States in the two “We haven’t slept, we haven’t eaten. I od presented a more optimistic picture on their own. decades since the American invasion of can’t work.” INTELLIGENCE, PAGE 4 But it is not too late to help the Af- Afghanistan, some of them arriving as MIKE KAI CHEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES At least 132,000 foreign-born Afghan ghan people — particularly women and recently as a few days ago. Sayed Sayedi, left, and Ho Karimi watching scenes from Afghanistan in Fremont, immigrants were living in the United WHO ARE THE TALIBAN? children. This week they described the an- Calif. Fremont is the cultural heart of the American Afghan community. States as of 2019, according to the Amer- Answers to questions about the Afghan Over the last two weeks, I spoke guished conversations with the family ican Community Survey, along with militants who have once again seized YOUSAFZAI, PAGE 11 members they left behind and the pierc- younger generations who were born in control of their country. PAGE 5 ing fear that the Taliban, the country’s Rizwan Sadat, who flew into the United our sisters, for our mothers.” this country. The New York Times publishes opinion new masters, might retaliate against States from Afghanistan last week after Nothing has reassured the Afghan Afghans have migrated to the United LEADERS WITH A MENACING PAST from a wide range of perspectives in their relatives. a career working for American and in- men and women now living in America, States in waves, after the Soviet inva- The Taliban claim to be more tolerant hopes of promoting constructive debate “What is going to happen to them if ternational aid agencies. “Our hearts not the videos posted by their friends on sion in 1979, during the first Taliban rule now. But have they really cast off their about consequential questions. they get a knock on the door?” said are crying for them, for our brothers, for social media of the quiet, deserted FAMILY, PAGE 4 extremist ideology? PAGE 5 Off Denmark’s waters, a mermaid dispute ASAA, DENMARK The mermaid that has watched over the harbor in the village of Asaa, in the north of Denmark, since 2016 is not an exact replica of the landmark in Den- A sculpture resembling mark’s capital. But for the heirs of Ed- vard Eriksen, the artist who sculpted a Copenhagen landmark the Copenhagen statue, the Asaa mer- is at the center of a lawsuit maid bears too close a resemblance. They have initiated legal proceedings, BY LISA ABEND demanding not just financial compensa- tion, but that the sculpture in Asaa be On a blustery day last week, Tina Peder- torn down as well. sen and Jens Poulsen, two Danish vaca- “When I first received the email, I tioners, posed for pictures beside a stat- laughed,” said Mikael Klitgaard, the ue of a mermaid. In some ways, the mayor of Bronderslev, the municipality sculpture seemed familiar: Perched by that includes Asaa. “I thought it was a a harbor, the mermaid rested the weight joke.” of her bare torso on one arm, and draped But the Eriksen estate is not fooling her piscine tail delicately over a rock. around. It has a long history of zealously Yet Pedersen and Poulsen were not in protecting its licensing rights to the im- Copenhagen; they were on their way to age of the sculpture, which represents a a beach vacation on the other side of character from a Hans Christian Ander- Denmark. sen story. Reached by phone, Alice Erik- “We heard on the radio that the estate sen, the artist’s granddaughter and of ‘The Little Mermaid’ was demanding overseer of the estate, declined to com- CARSTEN SNEJBJERG FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES that this one be destroyed,” said Peder- ment. “The case is ongoing,” she said. The mermaid statue in Asaa, Denmark.