The Taliban's crusade against love and the color red

Kabul"I'll bury you right here." This is what a Taliban man in Kabul told me on Valentine's Day. It's been two weeks since February 14th, but I still can't forget that day.

In Kabul, especially in the Shahr-e-Naw neighborhood where I was on February 14th, there were many more Taliban on the streets than usual. What I witnessed myself wasn't an isolated incident. Photos and videos circulating on social media showed the same scene in other parts of the city: Taliban from the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice stationed at the doors of restaurants to frisk and interrogate customers.

In Shahr-e-Naw, every couple wanting to enter a restaurant had to submit to this check. The men had to prove that the woman accompanying them was indeed their wife. And the women were subjected to inspecting their clothing. I saw with my own eyes a Taliban officer demanding that a man make his wife change the headscarf she was wearing because it was red. Yes, as strange as it sounds, on Valentine's Day, the color red was forbidden in Kabul.

That day, I met up with four friends to go to a restaurant and relax. To celebrate Valentine's Day and do something different, we decided that each of us would bring a small gift. Nothing important, just simple things. It was a simple get-together with friends, with nothing subversive or political about it.

However, when we arrived at the restaurant entrance, the Taliban stopped us. "Why have you come? Who are you meeting?" they asked. They also searched our bags. They emptied the place completely and laid all our belongings side by side on a small table outside the restaurant, as if they were contraband: hair clips, lipstick, nail polish, earrings, wet wipes, and of our little gifts, the red one. In the end, they let us into the establishment, but confiscated all the gifts precisely because they were red.

One of my friends protested and asked why we couldn't take the gifts into the women's section of the restaurant, where, as the name suggests, there are only women. The Taliban man booed her, calling her "indecent" and "rude." He added, "Don't raise your voice at us, or we'll suffocate you."

I remember thinking then: what country were we born in? In Afghanistan, as girls, we are forbidden from interacting with men. But now, even sitting with your friends is considered suspicious.

Inside the restaurant, things weren't any better. There were morality police there too, accompanied by a Taliban man armed with a rifle. When one of my friends briefly took out her phone to take a picture of us all sitting together, an officer immediately grabbed it and deleted the photos she had just taken. However, we didn't complain. The armed Taliban man was too close, just a few steps away, to object.

Violation of Privacy

But it didn't end there. The morality policeman started going through all the photos on my friend's phone, and then I couldn't stay silent anymore. "Why are you looking at a girl's private photos? Can't we even have any privacy anymore?" I snapped indignantly. Then a Taliban man came up and yelled at me, "One more word and I'll bury you right here."

At that moment, it became clear what the problem was: it wasn't the color red, or Valentine's Day, or morality. The goal was to control us, to keep the Afghan population subjugated.

The pressure that day wasn't limited to restaurants and women. It also extended to flower vendors and shopkeepers throughout the city. Kabul's famous flower street, where colorful bouquets fill the shops and part of the sidewalks, was also under Taliban surveillance. Some shopkeepers were reprimanded or even forced to close their businesses. Red roses, once sold openly without issue, suddenly became suspicious merchandise.

Reversing social changes

However, it wasn't always like this. Although I personally never celebrated Valentine's Day, I remember how Kabul transformed itself on February 14th, even though some conservative clerics labeled the holiday a sin and contrary to Islam and Afghan traditions. However, these objections were mostly limited to sermons and media debates, and were never accompanied by searches or intimidation.

Large stores decorated their windows with red balloons. Restaurants offered special menus. Young couples, engaged or married, went out together without fear. I even remember a fashion show in Kabul in 2020 where young women walked a red carpet in traditional Afghan dresses, also red, accompanied by their partners. The event took place with strict security measures. Special forces were even deployed to prevent a possible attack, but it was a public event, visible, right on the street.

This year, the day after Valentine's Day, the Taliban spokesman for the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice publicly expressed his complete opposition to the celebration of this holiday. His words revealed something important: it's not just about a celebration, but about erasing the social and cultural changes that have taken root in our country during the two decades of international presence. It's about reversing what had already become part of our daily lives in the cities.

In present-day Kabul, love is controlled, color is viewed with suspicion, friendship is monitored, and intimacy can be invaded without any shame.