Do you know why Japanese, despite being youths, decided to sip that special sake and die for their emperor with their Kamikaze and stuff? Was it mere nationalism? No, a culture was created and employed to make them do it.
Similarly, it takes special "convincing" to get someone to blow themselves up. Taliban has achieved it using religion. "We fight for our religion, those at Kabul are siding with the heretic Americans" - would be the highlight line in all of their "preparation" sessions.
I'm not naive to sit back and believe that they will abandon this culture that they built up after they achieve their goals. It doesn't work like that. That indoctrination and brainwash can bite China later. This is exactly how ISIS formed in Iraq. The ideology and culture that provides them with power ( like the drug pervitin employed by nazis) will stay, fester and mutate.
I would not give the Taliban too much credit in that regard. Every single human culture have individuals who would not hesitate to risk and give their lives for others.
Poems and songs are written about western boys who marched into machine gun fire and shelling; China have war heroes who held satchel charges to blow up bunkers; American pilots on the Doolittle raid to bomb Tokyo in retaliation for Pearl Harbour were ‘strongly encouraged’ to steer their planes into valuable targets rather than bail out if they were hit; the charge of the light brigade; and who can forget the most epic of them all, the 300 Spartans who stood against a million Persians? The list of heroic last stands goes on and on.
The reason is that without that level of fanatical selfishness in enough individuals, if everyone on thought of their own survival and ran rather than fight impossible odds, your culture will get conquered and destroyed.
All ye Taliban did is tap into that universal human instinct and tell people blowing themselves up would help drive out the invaders and free their people. And can you honestly say they were wrong?
My point is that it doesn’t matter which culture of race it is, oppressed people will fight back with whatever means they have at their disposal. Suicide bombing is just the most effective weapon people’s and groups without better alternatives have at their disposal.
The key to dealing with such fanaticism is not with bombs or bullets or preachers, but with development, both human and infrastructure
Outside of the true believers, who are few, only desperate people with nothing to look forward to and little left to loose would consider suicide bombing as a means to earn enough money to lift their family out of poverty.
That is why the Taliban was so focused on sabotaging American development projects and schools, and that is their true crime against the Afghanistan people.
But without foreign invaders to fight, hopefully the Taliban will be much less hostile to develop and education (for boys at least) as a means to improving the living standards of themselves and their families. No one wants to live in the stone ages. The Taliban just prefer to live in the stone ages and be in power, but if their grip on power is not threatened, of course they will want better living standards. And China is uniquely qualified to deliver said development without the risk of regime change and coloured revolutions.
China’s position in Afghan will no doubt be made more complicated and difficult by active sabotage by America and India forces, but with Pakistan on its side vouching for China, I am quietly confident of China’s chances. There will inevitably be the odd attack and setbacks, but overall the long term prospects don’t look too bad.
