Why, oh why, are the vast majority of Muslim nations so unremittingly repressive and undemocratic? We, who rightly condemn the cruelties, unjust laws and actions of Western states, have a duty to extend that concern and condemnation to the Arab Kingdoms, to Egypt, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Iran and Indonesia, the Maldives, other Muslim-majority countries and the most blighted of all, Afghanistan.

Old colonialism depleted the resources of the nations they ruled over and neo-colonialism continues that history of economic exploitation, but most of the suffering of people in the post-colonial world is made worse by ruthless, corrupt, get-rich politicians who exert absolute power.

Almost exactly five years ago, the US abruptly left Afghanistan after 20 years of war and semi-occupation. The agreement was negotiated by Donald Trump, but the decision to go through with it was taken by Joe Biden and supported by Kamala Harris, supposed liberal internationalists. They handed the country to the Taliban. I remember scenes of weeping, desperate Afghans who had worked with the allies trying to cling to planes at Kabul Airport (over 120,000 were airlifted, but many more were simply abandoned). I remember the testimony of a US Marine at a congressional hearing in March 2023. It was a “catastrophe,” he said between tears.

The Taliban’s first reign of terror was between 1996 and 2001, when it was overthrown by a US-led coalition. For 20 years, the country was effectively a colony and also a war zone, with tens of thousands of civilian casualties as the US exacted revenge for the 9/11 Al-Qaeda attacks. The war on terror led to some unforeseen consequences. In urban areas, people felt free for the first time in years. Women and girls got educated, had agency.

They became lawyers, judges, doctors, set up small businesses, wore make-up and bright clothes. I have a beautiful book titled , by the photographer Jessica Fulford-Dobson. The girls look carefree and happy on or with their boards. Today, females are denied secondary education, almost any job, the right to walk in public spaces, laugh and live in any meaningful way. They have been re-caged.

I have got to know some local Afghan families who have relatives back there. One mum – whose daughter is studying medicine at a top British university- showed me a picture of a small 14-year-old, dressed up like a doll bride, next to a man in his seventies. He bought her to be his fourth wife. The parents are so poor they had to sell her. The BBC’s Lyse Doucet and Sky News’s Alex Crawford do report on what’s happening. But most Brits don’t know or don’t care.

During the Taliban years, past and present, millions of Afghans fled to Pakistan and Iran. But in the last three years, six million of them have been forcibly returned to their country. Charlie Goodlake, spokesperson for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Afghanistan, says: “We’ve never seen, in recent history, a return movement on this scale.” Some are undocumented, others have legal status. Iran, like Pakistan, is now also deporting them. Many of those being forced back into that hellish country have never lived there. In a BBC report, a beautiful child with blonde curls and grey-blue eyes stares at the camera. She is now in a country where to be female is a curse.

Pakistan is not a rich country. It did provide some safety and subsistence to fleeing Afghans. But they were maltreated and resented. Iran’s mass expulsions are harder to understand. It could be because the influx of Sunni Muslims unnerved the Shia country. But why now and so fast and ruthlessly?

That brings me back to my opening statements. The oil-rich nations – Bahrain, the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia – could offer permanent sanctuary and assistance to fearful, hopeless Afghan asylum seekers. They have money to burn. Other North African and Arabian countries don’t give a damn. When it comes to Afghanistan (and Palestine too), they are indifferent or contemptibly maladroit.

Jordan is the exception. It previously accepted a vast number of Palestinian refugees, so it can’t offer much to another displaced population.

You know, a central concept of Islam is the Ummah, meaning the global collective of all Muslim believers which transcends national, racial, ethnic boundaries. Yet today, the most ostentatious followers of the faith are also the most selfish and venal.

Meanwhile, as the engaging journalist and author, Hollie McKay writes in her remarkable book, Afghanistan: The End of the US Footprint and the Rise of the Taliban Rule, “Little girls smile through their sadness, women weep, and hunger burns through the hollow lives of those who plead for someone, anyone, to listen to their misery.”