Taliban, turbans and smartphones season 4, episode 5.
Season 4, Episode 5 - The Ministry for Vice and Virtue.
This episode considers the role of the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Forbidding of Vice within the Taliban state-building project. We look at the moral code which Vice and Virtue enforcers are charged with policing. We describe the power which V&V men wield within state institutions where they act as ideological commissars. We conclude that the ministry and the law governing its actions are integral to Taliban Amir’s vision of achieving a society permanently mobilised for violent jihad.
23 Jul 2025
Talibans turbans and smartphones Season 4, Episode 4
Season 4, Episode 4. “Taliban transforming the education system”
The Taliban are pursuing an ambitious education policy, covering the country’s schools, madrassahs and universities. As well as excluding girls from secondary and tertiary education, the Taliban have taken an impressive range of measures designed to end western cultural influence and produce a new generation of Afghans who “think like Taliban”. This could be described as the world’s largest extremism promotion project. Michael and Tamim explore the ambitiousness of the Taliban educational reforms.
2 Jun 2025
Taliban, turbans and smartphones - Season4, Episode 3
Season 4, Episode 3 - Feuds, job cuts and morality policing – latest developments in the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate and the Afghan response”.
This episode is a catch-up on developments in the Islamic Emirate. Michael and Tamim talk through the harsh realities which the Taliban, the general population and opposition are being forced to confront. The Taliban, struggling with a budget shortfall, are implementing mass redundancies, cutting salaries and failing to pay many of their bills. The population faces harassment at the hands of the Taliban and immiseration as economic conditions deteriorate. And the opposition struggles to find a way to scale up resistance to Taliban rule. Although armed resistance for now poses no threat to the Emirate, the general alienation from the regime hints at possible future challenges.
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
2 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
5 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 35 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
43
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
68
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