Pashtana Durrani described the Taliban as "people who were fighting in
rural and very mountainous regions" who don't have the proper background
for modern financial literacy.
Pashtana Durrani, the founder of an organization working to make
education available to women and girls across Afghanistan as the country
remains under Taliban rule, said the Islamic fundamentalist group has
poor financial literacy, especially when it comes to crypto.
In a Wednesday interview with political commentator Tommy Vietor from Pod Save the World, LEARN Afghanistan founder Pashtana Durrani said
the international community — particularly the United States — should
consider removing the sanctions imposed on Afghanistan and unfreezing
funds controlled by foreign governments. According to Durrani, limiting
foreign aid to Afghanistan through nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)
and other entities gives the Taliban an advantage, as opposed to using
the latest technology, including cryptocurrency.
“When I say
unfreeze the assets, send it in cryptocurrency — the Taliban will never
understand it,” said Durrani. “Send it to a private bank — they will
never be able to access it [...] Taliban don't have bank accounts.
Taliban were people who were fighting in rural and very mountainous
regions. They had no time to go to a bank, fill out the forms and have
that.”
Following
the almost immediate takeover by the Taliban in August, Afghanistan has
faced a number of crises. In addition to the threat imposed by having
armed religious extremists in control of the government, millions of
Afghans are facing food insecurity and economic hardship. Many residents
are still unable to withdraw cash from banks as the international
community attempts to impose restrictions aimed at hurting the Taliban.
“The
sanction is only hurting the people who had savings in the bank
accounts. It’s hurting the teachers, it's hurting the students, it's
hurting all those people who actually worked in the past two decades —
it's never going to hurt Taliban.”
Many nonprofit organizations helping Afghan refugees relocate to foreign countries have asked for crypto donations using Bitcoin (BTC)
and other tokens, but Durrani has called on using digital assets as a
force for good in the face of what she considers to be ineffective
sanctions. In the digital age, good samaritans have sometimes completely bypassed official sanctions imposed by the U.S. to donate directly to people impacted by war, famine, or other disasters in countries like Iran and Yemen.
“Afghanistan
can be put into those great lists of [the Financial Action Task Force]
and all that,” said Durrani. “It could be one of those countries where
you just start using cryptocurrency — legitimize it, whatever — but at
the end of the day you're hurting the wrong kind of people to punish the
people who are in power.”
siurce link : https://cointelegraph.com/news/the-taliban-will-never-understand-crypto-according-to-founder-of-learn-afghanistan
