The fall of Kabul on August 15, 2021, marked the dramatic return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan. Unlike the Taliban of the mid-1990s, the resurgent “Taliban 2.0” seemed to have realised the importance of visual symbolism in reshaping their political image for both domestic and international audiences. Since August 2021, the Taliban has introduced sweeping changes to redefine Afghanistan’s national identity. The iconography of the Taliban’s white flag, adorned with the Shahada (the Islamic declaration of faith in black lettering), has become a prominent symbol of the overthrow of the Ashraf Ghani regime but remains contentious since it is yet to be widely accepted across the country.
Notably, the flag with the white background now frequently appears in the background during formal engagements between Taliban representatives and foreign delegates (Figure 1). As a prominent member of the Taliban administration says, “when systems change, so do flags.” Flags are more than symbols of power and national identity; they also represent a nation’s history. Given Afghanistan’s long and eventful past, the current Taliban flag is neither the first nor will it be the final one, as officials from the Islamic Emirate hinted that while “Afghanistan’s flag is currently white [it] could be changed based on collective agreement at an appropriate time.”
Figure 1
The flag of Afghanistan from the 1900s until the present day has often changed. Its iconography and colours were never static. Instead, over the decades, the flag mirrored political transitions in this landlocked country—a transformation from an Emirate to a Kingdom to a Republic to a Socialist Republic to an Islamic State, and finally to an Islamic Emirate. These evolving flags reflect Afghanistan’s turbulent history amid internal strife and external pressures. The flags symbolise the country’s constant quest for identity and stability amidst a complex and ever-changing landscape. Afghanistan’s turbulent socio-political history is vividly reflected in the frequent changes to the symbols and colours of its flag under various regimes. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Afghanistan holds the distinction of having a flag that underwent the most changes throughout the 20th century.
