UNICEF would never have been “blindsided” and no one would be “baffled” if they had ever taken the trouble to understand the Taliban’s core beliefs and motivating ideology. But such study was foreclosed as “Islamophobic,” and naive, unconsciously ethnocentric Western Leftists projected their own beliefs, priorities and desires upon the Taliban.

Now, to their shock, they been offered a lesson in their own unreality, but that lesson will remain unlearned.

“Many baffled by Taliban reneging pledge on girls’ education,” by Kathy Gannon, Associated Press, March 24, 2022:

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A news presenter on Afghanistan’s TOLO TV wept as he read the announcement. Images of girls crying after being turned back from school flooded social media. Aid groups and many others remained baffled.

The Taliban have so far refused to explain their sudden decision to renege on the pledge to allow girls to go to school beyond sixth grade. Schools were supposed to reopen to older girls on Wednesday, the start of the new school year.

The ban caught even the Taliban-appointed Education Ministry unprepared. In many places across Afghanistan, some girls in higher grades returned to schools, only to be told to go home.

The move may have been designed to appease the Taliban’s hard-line base but it came at the expense of further alienating the international community. The world has been reluctant to officially recognize Afghanistan’s new rulers, concerned the Taliban would impose similar harsh measures and restrictions — particularly limiting women’s rights to education and work — as when they previously ruled the country in the late 1990s.

The United Nations children’s agency told The Associated Press on Thursday they were blindsided by the announcement.

“I think that yesterday was a very confusing day for all of us,” said Jeannette Vogelaar, UNICEF’s chief of education in Afghanistan.

“We were blindsided,” said Sam Mort, UNICEF’s communications chief in Afghanistan. “All the messages, all the actions that had been taking place led us to believe that schools were opening, and as we understand it, that’s what our counterparts in the Ministry of Education believed as well.”