They had hoped for a world that was ultimately denied them:
Now, academics fear for their own safety. They also worry that research will languish without money and personal freedoms, and because educated people will flee. Some fear that they could be persecuted for being involved in international collaborations, or because of their fields of study or their ethnicity.
“The achievements we had over the past 20 years are all at great risk,” says Attaullah Ahmadi, a public-health scientist at Kateb University in Kabul.
According to news reports, billions of dollars in overseas finance for Afghanistan’s government—such as assets held by the US Federal Reserve and credit from the International Monetary Fund—have been frozen. It’s not clear whether or when the funding will be released, and how that will affect universities and researchers, but many report salaries not being paid.
Smiriti Mallapaty, “Afghanistan’s Terrified Scientists Fear Persecution” at Scientific American
And now hordes may persecute them for even wanting that world.
Meanwhile, in the cradles of science that they are denied, there is a Woke war on math and on science.
Yes, the lights are going out… for now.