Following on from Saira Shah's excellent C4 documentary ‘Behind The Veil' which was discussed in JB recently, here’s the latest from the place The Economist voted ’Worlds Worst Place to Live’ in 2001
I'm not a Muslim myself, but personally I don’t think these guys know the meaning of Islam – they just 'interpret' it to justify their sadistic, intolerant tendencies, and someone seriously needs to take them out - any thoughts? Article below
WxJx
Taliban ‘bans’ Internet in Afghanistan
The Taliban has banned the use of the Internet in Afghanistan to stop "immoral" material flooding into the country.
According to the Afghan Islamic Press, Taliban Foreign Minister Maulvi Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil said it wasn't that the Afghan government was opposed to the Net, it just didn't like the filth that was freely displayed on it.
Muttawakil commented: "We want to establish a system in Afghanistan through which we can control all those things that are wrong, obscene, immoral and against Islam," Afghan Islamic Press reports, via Reuters.
Until now, those in the country lucky enough to have both a computer and the electricity to run it, such as foreign aid agencies, have logged onto the Net via phone lines and ISPs provided by neighbouring Pakistan.
Quite how the thought police plan to determine who is using the phone lines to access the Internet wasn't explained. But the ban applies to everyone, including workers in government offices.
Other examples of Taliban control over what is "wrong" and "immoral" in Afghanistan include women not being allowed to work, go to school or leave their homes without a male chaperone, while "illegal sexual relations" are deemed punishable by beatings or death. (The Register, 13/07/01)
Leave 'em alone. Give 'em 10 years and watch 'em finish 'emselves off.
They just cannot understand the fact that some things on Earth have a good side as well as a bad. So backward! even the people of a 1000 years ago would nod in disappointment! Prior to their rule, Afghan women made up more than 50 percent of the students at Kabul University, 70 percent of the nation's school teachers, 50 percent of civilian government workers and 40 percent of the doctors (how do I know - because I was treated by one). The oppression they perpetuate against women has no religious basis. The restrictions they place on technological advances has no religious basis. It's a barbaric claim to fame which was delayed by about 2000 years!
Along with many PPRuNers I have the incredibly good fortune to live in England. As a born and bred Englishman, I feel that a country such as Afghanistan is little better than a prison camp.
However...
When one of my Islamic friends tackles me with the social problems in England, such as drugs, violence, lack of care for the elderly, illegitimacy, abortion, and the rest, and then goes on to say "we don't have these problems, so why is your country so special?" I have not yet found an answe to convince myself, let alone anyone else.
I dopn't know any answers, and i am still struggling with the questions.
Unwell R, probabley the same reason why islamics cant understand why all that drugs sex and suing hasnt sent the USA colapsing from within and disapearing up its own @rsehole. And why it still remains a strong nation.
Every society has examples of disadvantage. The biggest lie is that they have none of these problems and they don't freedom to say so in their paradises on Earth. It seems your Islamic friends like to play on you insecurities. In this world you have a choice, tyranny whether religious or otherwise or freedom along with the freedom to admit you have problems. I think history teaches us that freedom is so important that we sacrifice some of the certainties inherent in religion and suffer a fallout for some people in society.
Afghanistan has been taken over by barbarians, Muslim or not, they are barbarians. In the future they will destroy themselves, until then we can only watch. It's just another example of how you can use religion to justify anything. I suspect as with all tyrannical regimes most people do not believe in the nonsense but are afraid to speak up, a public beheading stops you in your tracks. Islam is defiled as a religion by the antics of many of it's so called followers. What's happening now is indefensible. Don't allow them to tell you otherwise.
But as one of the minority of lucky bas**rds on the planet I would just to like to work out what we in the West, who have got most things right, have screwed up, and why.
PS: There's no 'e' in 'bloodey', all right? I can handle my countrymen being stuffed at every game ever devised, but it's my 'bloodey' language, Capisce?
Yes, I agree that Britain, the US etc. have not conquered all social problems that come with economic success, but please - we do not beat women to death in a packed football stadium for infidelity, nor ban them from working or educating themselves - Afghanistan is a 'society' where such practices are POLICY - our problems, serious though they are, are inconsequential when compared to such corrupt inhumanity, dressed unconvincingly as 'religion'.
My Muslim friends all join me in condemming this lunacy, and thank God that they don't live in such a hellhole...
WxJx
PS Please visit www.rawa.org and make a small donation - this is probably the world's most honourable cause right now...
When one of my Islamic friends tackles me with the social problems in England, such as drugs, violence, lack of care for the elderly, illegitimacy, abortion, and the rest, and then goes on to say "we don't have these problems,
I live in the center of the Islamic world and I would love to think that it didn’t suffer from the problems of the west. But you would have to wear extremely strong sunglasses to ignore the problems of drugs, violence, illegitimacy and abortion!!!
I will however accept that they do have the utmost respect for the elderly.
I would therefore love to know where your friends utopia is?
Unless one lives alone on a dessert island then I doubt if any of us will ever find an "ideal society". There are faults in all, advanced and primitive. (BTW I personally consider Freely available and Legal Abortion for women a positive factor in a society NOT a failing.).
Perhaps the Afghans were better off under the Communists than the Taliban, at least they had some freedoms such as the rights of women to an education etc, even if they didnt have the rights we take for granted in Europe and America such as free elections, etc- they still dont have this anyway. Given the instability of that country in recent times let us hope that the Taliban regime will collapse no doubt in a counter revolution and its repressive "Mullahs" will end up hanging from lamp-posts in Kabul or stoned to death.
[ 14 July 2001: Message edited by: Tartan Gannet ]
Tend to agree with you TG. The Afgans have been f*cked over throughout history and are quite a resiliant lot. They will get through this. The taliban thugs will eventualy go but wether by force or by internal colapse is the question. Same can be asked of saddam bloodey hussien and other "deepley religious" islamic lunatics. Unfortunatley the taliban are very careful not to go a foot past the Afgan geographic borders. For to do so would be the green light for the U.N. to pound them into dogsh!t.
The Afghans have held off two of the most powerful empires in the last 100 years, those of Great Britain and the Soviet Union. Without access to such an informative invention such as the internet they will surely fall behind in the IT world, be left as an example of a repressive archive of world history.
As was said above, give em 10 years, theyll kill each other off, probably through boredom.
as far as "free elections that we take for granted" are concerned, have you forgotten what you wrote in "Secret Ballot - ..."?
Slash,
Saddam Hussein never pretended to be a "deepley religious" leader. The main reason Iraq as well as Iran are vilified so much (while others are not) is because they are strong enough to be a threat to a certain peace-loving country in the region.
Now that we have a second Afghanistan-related thread, I believe it is about time to put the whole issue a bit into perspective. The following paragraphs are excerpted from recent articles by Eric Margolis, a columnist for 'The Toronto Sun'. His weekly column always makes for a very interesting read, given his many connections to influential people and, most importantly, the fact that as a Lithuanian Jew (though clearly anti-zionist), he has the freedom to point out inconvenient facts for which most other journalists would get the sack overnight:
[http://www.bigeye.com/120300.htm and http://www.bigeye.com/031101.htm]
"The US engineered a punishing Iraq-style embargo of war-ravaged Afghanistan at a time when many of its 18 million people are starving and homeless. Though Taliban controls 95% of the country, the US refuses to recognize or aid the Islamic regime. Washington and the US media have launched a fierce propaganda campaign against Taliban, accusing it of encouraging the opium trade, harboring 'terrorists,' and abusing women. The woman's issue has resonated loudly in the west, particularly on college campuses.
All the women's groups now shrilly lamenting that Afghan women must go veiled were silent when the Soviets slaughtered close to 2 million Afghans - half women - from 1979-1989; silent about 500,000 Afghans maimed by Soviet mines since then; silent about thousands of women raped during the post-war anarchy before Taliban restored internal order.
[...]
The Clinton Administration, which shamefully financed Russia's massacre of the Muslim Chechen, is now actually helping Russia re-enter Afghanistan, an act of dazzling geopolitical folly that will endanger Pakistan and further convince the Muslim world that the United States is its sworn enemy. American money now pays for the killing of Palestinians in the Mideast, the slaughter of the Chechen, the death of 500,000 Iraqi children (UN figures, not mine), and now the punishment of ravaged Afghanistan - all this under the banner of a war against terrorism.
Instead of trying to overthrow Taliban, which will surely pave the way for a second Russian occupation of Afghanistan, the US and its allies should recognize Taliban as the legitimate Afghan government, and work with Kabul to curtail the opium trade, which is currently beyond anyone's control in a nation that is starving and desperate."
"Taliban ended anarchy in Afghanistan, brought peace to 90% of the country, largely halted the opium poppy trade, and is holding off Russian attempts to infiltrate northern Afghanistan. In spite of these important accomplishments, the rural clerics, rustic mountaineers, and religious seminarians who make up Taliban have managed to incur the wrath of the outside world by foolish acts of medievalism, such as forcing women to go veiled from head to toe, stoning alleged adulterers, and, now, in the supreme act of demented anti-public relations, blowing up the giant Buddhas.
[...]
Second, as the result of a power struggle inside Taliban between isolationist and more moderate factions. The former says `To hell with the outside world! We defeated the Soviet Union and won't be told what to do by anyone.' The moderates urge better relations with the west and Afghanistan's nervous neighbors. Washington's intensifying war against Taliban has emboldened the extremists and sidelined the moderates.
Pakistan, Taliban's main supporter, along with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, has only limited influence over Taliban's hardliners. Islamabad has been repeatedly frustrated in attempts to soften Kabul's policies and image. In fact, no one has much influence over Taliban's wildmen, who pride themselves, in true Afghan style, in rebuffing all outside pressure, as the refusal to hand old comrade-in-arms Osama Bin Laden to the Americans shows. The Afghans fear no one, a fact that infuriates the great powers who are unused to having a small nation thumb its collective nose at them."
Winston, I didnt pretend that we have a secret ballot, I said FREE elections. We are not yet)forced to vote, I wouldn't put this past the Great Ego Blair after the poor turnout at the recent general election. Neither are we coerced into voting for a particular party or candidate. Sure the powers that be can discover how an individual voted if they have sufficient reason to do so but compared to dictatorships such as the Taleban, we are free.
Cannot agree with your apologia for them either. I hate dictatorships, theocratic ones especially, and look forward to the Taleban being toppled and its leaders receiving summary execution, (method employed immaterial).
How "free" are you in your decision if you have to fear the Thought Police examining your voting pattern? And then, especially here in Germany, inconvenient parties are systematically persecuted.
I certainly don't "apologize" the brutal measures the Taliban are imposing on their country. I just think we cannot dismiss the circumstances which brought about this terrible situation. As you know, I'm not more religious than you are, but I recognize that at least Islam has proved to be a workable societal system in these parts of the world. And to a certain degree, I cannot but admire them for the resistance they are putting up against the "Great Satan". "Pounding" by the UN or any other body of organized crime will be a sure way of making even more enemies in the region.
Taliban 'bans' Internet in Afghanistan
