Since coming to power in August 2021, the Taliban government has made a number of moves to suppress the rights of Afghan women. The latest curb it has imposed is banning women from attending the popular Band-e-Amir national park 175 kilometres west of Kabul
“Not content with depriving girls and women of education, employment, and free movement, the Taliban also want to take from them parks and sport and now even nature, as we see from this latest ban on women visiting Band-e-Amir,” Human Rights Watch’s Associate Women’s Rights Director Heather Barr says.
I’ve always wondered how a theocracy that follows it’s rules as strict as the Taliban can rationalize their terrible state and misfortune when the enemies of their god are what the religious would consider “blessed”.
As a Muslim the idea that if you’re a good person you’ll have a good life doesn’t exist, and there’s actually a hadith stating that the stronger one’s belief in Allah the more Allah tests one.
Also as a Muslim, those guys are making their own rules and then following them. I seriously have no idea where in the Quran or Sunnah they found “Don’t let women visit national parks”.
As far as I gathered, they claimed that allowing women in national parks meant losing control over them which led to some women not wearing their required head scarf.
They cannot tolerate the slightest slight, and don’t think women should have any agency in the first place, so it’s a very easy decision for them to simply imprison all women in the entire country to ensure they all keep their head scarf on.
But putting restrictions and practical imprisonment onto women for their entire life with harsh punishments for disobedience is hardly unique in Afghanistan.
The entire Muslim world is full of men who like to commit human rights violations of this specific kind. And a larger group; the vast majority of Muslim men, who favor this but don’t act on it much beyond voicing their support.
Religion is horrible.
Islam is currently by far the worst one.
The mild existential comfort it grants to the weak is not worth the vast array of curses it comes with.
And a larger group; the vast majority of Muslim men, who favor this but don’t act on it much beyond voicing their support.
I’ll just say that most of us are not like this, speaking as a Muslim guy from a Muslim country. Like seriously we’ve got some nutjobs here, but people who think women shouldn’t be able to leave their homes are vanishingly rare (at the very least I’ve never seen any, and my social circle isn’t particularly liberal).
Seriously though, people are not black-and-white. You cannot just state some random criterion and postulate that whoever doesn’t match it, is just as bad as the Taliban themselves. Black-and-white is never how real life works.
Hey, I know this can be an issue that strikes a nerve. That said, acknowledging nuance is important to having a productive conversation. Judging everyone by a set standard and having unkind words for not meeting that standard even before you know much about the person you are engaging with is not going to be productive, and it’s not particularly nice either.
To be clear, I do not intend to ask you to tolerate oppression. By all means you should oppose oppression strenuously! But being harsh to someone you disagree with online is not the way to do that. In the future, please try your best to disengage from the conversation for a bit until you are in a better headspace.
There’s some truth to that. They have something to fight for, the men were fighting to free their own sex slaves and ban their own vices, no wonder they weren’t motivated.
To be fair it must be remembered that the Taliban had (and still have) some of the best PR out there since they were fighting a foreign invader. That tends to make you popular.
The people living in afghanistan are the ones being victimized by the taliban. They do have supporters obviously, but to say that all men living in afghanistan are okay with what’s happening is ridiculous.
If America was violently overtaken by gun-toting religious maniacs, would it be fair to say “Oh well some of them voted for it! Their fault!”
There are no real signs of any will to resistance, so what else are we to make of that besides this is the way the majority wants it?
I agree with your general point, but isn’t there resistance in the northern parts of Afghanistan? Also there’s the part where the US gave the Taliban some of the best PR out there. Fighting against a foreign invader tends to make you pretty popular irrespective of your stance on other things.
Okay, but the US didn’t do a great job of preparing Afghanistan for resisting the Taliban when they left. The US basically packed everything up and left overnight. Have you seen John Oliver’s very good segment on the topic? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2hw_ghPcQs&ab_channel=LastWeekTonight
Not to mention that a lot of the times the Afgan Army went on patrols with US forces, The ANA we’re fucked out of their minds on opiates and just fucked around.
@storksforlegs@raccoona_nongrata That’s essentially what a lot of people elsewhere in the US say about those of us who live in states run by gun-toting religious maniacs. (For the record, about 40% of us did not vote for this.)
They definitely did. But a whole lot of Americans voted against them, too. It would be unfair to dismiss all of America because some of them vote for these people.
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I’ve always wondered how a theocracy that follows it’s rules as strict as the Taliban can rationalize their terrible state and misfortune when the enemies of their god are what the religious would consider “blessed”.
As a Muslim the idea that if you’re a good person you’ll have a good life doesn’t exist, and there’s actually a hadith stating that the stronger one’s belief in Allah the more Allah tests one.
Also as a Muslim, those guys are making their own rules and then following them. I seriously have no idea where in the Quran or Sunnah they found “Don’t let women visit national parks”.
As far as I gathered, they claimed that allowing women in national parks meant losing control over them which led to some women not wearing their required head scarf.
They cannot tolerate the slightest slight, and don’t think women should have any agency in the first place, so it’s a very easy decision for them to simply imprison all women in the entire country to ensure they all keep their head scarf on.
But putting restrictions and practical imprisonment onto women for their entire life with harsh punishments for disobedience is hardly unique in Afghanistan.
The entire Muslim world is full of men who like to commit human rights violations of this specific kind. And a larger group; the vast majority of Muslim men, who favor this but don’t act on it much beyond voicing their support.
Religion is horrible.
Islam is currently by far the worst one.
The mild existential comfort it grants to the weak is not worth the vast array of curses it comes with.
I’ll just say that most of us are not like this, speaking as a Muslim guy from a Muslim country. Like seriously we’ve got some nutjobs here, but people who think women shouldn’t be able to leave their homes are vanishingly rare (at the very least I’ve never seen any, and my social circle isn’t particularly liberal).
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Seriously though, people are not black-and-white. You cannot just state some random criterion and postulate that whoever doesn’t match it, is just as bad as the Taliban themselves. Black-and-white is never how real life works.
deleted by creator
Hey, I know this can be an issue that strikes a nerve. That said, acknowledging nuance is important to having a productive conversation. Judging everyone by a set standard and having unkind words for not meeting that standard even before you know much about the person you are engaging with is not going to be productive, and it’s not particularly nice either.
To be clear, I do not intend to ask you to tolerate oppression. By all means you should oppose oppression strenuously! But being harsh to someone you disagree with online is not the way to do that. In the future, please try your best to disengage from the conversation for a bit until you are in a better headspace.
America should have armed and trained the women of Afghanistan, not the men.
There’s some truth to that. They have something to fight for, the men were fighting to free their own sex slaves and ban their own vices, no wonder they weren’t motivated.
deleted by creator
To be fair it must be remembered that the Taliban had (and still have) some of the best PR out there since they were fighting a foreign invader. That tends to make you popular.
The people living in afghanistan are the ones being victimized by the taliban. They do have supporters obviously, but to say that all men living in afghanistan are okay with what’s happening is ridiculous.
If America was violently overtaken by gun-toting religious maniacs, would it be fair to say “Oh well some of them voted for it! Their fault!”
deleted by creator
I agree with your general point, but isn’t there resistance in the northern parts of Afghanistan? Also there’s the part where the US gave the Taliban some of the best PR out there. Fighting against a foreign invader tends to make you pretty popular irrespective of your stance on other things.
deleted by creator
Okay, but the US didn’t do a great job of preparing Afghanistan for resisting the Taliban when they left. The US basically packed everything up and left overnight. Have you seen John Oliver’s very good segment on the topic? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2hw_ghPcQs&ab_channel=LastWeekTonight
deleted by creator
Not to mention that a lot of the times the Afgan Army went on patrols with US forces, The ANA we’re fucked out of their minds on opiates and just fucked around.
deleted by creator
@storksforlegs @raccoona_nongrata That’s essentially what a lot of people elsewhere in the US say about those of us who live in states run by gun-toting religious maniacs. (For the record, about 40% of us did not vote for this.)
But the US did vote for gun-toting religious maniacs to overtake them though …
They definitely did. But a whole lot of Americans voted against them, too. It would be unfair to dismiss all of America because some of them vote for these people.
America is being taken over by gun-toting religious maniacs, and yeah, most of the populace supports them. Take a look at Trump’s recent poll numbers.
Yes, they are trying. Sorry I should rephrase that to “if America was successfully overtaken”
I still wouldn’t say most of the populace, it’s more like a tie. But thats’ definitely a way way higher number than there should be considering.
I wish I had a way to filter all of these posts about how shitty Afghanistan is.
That place is never going to change.