the taliban suck, for sure. that said, i’d have been thrilled if i’d not had to go back to school, even tho i got good grades. i certainly wouldn’t have been “in tears” more like having a tiny party,
Ahh, the taliban, or the brave mujahideen fighters, of course, are being religious fanatics again! Who could’ve guessed! I’m sure when I look into this comment section, I’m going to see lots of people doing historical and contextual analysis, and maybe even some religious analysis, as to why this is the case! I’m sure I won’t see bigotry directed at muslims in general for being the victims of politically conservative radicalizing oil wars! I’m sure everyone will have a totally rational opinion on this!
So provide your citations. If it’s so obvious, then it should be trivially easy for you to show examples of people in the US working to ban women from going to highschool
Absolutely reprehensible and repulsive. Sick fuckers are so scared of women that they will not let them be educated. Fuck those backwards ass sexist monsters. Indefensible
An interesting response. Was there no progressiveness after the West’s influence was felt ? I don’t consider the revisioniste Soviet Union a part of the west but unlike the latter, the nominaly communist government resisted 3 years after the collapse of it’s sugar daddy against a insurgency supported by the United State et co. including others islamist reactionnary elements and China while the US’s puppet only lasted 3 days… with no interference.
My initial thought experiment on this was “could these girls migrate to the west on a visa to complete their studies and return?”, and then I went down the rabbit hole of the demographics of Afghanistan. Of a population of around 40m, 46% are under 15, which is mad! That’s potentially a lot of girls that will lose an education.
I wonder if a remote education could be the way forward? Let these girls study remotely online, assuming they have some form of internet access available, and create a worldwide visa that would allow any Afghan girl that can pass a standard entry exam to attend university. While we have no need to provide children from another country an education, this would probably be a low-cost solution, and one that I imagine many rich philanthropists would happily provide as a grant.
It kind of makes sense because I bet the life expectancy in Afghanistan is not very high at all, so a higher percentage of the population would tend to be younger because of that.
This solution sort of implies that the Taliban would allow it. Like the whole system over there isn’t designed to crush these women as a form of control. It’s not a lack of ability to educate them this is by design of their government.
For a visa like this to work you’d need the government and the Men of the country to be in agreement with it happening. That currently isn’t the case. Providing a visa that almost no one will be able to use even if they wanted too would not only not help but could easily be something that’s pointed to as “we’re already providing a way for them to get educated and we don’t have to do anything else.”
True, under current laws women obviously can’t travel without a man present, so it would basically mean sending a full family over, or at the very least, a parent or partner with them.
My main point of highlighting it was that it’s not a small number of people, and that the young population of Afghanistan isn’t anywhere near as small as I thought. A remote education might help, as it’s something that women can access without having a man present.
The young population is really high in Gaza too. You often see that with poor nations.
Not to bang on about this but, how are you building the infrastructure to get reliable internet (that the men won’t let women access anyway) to remote afghan villages that don’t even have running water?
I think you’re wildly under estimating the control men have over women there. You also may be under the impression it’s just the government trying to control and crush these women, it’s not. The average man in Afghanistan is not only complicit but active in subjugating Afghani women. This isn’t about lack of access to education, it’s about lack of personhood and autonomy for women. Afghanistan has education, women just aren’t allowed to be educated.
Edit: so I just realized you’re probably really young given the solutions you’ve proposed. (I reread and suggesting to send a full family/guardian can only be someone young or a troll.) I apologize if I’m coming off really harsh. The reality is just that men are actively trying to subjugate/control/own/deny basic human rights to women in some of these countries and your comments completely missing that got under my skin. My apologies.
Coming close to my forties, but I’ll take the youth comment! It’s not a serious suggestion, but more of a discussion starter to how help could be given in instances where women want an education AND their families support them.
I’ll never forget, a few years into the war I asked what my Afghani colleague thought of the war. He told me “I hate the Taliban. When I was a boy they came to my village and slit all the men’s throats. NOT a few of the men. ALL of the men.” Leaving those people to suffer that regime was a greater crime than any we committed in the 20 years of occupation.
America is not a secular nation lmao. The entire language of the Bush administration during the Iraq war was one of a ‘holy war’ – they wanted it to be a new crusade.
I’m not arguing that secular people (or, indeed, nations) can’t be evil. While you bring up China, though, it’s a bit of a myth that they’re not religious; approximately 80% of the Chinese population practise cults of gods and ancestors or belong to folk religious movements.
My point was that it’s a bit odd to pick the US as your example of a secular country when it is at the moment de facto Christian.
With regards to Bush being ‘as religious as Trump’, that’s just simply not true. He’s a pretty devout Christian, and has put it in a prominent position in all his campaign rhetoric, more than any other president of this generation. If you just Google George W Bush religion you’ll find plenty of news articles from a variety of sources saying that (e.g. this or this).
As well described in another comment thread, Quran literally encourages everyone to learn, with no gendered distinction made.
You may easily write off bigotry on religion, but it’s literally them doing some crazy shit and covering with religion that clearly says not to do this.
That’s same as many American Christians literally ignoring the Bible, but this time way more consequential. Bigots will stick to religion as an instrument of power and hope nobody actually reads the sacred books, because they never said all those things. Should there be no religion, they’d use something else.
That is not to say religions are flawless. But bigotry just uses religion as a cover, it doesn’t come from it.
Religion in reality is defined by the action of its adherents. The books are just pieces of paper, that the holy book doesn’t condone this cruelty is immaterial when the adherents are overwhelmingly indulged in it. There are definitely Islamic sects around the globe that are socially good, but Talibani Islam is filth that needs to be eradicated.
What’s the relation? Nothing in Islam forbids female education.
The only point of contention you can have with it is that it enforces segregated male and female schooling but it doesn’t ban female education. Since schooling was already segregated in Afghanistan there is no religious reason for the Taliban to close those schools.
The Taliban sadly has heavy elements of tribalism that are not religiously but culturally motivated.
You’re missing the point where religion is always (ab)used to control the masses for whatever point you want. Want to go to war? God hates the enemy and wants you to fight! Oeipoemdie due to poverty caused by government mismanagement? It’s gods will. Want to stop girls from attending school? That is just the way that god wants it baby, sucks to be you!
The relation is that if a girl in Afghanistan now dares to seek out higher education, she will be denounced by the Talibanis as an infidel trying to defy Islam.
Islam is the base they use to enforce this cruelty. The fact that the religion originally didn’t intend this is immaterial.
No, it DOES have to do with religion we are NOT in politically correct feel good land here. Welcome to reality where religion and communism is USED to TERRORIZE human kids and adults.
The guys we supported let the practice of bacha bazi happen. So with our guys we get the systematic rape of boys and with the Taliban we get what is happening now. There is no good side or lesser evil in this situation.
Being consistent in your isolationism is hard when you also have a big military huh? See Chinese naval build up soon to become a big waste of money without serious fast movement towards reeducation or alternatives e.g. large scale island fish farming and maybe brink style wargames simply for entertainment lol
Man, we spent 20 years trying to end it. Arguably we could have had success if it wasn't for the Iraq War interrupting things, but that's besides the point now - we don't have the political capital to go back in, we don't have a reason to go back in (as bad as Afghanistan is, oppression is not actually grounds for intervention despite what Bush will tell you), and we have limited resources. We have to use our limited resources on objectives that are obtainable, justifiable, and have a good outcome relative to investment. Right now, that's the Ukrainian War. After 20 years in Afghanistan? Afghanistan is at the very bottom of the fucking list, man. We can't just say "Here's another trillion, let's try again"
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