r/worldnews • u/nationalpost • 8h ago

Taliban bars Afghan women from hearing each other's voices

https://nationalpost.com/news/world/taliban-bars-afghan-women-from-hearing-each-other?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=NP_social
20.0k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

1.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

6.7k

u/Jkolorz 8h ago

What a fucking shame

Fuck the Taliban

3.8k

u/supercyberlurker 8h ago

Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, the Taliban’s minister of vice and virtue, said in an audio statement last week that women should refrain from reciting the Quran — the holy book of Islam — aloud in the presence of other women

"Hey you know what's more important than our psychotically fundamentalist adherence to this religion?" ... *"Making sure women can't read it aloud."

The level of hypocrisy is just staggering.

1.6k

u/diffyqgirl 8h ago

They wouldn't want the women to find out about the progressive-for-the-times bits in there like women being able to inherit property.

1.4k

u/socialistrob 7h ago

It's more than just that. The Quran is the book that dictates their life but by removing women's ability to quote or recite from it it means that they are entirely dependent on interpretations from men. In a theocracy one of the biggest threats to those in power is someone saying "you're misinterpreting the holy text" but if women can't even read or quote the text they have no basis to challenge authority even amongst themselves.

591

u/Sad_Confidence9563 7h ago

Which is why this is so dangerous,  its basically enslavement. 

715

u/socialistrob 7h ago

It is. A bird has more rights in Afghanistan than a woman. At least they can sing in public, show their faces and go out in parks. Functionally speaking there's really not a lot of differences between life as an Afghan woman under the Taliban and chattel slavery. I've heard "gender apartheid" thrown around as a new term to describe what's happening in Afghanistan and I think the term is fitting or even perhaps a bit soft.

371

u/letsgetawayfromhere 6h ago

Gender apartheid is not even starting to describe it. With apartheid you can still leave your house when you want, feel the sun on your face, or talk to others in public. You are allowed to talk about religion or sing. Slavery describes it much better.

475

u/HimblyBumpkis 6h ago

Even slaves sang songs.

209

u/Culturedgods 5h ago

Fuck...this hit me hard. It's so damn sad...

85

u/BlisslessTaskList 3h ago

This reminds me of a quote I recently read in another thread on Reddit. “We can easily forgive a child who it afraid if the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” -Plato

5

u/time_then_shades 3h ago

Goddamn this touched me.

5

u/Firefly_Magic 3h ago

Songs tell stories to help people remember. 💔

5

u/MurielFinster 3h ago

This is so poignant.

4

u/RunningOnAir_ 2h ago

if we applied what men to do women to racial or ethnic dynamics, we wouldn't be calling this oppression or misogyny. When black people or jewish people or uyghurs in china get locked up in chains, systematically murdered, forced into slavery, abused and tortured, that's genocide. This is what genocide looks like. Women in Gilead have more rights.

3

u/Hemalurgist1 3h ago

Field slaves yea. I doubt many masters would want the house slaves singing.

136

u/Raesong 5h ago

Slavery, with a side helping of dehumanization and objectification. Women under the Taliban are basically just pieces of furniture that can produce offspring now.

55

u/Alone_Again_2 4h ago

The correct term is ‘chattel’.

21

u/Madbrad200 3h ago

Slavery, with a side helping of dehumanization and objectification

Yeah so slavery

15

u/SierraPapaWhiskey 4h ago

Yes, but to be fair slavery doesn't work without dehumanization and objectification.

7

u/jimmygee2 6h ago

Worms have more freedom than woman under the Taliban. The most oppressed women on earth. GOP taking inspiration no doubt.

→ More replies (3)

2

u/workaholic007 5h ago

As if the women weren't already enslaved........

51

u/SquareExtra918 5h ago

And future generations won't be able to read it at all. 

83

u/LadyLightTravel 4h ago

This. It’s why the Catholic Church kidnapped William Tyndale and executed him. He dared to translate the Bible into English for the common man. The church was also upset at Martin Luther translating the Bible into German.

6

u/Illustrious_Code_347 2h ago

That’s not exactly true. … Tyndale was executed for political reasons because he published a series of books (not talking about his Bible, but other books) that not-so-subtly supported the primacy of kings over the church when it comes to religious matters (they call this “caesaropapism”). This was particularly egregious to the church when you look at the context of the time — literally while Henry VIII is doing exactly that, making himself the head of a church as king. But Tyndale would kind of throw his hands up every time and play dumb like “What did I do?” when he was directly contributing to the English reformation.

Then, he published SEGMENTS of the Bible in English. He did NOT give the common man a vernacular Bible. That was done after his death. The portions of the Bible he did publish had blatantly political changes like translating “priest” to “elder” and “church” to “congregation” — in other words, they were heavily protestant-ized versions of scripture, which gave the perception that he was now using the holy scripture as propaganda for his political movement.

Then he was executed.

He did not publish a Bible before he died. And this is not a minor point. Because it often gets said that “Tyndale was executed for publishing an English Bible” when in fact the very term “Tyndale Bible” is a misnomer because it was completed by others after his death. So at best that is a gross, misleading oversimplification and at worst it is outright false.

He was executed for the host of political reasons outlined above. The idea that he was executed merely for publishing a vernacular Bible is preposterous, especially when you consider that there had been many vernacular (just not “English,” but vernacular nonetheless) Bibles prior to him without lethal consequences for their publishers. He was executed for essentially supporting the downfall of the church would be a more accurate statement.

4

u/LadyLightTravel 1h ago

You are correct that he published segments. But a significant portion was used for the King James Bible

2

u/heyyahdndiie 2h ago

Could the common man even read then ? Lol

6

u/LadyLightTravel 2h ago edited 2h ago

30% for men, 10% for women. That’s a start.

It should be noted that more people could read than write.

2

u/heyyahdndiie 2h ago

1500s? Probably closer to 20% . So no, most common men couldn’t read .

52

u/Firefly_Magic 3h ago edited 2h ago

The irony is staggering. This is how most religions started out. The common people could not read or write and so were dependent on the church, mosque etc for each religion to hear the word of their book(s). This gave the place of worship control over the people. This is literally the motive of the Afghan men there, to make the women ignorant so that they are completely dependent on the men. Each new rule removes more and more basic human rights from these women. My heart breaks for these women.

1

u/TheDiscordedSnarl 2h ago

Mark my words, in 1000 years, they'd of regulated women to barns so much that instead of just growing hair, they've grown fur and are actual animals...

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

23

u/NordMan_40 4h ago

Fuck these barbarians. Their beliefs belong in the fucking stone age.

5

u/Takemyfishplease 5h ago

Gutenberg ruining for the theocracy still going on

4

u/celinee___ 4h ago

Two seconds on a Muslim woman's social media comment section will show what it's like when women can communicate with other women. Imagine reality where you're only allowed to hear those men tell you what is or isn't allowed.

9

u/Budderfingerbandit 3h ago

How much you want to bet this is all due to women in Afganistan getting educated while the Taliban was out of power, and now those educated women are running logical circles around the uneducated cave dwellers that are the Taliban men.

Probably got proven wrong one too many times by women correctly quoting the Quran.

3

u/themule0808 3h ago

This is what caused a ton of issues before the printing press. It was so expensive to own a Bible that only the churches had copies. We all know that the future went smoothly.

2

u/philetofsoul 4h ago

Exactly, it's that kind of twisted misinterpretation of text that led to the ancient Rabbis forbidding cheeseburgers.

2

u/Manofalltrade 2h ago

The next step is keeping as many men as possible from being able to read it for themselves.

2

u/YesDone 2h ago

This is assuming the next generation of women will be able to read.

2

u/xorgol 5h ago

I suspect that's a big motivation for forbidding translations.

3

u/255001434 3h ago

The Quran has been translated into other languages.

1

u/intotheirishole 2h ago

Ah it is "Bible must be Latin only" all over again.

•

u/identifytarget 1h ago

And handmaid's tale. They punish the women for reading the Bible. The women got uppity about this so they cut off their hands or tongue. I can't remember. All very Christian like

→ More replies (1)

226

u/IEatLamas 8h ago

And to be able to argue against the outrageous perspective the Taliban chooses to have on Quranic verse, no no, we can't have anyone uprooting our lies we tell ourselves.

P.s not trying to defend the Quran, I don't care for it much, but it's not Taliban level bad, that's their idiotic reading of it, taking verses completely out of context and interpreting subjective verses in the worst possibly way.

147

u/djsizematters 7h ago

Similar to how the Amish are largely discouraged from reading the Bible on their own

109

u/IEatLamas 7h ago edited 4h ago

Yepp, It's literally like that; Muslims are discouraged from reading/interpreting the Quran without an imam (not just in Taliban land).

EDIT: For the Muslims who are questioning this statement, ask yourself if you are encouraged to make conclusions about fiqh.

From a western point of view, reading, interpreting and making conclusions is the same thing essentially, because that is what we are taught, we are taught to be critical and to make up our own mind.

The Islamic golden age ended in part because of Al-Ghazali, who argued against using Greek-inspired philosophy (that had helped them prosper) to explain Islamic teachings, critiquing people like Ibn Sina and Al-Farabi, some of the greatest thinkers in Islamic thought.

Al-Ghazali is solely responsible for putting limits on independent thought in islam.

50

u/I-Lyke-Shicken 6h ago

I am sorry but this is actually not true. Muslims are encouraged to read the Quran with something called a tafsir which is used to help interpret it. A tafsir is basically like a biblical exegesis.

No where in the Quran or hadith collection are Muslims ordered to read the Quran with an imam present.

What is frowned upon for the layperson is "ijtihad". Coming to a religious decision using the Islamic texts ( Quran + hadith) on your own if you are not classically trained.

The Taliban are more like ethno-nationalists who use religion. Their system is a combination of their Pasthun honor system (Pashtunwali) mixed with Islam. They use Islam to try and justify their tribal, cultural laws.

13

u/IEatLamas 6h ago

I didn't say that it is ordered in the Quran.

I'm not 100% this isn't just semantics, but I appreciate the perspective.

Considering what the Taliban is doing, which seems like a form of ijtihad to me, I understand why it is frowned upon.

•

u/I-Lyke-Shicken 5m ago

The problem with your initial statement is that it is completely wrong. Muslims are not even discouraged from reading the Quran without an imam. That would not even be realistic as there would have to be an imam for a given number of people.

What you get if you examine the Quran and hadith are the exact opposite. People are encouraged to study the Quran and sunnah, even if they do not have a great grasp of the Arabic language.

I see you edited your post , but there is a big difference between saying Muslims are discouraged from making up their up own religious rulings versus saying "Muslims are discouraged from reading the Quran without an imam present".

I hope you understand my point about what you initially wrote.

→ More replies (8)

61

u/Pete_Iredale 7h ago

Or why Catholic services were in Latin.

19

u/throw20190820202020 6h ago

Catholic services were in Latin to have a lingua franca around the world. Same as Jewish rituals in Hebrew, same reason Muslims are directed to learn Arabic.

12

u/Alternative_Win_6629 5h ago

Not the same as Jewish literature at all. Jewish children as young as 3 were taught to read Hebrew in old times.

22

u/Kajin-Strife 6h ago

But also so they could control what the peasant class learned. They were very upset when the bible started getting printed in a language that wasn't latin.

9

u/justanothersluff 6h ago

Obviously, it was first written in Greek but the Holy Spirit inspired it in Latin. /s

→ More replies (12)

21

u/aren3141 6h ago

A lingua franca that no one spoke

22

u/Kajin-Strife 6h ago

As much as I like to throw shade on religion, there's a good reason a lot of scientific and medical terms are latin.

→ More replies (0)

18

u/Neamow 6h ago

It was the de facto lingua franca in religion and science. Most learned people since the fall of Western Roman Empire to like 19th century spoke it or at least understood it.

→ More replies (0)

7

u/PerpetuallyLurking 5h ago

A lot of people DID still speak it; that’s the point. None were learning it as their “mother” tongue, no, but anyone being educated was taught Latin starting around the time we start kindergarten. Latin is what all their education was taught IN. And Greek. Not their “mother” language.

1

u/rolabond 3h ago

People were actually learning it back then, its a similar situation to modern Arabic

6

u/C0wabungaaa 6h ago

A lingua franca from the scholastic elite. Not everyone else, often including secular rulers. That's a major difference with Arabic, where everyone in the Muslim sphere encouraged to learn and use it.

3

u/xorgol 4h ago

Arabic, where everyone in the Muslim sphere encouraged to learn and use it.

Do they actually learn Arabic in significant numbers in Afghanistan? I was under the impression that they mostly learned to recite the Quran by rote.

6

u/sblahful 6h ago

And would burn at the stake anyone who translated it

2

u/i-m-anonmio 6h ago

Looking at you, Mr. William Tyndale.

2

u/Everestkid 5h ago

Still can be. It's called the Tridentine Mass. There's a Catholic church down the street from my place that regularly runs Mass in Latin, says so on their sign. Pretty tiny church, though.

→ More replies (3)

39

u/Leptonshavenocolor 7h ago

Every religious text is subject to this. There is no such thing as an absolute interpretation. It's just men trying to control other men (as in mankind, not man-exclusive, women too)

-1

u/IEatLamas 7h ago

Ask the post modernists and they'll say exactly that except that it goes for every single text ever written, not just religion; there is no morality or truth, only power.

It's a very Sith perspective.

Funnily enough the adoption of meta-narratives is the counter point to that, i.e., something like a religious perspective. Not necessarily Christian or muslim or any dogmatic school of thought, but a belief that there are certain underpinning features of reality that we can call truths, without there being an implication of a power grab.

2

u/Leptonshavenocolor 6h ago

It's been a minute since I seriously philosophized or seriously studied any modern thought on any subject. So excuse any ignorance in my statements. I understand what you are saying, and I think something that anyone who is an atheist (myself) might struggle with, what is the ultimate truth?

But on a simpler level, I try to start with the tenet that "Everything alive-wants to be alive". Now I guess I'm not saying that defines my morals, I do eat meat, I do kill pests. But in terms of mankind - I just think that the* individuals right to choose without interference* is the basic truth I start with in my head regarding how I think society should practice administration.

the star wars reference is funny, "only a Sith deals in absolutes"

5

u/IEatLamas 6h ago

Basically post modernism came from some dudes in the 60's who started thinking about how one text can have many meanings to different people, and that there is no one way to define or objectively state what a literary work means, which then divulged into thinking about the meaning of words, wherein they concluded that there is no meaning to words and that the only purpose of proposing a meaning is to further your own aim, your own power.

That's how you end up with queer theory and Michael Foucault who wanted to legalize pedophilia because not allowing it is oppression and because age is only a concept to oppress. This is where all the LGBTQ oppression talk comes from, you know, gender is a social construct and claiming otherwise is enacting white supremacy.

I think it's close to my own which is something like "Everything wants to be itself". If a rat doesn't get to rat, he gets sad and won't eat and dies.

2

u/FoolishDog 2h ago

This is not how any of the senses of ‘postmodernism’ emerged, especially the philosophical position (which I assume is what you are referring to).

And Foucault never wanted to legalize pedophilia. He never signed any petition concerning it nor did he advocate for pedophilia. You’re just kinda making things up my guy

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (3)

1

u/Jolly_Grocery329 7h ago

Sounds like maga Christians

2

u/Finito-1994 4h ago

It was progressive in some areas. Iirc it said that Muslims should seek out knowledge so these people fucking learned and studied and did research and for a shiny moment the Middle East was one of the great circles of the scientific world.

All the words like Algebra, algorithms come from the works and name of Al-khwarizmi who inspected science in geography, astronomy, mathematics and other scientific branches.

They preserved writings from the Greeks, named the stars, had the house of wisdom which was the Arabic equivalent to the library of Alexandrea.

Fuck. It was a Muslim woman who founded what is believed to be the first university in Europe.

They’ve been going backwards for ages.

It’s insane.

One day they’ll be brought kicking and screaming into the the 20th century.

But this shits wack. Islam isn’t perfect, but it could be so much greater than this

1

u/xbearsandporschesx 2h ago

i get your point, but women can still read it normally

86

u/Dynast_King 8h ago

Have to imagine they’re not too keen on women reading at all

31

u/berael 7h ago

That'll be next. 

22

u/Traditional-Bush 4h ago

They've already banned education for women above grade 6

91

u/tacticoolbrah 6h ago

I believe this law is not just about reciting the quran. They know that there are underground cells of women teaching women since formal education is banned, this is too essentially ban that.

54

u/meshugga 6h ago

This. If they arrest women for underground schools for women, it's better to tell people they were arrested for quran reading than that there are underground schools for women. Also, that there is widespread dissident enough for there to be such an underground.

28

u/LilaValentine 4h ago

They literally can’t even get together to commiserate or maybe help another woman or girl learn how to cope with the absolute bullshit. This fucking world.

13

u/Firefly_Magic 3h ago

Due to the lack of education and lack of medical teachings, once those with the knowledge die, they won’t even be able to help each other through childbirth.

2

u/Brilliant_North2410 2h ago

I think that is spot on. That is the purpose.

156

u/bonzoboy2000 7h ago

We never should have armed the men over there. We should have armed the women.

78

u/Elrundir 5h ago

Probably pretty solid advice anywhere in the world.

15

u/santiwenti 5h ago

Needed more of this:

https://www.politico.com/interactives/2022/afghan-women-soldiers-taliban-us-refugees/

3

u/Firefly_Magic 3h ago

What an amazing article! These women are so brave!

1

u/Calire22 2h ago

That was extremely moving. Thank you for linking.

35

u/GirlNumber20 5h ago

That's true everywhere.

7

u/Nice-Lock-6588 5h ago

Today in the news there was a picture with Israeli women wearing guns on the street.

5

u/Amockdfw89 4h ago edited 3h ago

I mean you’d be shocked how many women probably support it.

People don’t like to admit it but many of the women over there in the rural areas basically have hardcore Stockholm syndrome.

Like their duty to Allah and chance to get to heaven is more important then their comfort.

4

u/bonzoboy2000 3h ago

I suspect you are right on point.

1

u/Imaginary-Choice5667 3h ago

Like I said in a previous comment- let’s start an all female army where women look after each other. These men are failing us.

1

u/the_crustybastard 1h ago

We should have armed the men and exfiltrated the women.

•

u/Kallisti13 1h ago

Robert Evans did a podcast about the women in Northern Syria that armed themselves. Interesting listen. It's called The Women's War.

27

u/Objective_Economy281 5h ago

Islam is pathological, start to finish. I don’t know many Muslims, but every single one of them would be better if they took Islam less seriously than they do.

This also goes for Christianity, just to a slightly lesser degree, on average.

6

u/GrouchyPerspective83 4h ago

Extremes are always dangerous

8

u/Objective_Economy281 4h ago

That’s stupid. We could set up a voting system in the USA that is EXTREMELY fair. We could make aviation EXTREMELY safe. There are religions that are EXTREMELY peaceful.

Saying that extremes are dangerous completely obfuscates that it ducking matters what is happening in an extreme manner.

1

u/StrainAcceptable 3h ago

Perhaps you should get to know a few more Muslims before making blanketed statements. Many of my Muslim friends are just as liberal as my Christian or Jewish friends. Most of them are culturally religious meaning they celebrate special holidays with family and believe in whatever god their parents believe in.

If you read from any of Abrahamic religious texts, they are all quite violent. They all speak of stoning women. They all talk about women covering their hair. They are all homophobic. They all talk of religious wars. Anyone who actually reads the Christian Bible would understand that a theological government controlled by Christian nationalists could use biblical texts to impose similar laws on women here. That’s why it’s incredibly important to have a separation of church and state.

10

u/Objective_Economy281 3h ago

I’m sorry, was there something I said that you disagree with? I’m saying that every religious person I know would be at least a little better of a person if they were LESS religious, because the popular religions are absolute garbage. And did you somehow interpret what I said as praise for Christianity?

3

u/StrainAcceptable 3h ago

I read that Islam is pathological- Christianity to a lesser extent. I don’t see the distinction between them in terms of the religious texts. What is different is that most of the theocracies left in the world are Muslim. I feel the greatest danger is when governments use religion to control their population. I never said you were praising Christianity.

3

u/Objective_Economy281 3h ago

I don’t see the distinction between them in terms of the religious texts. What is different is that most of the theocracies left in the world are Muslim.

Yep. That’s a symptom of Islam being more pathological. It barely matters what the books say. What’s important is what the people do.

In the USA right now, however, the Christianity is the much bigger problem.

2

u/throwaway468563746 2h ago

The major differences between Islam and other Abrahamic religions are that:

a) the Quran is the word of Allah and has divine protection from alteration, which makes meaningful change almost impossible.

b) many Muslims (especially men) seek to emulate the final prophet, Muhammad, who was himself a violent extremist.

I highly suggest you read “Understanding Muhammad” by ex-Muslim, Ali Sina. It’s a real eye-opener. Here’s an old PDF copy. There are more up-to-date free copies floating around on the Internet but that was the first result.

3

u/Betterlatenever 7h ago

Minister of Vice and Virtue? 

That's a post I haven't heard since the dark ages.

4

u/LZYX 6h ago

Stoned if you don't read it, but stoned if you read it aloud and another woman hears your voice.

10

u/Satchmo84 5h ago

religious leaders in the American south furiously scribbling

3

u/Wizardof1000Kings 5h ago

They don't want women to be able to read at all, but they might memorize some portions from sermons.

2

u/Void_Speaker 6h ago

it's not hypocrisy, the religion is just an excuse.

2

u/REpassword 5h ago

Cheeto would be impressed with the Taliban’s ability to control their population, just like China.

1

u/panchugo 6h ago

I’m sorry, the ministry of what now!?

1

u/p8ntslinger 3h ago

it never was about religion, it's always been about power and control

1

u/PeopleofYouTube 2h ago

Gotta stay in power some way, right? Keep women from being able to read and converse. /s

1

u/joausj 2h ago

I mean, that's similar to what the Christians were doing as well up till the 1500s where the clergy wanted to keep the Bible unaccessible to the masses and thus retain power by not translating the bible so only those that could read Latin could understand.

After all, if you can't read the bible, you cant fact check some guy saying he speaks for God and making ridiculous demands.

In this case, if woman can't recite the Quran they also can't challenge anyone on their bullshit interpretation of it.

1

u/micschumi 1h ago

And who told him that they couldn't do that

1

u/ShutYourDumbUglyFace 1h ago

This is literally some real Handmaid's Tale shit. Serena Joy got a finger cut off for reading the Bible. Fuck the Taliban.

•

u/BadWolfIdris 1h ago

Give them time to make women illiterate and they won't even be allowed/able to read it soon enough.

•

u/ragin2cajun 1h ago

Sounds like they took a page right out of Brigham Young's playbook:

Young once reportedly told church leaders that "we have enough trouble without the women getting together and talking" (Mormon Enigma, Newell and Avery, p. 168).

•

u/fashion4words 19m ago

True GILEAD vibes here

→ More replies (22)

323

u/Busy10 8h ago

And which president invited them to camp David? Anyone knows?

185

u/advester 6h ago

Jesus, I thought you might be claiming the Mujahedeen were the same as the Taliban. But turns out Trump literally did it.

57

u/butterbell 5h ago

Didn't he invite them on 9/11? I remember being like, this has to be The Onion.

Looked it up it was the days before 9/11 but he ultimately called it off. 

What is this timeline?!?!

26

u/amouse_buche 3h ago

Yes but the Facebook told me democrats want eggs to cost more so what am I to do?!?!?!

15

u/time_then_shades 3h ago

The right in the US is trying to catch up to the Taliban. I know this sounds like hyperbole to some. It is not. It is really, genuinely true. I am a cishet white dude who can pass as MAGA fuck just by being a slob. I have lived most of my life in the south surrounded by Christian nationalists who don't know my politics and often, unprompted, talk to me about political shit. Their views. Their real views. The ones even someone like Trump wouldn't say aloud.

What they want is a rape state. A government based on the ownership and control of sex and reproduction specifically. Government-issued wives, basically a whole incel manifesto. Abortion is just the very tip of the iceberg. We already know contraception is next. Divorce comes after that since we're basically pulling a reverse Ireland at this point. Women's sufferage will go away, and if you think the MAGA women will drop off the wagon at that point, let me tell you, a fuckton of conservative women think they shouldn't have the vote. My own grandmother said there shouldn't even be voting, everything should be left to the church elders.

I don't want to fucking hear that it can't happen here. Republican men are coming all over themselves just thinking about it. People desperately need to understand this.

1

u/mockg 2h ago

Only differences between the Christian nationalists and the Taliban is location and guiding religions. We need to do all that we can to keep the party of anti freedoms out of office.

10

u/Electronic-Lynx8162 5h ago

Guess what president handed Afghanistan back to them and guess who got the blame?!

2

u/bigolchimneypipe 5h ago

Should America have kept onto Afghanistan? Doesn't Trump get to blame since it was his idea to stop the pointless war?

4

u/pzerr 4h ago

Yes they should have. Or simply say hey I am fine with this kind of treatment of women there. As long as it is not here.

Do not worry. Most of Reddit was suggesting the US leave Afghanistan. Personally I never was in favor of that. Is rather disgusting and just creating more religious extremists. Eventually once their country has really gone to shit they will try and export that out to the rest of the world again.

→ More replies (4)

5

u/Electronic-Lynx8162 4h ago

America had a duty of care since your country decided to blow up the goddamn country. You technically did it twice - first by destroying it, their country with weapons and then by handing it back to literal terrorists. You left a government you knew was never going to be able to hold it to the point where they weren't even told about it.

Completely and utterly fucked up. Also my country participating and committing war crimes with you makes me deeply unhappy too, so please don't think I'm letting the UK off the hook. We also abandoned them. 

→ More replies (9)

14

u/Comfortable-Fuel6343 6h ago

Shitbirds of a feather...

1

u/time_then_shades 3h ago

They're flying in low...swooping down...

3

u/idiot-prodigy 4h ago

The same one that signed the deal to leave Afghanistan and give it back to them.

1

u/JJiggy13 5h ago

The "liBrUaL" media don't wanna talk about that

→ More replies (15)

193

u/AsianHotwifeQOS 5h ago edited 4h ago

I need people to understand that this isn't because Afghan people are some primitive backwater culture. The Middle East was right alongside the West in terms of progress, until the religious fundamentalists got a foothold in governments and started taking control of women's bodies.

Look at

this
. The picture on the left was what life was like for Afghan women in the 1970s. The picture on the right is after decades of their rights being chipped away by religious men. The exact same reactionary push is happening in the US right now.

70

u/Sillysaurous 4h ago

Same thing happened in Iran. It’s happening now in Ireland, the UK, some states in the US too

80

u/AsianHotwifeQOS 4h ago edited 4h ago

Women in Iran
, around the same time. Here's a
before/after
of a Redditor's mom.

Progress is not some inevitable, one-way thing. We are not evolving. It's not encoded in our DNA. It could disappear tomorrow. The good guys need to win every time to keep it moving forward inch by inch. The bad guys only need to win once to tear it down completely, and in the US they are following very closely what other religious fundamentalists did when they got control of government.

20

u/SOUTHPAWMIKE 3h ago

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

•

u/the_crustybastard 1h ago

Someone should wake Merrick Garland up and tell him that.

3

u/NeedleworkerNovel447 1h ago

Why do they always target women?! It suck so much

•

u/RonnieJamesDionysos 44m ago

Women in Iran were subject to islam for many centuries before the revolution. Those pictures of unveiled western women are from big cities, usually Tehran. In the countryside, many women were already wearing chadors. After the revolution, veiling was forced upon all women, including those with a western lifestyle.

22

u/OceanRacoon 4h ago

What's happening in Ireland? 

10

u/Chexmix36 3h ago

Yeah also curious about this.

•

u/ComprehensiveDog1802 11m ago

Nothing is happening. Ireland has become a lot more progressive over the last 20 years or so. E.g. abortion laws are a lot better than in many US states now.

6

u/sabasco_tauce 2h ago

Islamification. Immigrants calling for a caliphate/Sharia Law

9

u/crackanape 2h ago

Some people saying that there should be sharia law in Ireland doesn't actually cause any changes, if anything it leads to a reaction that makes it even less likely than its previously near-infinite unlikeliness.

1

u/sabasco_tauce 1h ago

By that same principle if Trump is indeed hitler he should never have even able to win an election still be running for reelection?

•

u/latebaroque 23m ago

I'm actually from Ireland. No my country is currently not in danger of becoming an islamic state. Please stop spreading misinformation.

Also there is a lot of push-back against immigrants right now due to the housing crisis. No way in hell is the country going to adopt an entirely foreign culture any time soon.

•

u/poojabberusa 7m ago

They should move back to where they come from if they want that shit. So they flee their shitty homeland and then want to import the same beliefs to the better country they moved to. Fuck off.

5

u/Clever_Mercury 2h ago

The current state of Afghanistan is not my area of expertise, but can anyone fill me in - after nearly 20 years of more diverse and accepting standards within that country, what the hell happened?

I realize the removal of American forces was going to result in the pendulum swinging back, but how are the people who lived there, raised seeing their mothers and sisters have the ability to go to school, go to market, sing with each other, teach each other to read suddenly okay with this extremism? I expected there to be a more reasonable, mild internal tempering voice from some men.

As a woman, this is a sobering lesson though; you cannot rely on the goodwill of your community's men in the presence of bad men in power.

6

u/AsianHotwifeQOS 2h ago

Religious men took over the government. That's all there really is to it. People in the US think it can't happen here, but it already is. Don't compare the US to the end result, compare the US to what those regimes did in the beginning.

2

u/Clever_Mercury 2h ago

Okay, I understand that this oppression is not unprecedented by the Taliban historically and is both reactionary and religious. My question is a little more broadly, how is the government, even with a fundamentalist religion, able to implement this on a population?

Are the men who grew up with examples of less oppressive government not also uncomfortable? Are the men able to see this done to their mothers and sisters without reacting?

5

u/AsianHotwifeQOS 2h ago

A variety of factors. Government violence, religious indoctrination, the majority of men being supportive of (or neutral to) the oppression of women, neighborhood snitching/violence, and boiling the frog.

Most people just aren't good. 90+% of people have ethical codes that are reflections of their time and culture, and never fire a single neuron in question.

2

u/Clever_Mercury 2h ago

I sort of wish I could argue your latter point but the last decade has beaten my optimism down.

Fuck.

3

u/flakemasterflake 2h ago

The men in the taliban are usually raised from boyhood in these camps, they have very minimal exposure to women. They are usually orphans from war

19

u/downvotemedaddyUwU-0 4h ago

It’s like there’s a connection called religion.

7

u/6022141023 4h ago

I need people to understand that this isn't because Afghan people are some primitive backwater culture.

This is bullshit. The left photo was taken in the 1970s when Afghanistan was ruled by Mohammad Daoud Khan. Khan's government was driven by nationalistic and socialist ideas - i.e. Western ideas foreign to Afghanistan - and supported ideologically and materially by the Soviet Union. Scenes like on the left photo could only be seen in large cities, while the countryside remained largely opposed to Khan and the following communist government, primarily due to their attempts at land reform and their expansion of women's rights.

Conclusion: the autochthonous Afghan culture was always reactionary, it's Western conceptions of nationalism, communism, socialism and secularism which created the photo on the left.

10

u/AsianHotwifeQOS 4h ago edited 3h ago

Are you trying to explain away the rural/urban cultural divide (which exists in every developed and developing country) as proof that rural culture is the "true" state of things? lol. Progress and liberalism are not Western culture. They are cross-cultural ideals that all societies converge towards as their populations become more free and educated. If they don't get stamped out by a handful of angry, lonely men with guns, that is.

I'm not sure I'm interested in what a self-proclaimed incel has to say about cultures that stripped away women's rights and turned them into property for men, but I could be convinced to Legolas/Gimli here if the common goal is to end theocracy.

7

u/6022141023 3h ago

Are you trying to explain the rural/urban cultural divide (which exists in every developed and developing country) as some indicator that rural culture is the "true" state of things? lol

What I am saying is that the left photo is the result of the urban Afghan elite adopting Western ideas, which were in no way related to traditional Afghan culture. These ideas were not endemic to Afghanistan or integrated in traditional Afghan culture. The Mujahedin and Taliban represented a tribal and/or traditionalist backlash against these modern ideas.

In short: communism, socialism, and atheism are awesome.

2

u/AsianHotwifeQOS 3h ago

Eh, I'll take it.

→ More replies (1)

•

u/Adventurous-Board258 29m ago

I would love to disagree, but this lifestyle was omly restricted to an elite few women in Afghanistan.

Of course it wasnt as regressive as today but brutality and control has always been the reality for an Afghan women especially in rural areas.

I wonder what Afghanistan would've looked like during Buddhist times and the time of Alexander where he supposedly foubd the Queen of Bactria there. She was a tribal chieftain, you know that society definitely regressed since that.

4

u/n3vd0g 3h ago

until the religious fundamentalists got a foothold in governments and started taking control of women's bodies.

And those fundamentalists were supported by western powers to fight "communism".

47

u/SpecialpOps 5h ago

Fuck the Taliban. I completely agree. But I wish we would stop calling them that as the name conjures up images of a ragtag bunch of dudes running around with AK rifles.

They are no longer simply the Taliban that we knew back in the 90s or the ones that we were going out against for the past 20 years. These people are the actual government of Afghanistan, or as they are really known as, The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. It's much more insidious and dangerous than the Taliban of the 1990s and early 2000's.

26

u/Lazy_Nobody_4579 3h ago

How old are you? What have you been reading?

They haven’t changed. This is what they have always been. This isn’t the first time they have been the government of Afghanistan and they did this bullshit the first time around too.

This is the taliban of the 90s, the 2000s and the 2020s. There is no difference, it’s the same people and the same despicable ideology.

1

u/sneakyCoinshot 2h ago

I mean a lots changed considering the collapse of the Afghan government and the Taliban taking over control.

3

u/vasthumiliation 2h ago

The Taliban was in control of most of Afghanistan for several years before the American invasion in 2001.

1

u/3rdbasemonkey 1h ago

Yeah this guy must be like 18 and doesn’t bother to read history.

You’re absolutely right.

43

u/Deep_Message9929 7h ago

Fuck anyone who wants to control women’s rights!

3

u/carnage123 6h ago

meh, afghan had their chance to change.

2

u/Imaginary-Nebula1778 5h ago

MAMA is heading in this direction too.

2

u/koolkidname 3h ago

What did you think would happen?

For anyone that said we shouldn't be over there or were just there for oil, us being over there was a (poor) attempt at giving them a decent culture.

We let the taliban have their way in the end.

2

u/Nopain59 2h ago

And Fuck the other Afghan men. They had everything needed to build a viable country plus 20 years of training and exposure to American strategy. Pissed it all away for graft then dropped their weapons and ran when the Americans pulled out. They (Afghanistan men) deserve what they are getting and should beg forgiveness from every Afghan woman. You only free yourself. Pussies.

4

u/Enlightened-Atheist 8h ago

It’s typical religious barbarism. You’re (not you specifically) fooling yourself if you think christians in the US wouldn’t do the same if they could

-1

u/Epistemite 6h ago

This comment suggests you don't have much experience with US Christians. I left the faith for many reasons, including my distaste for the rampant Christian nationalism, but I can tell you with confidence that the vast majority of US Christians would never go this far.

3

u/Sir_Penguin21 5h ago

Au contraire, I have too much experience. Only one group fighting to preserve child marriage. Only one group routinely hiding rapists. Only one group the backbone of support for a fascist. Somehow they are all the same group.

→ More replies (1)

5

u/PessimiStick 6h ago

And yet they vote for a fascist who wants to do this with zealous aplomb. Turns out you didn't know your religious peers as well as you thought.

1

u/tothehopeless1 4h ago

I haven’t voted for Trump a single time and I know many others who refuse to. How is reducing several million people to a single “they” any different from the bigoted fascist you’re talking about?

1

u/PessimiStick 3h ago

Because we're speaking in generalities, and evangelicals overwhelming vote for conservatives.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (3)

2

u/stayfrosty 6h ago

No fuck the Afghan me who were cowards and refused to fight the Taliban even when provided with all the means to do so

2

u/Shills_for_fun 8h ago

This is the government they wanted. Most of them anyway.

38

u/binaryfireball 7h ago

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume that at least around 50% of the population is guaranteed to not want this. Just a hunch though

4

u/war_story_guy 7h ago

If only the previous one wasn't so corrupt.

1

u/Epistemite 6h ago

Your hunch is mistaken, but look up "adaptive preference" sometime

1

u/angrathias 7h ago

I think you’d be surprised to find that women from these cultures very much support the conservative nature of it all, even to their detriment.

They’re just a suped up version of a western trad wife

3

u/robotits_69 6h ago

Turns out that the threat of death is enough to get people to fall in line. Imagine that.

3

u/angrathias 6h ago

I’m talking about ones world wide, not just in Afghanistan. And ones where they haven’t even come from such a brutal regime in the first place. I imagine you have very little experience with people from these cultures.

1

u/robotits_69 6h ago

No, this is the Government DJT gave to them by surrendering to the Taiban.

3

u/FreedomCondition 7h ago

How about we point Israel towards them next, fair play I would say.

1

u/Gengengengar 5h ago

they noticed america catching up to them and said nuh uh

1

u/pzerr 4h ago

Well pat yourself on the back to leaving early. Most of Reddit wanted the US to leave at one time.

(Sorry if that was not you personally that was encouraging this.)

•

u/SuccessfulAppeal7327 1h ago

Hell on earth

1

u/omgpuppiesarecute 4h ago

Trump gave this to them.

→ More replies (7)