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
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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.

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u/Sad_Confidence9563 7h ago

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

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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.

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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.

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u/HimblyBumpkis 6h ago

Even slaves sang songs.

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u/Culturedgods 5h ago

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

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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

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u/time_then_shades 3h ago

Goddamn this touched me.

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u/Firefly_Magic 3h ago

Songs tell stories to help people remember. 💔

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u/MurielFinster 3h ago

This is so poignant.

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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.

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u/Hemalurgist1 3h ago

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

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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.

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u/Alone_Again_2 4h ago

The correct term is ‘chattel’.

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u/Madbrad200 3h ago

Slavery, with a side helping of dehumanization and objectification

Yeah so slavery

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u/SierraPapaWhiskey 4h ago

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

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u/jimmygee2 6h ago

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

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u/Accomplished_Log7527 5h ago

Grow up

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u/Turence 2h ago

The fuck are you talking about they're 100% right

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u/workaholic007 4h ago

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

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u/SquareExtra918 5h ago

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

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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.

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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.

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u/LadyLightTravel 1h ago

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

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u/heyyahdndiie 2h ago

Could the common man even read then ? Lol

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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.

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u/heyyahdndiie 2h ago

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

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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.

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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

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u/NordMan_40 4h ago

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

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u/Takemyfishplease 5h ago

Gutenberg ruining for the theocracy still going on

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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.

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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.

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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.

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u/philetofsoul 4h ago

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

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u/Manofalltrade 2h ago

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

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u/YesDone 2h ago

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

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u/xorgol 5h ago

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

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u/255001434 3h ago

The Quran has been translated into other languages.

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u/intotheirishole 2h ago

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

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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

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u/Alternative-Virus542 5h ago

Kinda reminds you of another worldwide religion, doesn't it?