| SP |
Posted
on 27-Sep-01 02:27 PM
Interesting, Tali means Clapping, Tali ban mean banning clapping. And so goes the title of this posting..
No clapping, dancing, music, TV... five years of Taliban bans
AFP
(Islamabad, September 27)
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The Afghan capital Kabul once had cinemas, music halls, a brewery, women in mini-skirts and was the place to be on the hippy trail: as the Taliban said, it was once "a city of sinners".
But five years after taking power there, the Taliban can boast they have cleaned it up, creating what they say is "the world's purest Islamic state" and a list of rules never seen before anywhere in the Islamic world.
In a five-year anti-sin operation spearheaded by the feared Ministry for the Fostering of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, beards have got longer, people say their prayers and women are fully veiled.
The first to suffer the wrath of the hardline militia after they rolled into the city on September 27, 1996, were working women, who were barred from most work in a major blow to the welfare of the city's 50,000 widows.
Girls were barred from attending state schools and although many receive secret private education, the literacy rate for women in still under six per cent.
The burqa, an all-covering cone shaped garment providing only a mesh for vision, became the compulsory uniform for local women, who also had to bin their stockings and high-heeled shoes.
Men also had a strict dress code: all had to grow untrimmed beards, wear the traditional baggy shalwar kameez together with turbans or prayer caps.
Their fringes needed to be kept short, "because otherwise Satan will build his nest there," one scissor-wielding Taliban hair inspector explained at a forced haircut checkpost.
The rules were enforced at random posts across the city by Taliban fighters mostly drawn from Afghanistan's conservative rural areas, who gave a stiff shock to the relatively liberal urban Kabulis.
Beards were examined to see if they had been trimmed. Residents were also tested to see if they could read from the Koran.
Anyone who failed such tests faced an on-the-spot lashing or even jail.
Cinemas which once showed popular Hindu movies were closed. Music, dancing and television were banned. The Taliban cleared the bazaars of television sets, staging ceremonial burnings and adourning their checkposts with ribbons of cassette and video tapes.
At sporting events, spectators were prevented from clapping their hands, urged instead to chant "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest).
Kite flying was banned, to stop children on rooftops peeking into neighbour's compounds. Cock fighting and gambling were also stopped, and any stocks of alcohol discovered across the city were crushed under tanks.
Colourful signposts have also been cleared away, with shop signs now supposed to be in black and white.
Another victim was "the publication of images of living creatures", as the Taliban torched medical and childrens books and cleared the shops of childrens' dolls.
The Internet was forbidden, a token gesture of little impact as few residents here could even afford to pay their eletricity bills.
With little left for entertainment, the Taliban did come up with weekly executions in Kabul's stadium.
Scores of men and women were flogged or executed for adultery. Thieves had their hands and feet cut off by defence ministry surgeons.
Homosexuals were crushed under heavy mud walls. Conspiritors were hanged, and murderers were killed by the relatives of their victims, in game show-style events where the decision to forgive or seek revenge was left to the very last minute.
The Taliban's former deputy foreign minister, Mullah Stanekzai, was once briefly at a loss to explain the rash of restrictions, when a team of Arab journalists recited the Koranic verse "Let there be no compulsion in matters of faith."
"Ah yes," the official said after a pause. "But the holy Koran is a very big book, and there are lots of things in it."
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 27-Sep-01 06:09 PM
A few days ago, I read one article by one Pakistani journalist in "The News" of
Pakistan.[ The News? The link was in www.himalmag.com, so I followed the link.]
It gave completely new perspective to the local Afgan's view on Taliban.
The so called social justice brought out by Taliban is not appreciate in current
Afganistan. People view the Taliban officials also as corrupt. The imported goods
going to Afganistan via Pakistan mostly comprises luxury goods for high class
Taliban officers. One person recounts how he paid 15,000 Rs(Pakistani) to one
Talibani official to get his lent money back from one refugee. People also resent the
presence of foreign mercenaries there.
It is sad, and I really hope Afganistan will be returned to a normal state in the lap
of Himalayan range(or Pamir?), where beatiful people conduct business in the
environment free from despair and hysteria. Sometimes I wonder if the source of
all this chaos there is the overthrow of the king , who is now rumoured to be new
ruler of Afgan if US led coalition succeeds in overthrowing Taliban. In Cambodia,
when they threw the king, the country entered into lengthy sequence of turmoil
and mayhem. In Sikkim, with the overthrow of king, the small state was annexed
by India.So, those in Nepal, who have been asking for republicanism should first
plan carefully what they would do to eschew such unfortunate situations of
internal warfare or foreign intervention.To repeat the word of King Prithvi here,
"sabailai chetana bhayaa.."
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