Taliban issues an edict banning all women from universities | Hacker News Reader

Taliban issues an edict banning all women from universities

bbc.com

21 pointswalrus0113 comments

In the calculus of US strategic foreign policy, a campaign to bankrupt the soviets by arming the Afghan mujahideen seems to have had a very long tail.

Every time I see photos of 1960s Persian and Afghani women I find myself thinking about this.

> Every time I see photos of 1960s Persian and Afghani women I find myself thinking about this.

One cause of what happened is also that, though. A large part, if not the majority, of the population is conservative and did not approve of this "westernisation".

Indeed. Many women welcomed Khomeini back from Paris in '79 Nothing is one dimensional.

Which raises the question of "who are we to determine what values a society should embrace"? Doesn't that make us cultural imperialists/colonialists?

Yes, this is trying to impose our ways on others. The thing is that, as we see again and again, it does not work, anyway. Cultural and societal values cannot be imposed by 'foreigners', if anything this only creates a reaction against it and to more conservatism.

People in Afganistan, do not want to see progress in their country. Period. They chose this life of fanatism and hatred. They let the Taliban rule. All the money or support in the world cannot change that sadly.

Let's not pretend we gave them a better option. To add some color (this isn't the only abuse but the most obvious one, particularly to western audiences): A tactic that the Taliban used to great effect was to lure collition aligned forces by having young boys stand on street corners and when the US backed Afghan police went to rape the child, ambush them.

> "The Taliban are sending boys — beautiful boys, handsome boys — to penetrate checkpoints and kill, drug and poison policemen," said Ghulam Sakhi Rogh Lewanai, who was Uruzgan's police chief until he was removed in a security reshuffle in April amid worsening violence.[0]

US servicemen have come home with PTSD, not from combat but having to share a hotel with US aligned Afghans and hearing young boys be repeatedly raped in the next room. Those who spoke up were punished.[1]

Step into their shoes, a foreign invader installs pedophiles to run your government and rape your sons. You expect them to support it? Personally I'd start building IEDs.

[0]https://www.businessinsider.com/afp-taliban-use-honey-trap-b...

[1]https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/09/american-militar...

[additional reading]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi

Additional citation: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/dancingboys/

These people are determined by their geography, history, internal tribal politics, external forces and religion. There is only so much an outsider can do. Best to just let them play out their destiny and keep an eye out so no new rogue players use them as a springboard.

No, what they chose was to reject the western ideals that are leading to it's collapse. They rejected western control over their future.

The only other option was the Taliban, which granted is not great, but better than what the west was pushing. The US has more failed states under it's belt than it does successes. Hard to believe they were actually trying to help given the track record and the past 20 years.

Bin Laden was western oriented, when they raided his home they found lots of western media and books. I believe that if we had not stabbed them in the back during desert storm and instead took out Saddam as we promised Bin Laden could have risen as a fairly progressive (for lack of a better term) leader in the middle east.

I'm very sad to see this, yet I have mixed feelings about unilaterally condeming it:

Yet on Tuesday, the education ministry said its scholars had evaluated the university curriculum and environment, and attendance for girls would be suspended "until a suitable environment" was provided.

It added that it would soon provide such a setting and "citizens should not be worried".

Prior to Tuesday's announcement, universities had already been operating under discriminatory rules for women since the Taliban takeover in 2021.

There were gender segregated entrances and classrooms, and female students could only be taught by women professors or old men.

It is the wrong way to handle it, but I have to wonder if there are any legitimate concerns behind some of these moves. I cannot help but think about how women get raped and murdered in war torn countries, women get raped and murdered for trying to urinate or defecate in a field designated for such in places with too much population and too little infrastructure, women get sexually assaulted by coworkers, classmates, etc.

Who cares it's what the Afghan people want.

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