"But we have no burqa in our home, and I have no intention of getting one. I don’t want to hide behind a curtain-like cloth. If I wear the burqa, it means that I have accepted the Taliban’s government. I have given them the right to control me. Wearing a chador is the beginning of my sentence as a prisoner in my house. I’m afraid of losing the accomplishments I fought for so hard. ... I stay up late at night, sometimes till one or two in the morning, worrying about what will happen. I am afraid that because I am rejecting the burqa, soon I will have to stay at home and I will lose my independence and freedom. But if I accept the burqa, it will exercise power over me. I am not ready to let that happen.”
Said a 26-year-old woman named Habiba in Kabul, quoted in "Afghan women’s defiance and despair: ‘I never thought I’d have to wear a burqa. My identity will be lost’" (The Guardian).
With two-thirds of the population [of Kabul] under the age of 30, most women here have never lived under Taliban control....
Amul, a model and designer, has worked for years to establish a small business and now she sees it heading towards obliteration. “My whole life has been about trying to show the beauty, diversity and creativity of Afghan women,” she says. All her life, she says, she has fought the image of the Afghan woman as a faceless figure in a blue burqa. “I never thought I would wear one but now I don’t know. “It’s like my identity is about to be scrubbed out.”
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44 comments:
I don’t understand why the Afghan military folded like the French in WW2. Wasn’t the freedom of their country worth fighting for. Don’t get it.
The wisest most truthful words Barack Obama has ever spoken: “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up.”
If you like your Biden, you can keep your Biden.
If these young women are lucky, they will get to burqa-up and stay home. Many of them will not. They will be conscripted to serve the fighters as sex slaves. Also middle aged women deemed 'desirable'. It is interesting to hear her defiance, she has no idea (or so it sounds to me) of who she is about to live under. These are animals.
These poor people of Afghanistan lived under these monsters for years. Then had to live in the war zone for 20 years. And now, as if nothing at all happened, they are back to living under the Taliban.
And our leaders? They're working on just how to massage this. How to put the blame on Trump, or how they said all along this would happen, or how they have plans for it all, but just cannot say what it is out loud. They will tell us that the Taliban will have to face world outrage, which is, of course, laughable. The Taliban care about world outrage about as much as I care about Barack Obama's Netflix program. This entire thing is horrible for so many reasons. And its just one of many horrible things Biden and his team have managed to do in just over 7 months. Four years of this? Are you kidding?
If you like your Biden, you can keep your Biden.
If only that were as true as the original quote it is based off of.
Ils n'ont rien appris et rien oublié. -Tallyrand
They have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing. He could have been talking about any "elite" American, from either party for the past generation. Joe Biden was literally in the room when Ford and Kissinger informed Senators that had decided to abandon South Vietnam. His main concern then wasn't for the brave South Vietnamese allies who wound up in reeducation camps or fleeing as Boat People. Nope. Not a penny for them. But any amount at all to flee the scene. Looks like Biden has dusted off that old playbook and is running the same plays.
If it wasn't a story built on so many thousands of lost lives, it would be laughable. Here we are, 20 years post 9/11 and almost 50 years since the fall of Saigon, and we have learned rien.
“ Obama's Netflix program”
Barack has a Netflix program? Dreamy!
If you (or any of your friends) do end up buying a burqa, please consider doing it via the Althouse Amazon portal.
Please be aware that shipping times cannot be guaranteed as I'm sure you can understand.
A single tragic story of an Afghan women. There are likely millions more as Afghan women await the edicts and tyranny of their new rulers and new "husbands".
I wonder... will any American feminists feel shame for their support of "creepy Joe" ?
One suspects that the women of Afghanistan will have difficulty remaining cruelly neutral about their political leadership.
So you're telling me that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was lying when he told Biden the greatest threat to American security is climate change?
Maybe we should just concentrate on killing our enemies and leave the social nonsense to college freshmen women with green hair and rings through their noses.
Burqa, mask what's the diff? As Arnold says, "screw your freedom!"
This must be what it felt like to watch the Germans take Paris in 1940.
One more, if I may, Althouse:
The people who orchestrated the Afghanistan withdrawal want to run health care, transportation, energy, immigration, oh, and government itself.
In 20 years we never considered to arm the women instead as a plan? Thinking if the women all had an AR15 under their pillows they would be doing something different than posting burqa worries online.
I had no delusions that the Biden Administration would follow wise policies or in any way improve this country or its position in the world, but their staggering incompetence - whether at the Border, in Afghanistan, or back in Washington DC - does come as a surprise. Someone said there is a lot of ruin in a country; we are now testing the limits of that.
Egads.
It literally happened “from a Friday to a Monday.”
https://mobile.twitter.com/atrupar/status/1426916739414175756
Aaron Rupar is of course one of those useless left-wing writers for Vox, who never criticized the Biden Administration. Right, Glenn Greenwald?
Btw, in answer to an earlier comment; I can think of one American woman who would defend Afghan women from the Taliban. That would be Liz Cheney.
If there are any men in your family who did not volunteer to fight and risk their lives for your freedom, take it up with them. Many American men did fight, and a lot of them died or were crippled, for your freedom. If the examples and efforts of our men didn’t motivate yours then our staying there longer won’t help.
I wonder how much money über-grifter Karzai is sitting on.
Hundreds of millions? Billions?
But like Obama and all of the rest of them that get filthy rich after leaving office, he was but a humble public servant.
Habiba -- the people commenting here the last couple of days don't give a rat's ass about your problems. They think that you should have prepared. You had 20 years to prepare. And you should fight for yourself. So what if you are powerless? It's not America's problem.
Some discussion a decade plus ago. Feminists were concerned about women's rights in Astan. Problem was, to acknowledge the opportunity for feminists to help required acknowledging it was Bush's doing.
What's an honest feminist to do?
"As city after city falls to the Taliban, women fear that the freedoms won since 2001 will be crushed" Freedoms were won.
"All her life, she says, she has fought the image of the Afghan woman as a faceless figure in a blue burqa." Images were fought.
"If you like your Biden, you can keep your Biden. "
I like being able to go out and leave my house without taking my life in my hands. That was something i couldn't do when your boy was running things and telling us "I have it totally under control".
The Taliban numbers (I don’t know what they are) could they be as numerically influential as the number of woke Americans influencing most if not all of American institutions?
What is it about bad ideas today that a small number of people can impose them at will on as many people as they want?
Is what about to happen there a clue about what’s going to be our future?
By asking these questions I don’t mean we send the troops back. The idea of liberating them was flawed from the start.
My questions have more to do with what’s happening here relatively to the age old human tendency to want to quash human freedom.
Maybe if we hadn’t invaded Afganistán they would be coming out the other side by now. In a way we only posponed the pain, misery and death they have to go through to find their way.
I wonder... will any American feminists feel shame for their support of "creepy Joe" ?
@PWilson, no. Next question.
I was sad last year the day after the presidential election was stolen. But I had hope for my country, and, while I did not see the future would be as bad as it has been, I did not know any individuals whose lives would immediately be impacted in a serious negative way by the election theft.
This is a whole 'nother level of pain and misery on people who do not deserve it, and I hope that things work out soon in a way that mitigates, at least for some of them, the pain and misery caused by people who like to inflict pain and misery.
If I were advising the Chinese government, I would advise them NOT to bring shame on themselves as they deal with this. It will be a while, I am afraid, before any American government will do the right thing, or even just say the right thing.
FYI, soyboy NeverTrump moron Tom Nichols has expanded his list of who is responsible for the debacle in Afghanistan.
In addition to South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, American flags and horses, this "deeply serious" "elite" "expert" who demands we take him seriously, like. Max Boot-seriously (LOL), now insists that other guilty parties in this debacle include Lee Greenwood and Country Music.
Literally.
He barely mentions Biden even once, and when he does its only in passing.
Yes indeed. This is as fine an example of a "deeply, deeply" "serious" LLR (wink wink) type person as you can hope to find.
Give him another half hour and he'll be blaming NASCAR and Hostess Ding Dongs next....and dont kid yourselves. He looks like he knows quite alot about Hostess Ding Dongs.
Let's never forget, this (and everything else the Democrats screw up) is all Trump's fault. Get used to it, you'll be hearing it for the next 4 years.
Is this one of the imaginary local sources the westetn press finds? Like Thomas Friedman's cab drivers? Because if you do not get your act together the Taliban will.
And yet she persisted. Until she was shot.
End scene.
As we speak it is almost certain the execrable Pelosi hench-gal Liz Cheney is working behind the scenes to gin up a current day "Gulf of Tonkin" in order to get the war wheels/human meat grinder operations spooled up because she knows she will need that military industrial complex gig im addition to her coming paid gig for MSNBC/Nicole Wallace Show as a contributor to make ends meet.
Yeah, okay, Biden screwed this up, but why after twenty years of American assistance couldn't the Afghans themselves have figured out a way to outfit a single combat ready unit to confront the Taliban? The Taliban are not winning victories. They are unopposed. The Afghans--and not just the Taliban--deserve some shame for this debacle. The South Vietnamese, many of them, fought a long, brave battle against the Communists and deserved better from us.....I'm confused. How can you defend people who are so resolutely unwilling to defend themselves.....I wish her well. Maybe she'll find some way to leave the country. I have a suspicion that with her western skills, she'll find a way to duck and dodge, but there will be lots and lots of other women without such skills who will have a god-awful life under the Taliban.
Blogger policraticus: "Ils n'ont rien appris et rien oublié. -Tallyrand
They have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing. He could have been talking about any "elite" American, from either party for the past generation. Joe Biden was literally in the room when Ford and Kissinger informed Senators that had decided to abandon South Vietnam. His main concern then wasn't for the brave South Vietnamese allies who wound up in reeducation camps or fleeing as Boat People. Nope. Not a penny for them. But any amount at all to flee the scene. Looks like Biden has dusted off that old playbook and is running the same plays.
If it wasn't a story built on so many thousands of lost lives, it would be laughable. Here we are, 20 years post 9/11 and almost 50 years since the fall of Saigon, and we have learned rien."
Worth repeating. In its entirety.
This 45 year span (Vietnam to Afghanistan) provides a handy backdrop to illustrate the democraticals/LLR's biggest current day allies: the ChiComs and the Islamists.
Expect lots more cash to flow to both, not to mention Bidens payoffs to Putin via Nordsteam II and the cutting of US energy production.
Happy Days are here again in Beijing, Moscow, Tehran and Brussels.
In the US? Not so much.
And one final thought: the dems/FBI/DHS are now going to have to scramble to get another "Reichstad Fire" going somewhere, somehow to get the focus back where they want it.
Their January 6 Daytime Drama (likely future winners of at least 3 Daytime Emmys) has collapsed and the attempt to shift blame from Corn Pop "feel the hairs on my legs" Ice Cream Boy to Trump for Afghanistan is already coming apart at the seams.
Thus, I suspect we'll see a few more Fake Whitmer Kidnapping "Plots"/Huttarree COINTEL ops in the coming months.
Years ago when our son was barely a teenager, I told him that I expected him to be dead before our daughter (his sister) was required to wear a burqa. True story, and I was quite serious.
I may have to remind him of that in light of events and our increasingly revealed elites with no clothes.
I feel regret for her fate, but she needs to wake up and understand that they DO have control. Her choices are not to wear the burqa outside, and at best be beaten and then wear a burqa outside, or to stay inside. They have taken authority, and it is apparent that the mass of Afghanis do not care enough to oppose them. Her rhetoric is so estranged from reality that I can only hope that she will catch a clue in time.
dont worry, Afgan women, Nancy Pelosi has asked that the Taliban honor womens rights. I am sure there will be a twitter hashtag for you.
Drago please explain why trump bears zero responsibility for what is happening. He reached an agreement with the Taliban requiring our withdrawal by May of this year. That agreement was not tied to the taliban and the Afghan government reaching a peace agreement. You seem to be be arguing that if trump was president today the situation on our h ground would be substantially different. What’s your reasoning other than trump good Biden bad.
Back in October 2015, Ann blogged an item from the NYT: "The United States will halt its military withdrawal from Afghanistan and instead keep thousands of troops in the country through the end of his term in 2017..."
My comment at the time: "Ugh. What an incredibly idiotic decision and yet another pointless sop to that supposedly all important concept of "credibility." It was laughable back in 2008 when the Democratic establishment was tripping over itself to talk about how tough it was going to be fighting the "good" war of Afghanistan. They conveniently forgot (or more likely didn't even know) that regime change in Afghanistan was just as stupid as regime change in Iraq. There is no war left in Afghanistan to fight. We spent 15 years pushing water up a hill that is going to flow right back down again. The Taliban do not pose any significant threat to the United States, and we are wasting time and American lives trying to be international social workers in that godforsaken place."
Was she ever told that she might have to fight--actual violence--to be free? And if she doesn't fight, then others must fight on her behalf? (Psst! The men in her life.)
It seems Afghani men are not interested in fighting for the personal freedoms of their women. Many might even prefer the Taliban's approach.
Not a surprise (to me) with Islam.
PWilson said...
A single tragic story of an Afghan women. There are likely millions more as Afghan women await the edicts and tyranny of their new rulers and new "husbands".
I wonder... will any American feminists feel shame for their support of "creepy Joe" ?
8/15/21, 6:10 PM
LOL! Good one! If any American feminists even bother to think in that direction, it won't be anything a glass or two of Pino won't drive away. Heck, just look at all the GOOD Biden has done! That nasty Trump is gone. Besides, they won't believe any of the things that they might hear or read that happens to leak out about what those women and children are put through. It is all just right-wing lies! Those people over there can't really be that brutish, right? This is the 21 century after all.
If the Taliban governors have determined that a burqa mandate is necessary to prevent the spread of male lechery, and if the Afghan CDC has data that shows burqa wearing to be effective in that regard, then this young lady should just follow the science. Particularly so if it is just a two week mandate to slow the spread of uncontrolled boners among the vulnerable warriors. My only question is does the burqa veil also work as a mask to prevent Covid-19 spread? If so, then maybe Fauci could justify a C-17 burqa delivery to the Kabul airport for distribution to the women being abandoned to the warlords. Or, would that be considered tacky?
Gee, do you think the Guardian might have an agenda with that 26-year old woman's quote?
She doesn't know what independence and freedom is because she didn't fight for it, risk her life for it--but now she fears losing her independence and freedom, perhaps at the risk of her life. She's learned it backwards because the US did her fighting for her.
She learned the wrong lesson because the US taught the wrong lesson.
Wearing a mask is the beginning of my sentence as a prisoner in my house.
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