Have you seen this?
It’s the cover of the latest issue of TIME Magazine, and its story details the horrific ordeal of Aisha, an 18-year-old woman who was abused by her in-laws. Although she managed to flee to Kandahar, they found her and took her to a mountainside, where her husband mutilated her.
“When they cut off my nose and ears, I passed out,” Aisha said, describing the attack. “It felt like there was cold water in my nose. I opened my eyes, and I couldn’t even see because of all the blood.”
Aisha is now in the US for reconstructive surgery, courtesy of the Grossman Burn Foundation.
But Aisha’s haunting face isn’t alone on the cover. She shares it with
What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan
No question mark, no room for doubt, no opening for a conversation. Rather, a declaration – and accompanying a noseless face, a conclusion: This is how it will be when we’re not there to save them.
So the point of the article is that negotiating with the Taliban will moot the progress women have made in the past nine years – from education to participation in sports to parliamentary representation. It doesn’t address which women have benefited from this – those in cities? Rural areas? Rich? Poor? Those who’ve returned from abroad? Those in areas actually governed? But fine, ok. I get it.
The problem is that the narrative itself skips conveniently through history. It harkens back to a time when women were independent:
Kabul 40 years ago was considered the playground of Central Asia, a city where girls wore jeans to the university and fashionable women went to parties sporting Chanel miniskirts (p. 23).
The next year mentioned in the story is 1996 – when the Taliban took over in Afghanistan. There is no mention of the decades between, during which women’s independence eroded in the country. This is especially ironic, because the photo of Aisha – her pose, the angle of her face, the shawl around her head – is evocative of that iconic 1985 cover of National Geographic:
At the time this photo was taken, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was in its 5th year, and President Ronald Reagan was extolling the virtues of those brave Afghan freedom fighters, the Mujahideen: a group of guys, I’m told, not known for their tight embrace of women’s rights. Nowhere in TIME’s cover story is there any reference to the initial role that Cold War politics played in the transformation of society in Afghanistan.
Retracing his steps in 2002, the National Geographic photographer who took that picture went back to look for the anonymous girl and eventually found her. Her name is Sharbat Gula. She expressed regret that she had not been able to finish school, and hoped that her daughters would have an education. She also said this when she was asked if she had ever felt safe: “No. But life under the Taliban was better. At least there was peace and order.” Probably not surprising, given the chaos that ensued when the Soviets withdrew and the Mujahideen took over and proceeded to fight each other for control.
The TIME cover’s declaration also misses the transition the US has made from proxy warrior to occupying force. In any armed conflict between a state and a militant group, civilians fall victim to both sides. We’ve seen this again and again in South Asia from localized criminal enterprises like Veerappan to the civil war in Sri Lanka to the Maoists/Operation Green Hunt to the Northwest Frontier Province. “What Happens if We Leave” overlooks this basic point – that we have done and are doing far more damage in Afghanistan than we take responsibility for.
I was relieved to learn that Aisha is getting her nose back, and I hope she is able to re-enter Afghanistan and get her life back as well. But I think the TIME editors made a mess of using her story and her image to justify continuing presence in Afghanistan with those five simplistic words.
Thanks to K & S for comments.
I thought the TIme Cover was irresponsible journalism. Nothing wrong with exposing horrors in a country. But when they try to manipulate people into confusing the mission in Afghanistan with that headline, it makes people forget the real reason we were in Afghanistan. The primary mission is not to save Afghanistan. If that were the criteria, maybe Time should be having a victim of the month cover and use a person from a different oppressed country each month.
The only mission should be to destroy the Taliban. The window of opportunity on a conventional war doing that may have been over. I am not sure. But we did waste a lot of time on Iraq.
Sometimes I wonder if it is more cost efficient and more humane just to have targeted assassins somehow find a way to kill a lot of the leadership(easier said than done).
The whole situation is, of course, highly complex.
Truth is the U.S. used and abused Afghanistan and left it wide open for take over by extremist groups. Now we are told they are going to “fix” it. Yet, the reason the U.S. went there was to protect the U.S. from terrorism, not to help Afghani people.
Time makes it sound like the U.S. is there to help all the Afghani people. It’s a common U.S. policy to attempt to justify a war by appealing to people with belated humanitarian notions. Any “modern” wars (or “un-wars”) waged by the U.S. seem to fall under this cover of “democracy, freedom, women’s rights” (etc) when really it is about “We want to be in control and we don’t want anyone blowing our crap up.”
Yet many people who are there legitimately want to help protect people there, not just protect Americans from terrorists.
My question always comes back to one and the same… does waging war really prevent terrorism? Or does it just exacerbate it?
would it motivate people if time had a photo of a congolese woman exposing her vagina so you could see that her labia had been excised in an act of gruesome torture? there’s so much nastiness in the world. i think that the fixation on particular geopolitical hotspots because because of the unequal presence of television cameras and photojournalists is a real problem. this isn’t helping.
To echo your post and the other comments: yes, the issue is complex. Time magazine, as is the norm for a US publication, seems very anxious not to discuss the role the CIA had to play in the time between “40 years ago” and now. There’s too much politics obscuring the issue, and it’s simply fashionable to highlight the atrocities of Islam these days.
However, I don’t see the point of your comment, since in essence the Time article – though simplistic and hackneyed and exploitative – was telling the truth.
Whether or not women suffered during the cold war under non-Taliban rule is irrelevant. That the Taliban itself was created, strengthened, armed and funded by the CIA is irrelevant.
The Taliban is absolutely bad news for women. One cannot call it peace if half the population lives in terror and slavery: terrorism and enslavement are war. This is irrefutable. Their point stands. Do not negotiate with the Taliban.
I haven’t read the article yet so I am not going to comment on its contents. I am going to comment on the cover and what I saw when I covered the Iran-Contra Affair and the rise of “Islamic” militias in North Africa following the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan.
First, the cover. Irresponsible, reprehensible, deliberate. Remember the spate of discussions about Intel’s ad? This makes Intel’s ad look like a sophomoric art school project. Time knows better. It has plenty of people who understand that power of image, so, the only conclusion one can draw is that either someone was comatose on the job or that it was a deliberate juxtaposition that required a number of people to let it slip by. Time is no rinky dink news operation and this is no back page, we got too busy to really vet this part before we went to press image. This image sends a powerful message: Afghanistan is fucked up- and you know who- and only WE- that’s right we, the decent Western Americans, can make this woman whole again and save her country. This is way more than an image speaks 1000 words. It speaks 1001. In Arabic, 1001 means continuous, forever, and that is what this cover is designed to do. It sits front and center at the check out stand, it arrives in your mail, it gets handed around, it becomes popular iconography. It references the original NG cover as if it were yesterday- no intervening invasion, no Hamid Karzi, no neo-poppy production, no Unocal, no pipeline, no drones killing wedding parties, zippo between this picture and the new Time cover. And no context. Just a horrific picture of an unforgivable act put out in the public forum to be consumed by a public already hopped up on anti-Islam, justifications for more war, anti-immigrant rhetoric about one month before Ramadan starts and korans are scheduled to be burned in Florida. Bad timing? Oh puleeze.
The context/mujhadin, etc.- The context is largely, painfully missing in this photo. Nothing, nothing, nothing justifies what happened to this woman and I, for one, am thrilled my tax dollars are doing something decent and useful in Afghanistan. That doesn’t make up what they have been made to the last few years, but, hey, I’ll take what I can get. As has been explored countless of times in various ways, the Taliban practice an unusually strict interpretation of Islam laid over and often superseded by local tradition and personal sadism/corruption. We know many, if not most, are illiterate. We know this kind of punitive practice, including burning, happens in a number of countries. I think it is doubtful this is happening merely because the Taliban is rising again, but the presence of the Taliban reassures believers in this sort of social enforcement that these practice will not only be condoned but encourage.
Time seems to have carefully forgotten the convoluted path we (the US/ Afghanistan, the West) have raced along to Taliban country. Time seems to have forgotten what is going on now- the rise in drug production, the rise in drug-addled adults, the rise in lawlessness, the daily attacks by coalition forces that more often than not kill civilians- the utter inability of the Coalition to help construct an alternative to drug production and tribal warlords is absent. The fact that the US is the overseer of a completely failed state. The message seems to be savages vs the Wise and Munificent West played out on/in the bodies of women. How colonial, once again.
And once again, Time seems to have forgotten its own reporting on the rise of the Taliban via the mujahadin the US and the Saudis carefully crafted at a time when the Commie and the Infidel were one and the same.
The cover photo of this tragic young woman actually asks some equally tragic questions both in terms of the Afghan context and the larger context of US policy. The juxtaposition of photo and text suggests that only the US stands between Afghan women and their utter cavalry at the hands of the Taliban. I would like to ask where was a similar cover for the young women of Algeria in the 90’s when young Algerians and others converged on Algeria after being radicalized in the US-funded mujaheddin camps? The resulting GIA and FIS kidnapped, raped and left young girls with their throats cut on the steps of their middle schools. They shot young women for not covering. They worked their way down hit lists of professional Arab and Berber woman. They sacrificed entire families for Ramadan. Where were those Time covers? And yet the US had a hand in creating this as well.
Also, where is the Time photo for the Afghani women killed and maimed by US forces? Surely, they deserve at least a few digital pixels.
But what the cover does mostly is re-enforce the Disney-esque image of the US represented by the All-American looking soldier confidently astride a white tank swooping in to save the hapless women of an ungrateful and uncivilizable population. The cover actively discourages a critical discussion of the US presence in Afghanistan by amplifying an emotional response that again, makes Afghanistan a moral issue, casting it along the unspoken lines of religion and race rather than politics, economic and geopolitical agendas.
The war in Afghanistan is about Americans seeking REVENGE for 9/11 and not about liberating Afghan women. That liberating of women came as an after thought. Americans were too eager too bomb Afghanistan out of existence after 9/11. They are using Aisha to cover their bloody finger prints.
No the real mission is to exert economic control in Afghanistan and use the trillion dollars of mineral wealth in the country, that was “recently found”. Iraq is oil, Afghanistan is minerals. It is not for the people, terrorism etc.
A lot of time spent discussing Time. I am sure Aisha (and others like her) desperately hope the focus remains on the Taliban and what they do to girls and what can be done to reduce if not eliminate such incidents, even if this doesn’t immediately result in milk and honey flowing everywhere in the world.
I guess it is a question of perspective. Try seeing it from Aisha’s.
America journalism won’t be honest until it stops describing the American military as “we.” We are not in Afghanistan. I am not and you are not. A bunch of soldiers, contractors, and spies are there.
I don’t think this cover is particularly irresponsible. Time has the right to try and sell magazines. What I fear is the the cover will fuel more anti-Islamic hatred. Sadly, I think most people will not look at this cover and think “We need to help Aisha and people like her” but rather “We need to destroy this demonic religion.”
Spot On.
Why is American intervention in South Asia being viewed as (neo)-colonialist, while Islamic penetration is viewed as organic? That’s racist against the goris.
@Realist
Coz Hindu gals like Islamic “penetration” .. Ha Ha Now that I think about it , Hindu guys too 😉
@Preston- totally. and they are not “defending democracy” either.
Aisha’s problem is tied to the American/Coalition presence which has created a zombie state and committed acts that have exacerbated the Afghan/West divide very much like the Russians did. The Taliban have walked right back into the void, with the added bonus that people whose hopes had been raised and then dashed by the coalition now saw the Taliban as the more culturally attuned lesser of the evils.
@Realist- I think it’s a bit hard to colonize yourself- unless you are thinking of the Muslim incursion into Southeast Asia centuries ago. But I do think you’re right-the imposition of a more fundamentalist form of a religion already practiced, but with the more extreme form coming from the exterior is certainly an issue. I am just not sure what the proper term would be for that. Let me ask an ME specialist friend and get back to you.
Yes, you’re right–I meant “Islamist” not Muslim, like the “normal'” Muslims in India. Thanks for the interest–curious as to your view!
BritPaki, You are trash, as revealed well by your comments. Our American desi wealth is beating you badly in world influence. Jai Hind.
Gentlemen, please return your flagpoles to their retracted position. Thank you.
Wow! What an image! Time surely knows what pulls the heart!
I dont think any British Pakistani will sign in with the name BritPaki.
@Realist
You do have some idea about South Asia incursions into Central and Southeast Asia and incursions within South Asia itself, don’t you? Perhaps the territory we know now as “South Asia” might have picked its South Asianess through these “incursions”.
Back to Aisha.
@ Realist
Gay Hind !!
Dude I don’t swing that way, may be you can ask some Afghans here .. They are more into that sort of thing . 😉
As for Hindu gals.. Recite some Urdu shayari, a tale or two of Discrimination , and she is all wet for some good ol’ Islamic “penetration”. 😉
Works like a charm every time 🙂 !!
@Anonymous
“Paki” is as halal when used by a Pakistani, as “nig***” is when used by a African American .
I feel really bad for Aisha–maybe she will return to the Hindu fold (which is the natural place for South Asians to be–South Asians with good experiences elsewhere are welcome to them–Aisha,though, is not such an example–she is a victim of a patriarchal, common, form of Islam). We are not perfect, but–c’mon!! Ears and nose cut off! Where is the outrage?! Anonymous–I’m not sure what you are referring to–there is a big difference between “soft power” influence and something like the Arab invasions of Persia and India–you can’t deny that, right? I’m not seeking to dwell on it, but I don’t fancy comments that deny or obfuscate it.
The comments here are way off the mark. It was the US that rebuilt Japan and West Germany after WWII. Today, Germany is the richest nation in Europe and Japan is the only Asian G-10 nation. The US tried to do in Iraq and Afghanistan what it did in Japan. That is, build the country from the ground up, starting with the introduction of a new constitution. As we know, all such efforts have failed. There is one and only one reason – Japan and Germany did not suffer from Islamic extremism. Western-style democracy is simply NOT compatible with Islamic ideology… the sexism you find in ANY Middle-Eastern country (save for Israel) is akin to what you’d find in 17th century Puritan New England. Let me give another example. Saudi Arabia. These guys make plenty of moolah off oil exports. You can check the economic indicators out for yourself on Wikipedia – they are right up there with the top 30 in terms of highest GDP. On the other hand, you have PUBLIC executions, e.g. BEHEADINGS going on in Saudi Arabia. You have the so-called “religious police” out and about flogging couples for kissing in public. Let me get to the point. The USA has poured trillions into Iraq and Afghanistan. They have accomplished zilch. The average person in Baghdad cannot even expect a regular flow of electricity due to transmission tower sabotage by Islamic radicals. Do we blame the USA? As I’ve said, precedent is the best example. Those of you have lived in America know that Americans are the last people on earth to go about “colonizing.” The average American could probably not distinguish between Europe and Asia if you gave him a blank map. The simple fact of the matter is that the Muslim nations do not want Western style democracy. And that’s fine. The North Vietnamese did not want America either – Vietnam is a dump today, compared to South Korea and Japan. In 20 or 30 years, when an alternative to oil is found, the economies of all Arab Muslim nations will self-extinguish overnight, as the demand for oil plummets to zilch. Then you’ll see Taliban style Sharia law everywhere, as Sharia law is the only kind of “law” compatible with the norms of Islam. But the USA and other Western nations need not wait 20-30 yrs to pull out of these places. The longer they stay, the more money that gets wasted.
LOL at the trash you sleep with–educated Hindus and Sikhs laugh at your kind, sorry. Same place your country is for sh!t.
The comments here are way off the mark. It was the US that rebuilt Japan and West Germany after WWII. Today, Germany is the richest nation in Europe and Japan is the only Asian G-10 nation. The US tried to do in Iraq and Afghanistan what it did in Japan. That is, build the country from the ground up, starting with the introduction of a new constitution. As we know, all such efforts have failed. There is one and only one reason – Japan and Germany did not suffer from Islamic extremism. Western-style democracy is simply NOT compatible with Islamic ideology… the sexism you find in ANY Middle-Eastern country (save for Israel) is akin to what you’d find in 17th century Puritan New England. Let me give another example. Saudi Arabia. These guys make plenty of moolah off oil exports. You can check the economic indicators out for yourself on Wikipedia – they are right up there with the top 30 in terms of highest GDP. On the other hand, you have PUBLIC executions, e.g. BEHEADINGS going on in Saudi Arabia. You have the so-called “religious police” out and about flogging couples for kissing in public. Let me get to the point. The USA has poured trillions into Iraq and Afghanistan. They have accomplished zilch.
Absolut, your are right, but most people here are part of the far left blame america for everything crowd. I just wish many here can put there american bashing aside and instead put there focus on what this brave young women had happen to her.
It’s really sad how many here are scared to deal with the treatment of women in the muslim world and instead play the islamaphobia card. Just look at the killing of the Said sisters in Texas by there father Yasser and how law enforcement groups are afraid to use the term Honor Killing. If you look at the new section there is yet another story up about British Pakistani Men grooming British girl young as 13 for sex. For some reason many here that an issue they would rather ignore despite it being desi related.
@Absolut- A number of north African nations-namely Morocco and Tunisia, with Algeria correcting the salafist incursion, work just fine without the punitive application of Sharia law. Part of it has to do with the interpretation practiced, the Malakite rite vs the Wahabi. As for Islam being incompatible with “democratic” practices, I think you first need to define democratic. I covered the first election Moroccan women voted in and it seemed to go quite well- there was the usually amount of corruption- but then look what happened in Florida and Ohio in 2000 and 2004. Rebuilding a country that’s been blown to smithereens by two super powers in the course of 25 years and has almost now exportable product besides opium is not quite the same as re-building Japan and Germany which had pre-war manufacturing capabilities and substantial infrastructure prior to occupation. This is not building from the ground up- this is still looking for the sub-basement. And those dollars you talk about- millions in waste going straight into corrupt American company pockets- we are just paying our corporate dance masters. Afghanistan is a zombie state because we like it like that.
@realist- contact me off list and we can talk about it.
@absolut – Oh so the US just went on to Iraq and Afghanistan to help them? Oh I see, it had nothing to do with oil or natural resources then? And what happened to those pesky WMDs they were looking for? And who actually created the Taliban and Saddam Hussein? Could it have been the good old US of A? Surely not, they would never do anything like that. And who is the one of the biggest arms seller to all these crackpot regimes -again, clearly not someone like the USA – it’s not possible.
This USA is cleaner than clean mullarkey is absolute rubbish. The USA is just as bad as everyone else – they just do it a bit more subtly and have a better PR machine. By the way isn’t Capital punishment still legal in Texas? Keep on rockin’ in the free world!
The US nor any country can be the world’s policeman, but now that we’ve entered Afghan and Iraq we have a responsibility to those in these countries who will be punished if we leave b/c they supported or worked with coalition forces and supported their culture’s ideals that are different from say the Taliban.
I hate both wars. I hate bush and cheny and Rice for getting us into the mess – I can’t believe cheney has escaped all legal convictions for his lies, and we led clinton thru a protestant inquisition for his fidelities.
I compare this to Bush sr’s war in Iraq in the early ’90s. Of course we were then helping to liberate Kuwait, but bush sr and staff were careless as usual and encouraged the Iraqi Kurds to rise up against their oppresive dictator ( where were the massive protests in the M.East and other Muslim countries, that w/o a drop of the hat will protest anything about Israel? – oh, that’s right if it doesn’t include Israel than everyone can just shut up) and after bush sr. and coalition, pulled out of the war, the Kurds were massacred.
I don’t have family in the war and it saddens me deeply about the young men and women from my country dying in the war; at the same time, I am scared for the women in Afghan who unveiled themselves, participates in parliament, goes to school, works, etc, all these things we take for granted, and everyone else who supported democracy in Afghan, if our armies abandon them, once we have stirred things up.
I also think we should have been at war with Afghan but not Iraq; but b/c of Cheney and his cronies one track mind to attack Iraq we had to divert our resources and manpower to a war we should have never been involved in – Iraq – I think we could be so much farther in Afghan if we weren’t suckered into the Iraq quagmire.
Razib:
Interesting that you mention Congo which has only a 5% incidence of female circumcision instead of muslim Egypt which has a majority of its girls mutilated in a practice that was condoned by the Prophet himself. This is a bigger problem in Saudi Arabia, Somalia etc than Congo.
Another example of intellectual dishonesty.
Absolut:
Germany and Japan were already fully modernized/industrialized countries before WWII.
As for Saudi Arabia ask yourself this simple question: Why is America so anxious to bring democracy and human rights to Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan but not to Saudi Arabia, Jordan or Egypt which are its closest muslim allies in the middle east???
Can you spell hypocrisy?
Tell that to the filipinos, puerto ricans, hawaiians….
Then there is the phenomena known as american neo-colonialization.
[Moderator’s note: This part of the comment deleted because it was in response to some BS which was just deleted]
Time was right in publishing the picture of the girl. This is exactly what Afghan women would face if the Talib barbarians were to come back to power. The American war effort has faltered because they haven’t managed to clear out the sanctuary sites where the Taliban take shelter and breed. Drones and two faced, opportunistic allies will never do it for you. The invasion of Iraq was a sham, the focus should have been Af-Pak from day one. America cannot afford to cut and run now, and I don’t think it will, either.
Hi folks, I’m moderating this thread and have deleted some comments. Will continue to do so when I find time. Please don’t respond to trash.
Here are my issues against the Time magazine cover:
1. It was too graphic. There are other ways capture the attention of the audience regarding the plight of women in Afghanistan. 2. There is a lot of horrors going on in the world, but why do they focus on Afghanistan? Why not focus on the Sudanese genocide? Or the horrors caused by the Pakistani floods?
3. They used this attractive girl to humanize the Afghani war efforts. Why did they make her into a celebrity when there are many girls who have similar fates as this one in Afghanistan? I personally think it is because this girl was quite attractive, and still attractive in spite of her mutilations. I also get the impression that the photographer carefully choreographed her image to be a 2010 analog of Sharbat Gula, and moreover, they are using this mutilated woman as a pawn for increased magazine sales, journalistic notoriety (for lack of a better word), and to push some political agenda, which I’m unsure what it is. 4. Why are we so worried about women’s rights all of a sudden in Afghanistan? As many of the readers here have pointed out, why aren’t we speaking up against the Saudis, Pakistanis, or even the Egyptians?
Also, I don’t think that by reconstructing her nose here in the USA is that sustainable at all. It’s actually not fair to the many other mutilated girls of Afghanistan who could use a plastic surgery. This is a public gimmick, and I think that this would compromise the safety of Ms. Aisha when she returns to Afghanistan.
The Pakistanis are the true winners of this debacle, and the biggest losers are the Afghanis and Americans – in that order.
Regarding the bravery of the Afghani people: I personally think that they exaggerate their greatness (kind of like Indians). If they are so brave, why can’t the Afghanis rise against the Taliban? Why can’t the Afghanis rise against the covert Pakistanis who are clandestinely supporting their rogue elements? The Pashtun Afghanistanis, by not having the moral courage or political will to act against these (foreign) repressive elements, are proving that they are the most anti-intellectual cowards in the world.
the real problem is this stuff is really effective, so i guess its like past convictions being inadmissible evidence…if you allow the other side to have this, they win by emotion. ergo, antiwar activists want pics of dead and disfigured troops, prowar ones don’t. i was just reading about 2 gruesome lynchings in the 1930s that were so gruesome the mere newspaper descriptions resulted in a huge majority of the American public backing federal intervention to stop the phenomena…even in the south, which is rather remarkable if you think about it. The NAACP used the gruesomeness to the hilt and had an anti-lynching bill on the verge of passing. it wasn’t even supposed to be close, a huge majority of congressmen supported it verbally (but sadly FDR wanted it dead and got his way, being in active collusion with the Jim Crow regime).
nonetheless, it just shows how effective time’s strategy is.
It seems like this is more of a really brutal domestic violence issue rather than a political one…but I didn’t read the Time article, so I don’t know. (Time is such a piece of junk that I refuse to read it, or even click on their website.)
In regards to Muslims as imperialists in India: I don’t think that we can regard Muslims (ie Mughals) as imperialists, as they became Indian themselves. Besides, we, as Indians use a Mughal structure as an icon of India. Perhaps they were not so bad for our country.
Boston Mahesh, 1.
. As Manju pointed out above, this is the reason it is so powerful and effective- It uses strong emotional response to successfully convey it’s point.
Because TIME is an American magazine, and the Afghanistan war is (one of) the most important foreign affairs/ defence issue concerning America at the moment.
3.
They have used the image of this unfortunate girl as a representative, iconic image symbolising the fate of million others about whom we will never hear. A bit like the Vietnam napalm girl. I don’t see it as a publicity gimmick. That she is attractive despite the mutilations somehow evokes even more revulsion towards those who mutilated her.
That’s probably because highlighting the state of women’s rights internationally was not the intent behind the story. It was to give a glimpse of the horrors that await women amongst other people, if the US and the world allow the Taliban to regain power in Afghanistan.
That’s partially true. The Pakistanis may think that they have outsmarted the world on this one so far, but burning your immediate neighbour’s house, specially if you live in a windy place is never a clever idea.
Anon in TX said:
Not very Indian. They changed the culture to a very great extent so the culture became more foreign. Places like Punjab that had heavy Islamic influence (when Jagjit Singh sings his praises to Saraswati, he cannot help but include Urdu words–so natural for a Punjabi. I was just listening to that but there are countless examples) responded with several reform religions that would include Islamic ideals.
@Anon in TX
When you refer to “Muslim” invasion of India, I think you completely overlook the fact that the term India itself is only somewhat legitimate since 1947. The mughals did not invade a country called India. They were a nomadic tribe which invaded a sub-continent called India, which in itself contained several kingdoms like that of the marathas, rajputs etc.
So its unfair to use the term India in a pre-1947 sense as though it was a country(or even a homogeneous culture), when the reality was it was non-homogeneous collection of kingdoms which were at war with each other for the last several thousand years. During this time, we did see small windows of centralized rule which perhaps mimicked modern day India. A few good examples are Kanishka’s empire, the mauryas. the mughals and lastly the british who whipped everybody in line.
Imagine if the British would never have come to India. Would India as a republic even exist or perhaps we would be similar to Europe in structure.
All us Indians keep conveniently forgetting that India as a contiguous collection of states(trying to be a nation state) has only existed since 1947.
Any further comments about Muslims in India will be deleted.
The fact is if the US left Afghanistan, the Taliban would turn Afghanistan into a killing field. The so-called “colloborators” would be killed. Millions of Afghans will flee to Pakistan to escape the Taliban and become refugees. Hundreds of thousand of Afghans will flee to Iran and become refugees. One of the poorest and most unstable regions in the world will have a colossal humanitarian crisis.
Is there a reason to keep BritPaki’s comments?
Akash, I like to give a warning first, which I did in #17. I started moderating after that.
And zazou, please stick around.
She is so poor, I hope her later life is getting better and better.
http://www.truth-out.org/between-bomb-and-burqa62110
Er, isn’t the title “What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan?” a tad disingenuous? The US has been in Afghanistan for close to ten years now, with what many would term a puppet/client regime (Karzai) in power. And ordeals like those of Aisha still occur. So, if the US hasn’t been able to change the treatment of women for the better in the last 9+ years, what reason is there to believe that staying longer will make a significant difference? Do keep in mind that many US/Karzai allies are just as repressive and backward when it comes to women’s rights.
Now there are geopolitical reasons for the US wanting to stay in Afghanistan — TAPI vs. IPI, positioning itself in China’s “near abroad,” etc. — reasons whose merits can and should be discussed. But improving women’s rights, I am sorry to say, might make for effective propaganda, but is not a reason why the US or its allies cannot leave.
Hey Vivek man,
Why did you delete my comment ? May be you should find a good Afghan friend for Islamic “penetration”, thus enabling you to channel your energies towards love and tolerance instead of hatred against those with whom you chose to disagree with .
The concept of “South Asia” itself is a proof enough of Islamic penetration of Hindus. I mean, every honest Pakistani identifies with the Middle East and Central Asians with whom we have much more cultural, ethnic and religious affinity with, than the Kalloo South Indians and Sri Lankans, and Chinky Nepalis. But still Hindu gals invite us in these South Asian get togethers in order to meet Pakistani guys to for future Islamic “penetration” 😉 . Poor Hindu guys, on whom the Pakistanis wouldn’t look at, dragged in the macho Afghans and joined in the fun 😉
Look at your own site, I regularly see wedding announcements between Muslim chaps and Hindu gals ( there is one today also) . What I don’t understand is why these guys chose to marry them when Hindu gals are available dime a dozen 🙂 But I guess if their kids will be raised as Muslims, its good for the Muslim ummah . …
@Vivek- thank you- this has been a really interesting discussion @Shaad- excellent points @BritPaki- I would suggest a look at the fifth part of the Surah al noor. There are a number of Muslims on this site and the tone of your comments bring shame upon the umma.
@zazou
Do not warn be about the dangers of adultery. I am still unmarried , and is it wrong to bring in more unbelievers to the fold .. by Love . 🙂
And about your second statement, I can understand your need for Taqiyya living in anti-Muslim West. But brother, Internet gives us anonymity, surely we can be honest.
I have no problem with having a cover image like this. It’s the juxtaposition of that image with the headline “this is what happens if we leave afghanistan”. It’s blatant dishonesty. As another reader pointed out, that stuff is already happening. And as I mentioned before, saving innocent people is not our primary mission in Afghanistan. We can save a lot more innocent people in a few other countries with a lot less expense.
@ Britpaki- the fifth part of the surrah refers to how you behave with people. It is not about anti-Muslim West nor about speaking honestly- sexual insults should not be confused with civil discourse or honest speech by anyone. BTW, you may address me as “khalti.” :> Iftarin nafsak, ya waladi. Afwan.