Wer braucht noch Taliban, wenn er ein solches Parlament hat?
Kanishk Tharoor weist in Opendemocracy auf eine anstehende Entscheidung des afghanischen Parlaments hin. In Kabul wird ein Gesetzentwurf beraten – gegen Make-Up, Jeans für Männer, langes Haar und Paare, die sich in der Öffentlichkeit unterhalten. Wenn sich solche Nachrichten häufen, wird es immer schwerer werden zu begründen, warum wir mit unseren Truppen in diesem Land sind und bleiben sollen:
„The Taliban don’t need to recapture Kabul for their puritan and parochial values to recapture the public stage. Afghan lawmakers – part and parcel of the new, democratic government installed since the toppling of the Taliban in 2001 – are edging towards reintroducing strict bans on supposedly un-Islamic cultural forms. After six years of uncertainty, corruption, carnage and waning confidence, Afghanistan may be sliding right back to where it didn’t want to be.
Parliamentarians this week are considering a law „to ban makeup, men’s jeans, long hair and couples talking in public“. The measure comes fast on the heels of an earlier move to suspend the broadcast of popular Indian soap operas that have dominated Afghan airwaves and TV screens since the opening of the media in 2001. Following a consultation with the Council of Clerics – the country’s top body of ulema – Abdul Karim Khurram, the minister for information and culture, deemed the serials to be out of sync with „Afghan religion and culture“ and issued a deadline for private TV channels to cut the programmes‘ transmission. So much for the tired notion that the Muslim world lives in perpetual fear of western culture – in Afghanistan’s case, it’s Bollywood that’s the bigger bogeyman.“
Mehr hier.