I agree, but I try to be pragmatic. Everyone is looking for the twitter killer that will destroy it in a blaze of glory, but I am fine with it slowly bleeding users and value as Threads and Mastodon (and Bluesky?) get better and gains more users.
I encourage anyone who cares about this to travel to Afghanistan themselves and see it with their own eyes before relying on what publications like the Guardian have to say about it. One thing about the article that is probably not true is the claim that the girls were labeled “infidels” by the state. Why this claim is suspicious is that there is no word for “infidel” in the languages spoken in Afghanistan. The closest equivalent would be کافر (kafir), which can refer to someone who isn’t Muslim, but not wearing hijab is not considered to be any kind of proof that someone is not a Muslim. It’s highly doubtful that they were excommunicated for this.
The guardian claims that the government in Afghanistan mandates that women must be covered “from head to toe, revealing only their eyes”, which is clearly not true. When I was in Kabul I saw many women without their faces covered. This is one clear case where the Guardian gets facts on the ground wrong. A lot of women there are wearing surgical masks as a form of face covering that also doubles as protection from pollution and disease. As the girl quoted in the article said, they are doing this as a “precaution”, in other words, the government doesn’t in fact require face covering, but they are doing it anyway because they think they have to.
The article implies that girls were specifically targeted for going to English class, as if they have an issue with learning English. Government officials themselves also go to English classes, so that in and of itself was not a relevant matter to the story.
As for them getting beaten for “confronting the men”, of course you are going to get beaten if you resist arrest or argue. That’s true in most countries, but particularly in Afghanistan the authorities tend to hit people if they are not compliant.
The other issue is that the rule in Afghanistan is not well developed or consolidated, which means that these men who committed these acts like the beatings and arrests were acting outside the law, and the central government doesn’t necessarily support this action. Because of the rudimentary form of government different local elements of the Taliban can act differently or independently, so what the spokesperson quoted in the article said about this being unusual was probably telling the truth. This was only one incident, and hopefully it won’t be repeated elsewhere.
The tofu eating wokerati want to trap us on our homes! They want us to wear ankle trackers that ensure we don’t travel more then 15 minutes from the house!
They’re trying to ensure all the most important amenities are within walking distance so they can lock us down forever and control how we breed and what we think!
Then they’ll slowly replace us with the foreigners they’re shipping in on their small boats, and before you know it we’ll all be French! It’s an invasion from within!
Gangs are running profitable businesses inside the correctional facilities, and even have the keys to their own units. Recent rioting showed the extent of their power, posing a difficult challenge for the government of Daniel Noboa.
And for the cunts who think there is an end to this kind of bullshit - a hijab is not enough, it has to be good. After that the shade of black is wrong, or the way these women breathe, or they don’t cower in a way these fucking micropenis pig-shit eating cunts like.
What would I even be writing about without publicly exposing my personal life intimate details (don’t want to) or that hasn’t been said ad nauseam by better and more known writers at this point? What’s a sensible sex and dating column that doesn’t simply reduce into the usual “be empathetic, respect other’s space and boundaries, open dialog, know yourself, seek therapy, etc”?
You gotta make a living. Why not make a living off of those stupid idiots who value your magic ice over regular ice. It’s like selling overpriced paper cards with pretty pictures to kids who love Pokemon. Except kids are kids and these arabs are supposed to be fully capable adults. It’s a low risk, high reward game. I can’t blame them.
theguardian.com
Hot