Sally Armstrong is a journalist, author and human-rights activist. Her latest book, written with Sima Samar, is Outspoken: My Fight for Freedom and Human Rights in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan’s Vice and Virtue squad is at it again. After previously banning Afghan women and girls from going to school, working, walking in public parks, and frequenting beauty salons and gyms, the Taliban government’s ministry in charge of morality has issued a ban forbidding women from speaking in public.
A new 114-page document on morality published in late August compiles previously announced decrees with new edicts approved by the Taliban’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada. It states that women must completely cover their bodies and faces to avoid leading men into temptation and vice. In addition, it declares that women’s voices are potential instruments of vice and will not be allowed to be heard in public. The ban includes a prohibition on women singing or reading aloud, even in the privacy of their own homes.
Is it not time to talk about who these men are? Consider this: They use the Quran to support their views and yet many of them can’t read it themselves because they are illiterate, or if they can read, they don’t know Arabic, the language of the Quran. What’s more, there’s nothing in the Quran that calls for the lunatic rules the Taliban are creating. They are making this up as they go along, rather than adhering to the generally accepted values of their faith.
Similar things were happening during my first assignment in Afghanistan as a journalist after the Taliban took over in September, 1996. The newly established Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice was issuing decrees. Men were not allowed to cut their hair in the style of Leonardo DiCaprio, the star of the film Titanic, because it was “offensive to Islam.” Think about that: The Quran was written in the 5th century. Can anyone honestly believe it went into details about hairstyles?
The Taliban’s decrees kept getting more draconian and more bizarre. Women were not allowed to wear white socks because that was the colour of the Taliban flag. But a few months later, the rule had changed: women could not wear white socks because they were considered sexually provocative. Imagine that. Crimes relating to sexuality were often punished more severely.
The Taliban are driven by deranged ideas about sexuality, fearing that a woman’s face or voice will drive them to sin, meaning rape. These are people who for decades sent suicide bombers to places where people were discussing human rights, bazaars where men and women shopped together and gatherings of Hazaras, who the Taliban sees as infidels. Taliban militants have assassinated polio vaccinators in Pakistan, and were accused of doing the same in Afghanistan before they took back control of the country in 2021. This is the kind of intellectual depravity that rules Afghanistan today.
While diplomats’ and Western officials’ attempts to negotiate with the Taliban are understandable, in reality, there’s nothing to negotiate. Women and girls cause the Taliban extraordinary fear as they believe they won’t be able to control themselves sexually in their presence. Women have to be covered, denied the right to be seen and heard. Why don’t we call this for what it is? This is the behaviour of sexual perverts. It is the behaviour of deviants. It is the behaviour of incompetents who have failed as patriots and as leaders. They claim they act in the name of God when they flog and publicly execute their citizens without fair trials for acts they presume are immoral, such as homosexuality or a woman talking on the phone to a man. And they gather in the hundreds as voyeurs to watch these hideous punishments.
If the women and girls of Afghanistan could use their voices, they would speak of evil – of being ruled, judged, controlled and abused by a collection of ignorant, misogynist men. They would demand an end to Taliban rule, or at least a coalition of Afghans to steer the de facto government back to common social norms. But somehow, the world is stymied – tightening up sanctions on the Taliban means allowing Afghans to starve. The international community is not prepared to invade and the Taliban have thus far refused help from a coalition. So we rely on women protestors and organizations like Human Rights Watch to keep us informed about the anti-Islamic actions of this collection of thugs. It’s fair to ask why the Afghan people can’t come together and defeat them, but the population lives in fear of increased violence and disruption.
This human rights catastrophe is taking place under the noses of the entire world. Our leaders need to make it a priority to uproot maniacal men like the Taliban and ensure that they cannot reach or hold power ever again.