John Robson: Where Is the Outrage Over the Treatment of Women in Afghanistan?

Commentary

With summer winding down, and no, I don’t know where it went or indeed where 1993 went, students will be returning to campuses to learn I hope, party I predict, and protest I fear. I’m all for righteous indignation, but it should be tempered with humility and some of that nollij they used to inculcate in academe when universities had Latin mottos, students knew what they meant, and administrators cared. For instance, you could set up an encampment to educate and advocate on the oppression of Afghan women.

In case you missed it amid the ruckus over Israel, Israel, and Israel, the alleged genocide in Gaza, or the evils of Zionism, AP reported that “Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers last Wednesday issued the country’s first set of laws to prevent vice and promote virtue. They include a requirement for a woman to conceal her face, body and voice outside the home.”

Yup. That’s right. There’s a saying that golf is like life; never so bad that it can’t get worse. And it’s definitely true of government. Again, it may not have been the big news on your campus because Afghanistan is a place where people who are not Jews and do hate Western civilization are actually doing terrible things. Ever since the Taliban took power again in 2021, as the long, gruelling Western effort there collapsed under some Western leaders who are wise and woke so never mind what they thought they were doing, women have been subject to incredibly harsh restrictions.

Forget microaggressions. We’re talking burqa or death here. Kiss a boy and die. Show your hair in public and die. Sing a song in public and die. Tell your husband you’re not in the mood and die. For instance, that guy in Iran who paraded through the streets with the severed head of his underage wife/cousin he had killed over “family differences.” But we’ll get to your anti-Iranian misogyny protest later.

For now let’s just think, in case you’re in or an “ally” of “Queers for Palestine,” about the fact that homosexuality is punishable by death in Afghanistan, either through the judicial process or just anyone can do it. Including family members.

Outraged yet? If not, here’s an assignment for your next tutorial paper. “Gay rights in Afghanistan and Israel: compare and contrast.” Just kidding. I don’t think they have tutorials anymore, and if so I’m pretty sure they don’t assign papers. And if they did, you’d be in a heap of trouble if you chose that one.

Indeed, you’d be taking a pretty big chance even with “Rule of law in Afghanistan and Israel: compare and contrast.” Especially if you, oh, I don’t know, made some kind of passing reference to the importance of culture and of fundamental beliefs. Like the supposedly divine injunction against women speaking in public at all.

Still, the voice of youth is brave and won’t be silenced, right? And here you have rights. So if your professors are part of the herd of independent minds that stampedes right over anyone who deviates from the rebellious Party line, along with politicians, public servants, and other downtrodden proletarians, you don’t have to submit to their indoctrination, do you?

Heck no. This is a university. We’re students. We think for ourselves. We can set up a protest encampment and bring in speakers and shout slogans and, what the heck, maybe party a bit to stay in practice. (Admittedly some of the encampments last year didn’t exactly come across as cheerful, but I’m pretty sure some people were getting high, however lugubriously.)

We can set up information booths. We can inform people and awaken them to the outrage.

Or I guess do what Margaret Atwood did, and see this kind of thing after the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1978–79 and return to create a harrowing, salon-friendly depiction of the oppression of women in America where they were forced to wear demeaning outfits (or nothing at all), submit to their husbands and surrender their identity, and couldn’t have money or learn to read and write. Her best-selling, prize-winning (1985 Governor General’s Award and more), highly lucrative novel became a movie, an opera, and a TV series.

Heck, you can even do a paper on it. If they still have such. Everyone will praise you for speaking truth to power, defying the Establishment, and getting straight A’s at a state-funded, state-run university.

Say, what’s the instantly recognizable symbol in support of women in Afghanistan? The one people display to protest that, after rejecting charges of denying women an education just because they happened to have closed all secondary schools to females, the neo-Taliban made it illegal for girls to get an education, whereas in Israel today, 60 percent of university students are women.

I didn’t think so. But you can create one and wave it. We’re waiting.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

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