Life before the Taliban: Fascinating photos show short skirts, flash cars and no burkas

The Daily Mail ^ | 18 January 2016 | BECKY PEMBERTON

[MinorityRepublican]

These fascinating photographs from Afghanistan in the 1960s are a far cry from the war-torn images in the news today.

The eye-opening collection was captured by university professor Dr Bill Podlich from Arizona, who swapped life in America to travel to Kabul with his wife, Margaret, and two teenage daughters, Jan and Peg.

Using his Kodachrome film, his images show a peaceful Afghanistan making strides towards a more liberal and Westernised lifestyle - a stark contrast to harrowing sights seen during Taliban regime.

[Vaquero]

Nazis with brown shirts and French horns....WOW!!

[Opinionated Blowhard]

These fascinating photographs from Afghanistan in the 1960s

They aren't "fascinating," they are sad. They are proof of how a civilized society can collapse and regress very quickly. Look at pictures of Iran or Lebanon from the 1960s. The difference is just as sad.

[a fool in paradise]

But we are told in the West that such garments are burqas and hijabs have always been the laws of the land for muslims. Deep rooted tradition. Can’t take it off to serve customers, play volleyball, or pose for a driver’s license photo.

[Slyfox]

Very interesting.

[MinorityRepublican]

Lebanon is more civilized than you think, there's still some Christians in Lebanon.

[Vic S]

Here's a library in Afghanistan in the 50s:

[a fool in paradise]

Cultural revolutions in Cambodia, Iran, and elsewhere in the 1960s and 1970s. Murdered those who were politically incorrect, even pop stars.

WWII was not the last genocide by a wide margin. And the Left is on the wrong side of history.

[lacrew]

I’ve seen similar photos of a girl’s school in Egypt...class photos through the years feature more and more westernized clothes...and then an abrupt change to full body coverings.

[MinorityRepublican]

But we are told in the West that such garments are burqas and hijabs have always been the laws of the land for muslims. Deep rooted tradition. Can’t take it off to serve customers, play volleyball, or pose for a driver’s license photo.

Maybe in Saudi Arabia, that might be true. Before the establishment of the modern nation, they were nomads living on the desert for centuries. With all that sun, it makes sense to cover yourself up, or the sun will literally kill you.

If I'm mistaken, would someone who's better versed with the history of the Middle East please correct me?

[cherry]

very few women featured except in that one classroom....the people looked hardened...

from stone age to stone age....

I do enjoy pics from the past and I appreciate posting this...

[MinorityRepublican]

Hard to believe that the Egyptians were civilized only a couple decades ago.

[a fool in paradise]

Egypt didn’t have them universally in the 60s.

[hanamizu]

I was supposed to go to Afghanistan with the Peace Corps in 1969 (I was “deselected” before actually getting there—thank God! Everyone who went came back within a month with amoebic dysentery). We were told that the college girls in Kabul wore Western-style clothing, but usually wore sun glasses as a substitute for the veil. If you look at the pictures however, you’ll notice that men and women didn’t mingle even in pre Taliban days. You see the photographer’s wife interacting with Afghan men, but Western women didn’t count as real women rather as “men in skirts or dresses.”

[MinorityRepublican]

Islam needs a modern version of Kemal Ataturk to tell the crazies to STFU.

[lee martell]

Cats and Dogs playing together???

[SeeSharp]

After Timothy Leary escaped from Federal prison he hid out in various countries. He was in Kabul for about a year before finally surrendering at the US Embassy there.

[PGR88]

But we are told in the West that such garments are burqas and hijabs have always been the laws of the land for muslims. Deep rooted tradition.

There was a time when Western culture and values were dominant around the world, certainly among 3rd world elites anyway, and were seen as THE keys for progress and development. Part of that was the West's OWN self-confidence and belief in its own culture of Christianity, personal freedom and personal responsibility. Of course, we have lost that now.

I know Western women who travelled to Muslim areas of India, Pakistan, etc.. in the 1970's who were told to cover up, sexually harassed, etc... just as we heard of now, so the closed Muslim mind and attitudes toward women have always been there. Only now there is a vacuum in the world - and radical Islam seeks to fill it. We are only now waking to this reality.

[a fool in paradise]

Our State Department also worked in a post-WWII world to promote Westernization of our wartime allies (and guard against Soviet expansion of global Communism).

This is now retroactively called a bad thing (those same historians do not speak out against Soviet imperialism).

The Left is on the wrong side of history.

[Tax-chick]

I have a friend who lived in Kabul about that time. Her husband did something involving medical technology for the State Department.

There were a smattering of modern, Westernized Afghans, as well as other ethnicities, living in Kabul. However, most of the country was what it had always been: fundamentalist tribal misery.