Posted on 01/11/2008 3:07:07 PM PST by forkinsocket
With suicide bombers in the capital, spiralling opium production and half the country prey to Taleban guerrillas, Afghanistan's spiritual guardians have discovered a dangerous new peril: Indian soap operas.
In an echo of the strict religious laws of the Taleban era, the Islamic Council of Scholars won the backing this week of a powerful government minister in its campaign to get dozens of wildly popular Bombay dramas off Afghanistan's television screens.
The Minister of Information and Culture has written to television executives to threaten prosecution if they show footage that offends morality. He is particularly concerned about Indian soaps.
His announcement came after dozens of clerics met President Karzai a week ago to demand a ban on shows that they claim are “spreading immorality and un-Islamic culture”. The dramas have won thousands of devotees in Afghanistan who enjoy the escapist world of the fictional Bombay rich. Anywhere else, the family dramas with wooden acting and creaking sets would be thought tame. They have, however, offended the country's new moral enforcers, who fear that the soaps will fuel a craze of “stone worship”, or veneration of Hindu idols.
The enforcers are also urging the Government to take action to get a young generation of rappers and pop stars off air. The old men accuse the musicians of polluting the nation's moral standards and they have chastised Afghans who watch television when they could go to the mosque.
Before turning their sights on Kabul's buoyant new media world the scholars' main campaign was to bring back public executions, last seen in the capital when the Taleban were in control.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Mama’s got to watch her “stories”.
Good thing them “clerics” don’t have to stand for election. They’d never get the wimmin’s vote. Oh, that’s right. Wimmin don’t have any rights in those places.
I thought they already banned soap there.
Yeah, that’s the reason your country is so f’d up. It’s the Indian soaps.
Naw, they banned deodorant, soap is used for washing out kids mouths if they fail to voice support for strapping on explosive vests to kill American's, Iraqis or Afghans.
- People who are physically allowed to keep themselves and their environment as clean (or dirty) as they choose have take a step towards effecting/controlling their lives.
- People who are physically allowed to choose something, in this case soap (color, size, fragrance, etc.) take another step into controlling their lives.
- The more people control their own lives, the more of their own lives they want to control; thus gradually building up the confidence and courage to tell folks like the "Afghan clerics" to butt out.
To those "clerics" the matter of soap isn't soap, it's the thin end of the wedge.
Funny,I thought that they used drain cleaner to wash out their kids mouths.
... The enforcers are also urging the Government to take action to get a young generation of rappers and pop stars off air. The old men accuse the musicians of polluting the nation’s moral standards ...
Why don’t you boys play some nice music ?
Good lord. Is there ANYTHING that DOESN’T offend the Muzzies?
A very serious question remains as to how we reorganized the Afghan government after deposing the Taliban.
Think of how much better Afghanistan would be, already, if we had imposed the equivalent of the MacArthur constitution on them. A western style government. A western style legal system. A constitution that prohibits the establishment of religion, and guarantees human rights to all its citizens.
Instead, we foolishly decided to treat them with “cultural sensitivity”, allowing them to keep and maintain an outdated, primitive, and inefficient form of government.
By imposing a western style government on them, we could say that, “In ten years, when we leave, you will have lived like modern men for ten years. Only then will you have to decide if you want to keep living like modern men, or return to your primitive tribal law, warlords, brutality and gross unfairness to all.”
It is a very good bet that they would choose to keep the modern ways, despite the protestations of a vocal reactionary minority.
But the way we chose to do things, unfortunately, means that they will continue to muddle along with an unstable, corrupt and outdated form of government.
We could not impose a western style govt because the people there had no experience with representative govt, like Japan did in late 1800s. Western govt requires a professional well trained well educated bureaucracy.
Illiteracy rate in AF is like 70-80%. The Afghans in Europe and US tried to form some govt, but none of them were popular or powerful enough to lead the natives. They also fought amongst themselves because of ethnic divisions.
AF also has almost no trained professionals. Some US general said there are only about 200 people in AF capable of working in the government. A lot of leaders are just warlords with not schooling and the judges have little training beyond a madrassa. AF is a very primitive place with very primitive people. This is not an insult to the Afghans, its just the way things are.
I got a better idea. How about we clean out the Afghan clerics.
“But the way we chose to do things, unfortunately, means that they will continue to muddle along with an unstable, corrupt and outdated form of government.
12 posted on 01/11/2008 6:07:10 PM CST by yefragetuwrabrumuy”
I was hoping you wouldn’t bring the county tax office into this.
Great! This is what our military people are fighting and dying for...George Bush’s image of a peaceful Mohammedan Utopia.
Drain cleaner, Lifeboy, close enough.
I don’t know how racy or extreme the Indian soaps are but I have to shake my head at some of the ‘stories’ in THIS country. A few years ago on a now-defunct daytime soap, a woman inpregnated an unconscious woman via a turkey baster. And more recently, a hermaphrodite seduced his/her father and wound up pregnant.
And no, I don’t think the gov’t ought to interfere or ban, I just think people who watch these need their head examined!
ping
ping
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