Imagine that you are a 30 year old woman living in Afghanistan.
Your husband is away working in Iran, and you need some basic supplies.
You pop out to the nearby market, covered from head to foot in your favourite black Burka, and suddenly you are grabbed by a group of men.
You are marched away by 'The Taliban', dragged to the nearest Square, and beheaded. How dare you go to the market unaccompanied by a close male relative!
Yes, this really did happen just a couple of days ago, and it's worth remembering what these people really stand for. They imagine that what they are doing is following the strict rules of their religion; but who in their right mind would follow a religion if it means beheading a young woman for having gone shopping.
I've just come back from doing my own shopping, and I couldn't help thinking of that poor woman. I wandered around my supermarket stacked high with all possible produce, amongst women happily surveying the shelves unaccompanied, uncovered, and unafraid of being hacked to death by some evil cult.
No-one is safe until the barbarity of these people is ended. Maybe 2017 will see the beginning of their end; I hope so, but doubt it.
Unbelievable barbarity to fellow men and specially women. I just cannot get my head around what these people believe and how they can carry out these acts of violence
ReplyDeleteBrainwashing par excellence.
DeleteIn any religion the male sets the rules.
ReplyDeleteGreetings Maria x
In this case, psychopathic males!
ReplyDeleteI also just came back from shopping here,living here, you can not avoid looking around to be sure that every thing is ok around,no knifes,or guns or some other crazy something.Every thing is OK.
ReplyDeleteYou experience all this first hand. Stay safe!
DeleteOh no, that's barbaric. Let's hope 2017 ends this tyranny.
ReplyDeleteIt has to come to an end, sometime.
DeleteBarbaric. At the other extreme you have women in Salford (England) wandering around the supermarket in their slippers and pyjamas.
ReplyDeleteI saw that in today's paper!
DeleteYes it is awful - especially because most Afghanis are really lovely, hospitable people. Most Taliban leaders in Afghanistan are not Afghani...
ReplyDeleteI quite expect the woman involved was very pleasant, unfortunately their masters aren't.
DeleteI expect things will improve now that the UNHCR have Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, and other like minded states on the committee for 2017-18.
ReplyDeleteSomething needs to happen, this barbarity can't go on.
DeleteI just checked. The other UN countries newly assigned to protect our so-called universal human rights for the next two years are Qatar, Iraq, Burundi,UAE, Cuba, China and Venezuela. Well done! Hats off the UN!
DeleteIncredible and gut wrenching!
ReplyDeleteJean
Poor people.
DeleteThe horrors that humans do to each other in the name of God is incomprehensible.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid you're right; new examples come every day!
DeleteIt's fundamentalist religion of all stripes. Just awful. I feel so sorry for people who happened to be born in those areas.
ReplyDeleteIt will only end in (I think) ten years' time at least when we team up with the Chinese. I will not give an opinion on what will happen, but suffice it to say there are 10x the number of men and women in the Red Army than in the US military. Wholesale occupations are easier when you have more people.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard to imagine what will end such atrocities. What a cruel and absurd world we live in when I feel lucky not to have to worry about being beheaded for stepping outside. How dare I ever be depressed?
ReplyDeleteMediaeval values in the 21st century. They have no will to move forward, it suits their purpose to keep everyone terrified.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't the religion per se, it is the way it has been misinterpreted.
ReplyDeleteI remember working in a museum shop in Wales and we regularly had a group of people from the USA in. Men in "normal" clothing...the women in long skirts and headscarves, the girls with kerchiefs. No makeup, no haircuts. Hair twisted and plaited. I'm not sure what variety of Christian they were, but they organized their own school as well.
What a sad sad post today.
ReplyDeletecheers, parsnip
I dont think it has peaked yet.
ReplyDeleteAs our world crumbles I also find myself more aware of the rich freedom I have, that my family has. Thanks for that reminder Cro.
ReplyDeleteMy adorable ex lodger is back in UK from India, has a work visa again for 18 months, stayed with me and mum for new year. She is Hindu, brought us Christmas presents champagne, we bought her lots of tiny presents to open on New Years eve as I was working Christmas.What a fantastic time she enjoyed the fun, drunk champagne and strawberry cider. Ok we won't tell her mum she is not a child 35.. At home in India she needs her dad or brothers permission to leave the house, can,t go out alone when dark outside or she will be tarred as a loose woman, and is a signal that rape is ok!!!.My mum lives in a tiny remote village in the north of Scotland Rupali adored the freedom and Community !.
ReplyDeleteThat's a sad tale to end on, but good that she has experienced the freedom of western life. Some terrible things happen in India.
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