The Taliban
All extremism disturbs me – whether it’s religious or political! It is a disease!
Fanatics are not rational. We saw it with Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, St Paul, Christians, Muslims and Hindus. We even see it with Buddhists in Myanmar.
We see it with Trump, Bolsonaro and Johnson.
Fanaticism is evil. I oppose it fanatically.
I am a liberal. I believe in tolerance and freedom. I am an atheist. A person should be free to choose, not coerced or indoctrinated; free to practice their own religion or politics – but not free to impose it on others!!
What really pisses me off about these fanatical religious groups – and I include American Evangelicals, Hindu nationalists, Irish Catholics and Protestants, the Taliban, Boko Haram, A Qaeda, Wahhabis and all other religious sects who would impose and enforce, is their certainty, intolerance and viciousness. It’s arrogant beyond belief!
The Taliban are particularly pernicious. They, like other extreme Muslim groups, would not only impose their extreme beliefs on others but would torture and kill over minor infringements. They use barbaric practices of public beheadings, stonings and extreme whippings to induce fear and impose their strict laws.
Their extreme interpretation of religious texts results in a life that is sterile and abusive – worse than anything in medieval times. Some of their practices are obscene:
Beheadings
Stonings
Floggings
Insisting on prayer for men in the mosque 5 times a day
Insisting on beards
Banning females from public life
Banning female education
Forcing women into burkas in public
Forcing women to obey their husbands
Allowing abuse of women by husbands
Insisting on strict dress codes
Banning television
Banning music
Wanton destruction of all art and statues not conforming to their religious values………………..
This is a doctrine that does not go back to the stone-age. Our stone-age ancestors enjoyed music, art and had a rich culture.
This is so austere, such an infringement of human rights, that it requires opposing in every way possible.
I am personally opposed to violence and war, opposed to occupation and suppression, but I would be in favour of a strong UN force going in to protect the rights of women and all those who do not wish to abide to these strict religious mores.
And that throws into question all those other regions of the world where religious and political regimes inflict their strict rules on people and take away their human rights.
Saudi? Oman? Russia? China? The Maldives……….
The list is long.
The UN was set up to support human rights and freedoms across the planet!! I support those ideals!!
Holy Shit. You took the words right out of my mouth! Unfortunately we – you and I are bound by rules of universal love, peace, freedom and understanding, whereas the fanatic – and there’s an awful lot of them, are about instigating a set of draconian, self-serving rules that suit only themselves.
As you catalogue, there’s a lot of it about, quite how we protect the whole world, I have no idea. UN would be spread pretty thin.
I guess that the way forward is to properly fund the UN, provide them with sufficient troops, start at the worst places and work down. Also for the world to unify to supply sanctions and ‘rewards’.