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Afghanistan Bans Internet
Posted by
michael
on Sat Jul 14, 2001 09:05 AM
from the you-don't-have-mail dept.
from the you-don't-have-mail dept.
aristotle2000 writes: "Suprisingly, the Taliban has prohibited the use of the Internet in Afghanistan. Apparently, the Internet can deliver un-Islamic, immoral, or lewd material. Who can believe that a country that has such an open attitude towards women, minorities, religions, and the press would object to the Internet?" I guess I'm unclear on the concept here: if the government is also forswearing the internet, who is going to monitor to make sure the peons aren't secretly dialing up to AOL? On the plus side, .af domains should be real cheap.
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It took this long?... (Score:5)
For those who want a really good look at the atrocities of the Taliban, check out RAWA [rawa.org]. Be careful what you click on, though; there are VERY graphic movie files and pictures on that site. Don't go there unless you have a strong stomach. We're not talking about annoying Congressmen here; these people are killers, plain and simple.
Bridging the Gap (Score:5)
To start off, I will try to give a perspective of what it's like as a Muslim (I'm not a Muslim, btw) trying to face American values. I quote from "The Islamic Declaration", written by Alija Izetbegovic.
"For more than a century now, many nations outside the western civilisation, have been facing the problem of which attitude to take towards that civilisation. Finding oneself face to face with it, should one assume the attitude of absolute rejection, cautious adjustment or accept indiscriminately all the aspects of that civilisation? The tragedy or triumph of many nations was decided by their answer to this crucial question."
This speaks to me, as I feel the same thing living inside the US. As a citizen of the US and forced subject of its culture, I have to discriminate between the aspects of the culture that I would rather not become, and those that are wonderful and magnificent.
This is often a very difficult process to undergo. Alduous Huxley himself wrote in the forward to the second edition of "Brave New World":
If I were now to rewrite the book, I would offer the Savage a third alternative. Between the utopian and the primitive horns of his dilemma would lie the possibility of sanity--a possibility already actualized, to some extent, in a community of exiles and refugees from the Brave New World, living within the borders of the Reservation. In this community economics would be decentralist and Henry-Georgian, politics Kropotkinesque cooperative. Science and technology would be used as though, like the Sabbath, they had been made for man, not (as at present and still more so in the Brave New World) as though man were to be adapted and enslaved to them. Religion would be the conscious and intelligent pursuit of man's Final End, the unitive knowledge of the immanent Tao or Logos, the transcendent Godhead or Brahman. And the prevailing philosophy of life would be a kind of Higher Utilitarianism, in which the Greatest Happiness principle would be secondary to the Final End principle--the first questino to be asked and answered in every contingency of life being: "How will this thought or action contribute to, or interfere with, the achievement, by me and the greatest possible number of other individuals, of man's Final End?"
I mention this source to suggest that it's not easy for people even living in the western world to address its culture. The Taliban, simply not being able to find the sanity among the modern western world, have decided to turn away from it altogether, the same thing Huxley did in "Brave New World" because he could see no possibility of sanity within the direction the west seems to be taking humanity.
So, the Taliban are certainly misguided, IMHO, but we must forgive them and recognize our own shortcomings in what we perceive as theirs. They are trying to force with law and government what they really wish would happen as a result of a transformation in the hearts and minds of people. How is that any different from what goes on in the US? The war on drugs, for example, is symptomatic of trying to use guns and force to stamp out an essentially crisis of the human spirit. In some ways, having any government providing such a "service" contributes to the problem and perpetuates the cycle since it distracts people from the root cause. People start thinking that big brother will come along and save them, and start to lose sight of their own individual will and spirit. While not particularly effective, people often commit crimes simply because they want to demonstrate that the whole approach of trying to prevent crime through negativity as opposed to positivity is misguided.
From Izetbegovic:
Re:Bridging the Gap (Score:4)
No. He is claiming that as a humanist he can accept that things are wrong without needing to pollute the concepts of "right" and "wrong" with his societies own values.
I agree strongly with his sentiment. It's the ultimate bullshit to sit the fence and say "you can't judge someone elses culture". You sure can and you damn well should.
Humanism knows no borders.
Re:Not surprising Really (Score:3)
had been declared the only acceptable version, and those who had different Christian beliefs forced
to discard them?
Trouble for Bin Laden (Score:3)
Monitoring not a problem. (Score:5)
For another thing, the Taliban is pretty good at using severe punishments as a deterrent. Beatings, reeducation camps and death at the hands of the morals police have brought Afghanistan's heroin-smuggling routes to a halt. Not a trickle, but a halt.
It's hard to imagine anyone risking internet access. You might see a trickle of UUCP-relayed e-mail continue below the radar via 2400-baud modem connections, but that's about it.
Make all the jokes you want from the comfort of your developed country re: how they'll monitor this, but in a country with only a few hundred outbound phone lines in working order, if that--prehistoric analog ones switched by hand--it doesn't take much to eavesdrop on all of them at once and listen for carrier tones.
Re:.af (Score:3)
Hearing impaired could set up a site for the de.af.
alt.fan.warlord could keep an archive at bu.af
(Big Ugly ASCII Font).
alt.folklore.urban regulars could find testimonials at fo.af (Friend Of A Friend).
Politics, Religion, and using God for man's hate (Score:4)
The concept of "righteousness" has led to the "My God is bigger than your God" shit that has been going on for oh, about 4-6,000 years now. Invoking God to justify murder and destruction, all becuase you think your God is right and the other guy's God is wrong.
I submit that Gods are all the same. A creator, life-giver, a spiritual leader... we just choose to worhip them in different ways. Americans probably have no problem with this, since most of us are pretty open-minded about religious differences. Except, of course, those crazy rabid Christians who like to call Catholics "Mary fetishists," claim that the King James Version is the "Only True Version" of God's Word, and anyone who disagrees should either be converted or damned to hell by their hand. But I digress...
The point is that in other parts of the world, specifically the Middle East, Religion is everything. Which God you worship and how you worship him determines where you will live, how you will vote, and oftentime whether you will live or die when a particular "party" comes into power.
Take for example, Isreal and Palestine. There's no reason in the world why this little piece of land can't handle people of two differing sets of religious beliefs. Oh, except of course that the Palestinians believe that they own the land by rights, and it was taken by the Israeli's when they claimed it in the name of "The God of Abraham." And the same Israeli's belive that since God gave THEM the land, they should be able to kick the Muslims the hell out.
Maybe that's oversimplification, but the fact is that it's a big pissing contest. Since the governments and religions are one in the same, the diplomatic approach is little different than the religious approach; with neither side wanting to give.
Wanna know how the great King Solomon would have handled the situaion? Drop a 20 megaton nuclear warhead square on the Gaza Strip or the West Bank, and let them sort out the resulting mess. Nothing unites people like working together to recover from Armageddon, eh?
And if you can't play nice, nobody gets the toy!
And then there's... (Score:4)
And then there's the USA, where lots of politicians would also be happy to censor the internet if they could get away with it.
--
afghanistan & internet (Score:5)
Re:Not surprising Really (Score:3)
Taleban Web sites (Score:3)
Are here:
They're all still working today, so presumably they're banning their own people from reading other people's Web sites, not banning other people from reading their Web sites...
It's worse than that. (Score:5)
They don't just kill women for exposing skin, they also kill women for getting raped (no, I'm *not* making this up.) If a woman is raped in a Taliban-controlled part of Afghanistan, she's likely to be done in by stoning, while the perp gets to claim that she tempted him to do it, and gets off with a beating, or with no punishment at all.
-jcr
Blasphemy anyone? (Score:4)
So, if I were to say that the Taliban leaders wallow in their own piss, shit, jizz, blood, wine, beer, and the sweat of a camel that had eaten a soup made up of the same gunk, and that they ate dog-and-pork sausage in the morgue with infidels, it might be regarded as un-Islamic? ;-)
(Unclean? Sounds like a great weekend! I cut my finger pretty bad during the wee hours of the morning, and was worried about the bleeding, so I got a stich put in by this cute Jewish med student interning at the hospital... we hit it off and met at the zoo later that morning after she got off her shift, on which one of her patients died, which was a bummer... we went to the zoo, walked around a bit, grabbed a sausage from the sidewalk vendor, saw the camels (he was looking hungry, so I fed him some sausage, even though the sign said not to, while petting him on the nose, poor thing was burning up, it was so hot outside that day), then went out for Chinese food, then went bar-hopping... then I got really drunk... Never mix beer and wine. Anyways, I remember getting laid, but I'd had waaaaaay too much to drink and I really embarassed myself. But I was too drunk to really give a damn. In fact, I was so damn drunk, she got worried, and she had to go to work anyways, so she took me to the hospital at 3:00am and left me to get my stomach pumped, which I think was a subtle signal that the relationship was over... but that's OK, 'cuz while I was getting my guts pumped out, I met this cute Hindu med student...)
Re:Bridging the Gap (Score:5)
This does not in any way indicate a vast similarity between the two governmental structures other than the basic fact that they are both governments and therefore represent attempts to legislate a common understanding of "workable" cultural codes and compromises under which people live their day-to-day lives, work, eat, sleep, shit and fuck.
The similarities end there. The Taliban bases their moral code on the most extreme and doctrinaire interpretation possible of the Koran and religious exegesis by that over the years from the most insane of Islamists. Western-style democracy bases its moral code on a few fundamental first principles like Hillel's "Golden Rule" (do unto others as you would have them do unto you) and a tradition based on the value of freedom and the individual, equality, and other values derived by way of application of reason to the human condition. Is Western society influenced by religious values? Sure. But the superiority of a system that embraces and allows for all religious practices, except where they are imposed on others, carries an aesthetic that is human in origin and ultimately founded on rational social behavior, and not limited to any particular government, society or people.
In other words -- I reject the postmodern hypothesis that any culture is as good as any other culture and we cannot judge them as we are inherently polluted by our own culture's view point. I strive to understand other cultures, but I rely on observation and reason, firm scientific principles. Humanist philosophy is _not_ just another religion, it is the pursuit of truth and the rejection of irrational, false principles, with which radical Islamist societies are riddled.
I met lots of annoying people just like you at Harvard - they repeat this mantra about how we are misguided in judging any other culture. I say that's bunk. We can value other cultures for their positive aspects and reject their negative aspects in the same way as we do our own -- I certainly don't blindly accept all practices, of the people, nor of the government of the United States. Nevertheless, the fact that I live in a country where I am allowed to hold such an opinion puts me miles ahead of any unfortunate Afghanis still left to live under the Taliban regime.
Get its priorities straight (Score:4)
1. Ensuring widespread deprivation, poverty, starvation.
2. Smashing a few more statues.
3. Playing host to more terrorist organisations.
4. Finding imaginative ways of abusing women.
etc.
Banning the Internet should be waa-aay down its list of priorities.
Taliban and the Pakistani ISI (Score:5)
The ISI was the primary conduit for western aid to the mujahadeen in their war against the Soviet invasion force of the late 1980s. (It should also be remembered that the Soviet invasion killed over 1 million Afghanis.)
After the Soviets left Afghanistan with their tail between their legs, Pakistan funded and trained the Taliban, and in some cases Pakistani regulars even lead them in battle. Taliban is also made up of ethnic Pashtunies, which are a minority group in Afghanistan, but are heavily represented in the Pakistani military.
The extent to which Pakistan is still pulling the Taliban's strings is unclear. Some feel the Taliban have slipped Islamabad's control.
The rteason none of thiis rarely (if ever) reported in the press is that: A.) Most western readers don't give a rat's ass about Afghanistan; and B.) Since it was a big egg on the face of the Clinton-era CIA, since Pakistan is still officially an American allie and the CIA worked closely with the ISI to arm the mujahadeen. Another problem is the lack of reliable, unbiased news from the region, as various news outletss (Afghan opposition groups, official media in India, Iran, etc.) who have reported the ISI connection all have their own agendas to push.
Look at the plus side... (Score:5)
.af (Score:4)
Hmmm... I was trying to thing of a clever
Re:Finally a country George W. can agree with! (Score:3)
Computers are (still) unfiltered in libraries and schools.
I haven't caught or heard anyone caught in masturbating in libraries and schools.
Hmm... perhaps it's an american thing to spontaneous masturbate when exposed to porn? Perhaps you're not exposed to enough?
Bjarne
Get me Shawn on the horn... (Score:3)
Don't let these guys hook up with the RIAA.
Documentary (Score:5)
The people in Af are under the complete control of the Taliban. They are ruled with the proverbial rod of iron (which is normally used to beat to death 13 year old girls for daring to read a book). Their interpretation of Islamic law is so extreme that most other Muslims, even the most 'orthodox'(*) ones consider it over the top.
It is seeing what can happen in a country like this that puts life in the west into perspective. We may whine about companies protecting IP, or governments introducing face recognising CCTV, but thats nothing compared to what these people are living through.
If it ever shown where you live, try and watch it. It certainly made me realise just how lucky I am. At least I have the freedom to live a normal life, go to school (although I have just finished Uni but you know what I mean), walk down the street, without risking beating, or death. And I have some say, no matter how small, in the way my country is run, I have a voice. People in Afganistan have no voice, not even a small one, especially not women, who are basically non-people.
(*) I don't like the word extremist, it smacks of American cliches about Muslims, most of whome are peaceful, honest, friendly, well educated and moral. The combative tendancy in the area is like that in europe up to about 50 years ago (ignoring the balkans), not a product of religion, just of the situation, religion just tends to fan the flames (the religious wars of europe, papal intervention in politics, the holy roman empire etc)
Here endeth the lesson
Another Link (Score:3)
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/07/1 3/taliban.internet/index.html [cnn.com] n .internet.reut/index.html [cnn.com]
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/07/13/afgha
These are better links because you will be able access the data a year from now, while the Yahoo story will fall off the net in a few weeks.
It looks like alot of folks are commenting without reading the story. If they had, they would have noted this bit:
It was not immediately known how many people or offices use the Internet in a country in which infrastructure is in ruins because of more than two decades of war. There are not many computers and most of areas do not have electricity. Those who can afford to, including foreign aid agencies, log onto the Internet through the few telephone lines provided by neighboring Pakistan.
[...]
AIP did not say when the ban was imposed and how the Taliban planned to ensure that telephone lines were not being used to access the Internet. But most Taliban decisions and edicts on conduct are ruthlessly enforced by their powerful religious police working under the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
A special note is that, as the taliban says, "We want to establish a system in Afghanistan through which we can control all those things that are wrong, obscene, immoral and against Islam"
This will be rather difficult to do, given their particular view of technology, etc. Maybe they'll mandate proprietary Taliban systems. But who would make them? I am sure someone would, but they could be a bit pricey.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip
Re:ISLAM ISLAM ISLAM....OPEN YOUR EYES AND SEE (Score:3)
Quoted from a site on the net...
Definitely not the words of a good Catholic! Sounds like you've heard one fact and filled in the rest yourself.Re:Taleban Web sites (Score:3)
Sad situation.... (Score:3)
As a devote Muslim, I quite often look on at the situation in Afganistan with sadness. It is a shame that the Taliban have lost sight of tolerence when our own Islamic history is full of tolerence. The most peaceful time in Palestine/Isreal was during the Muslim rule before the crusades. The Muslims of the time let the Christians ans Jews pratice their religions in peace. The same in Muslim Spain before the inquisition. Even in the life time of the Prophet Muhammed, the Muslims took protection with their Allies...the Christians.
Today many Muslim groups have lost sight of this in a way that is sickening. However, the particular situation in Afganistan is one of sadness and desperation. The Taliban without a doubt are wrong for what they are doing. However, in the West we should also take reponsiblity for our own part in the downfall of Afganistan.
The Afghanistan Mujahideen fought the Russian Army and defeated them. They were backed by the US and the UK who trained them and gave them weapons. The US and the UK were so keen on having the Russians defeated but they didn't want to fight the war themselves. The defeat of the Russian army by the Afghanistan Mujahideen brought about the down fall of the Soviet state and hence the end of the cold war. The general peace in the world that we face today is partly due to the courage and sacrifices of the Afghan Mujahideen. However, once Afghanistan had won all the other Soviet states found the strenth to seek freedom and indepence. However, at the end of the war the US and the UK pulled all support and left Afghanistan in ruins. A country with no infrastrucutre, completely destroyed by years of war with nothing exept a bunch of Armed people who knew nothing except how to fight. Of course they felt betrayed by what the West had done to them. They felt completely let down. And now today, Osama bin Laden is hunted as the world's number one terrorist when only a few years ago, he was the hero.
The West played its part in creating the Afghanistan today. If you want to make the world a better place then first correct your own mistakes. Its too easy for us to mock the Afghan people and the Taliban for what they are doing wrong. It isn't going to make the situation better though.And if you go to Arghan today, you will see that the lack of Internet, is the least of their worries.
ISLAM ISLAM ISLAM....OPEN YOUR EYES AND SEE (Score:5)
When I read about Hitler...I never read he was a Roman Catholic. I never read that what he did was just follow his religion and that it was OK in his religion to wipe out a whole race of people. I never read that Hitler sent Jews to concentration camps because he was a Roman Catholic.
My friend...this is western progoganda at its best. An attempt to dissallude people about Islam to the extent that the people who follow Islam don't know what their religion is all about. Taliban are an evil group of individuals and their activites are NOT endorsed by ISLAM. Similarly Hitler was a devil and his activities are not endoresed by Christianity.
So for the sake of GOD....don't talk confuse the activites of Taliban with the teachings of ISLAM. I don't think there is any religion in the world that teaches us to harm other beings/be disrespectful to others.
Let me remind you that ISLAM was the first relgion in the world that actually gave women a status. Before that women used to be buried at birth and were thought of as a liabilty. Islam changed the status quo.
Today these illiterate idiotic piece of waste Taliban are doing everything AGAINST the teaching of Islam.
So stop commenting or defending their activities or associating their activities with the preachings of ISLAM.
Re:Get its priorities straight (Score:3)
Some pretty impressive sanctions they've got, stopping the Afghans from conducting the same agriculture that's fed them for centuries prior to the Taliban's advent. Did UNESCO go in and salt their soil or something?
This is not like Iraq, where the economy had developed to the point where critical efficiencies came from imports and exports.
What's happening here is that a huge number of people have been withdrawn from the labor pool. (A) Women, and (B) All the men who used to do actual productive things and now sit around growing beards and whacking at each other with sticks. This is all very disruptive in the short term, and to some degree debilitating in the long term. Plus the climate of fear results in resources being withdrawn from circulation as people save money under their mattresses to sneak into Pakistan or to build thicker walls so the noise of the TV can't be heard from the street.
Wa ana kabir rajul, tathkur; fathalika afham 'alam al bilaadi fi asia janub wal sharq il awsat.
Says who? You insult Muslims everywhere with your intimation that they are so weak-willed that just seeing something contrary to their beliefs will cause their faith to falter.
You have got to be kidding me. The "laws that rule their state" are (A) destroying their state, and (B) the laughingstock of the world, including the Islamic world. If I take over a country and pass a law that says all children must be kicked in the head thrice daily, can I count on your support?
Re:And then there's... (Score:4)
Indeed, Bush himself said during his election campaign that "There should be limits to freedom" in relation to a parody website done about him.
Unfortunately, and it remains a scary part of democracy, it's very easy to persuade people that things they "don't like" should be banned. A good politician (sadly rarely a successful politician) is one who recognises the values of his or her constituents and works to represent them, but doesn't blindly follow the solutions they support or propose simple solutions to complex issues.
Sadly, it's rare to come across a good politician these days. Most will follow the party line, and suggest simplistic solutions that they know will play well with the target audience. Don't like murderers? We'll have a death penalty. Don't want your friends to end up addicted to drugs? We'll "ban" them and have a war on drugs. Don't want to come across pictures of people having sex on the world wide web? We'll make it illegal! Meanwhile, justice and commonsense fall by the wayside.
I blame the parents...
--
I don't know what's worse... (Score:3)
I mean even the harshest critics of the Taliban regime here on Slashdot are pretty much saying: "Yeah, well, that's what right wing religious nuts will do... ban the internet and treat women poorly." Poorly?
Yes, well, I'd love to see (strike that -- I possess an utter loathing to see) what you'd consider falls into the "horrendous" or "godawful atrocity" category... yanno, what with "poor treatment" being the routine public stonings, executions, rape, torture, and mind control to which women in that country are subjected daily for "crimes" as little as ... oh I dunno ... learning to read or perhaps leaving the house not completely coccooned in oppresive clothing and under the supervision of male relatives? Women are bludgeoned to death for that, there. Or how about the fact that women were forced out their workplaces and any property forfeit to male relatives? Or, that greatly due to this, there aren't enough health care workers in the country to help aide the sick... and there are plenty of sick, now, since the Taliban's utter mismanagement of national econmics has caused widespread famine and a total disintegration of what social services existed there. Or that suicide rates for oppressed women in Afghanistan have skyrocketed thanks to their brutal treatment. Let's not forget! of course, that non-Muslims and their homes are branded in yellow and ostracized...
If this is "poor" treatment of women and of human life in general -- I can't, to be honest, wrap my brain around your concept of what's really going on... this is, as one of my good friends once put it -- WHOLESALE FUCKING GENOCIDE. "Poor" treatment?? I've never read anything more disgusting in my life.
Good gods, I wish we in the west would get a clue. We've got a regime committing atrocities on par with the horrors of Nazi Germany and we sit back and say... Meh. Poor treatment. This too shall pass. Fuck, we're arrogant hypocrits.
BRx.
Religious Persecution and Where it Could Lead (Score:5)
Thank you for bringing up another one of the things about Afghanistan that frightens me. How is it that so many people didn't consider it a big deal when the Taliban began destroying ancient religious monuments? When they announced that they would be requiring minority religions to display an identification of their faith? When all the other things that have been going on have happened? Yes, there was an uproar, but it didn't seem like nearly enough.
These people have proven themselves to be diligent, determined and successful at defeating others against all odds. They show all the signs of proceeding past their current level of extremism to absolute genocide. They still have tons of expensive weapons, left over from the Afghan war and also new ones supplied by terrorists and even (possibly) other governments. The level of terror that they inflict on their own people continues to grow and grow.
If they finally defeat the United Front and other so-called rebels in the north, who says they're going to stop at their own borders? Yes, it would be insane to attack in that heavily armed area of the world, but the Taliban has shown itself to not behave sanely. There's many countries around them full of people that to them are heretics. Talk about a chance for a holy war!
This isn't like the problems in the Balkans or anywhere else that has had religious conflicts recently (I'm not dismissing these events either). It's not "just" two religions or two ethnic groups fighting. It's one group, fighting for systematic destruction of everything it disagrees with. *cough* Sound familiar at all to anyone? How about exterior religious identification? Hmm?
I'm reminded of this quote:
First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up, because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.
- Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945
I know that people probably think I'm insane to compare the Taliban to the Nazis, but you know what? Germany was considered a laughable threat too at one time. They'd been destroyed by WWI, they were never going to rise again.
It just seems to me that not enough people (or countries) care about what's happening in Afghanistan. It's the country's issue, let them deal with that. The problem with that is that it could very easily become our issue.
Think about it.
'crow
Not surprising Really (Score:5)
The fact is the goverment control all of the Telephone services and montitoring is normal, the TV, Radio and Media a government controlled and thus no criticism is allowed and anyone who dares to stand up to them dies.
The mujahadeen have been fighting guerilla wars first against the russians and now the taliban and the country is split into warzones, the taliban now run the most fundamentalist islamic regime on the planet and provide aid and succor to terrorists - so the internet is about the easiest thing to control.
He who controls access to the world controls the world - the populace of afghanistan after the russian occupation would consider acccess to clean water and electricty a bonus - they would put computer access very very low on their interests - it remains a toy for the rich and there aren't that many of them. Most of the population would like to have enought to eat.
How about a comment on their human rights record, or their treatment of women (this is a country that condones murder as a punishment for disobedience of a wife toward her husband).
The sad thing is this is a government the Americans helped put in power with weapons and funding to fight the russians - yet they now hide people like Osama Bin Laden - US public enemy number one.