The Taliban: An Apology

[PakPrinciples]

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[Pan-Islamic-Pakistan]

The Taliban: an apology

When the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, they embarked on a cultural agenda that we in the West mocked. As it turns out, they appreciated sensitivities that we did not recognise at the time: the threat that cultural history poses to the present. At a time of natural disaster and general upheaval, when out-of-touch elites prioritised cultural protection over basic needs, Mullah Omar's logic in 2001 was impeccable. The Bamiyan Buddhas needed to be blown up.

The Taliban worked out - in a way that Britain was slow to - that public statues are not politically neutral. They are statements about who and what we honour as a society. They carry the power structures of one age into another. Every collective generation has the right to ensure their values are reflected in the statues they pass. Modernity means that the aperture narrows. Five years ago it was Rhodes must fall. Today it is Churchill must fall. It turns out there was a slippery slope—to utopia. There is a map of the statues that campaigners want torn down, in which we see such ghouls as Robert Peel (inventor of modern policing) William Gladstone (inherited slaveowning money), and Thomas Guy (investor in the South Sea Company).

The Taliban banned musical instruments and dancing in the 1990s because they encouraged “moral corruption.” They would not have tolerated the mention of Fawlty Towers. And frankly, my dear, they would not have given a damn about Gone with the Wind. The Taliban drew strength from cultish beliefs taught in schools - and so, too, are we now seeing the maturing of a moral system developed on campuses. The Taliban were anti-Shia, seeing their revivalist Sunnism as the only acceptable version of Islam. The statue campaigners think they are the only acceptable heirs of liberalism, even though they represent just the strand of liberalism that emerged in 1960s coastal America. Under the Taliban, anyone who did not agree with their views sacrificed their right to have a voice. Today, we “no-platform.”

But today's conversation about statues is not an argument about slavery or colonialism or even minorities more generally. It is an argument about historical objects, and what you do with them as values change. Values always change, and have done so for generations. But over the years, we’ve learned that our commitment to liberalism and free speech was outmoded. We won the battle over ourselves, and learned to see that the Afghan dogmatism that we wrote off as medieval was, in fact, the future.So if we put up new statues, we should perhaps give them a finite lifespan—preparing for the next generational conflict. That showdown will probably be about the environment. I will just remind everyone that Pope Francis, Michelle Obama, and Malala Yousafzai are not vegans.

Written by Sahil Mahtani

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-taliban-an-apology

So liberal loons are now praising the Taliban's stance against the regressive Buddhist cult and it's relics in Afghanistan.

How times have changed.

Once again forward thinking Muslim forces have demonstrated that liberals and their disgusting, deplorable rhetoric and adoration for regressive Hindu and Buddhist cults has no place in the 21st century.

Author is a Hindu and he is mocking the Taliban and Muslims in general.

His story about Bamiyan statues is wrong, Taliban leadership had the one responsible punished, but the West obviously chose to ignore it.

 

[PakPrinciples]

Author is a Hindu and he is mocking the Taliban and Muslims in general.

His story about Bamiyan statues is wrong, Taliban leadership had the one responsible punished, but the West obviously chose to ignore it.

You're right, I'll edit the post so as to remove this Hindu extremists vitriol.

Thanks for bringing it to my attention.