[identity profile] deborahkla.livejournal.com 2014-07-25 04:48 pm (UTC)(link)
It would have been better off sans both major invasion. I know hippies who called it a paradise in the early 70's.

Until the Taliban took over Afghanistan was the most progressive country in the Middle East. Women had full rights and it was thoroughly modernized. My father spent time there as part of the State Department in the late forties/early fifties (until he got RIFfED out for being a "leftist with leftist tendencies" by Harold Stassen.) He loved the people there. He was also fortunate enough to see the two enormous ancient Buddhas before the Taliban blew them up.

I must agree that a communist Afghanistan would have been much better than the Taliban. The soviets would never have destroyed such precious antiquities, nor would they have reduced the status of women.

[identity profile] telemann.livejournal.com 2014-07-26 12:25 am (UTC)(link)
I've heard that too. And if you look at video footage of Anwar Sadat's funeral in Egypt compared to recent video in terms of how women dress, the entire area is so much much more conservative regarding women's rights etc.and reflective of the significant roll back on "Western" values overall.

[identity profile] deborahkla.livejournal.com 2014-07-27 01:17 am (UTC)(link)
You've got it right on the button. It's definitely an overall rejection of Western values--and of the Enlightenment.

[identity profile] moonshaz.livejournal.com 2014-07-25 08:39 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm greatly relieved to know the fgm story was a hoax! I was hoping that was the case.