Re this story
“Even kite flying and laughing in public are censured.”
Uh, because it’s fun? Kite flying is seen as frivolous. Also banned: marbles, chess, and soccer.
Reminds me of “Footloose”, the immortal movie starring Kevin Bacon, where the preacher forbids dancing.
The answer is on that page - sort of. Go down to the section titled “THE GOVERNMENT’S IRON FIST”. Below that is a graphic titled “Taliban Taboos”. Click on the word “Entertainment” in that graphic and text appears which includes the following sentence:
Thanks!
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- Under Taliban rule, the only allowed entertainment is executing infidels. - MC
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Now we know a little something about the kite-eating tree that bedeviled Charlie Brown – it was a member of the Taliban.
You guys, what the Taliban do is not Islam. Ask any Muslim, they’ve been trying to say for years that the Taliban don’t represent Islam and their atrocious behavior has nothing to do with Islam.
I think Jomo Mojo’s statements are a bit too sweeping.
It’s certainly a form of Islam. It’s not all of Islam, but then, neither are the forms of Islam practiced by more moderate Muslims.
Well, if you ask those Muslims who support the Taliban, you’ll likely get different answers than if you ask those Muslims who don’t support the Taliban.
No one person or group “represents Islam”; Islam is not a monolithic group, nor is it an organized corporate body (unlike, say, the Catholic Church, where the Pope may be fairly said to “represent Catholicism”, even though many people who consider themselves Catholics disagree with the Vatican hierarchy about various issues).
Well, it has something to do with Islam. It certainly has something to do with the form of Islam practiced by the Taliban.
Nitpicking. The main point is that the Taliban’s version of Islam is widely denounced throughout the Muslim world as a distortion of the religion, a departure from the consensus of Islamic procedures.
Also, Jomo, until your post, no one had used the words “Islam” or “Muslim.” I think most people here are pretty well aware that the Taliban no more represents Islam than Jack Chick represents Christianity.
Except, of course, in the title of the thread.
Exactly, the thread’s title is what prompted my response. Hey, Miller, the Jack Chick analogy is a pretty good one!
Kite-flying is quite the tradition in Muslim areas of Malaysia…
Is Malaysian kite-flying a Muslim tradition, or a “pagan” hold-over?
Chess, as you all surely know, was in fact INVENTED in a Muslim country, namely Iran.
The words “check” and “Shah” have common origins.
Chess was invented in India, and Iran adopted it later. The Persian name for chess is shatranj, which comes from the original Sanskrit name of the game, caturanga ‘four limbs’, i.e. four divisions of the army: elephants (bishops), cavalry (knights), chariots (rooks), and infantry (pawns). Why Iran is significant to chess is that the Persians spread it to the Arabs and the Russians; from the Middle East it spread to western Europe. Europeans picked it up as a Muslim game and then adapted it to European rules (which are now played everywhere AFAIK).
Well gol durn heck.
I guess, as usual, I have no idea what I was talking about. I took a leap of faith based on linguistic origin.
Excuse me.
There’s lots of kite flying in Pakistan and it’s an Islamic country. In fact it’s a major source of fun there because it’s cheap and almost anyone can make a kite. It’s very competative too. They tie pieces of broken glass and razors to the strings to try and cut the other kite flier’s strings.
The Taliban have also banned the internet, television, cinema, and recorded music. But they don’t seem to have any qualms over the use of modern automatic weapons or military vehicles.
Is that a contradiction? Or am I just confusing them with the Amish a bit…
Slight Hijack
A few years ago, I remember seing a McDonald’s commercial which featured “Black History Facts”. They claimed that Chess was invented in Africa (well Ancient Egypt, who’s “blackness” is a separate debate). I laughed out loud thinking “everybody knows chess was Persian!..Checkmate is from Shah mat, the King is Dead”.
Later on I was told it was Chinese. And then Indian. And perhaps Sumerian.
Could it be possible that many, if not all, cultures could have independently devised a game of strategy that is akin to chess? And could several cultures have independently figured out that a piece of cloth on a string could fly around a bit? Somewhat as the “rock paper scissors” debate indicates that different people, when bored, can come up with the same crap to keep occupied…
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mrockpaper.html