I can vaguely remember CNN talking about Islamic fundamentalist wanting kites* banned in various Middle Eastern countries (Afghanistan etc.). Do anyone understand why? Is there a basis for this?
A friend visiting India and Pakistan told stories of “kite wars” in which kite were flown with shards of glass attached to them to cut the strings of other kites. Seemed pretty dangerous…
Any thoughts for discussion?
*By kites I’m refering to the object at the end of a string that flies in the air…
In Brazil it was pretty common for kids to compete trying to cut each others Kite lines… but after many accidents with the glass on the strings it was forbidden.
Naturally kids still use glass… just not where many people can see it.
Does that mean “Mary Poppins” could be banned as dangerous propaganda with it’s song “Let’s go fly a kite”? I remember hearing something about kite flying being illegal in Afghanistan. I think public displays of happieness were frowned upon in general, although I can’t imagine anyone having anything to be too happy about in the first place if they were unfortunate enough to live under the Taliban.
Unless you were a Taliban leader of course…
Yep I think it was something about being silly/happy/futile and so flying kites was banned. Not sure thou.
I think maybe you misundersatand the way the glass is affixed.
The top twenty metres or so are coated in gum and run through a container full of crushed glass, so it’s not like there will be shards of glass tumbling from the sky.
You can still get cut by it if somehow you mange to get caught up in the lines, but it’s not particularly hazardous, one could get seriously injured watching radio controlled aircraft for instance, even though these are supposed to operate on clear ranges.
Here’s a link on the BBC about the ban.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2978988.stm
Apparently they were taking the putting nasty stuff on the line to extremes.(But how you “sharpen” a kite string is beyond me. Unless they mean glue razor blades to it.)
From that article:
I’m not sure I completely buy this. I think the author of this article is likely just reprinting Pakistani government propaganda. I’ve heard this stuff repeated by several news outlets, with virtually identical wording, and it just reeks of BS. While I can believe that there are a few injuries, it seems that the real motivation behind bannin kite flying is a religious one.
This article makes some interesting points Kite festival soars…
It’s not hard to imagine why the mad mullahs would be opposed to anything that fun.
I know in Brazil they were having problems with people attaching razor blades to their kites when they got bored of the relatively innocuous glass-on-string technique. And we’re not talking a couple of people flying kites in the park. We’re talking about thousands of kids flying kites from rooftops in overcrowded cities. Seems dangerous to me.