Aristotle for Afghanistan

Remember Umberto Eco's masterpiece "The Name of the Rose" ?
Remember that book about a book that allegedly never existed, while for others it merely went missing ?
The second book of the "Poetics" by Aristotle.
The one that was supposed to have dealt with "Comedy" ...

Have you never had the feeling these last ten-something years that the plot of this novel was played out in real life -hic et nunc- albeit it in, for most of you whoever will read this piece, a far different and distant place on this earth ?

The venerable Jorge had been guarding the book in the famous labyrinth of the library to keep it from the eyes of his fellow brethren, for fear that laughter would distract the attention that is due to God and to God only ... like the Taliban have tried to subdue laughter in Afghan society for it distracts attention from Allah. The old Jorge and the Taliban: all "scholars", yet so afraid of the power of words.

We all have witnessed, maybe some in the field, most from behind our screens and magazines, how this fear has worked out and has been translated in the extremist islamic rule by the Taliban before the US invasion in 2001. It was a rule of terror, based on an impossible number of prohibitions and most poignantly, reducing the status of the Afghan woman in society to something devoid of any respect for human dignity.

The US invasion in Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban was probably the first and only war I wholeheartedly supported, because it promised, even if only as a side-effect of the real goal, which was going after Al-Qaeda, to redress a wrong against women that was almost intolerable even just to read or hear about, let alone having to live it. Because of this reason, I have kept believing in the justification for this war almost till this very day, but seeing this footage finally has made me seriously doubt.

For those who want to watch this part of the documentary, I have to put a strong disclaimer that there are some very graphic images being shown. The overall message is clear: life has not gotten better for Afghan women since the invasion, except maybe for some women in the major urban areas, but oppositely may have gotten worse as a result. As one of the interviewed is saying, under the Taliban, women had no rights and had to stay in their house and wear burqua's on the rare occasions they could come out; now they still have very limited rights, they still mostly stay in their houses but on top of that they now live in a war-zone and women are always disproportional victims in war-zones. Furthermore, self-immolation by Afghan women has seen a steady increase in numbers, it is said.

So where does that leave us ? If what this documentary shows is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, the major moral premisse for protracting this war, is just not there. It's not happening: women are not being empowered by the actions of the western allied forces. Worse: now even their western-backed leader, Hamid Karzai, is signing into law a proposal that does nothing less than justify rape within a marriage. It is becoming increasingly clear that we absolutely need to rethink Afghanistan in the West. Maybe we shouldn't have been there in the first place: had the US not backed the Mujahideen, which eventually evolved into the Taliban, as opposition to the Russian forces that held the country occupied in the eighties, there might not have been the current quagmire.

Yet what options do Afghan women face ? Continue living in a war zone for probably years to come, however with the intent to restore some sense of normalcy and returning them at least some of their human rights in the long run, or delivering them again in the hands of the Taliban, these venerable "scholars" who blast up schools and throw acid over young girls faces if they attempt for some education in one of those schools. The choice is more than heartwrenching.

If there's anybody who has got a copy left of the second book of the "Poetics", the one on "Comedy", by Aristotle, hidden somewhere deep down in his cellar, would he please bring it out and start mass printing it, such that laughter, even in Afghanistan, may not be lost for good once that other remaining copy is eaten by the fire in that labyrinth of the library of those that proclaim to be the true followers of Allah ?

Sincerely yours.