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Posted on 11/11/2001 7:30:12 AM PST by McGruff
Afghans queued at barber shops to shave their beards, music blared from shops and women threw off the head-to-toe burqa veil as Mazar-i-Sharif, the first city taken from the Taliban, escaped their draconian rules, the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said on Sunday.
The entry of opposition Northern Alliance forces late on Friday ended the grip of the feared Ministry of the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice -- better known as the religious police -- whose job was to implement harsh rules regarded by the Taliban as embodying the purest form of Islam.
In streets patrolled now by uniformed Northern Alliance fighters, men with beards they have not been allowed to trim for years lined up to shave them off, the Pakistan-based AIP said.
The strains of music played from shops, which were previously only allowed to sell religious chants or martial songs, AIP quoted residents of the city as saying.
Under the Taliban, a man who trimmed his beard could face arrest and several weeks in jail while his beard grew back.
The playing of music brought the penalty of a public lashing, audio cassettes were smashed and the tapes fluttered from telegraph posts in most cities.
In Mazar-i-Sharif on Sunday, songs accompanied by the long-banned instrumentalist backing were playing in restaurants and shops, AIP said.
The Taliban had banned music, deeming it un-Islamic and vulgar and not in keeping with their ideal of setting up the world's purest Muslim state based on a 1,300-year-old Islamic Utopia.
WOMEN COME OUT
Women began to appear on the streets without the concealment of the all-enveloping burqa mandated by the Taliban, AIP said.
But many residents were apprehensive that members of the majority ethnic Pashtun tribe could face reprisals from the Northern Alliance -- composed mainly of minority Uzbeks and Tajiks, AIP said.
The Taliban rules had included bans on lipstick, television, neckties, playing cards and music -- other than religious songs and chants.
But even in the southern city of Kandahar, powerbase of Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, a sight unseen for more than five years had appeared on the streets in recent weeks -- shops selling music cassettes and even CDs.
Witnesses say the religious police have virtually disappeared there after the ministry building in Kandahar was the target of several U.S. bombs last month.
Television and photographs are banned as part of the Taliban's campaign to create its pure Muslim state. Under that system, iconography is banned and reproduction of images of people and animals falls into that category.
The Taliban believe their rules are based on Islam, but they often seem more rooted in traditions of the Pashtun tribes where the movement finds its main strength.
A ban on Western dress and a demand that men -- even schoolboys -- wear turbans has been justified as a tradition of Mohammad
(sponsored by the Gillette Safety Razor Company)
I bet they are enjoying some great herb tea and the finest in cassette music.
Thank goodness those damn "burqha" are losing fashionability, too.
Although it's not noted in this article, this marked a crucial moment in the deconstruction of the Tali-whackers.
'Why?' you ask...
Just this... If the women had allowed the burqa-madness to lull them into 'letting themselves go' we might well have seen a very negative response to their sudden self revelation.
The sight of wall to wall fat, hairy, greasy-haired women could have sparked a counter-revolution.
Thank goodness those Afghan women kept themselves up! (within the limits imposed by their stone-age existence, of course)
I like the new look!
America's Fifth Column ... watch PBS documentary JIHAD! In America -- here
Remember 'Mars Attacks'?
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There's a lot of facets to that statement.
I mentioned on a different thread this whole xformation reminds me of the film depicting the last days of Adolf Hitler in his bunker with those who'd surrounded him.
When these people heard the gunshot from Adolf's & Eva's room, they all filed outa that hole in the ground, & lit-up a cigarette.
Fanaticism vanquished, political or religious, has an uplifting effect.
This is the best counterargument to peaceniks ever. US bombs killed a few bad guys and thus made the world a better place.
I think they have branches in this country:
they are known as the Politically Correct Police.
Their motto is a take-off on Fox News; "You report, and We Decide."
Yes, I hope to h-ll that truck caravans are on the road to reinforce the city and provide a boost in the local diet. This would be both a strategic and a political move.
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We owe it to these people to make sure that the Taliban cannot regroup and come back. It's going to be a lot easier for the women to throw the burquas back on than it will be for the men to grow new beards. If the Taliban should re-take Mazar i-Sharif, there will a lot of clean-shaven dead guys. We can't allow that to happen.