“n a market in Kabul, Aref is doing a booming trade. At first glance, the walls of his shop seem to be curtained in folds of blue fabric. On closer inspection, dozens and dozens of blue burqas hang like spectres from hooks on the wall.”
So begins a bleak, infuriating article from the Guardian on the fate of women and girls as the Taliban emerges triumphant. This was not an unpredictable turn of events: From Critical Race Milley to Alzheimers Biden, it was clear that they weren’t prepared for withdrawal. Their plan wasn’t good, their preparations weren’t good.
They were too busy planning for gay pride. In Afghanistan.
And now? Well now despair.
Ann Althouse quotes from the article, a young woman at university. Or who was at university anyway.
“My mother says we should buy a burqa. My parents are afraid of the Taliban. My mother thinks that one of the ways she can protect her daughters is to make them wear the burqa,” she says.
“But we have no burqa in our home, and I have no intention of getting one. I don’t want to hide behind a curtain-like cloth. If I wear the burqa, it means that I have accepted the Taliban’s government. I have given them the right to control me. Wearing a chador is the beginning of my sentence as a prisoner in my house. I’m afraid of losing the accomplishments I fought for so hard.”
–
“I stay up late at night, sometimes till one or two in the morning, worrying about what will happen. I am afraid that because I am rejecting the burqa, soon I will have to stay at home and I will lose my independence and freedom.
“But if I accept the burqa, it will exercise power over me. I am not ready to let that happen.”
–
Amul, a model and designer, has worked for years to establish a small business and now she sees it heading towards obliteration.
“My whole life has been about trying to show the beauty, diversity and creativity of Afghan women,” she says. All her life, she says, she has fought the image of the Afghan woman as a faceless figure in a blue burqa. “I never thought I would wear one but now I don’t know.
“It’s like my identity is about to be scrubbed out.”
Flights from Afghanistan for those who aided Americans have halted. Biden prioritized Americans and then cut off the planes. How many will die in the next 24 hours?
How many will be taken hostage and used against the United States?
The Taliban on Sunday said their message should be heard and felt in other countries, by other radical groups, to take over and reestablish state Islamism. They mean state terror.
Biden’s legacy. This is what it will be. Death and chaos and a new, rapid rise in radical Islamic dictatorship, oppression, and terror.
God help us.