Taliban, education, and women

 

The Taliban are in the news again. I’m talking about the ones in Afghanistan, not the wannabes in our east coast states, or more recently in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur.

In Afghanistan, they have passed morality laws that, lo and behold, cement their Islamic agenda. The laws double down on the usual dictates of extreme Wahhabi Islam – basically pushing Afghan society even deeper into a patriarchy.

Allow me to digress here, dear readers: patriarchy nowadays means a society dominated and controlled by men – something quite common in many 

undeveloped

 societies, but if you’ve been keeping up with things, patriarchy is also making a comeback in 

developed

 societies such as the USA, too!

The term originally meant families controlled by the father or the eldest son. I am both a father and eldest son, but I couldn’t control my two sisters (I am afraid of them) and neither can I control my wife and three daughters because…err… I’m afraid of them too!

So, for me anyway, patriarchy sucks. To purveyors of any form of patriarchy, please don’t count on my support.

But of that one law that says men must grow a beard, I say – about time! I am, and will continue to be, in compliance with that law, especially as a beard does a darn good job of hiding old-age wrinkles and a weak chin.

The other laws, not so much. The part about women and girls not being allowed to go to school or university is just stupid: like most Taliban laws, it is just a reflection of regressive local cultures and certainly is not mainstream Islam.

The Taliban – the word is from the Arabic language for student – form a small, albeit powerful, minority in a country wracked by war and who, ironically, feel they know everything about everything and don’t need to learn anything new.

I certainly wouldn’t claim kinship with the Taliban, even if my father’s father was named Talib, and I’m technically part of the Talib clan.

I’ve never been to Afghanistan, although I was close enough once, driving all night to put as much distance as I could from the remote Balochistan desert where Afghanistan meets Pakistan.

Yes, even yours truly decided to skip patriarchy and chose an abundance of caution in a place where bearded men carry big guns and don’t think very highly of bearded men such as I who are afraid of their womenfolk.

A difference in Kelantan

I’ve also driven many times to Kelantan, a place referred to by some as Taliban country. That’s rather unfortunate, as most who say so have never even been to Kelantan, even if they have in all likelihood gone everywhere else on earth.

Kelantan, although a conservative state, is no Taliban country even though it has long been under an Islamic party’s control. While the state is certainly no bastion of progressive liberalism, it’s still a lovely place in spite of its share of loud religious fanatics.

When I was younger, I used to drive to Kelantan at least once a year from my home in Penang, often in December and in the middle of the monsoon season. There’s something familiar yet different about the state and the people, especially at that time of the year.

It’s indeed a lovely place, with friendly people who speak Malay in a nearly incomprehensible dialect such that even us Penangites, also quite well known for our thick northern patois, are often left uncomprehending.

A Chinese friend recently drove there with his family during the school holidays. They immensely enjoyed themselves there both with the local Malay and the local Chinese Kelantanese.

I’m certainly happy for him, though given that he’s a fellow Penangite himself, it’s unacceptable for him to say any other state’s cuisine is as good as Penang’s. I need to have a stern chat with this particular bro on this matter.

I certainly wouldn’t recommend you going to Kelantan dressed in revealing or immodest clothes. That would be disrespectful of their culture, and shows you to be, at the very least, a monumental jerk.

But otherwise, most of the people there are as focused and concerned about earning a living and taking care of their family as anybody else anywhere else.

If Umno’s recent comfortable by-election win in Nenggiri – which many had earlier predicted couldn’t happen – proves anything at all, it’s that Kelantanese are a very pragmatic people who shouldn’t be taken for granted by anybody, including their fellow Kelantanese.

Fanboys of Terengganu

Terengganu folk, on the other hand, seem to have raced ahead in becoming Taliban fanboys. The centre of power of PAS has gravitated towards Terengganu, and it’s increasingly imbued with fire and brimstone rhetoric that veers ever further away from the real world.

But whether it’s Kelantan or Terengganu or especially Afghanistan, the calculus is the same. If you keep half the population – the women – away from daily life, there’ll be a price to pay.

That price is an impoverished nation – and an unfair nation too, though when people believe they have a direct line to God, they tend not to care too much about what their fellow citizens or pesky foreigners think.

Ultimately, we must understand that this whole game is about grabbing, controlling and keeping temporal power. The Taliban won it at the point of a gun, and they intend to keep it at the point of a gun.

Their version of society is a true patriarchal one – where women are just baby factories – brought about through enacting and then enforcing repressive misogynistic laws.

Education as power play

They also used another devious tactic – to keep people poorly educated, by keeping the education system a privilege for some, and a luxury, if not outrightly forbidden, for others, especially women.

So, such laws keep many as prisoners at home, especially women, who can’t even go out unescorted or attend schools or university or have a career.

Such dumbing down of the education system keeps these same people prisoners in their own mind, hardly able to comprehend the injustice done to them.

We’ve seen versions of the same thing in Malaysia over the last few decades. We should all certainly be concerned, because of the far-reaching impact on our society.

But we must also continue to hope perhaps we are a more pragmatic and reasonable people than we give ourselves credit for, and that these religious extremists can’t forever continue to pull wool over our eyes. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.