Taliban Thinking

19 January 2004


Female Singer Offends Afghan Judges

Last week, Afghanistan's supreme court got itself in an intellectual knot over a broadcast of a popular singer, Salma, on state TV. She performed one song, it was an old tape, and Deputy Chief Justice Fazel Ahmed Manawi said, "This has to be stopped." It makes one wonder whether the judge has heard that the Taliban no longer governs.

One might have excused Justice Manawi if he had said no more; it could have been interpreted as an artistic judgment. Rather, he added, "We are opposed to women singing and dancing as a whole." As a matter of record, US Attorney General John Ashcroft holds to a variety of Christianity that opposes dancing by everyone. The difference is that he does not complain to his boss every time "American Bandstand" and "Soul Train" are shown, and the prohibition against dancing applies to both sexes.

The issue here is old the debate between the universality of human rights versus cultural constraints on human behavior. This is a particularly sticky issue for western liberals whose sensitivity to foreign ways too often excuses inhuman behavior. Reductio ad absurdum is a useful technique here. If foreign cultures are inviolate, surely Mexicans should be permitted the continuation of human sacrifice that the Aztecs practiced. Should chattel slavery in the American South be revived as Dixie's "peculiar institution" was once known? Denying women the artistic freedom to sing and dance in Afghanistan is as indefensible as these.

Mercifully, not all Afghan citizens agree with Justice Manawi. Minister for Information and Culture Sayed Makdoom Raheen defended the broadcast saying, "We are endeavoring to perform our artistic works regardless of the issue of sex."

Tolerance and the equality of all before the law may be western cultural values and not universal human rights (although one doubts it). If so, then intolerance and inequality may be acceptable in certain societies. However, cultural imperialism is certain a western value, and by logical extension, it must be acceptable as well. Either way, the choice must be for Afghan women singing on TV. Surely, any country that has been at war for decades has other matters to which its courts should attend.

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