An absolutely riveting but disturbing documentary about child prostitution in Afghanistan. The English RT team go to Afghanistan and interview a pimp and his team and I couldn't believe how open and honest they were, but child prostitution with boys over the age of 12 years old is not illegal, or a blind eye is turned, in Afghanistan. Women are not allowed out, and if they do get out occasionally in the back streets, they are fully covered head to toe. Men are frustrated by this so they turn their attention to young boys who do stage dancing acts dressed up as women but afterwards there might be sex. It's very popular.
The afghans in the film are honest about drugs and alcohol, which surprised me. Another thing that surprised is that they had clubs where they smoked hashish and videos were shown of scantly dressed Western women which was legal.
Now only a handful of people are interviewed but they seem to express sympathy for the women and wanted to see them more out in the streets, but they said that their government forbids it.
You get to see how brutal Afghanistan life is and it is disturbing to think what people can sink to when left to go wild. KV
RT
In Afghanistan women are forbidden to dance in public. Local men suffer – they want entertainment and sex at any cost. RT talked to “bachas”, boys dressed as women who dance for older men at male-only parties, and “playboys”, the bosses who recruit them. A private party usually ends up with guests bidding for a night with the ‘bacha’ (a ‘boy’ in Farsi).
This is primarily a repugnant "custom" that was found in the areas controlled by the Northern Alliance, the "freedom fighters" and allies of the western invasion and occupation.
ReplyDeleteMaybe with the Taliban controlling ever increasing areas of Afghanistan, it is still to be found there but without encouragement. The last I saw, the Taliban were executing anyone who had anything to do with this, which is probably the only thing that the Taliban have done that won't get much of a peep out of me. Although I'm personally against the death penalty, as a rule I don't make much of a fuss when child rapists are executed. I've seen enough documentaries and news reports about this "tradition" that I have been almost physically sick at times. I can't bring myself to watch another.
I assumed it was the Taliban controlled areas because the restriction on women was so severe, but I maybe wrong. So much for the West freeing women in Afghanistan. All propaganda, and even Poly Toynbee of the Guardian supported the Afghan war because it would free women, she said.
DeleteKaivey, you wonder where all the Toynbees are now? They were pro-women just long enough until the war started, and then they abandoned them. Really disgraceful. And now the Taliban are back with a vengeance in Afghanistan, you don't hear much from these "feminists for war" who then turn their back on everything they stood for for all of two weeks until the bombs started falling.
ReplyDeleteAs for Taliban areas, I wouldn't be surprised if this paedophilic "tradition" still goes on in newly acquired Taliban areas because the Taliban are either stretched thin or because they turn a blind eye for reasons of expediency, not for reasons of principle. The Northern Alliance were hardcore paedophiles, so it was never a question of expediency but being true to their principles. It was always the case that the Taliban came down hard on anyone caught at this. Pre-invasion, Northern Alliance came in for a lot of criticism, so much that it was a helluva job getting people behind the invasion in favour of the child rapists. As bad as the Taliban are, they weren't paedophiles who made boys dress as girls before raping them.
The Taliban stopped the opium production too, but have probably started it again to pay for the war effort.
DeleteYou're telling me. It was once a Buddhist country, it's a shame that didn't last.
ReplyDeleteMatt's vast and discerning vocabulary and historical erudition is a tribute to the American education system. Once you are aware that Matt has left a comment, you are excited as to whether you will be met with the beautiful prose style of F. Scott Fitzgerald, the scientific, mathematic and philosophic perspicacity of Martin Gardner or perhaps a mixture of the two. As ever, Matt puts them and all other comers in the shade...or the shit hole from where he takes mighty dumps on all lesser minds for their lack of "material systems" knowledge and their gullibility in believing in such unscientific and obviously empirically untested theories like evolution.
ReplyDeleteI try to keep it simple ...
ReplyDelete“unscientific and obviously empirically untested theories like evolution.”
ReplyDeleteGenesis isn’t an empirical explanation either...
Here's Billy Graham:
ReplyDelete"Billy Graham and Creation Science
Many people look up to Billy Graham, the greatest evangelist of our time. What was his position on creation science? Here's a quote:
"I don't think that there's any conflict at all between science today and the Scriptures. I think that we have misinterpreted the Scriptures many times and we've tried to make the Scriptures say things they weren't meant to say, I think that we have made a mistake by thinking the Bible is a scientific book. The Bible is not a book of science. The Bible is a book of Redemption, and of course I accept the Creation story. I believe that God did create the universe. I believe that God created man, and whether it came by an evolutionary process and at a certain point He took this person or being and made him a living soul or not, does not change the fact that God did create man. ... whichever way God did it makes no difference as to what man is and man's relationship to God."
No mention of the difference in the methodologies by the evangelist Graham either... so he is left threatening/coercing his audience to make what he views as better free will choices or they are going to hell etc..
An awareness of the methodology being used might be just as important as what knowledge you are trying to communicate...
I met an Afghan once at work. He had very pale skin, almost white, he was a refugee and a very friendly guy. He must have got the job by lying because he didn't have a clue. He was very nervous and I helped him as much as I could until he got moved on.
ReplyDeleteMatt, Genesis is ludicrous as a creation story. It may have other qualities, but explaining the life and the universe isn't one of them. No more needs to be said. Anyone with any sense knows this. How can water be created before anything else? How is it possible for the earth to be created before the stars? The whole chronology is nonsensical. You do understand that the creation story in Genesis is in fact impossible?
ReplyDeleteEvolution has been empirically tested billions, perhaps trillions, of times. Claiming it isn't is like claiming that the Greek gods or Odin and Thor are real. There's about as much truth to Odin as there is to Genesis. Evolution, meanwhile, has been, and is, tested every minute of every day. Saying it isn't is exactly the same as disputing any verifiable theory like neuroscience. Well, why not claim there is no such thing as a brain and all the so-called "evidence" is a hoax? All there is are extremely tiny replicas of ourselves inside us pulling levers. That last example is the same level of argument as claiming that evolution isn't empirically tested.
Billy Graham was a charlatan. Early in Graham's career, like any of these other wealthy demagogues preying on the vulnerable, I bet you'd see him damning anyone who believed in evolution, calling it a monkey story or atheistic communist propaganda. Given that anyone with any sense has believed in evolution for some time, as well as the general picture of the modern cosmological creation story, he had to change his tune and start claiming that there is no contradiction and that perhaps literally no one has ever represented the creation story correctly! None of Graham's new-found articulation of man's evolution, presumably because of the staggering evidence for it and claiming otherwise makes you look foolish, changes the fact that the Genesis story is chronologically impossible. And so, what now, nobody in thousands of years ever realised that there has been a mistranslation, a misrepresentation, or even a concerted conspiracy to distort the scriptures? That the Genesis chronology has been intentionally subverted? And that moreover the Genesis chronology is the same as the modern scientific one? Be serious.
DeleteThis is interesting.
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Most people don't realize it, but there are two (yes, count 'em TWO) different and contradictory stories of Creation in Genesis, the first book of the Bible. The first story runs from Genesis 1:1 thru Genesis 2:3; the second story picks up at Genesis 2:4 and runs to the end of the chapter at Genesis 2:25.
In the first story, Creation takes six days and man (and woman) are created last after all the plants and animals are created. In the second story, Creation takes one day, man is created first, then all the plants and animals are created, and finally woman is created.
http://www.leighb.com/genesis.htm
It’s not an empirical explanation it’s a verbal account to learn from...it took six days ie it’s not a very significant endeavor for Who did the creating.... the details are not important of whatever happened ...what IS important is the future .. in Scripture it’s “God’s purpose for the eons...” arrow of time points to the right.... why TRY to keep looking BACKWARDS it’s not scientific....
ReplyDeleteKaivey, that's right. I forgot to mention that. There are two contradictory stories and both make no sense whatever.
ReplyDeleteOh, Matt, what are you on about? There is a specific chronology. If it's not important, why include it? Yes, the Hebrew or Aramaic for day can also mean aeons or periods, but that isn't the issue. It is the chronology of events. They make no sense. The earth cannot come before stars. Water cannot come before everything else. Land animals cannot come before aquatic life. Plant life cannot come before...and on it goes. The story is a mess, and for good reason: since no one would ever know any different, make up any story you want. We now know different.