Bringing Afghanistan's democrats out of the shadows - The World Desk - Macleans.ca - 0 views
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it is not enough to oppose fascism; one must stand against totalitarianism in all its forms.
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angered by the inability of too many of his fellow leftists to counter dictatorial thuggery in those with whom they shared a common enemy
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frustrated by the limits of his supposed comrades’ solidarity and internationalism. Afghanistan’s democrats — its students, human rights activists, women, socialists and secularists — should, by rights, be championed and supported by the western left.
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they’re fighting for these rights against an explicitly fascistic strain of religious and ethnic extremism embodied in the Taliban.
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much of the left over the last decade has preferred to rally against make-believe fascism and imperialism in the United States or Britain, rather than recognizing its real mutations in places like Baghdad, Tehran, and Kandahar.
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this is possible, in part, because of what Orwell described as “the sealing off of one part of the world from another, which makes it harder and harder to discover what is actually happening.”
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The book opens and closes with the students of Marefat High School, in the Daste Barchi slum of Kabul. In April 2009, they fought off a mob dispatched by a Khomeinist mosque whose members were furious because boys and girls at the school were studying together. The attackers threw rocks and sticks and demanded that the school’s principal, Aziz Royesh, be killed. Students barred the doors and stood their ground. The school remains open.
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The courage of these students is NOT matched by most ordinary, Street Muslims worlwide. The latter do NOT speak out loudly enough or take enough action agaist the fanatics among their co-religionists who kill more of them than so-called Infidels. Shame on them! They'll answer to God!! gfp (2011-10-07
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we don’t know the students at Marefat High School, and we’re less willing to fight for them. We should, and we must.
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"It is not enough to oppose fascism; one must stand against totalitarianism in all its forms." ~ Eric Arthur Blair aka George Orwell (1903-1950) English author & journalist In his book about Afghanistan, Terry Glavin, a Canadian, deplores the activities of Muslim groups whom he calls "explicitly fascistic strain of religious and ethnic extremism". gfp (2011-10-07)