Greek descendants of Draco, a seventh-century Athenian lawmaker, resent that their ancestor’s name was used by the Washington Post to describe new Taliban laws targeted at women. The offending headline, “Taliban begins enforcing new draconian laws, and Afghan women despair” caused equally vociferous repudiation by the Ministry for Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. This is the Taliban agency that oversees the morality police, whose job it is to enforce rules - mostly against Afghan women.
“Admittedly, Draco was a dick but even he had standards below which the Taliban have sunk,” noted a spokesperson for the family. “Those misogynistic assholes make him look like a saint,” opined another distant relative.
This leads me to ask, “What kind of deranged, underachiever would aspire to become a morality policeman?” When called for comment, the Ministry’s Chief, Darth Vader, provided this answer.
“Do not underestimate the power of the dark side of the Ministry. We enforce vaguely written Sharia laws, that have been loosely and selectively interpreted from the Quran, against women who raise their voices above a whisper, attempt to educate themselves above a sixth grade level or look at strange men. Just yesterday I arrested a girl for looking at me, only later to realize she was my niece.”
The most hard-core Taliban officials were heard saying how pleased they were that the WaPo headline got it half right, citing growing desperation among Afghan women.
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A satirical missive about the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan may elicit a chuckle but, there is nothing remotely humorous about their treatment of women. Most recently the Taliban imposed stricter rules requiring women to never raise their voices, read from the Quran in public or look at any men other than their husbands and relatives. Whatever hopes women had that their lives would improve under Taliban 2.0 rule have been shattered. Please send positive energy and strength to Afghan women.
Note: I’m not creative enough to come up with the ‘Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice’. That is exactly how it was reported in the WaPo. For more depressing news about this, go here.
Ha! All true! Puritans were some hardcore bastards too remember. What kind of twisted minds want to patrol and control women’s bodies?
The GOP (the party of American Taliban) have stepped in it bigly here.
"Just yesterday I arrested a girl for looking at me, only later to realize she was my niece", very funny. But seriously, this is just horrifying. Nevermind that women are basically slaves, but their society will just sink deeper into the stone age. And allowing multiple wives is really bad for men, too. What do the young men do when they are not enough women to go around, that is bad in itself. But they then join military and terrorist groups. They certainly do not just go get a cat. It is about an unhealthy social system as you could imagine.