Afghanistan: Open Intolerance

What for citizens of all of the world's open societies would be a 15-second experience of newspaper op-ed page art continues to play on the main stage in Afghanistan.  As the "We've been insulted," behavior becomes more the message than the message spoken, something else may be happening as regards the management of the perception of Islam in a core conflict culture: the viel held in place by various political leaders--those considered allies as well as those not--may be slipping.

Reading on deck for my eyes:

Chayes, Sarah. The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban.  New York: The Penguin Press, 2006.

Jones, Ann.  Kabul in Winter.  New York: Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, 2006.

We are told, of course, that wherever the U.S. goes, democracy thrives and economic development, education, equality, and justice--clear, consistently administered, humane, sensible--must certainly follow, but the western journalism derived from around 2005 for publishing in books in 2006, and I'm making this observation from about half way through Ann Jones' book, is that Afghani culture itself may be overwhelmingly characterized by the abuse and enslavement of women, by corruption in virtually every aspect of bureaucracy and business, and by intolerance.

But then, you know how women get . . . .

:)

That's all the facetious bonding I'm going to do.

The problem is the same observations may repeat themselves through many eyes and possibly across the Small Wars landscape: then what--more war?  Better salesmanship by "the west"?  More trade (or bribery in the form of aid that makes it into every pocket but the ones that need it most)?

I suspect I'll be reading more unpleasant reporting out of Afghanistan (and Pakistan) on cultural issues havng a direct impact on development and the provision of legal, health, and social services. 

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The irony of printing a cartoon, an art form inherently critical of facets of political culture, suggestive of an explosive state of affairs and having it matched by video illustrating the same in protest of it seems inescapable.

Language, Dutch, English, or Dari, should prove flexible and universal enough to resolve issues having to do with vanity, power, and respect, but clearly it does not.

Languages display metonymy, or, within each language culture, the natural affilations and affinities formed in the mind through commonly held symbols, starting with words but including also the elements of expression across modes: sketches, photographs, dances, songs.  Here there's the cartoon, the insult, the robust response, and back of that the whole weight of a threatened patriarchal fascism unable to field, absorb, dismiss, or, alternatively, counter the slight with similarly creative, perhaps even entertaining, ridicule.

As I may not take Ann Jones' scathing portrayal of Afghani culture as final say (but you can bet I'll be looking for its echoes in the Sarah Chayes' book), I may be as skeptical as regards the Reuters' video as representing the response of all Afghani men to adverse political cartooning. 

However, where language transmission and reception and related behavior are concerned, I may also wonder whether Afghani men have either intellectual choice or wherewithal as regards their reception of and response to a common enough political cartoon that owes its continuing presence in their lives directly to the attention they continue to give it.

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1. Allen, Benet.  "Muslims protest over cartoons." Video.  Reuters, March 21, 2008.

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Correspondence: James S. Oppenheim

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