Watch: Taliban burn musical instruments

Watch: Taliban burn musical instruments

News

norman lebrecht

January 20, 2022

Phone video has been circulating of grinning Taliban fighters setting alight a pile of musical instruments in the province of Paktia.

The owner weeps.

Nice people.

 

Comments

  • Nicholas says:

    Literally couldn’t care less. Stay out of Afghanistan and lets take care of our own failing economies, countries and nations. The West is absolutely in no position to be judging anyone or fixing anyone’s problems. Tons of issues to be fixed at home and that was the case before COVID. Forget about what they’re doing. We had 20 years to do something about it. All we did was make money for our military complex. Now, let’s just mind our own business and no talk of this until our homeless are taken care of, everyone gets healthcare, students have no debilitating debt, covid is gone or at least controled, economy is better, people are back at work and don’t have to work 3 jobs just to barely make it to the end of the month and probably most importantly, do radical thongs to address climaye change or we’re all f-ed soon. What they’re doing in Afghanistan shouldn’t even be on any list of things we should be worried about.

    • Patrick says:

      Afghans are human beings.

      • Nicholas says:

        Patrick, I didn’t say they aren’t.
        I said, we have no business being there and plenty of our own problems that need fixing, including trying to save the Planet, which if we don’t, the Taliban will be the last thing on their minds in Afghanistan as well.

    • Alviano says:

      Perhaps not with musical instruments, but similar things will happen in America soon. Our days are numbered!

    • Just saying says:

      Wow.
      What goes around, comes around.

      • Nicholas says:

        Yeah, Just saying, and we’ve been ‘going it around’ to the entire global south for decades (the US, actually, close to a century and the UK far longer than that) so it would be naive to think anything short of a miracle is going to clear up all that bad juju we’ve accumulated. It is certainly going to be ‘coming around’ at some point.

    • Nicholas says:

      Incredible that anyone would have an issue with what I said.
      What do you suggest? Go back in Afghanistan?! It was occupied by the US for 20 years! Changed nothing. What do you think you can achieve now and how? What a ridiculous, knee jerk reaction. ‘Oh no! He just said we should try to improve our own situation and address climate change and not try to help those poor people! What an evil person! Hit that dislike button quickly!’ Ridiculous.

  • José Bergher says:

    The talibans, scum of the Earth, burning music instruments. Just like the nazi regime burning books on May 10 1933.

    • John Borstlap says:

      Exactly.

      Such people are always a part of humanity everywhere, but they get mobilized when they form organised groups under the influence of ideology, where they can forget their personal troubles and project their frustrations outwards to other people and ‘the world’.

  • Hunter Biden's Laptop says:

    “I make no apologies for what I did”
    – Joe Biden

    • PFmus says:

      Irrelevant nonsense from a “card-carrying” member of the US Christian Taliban.

      • Hunter Biden's Laptop says:

        Nope. Try again, PFmus. Those were Biden’s exact words in defense of his Afghanistan withdrawal spoken during the US President’s press conference yesterday. Try to keep up with news, would you?

    • Barry Guerrero says:

      The arrangements for the American pull -out were set in place by Trump. It was the perfect tactic/strategy to make Joe Biden the ‘fall guy’.

    • Max Raimi says:

      I have two questions for all of those who castigate the President for pulling out of Afghanistan.
      1: How much more are you personally willing to pay in taxes to finance our adventures there?
      2: Which of the young men and women that you care about are you willing to put in harm’s way to maintain a military presence? (If we still had a draft, and their own daughters might have ended up in Iraq, I very much doubt that GW Bush would have invaded Iraq and Hillary Clinton would have supported his policy in the Senate.)
      I await your answer, Mr. Biden Derangement Laptop Fever Dream.

  • RW2013 says:

    Burn their phones.

  • Rustier spoon says:

    Shocking, just shocking.

  • Ben G. says:

    There seems to be a similarity here in what the police officers did to George Floyd a while ago.

    Musicians can no longer breathe under this new police regime, and while we watch the horror of the flames engulfing his instrument, the rest of the world is powerless to do anything about it.

    Meanwhile, while filming the event, the rest of the crowd smiles with glee.

  • SlippedChat says:

    I don’t understand all the excitement about Afghans burning musical instruments.

    Public fire was thought desirable, and over half of Afghanistan is illiterate, so it would be unreasonable to expect the Taliban to burn BOOKS.

  • Bonetti Micaela says:

    E in più, ridono felici.
    Disgustoso.

    (Ma sono a casa loro, vero? Allora facciano quello che vogliono…)

  • Sue Sonata Form says:

    Please don’t give oxygen to these violent barbarians. If they do that to musical instruments imagine what they’re doing to their own people – especially children.

  • Dan says:

    Aaaand….what exactly are we expected to do about it?

  • margaret koscielny says:

    In time, the Taliban will outlive their “welcome’ and civil war will result in more suffering.

    The US and other nations helped to restore some peace to the country, and it was evolving into a better place for women and girls, but there is so much corruption, generally, and historically, with bribes being a way of life, that it would take much longer to bring the country as a whole into the modern age. No government can function where everyone is not treated equally without succumbing to tyranny. It is tragic. The people are beautiful, and many deserve better. The destruction of the Arts is the sign of the total vacancy at the heart of Taliban ideology. It has nothing to do with Islam.

  • John Soutter says:

    Such a waste of time and energy, when The Taliban should be burning people. Efficient fulfilment of one’s set objectives is all!

  • Michael McGrath says:

    I‘d be very interested in having the background chatter (Taliban chest-thumping? Grim “religious” pronouncements?) translated.

  • Pianofortissimo says:

    Winter is hard, and the Taliban are short of electricity, thus…

  • Sharon says:

    What a shame! They are enforcing their ideology while depriving someone of his livelihood. It’s a shame that after all the precious lives lost and money wasted we accomplished nothing in Afghanistan except that our military intervention ultimately made the situation worse by creating more of an economic and cultural backlash.

    On a positive note–in order to improve the economy the Taliban will have to ease up. If they do not eventually they will be thrown out.

    None of our business? If we do do something about economic development and political and cultural freedom in Lesser Developed Countries the refugee crisis of the millions, no billions, who will enter our developed countries by any means possible will increase exponentially.

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