Hitler burned books, the Taliban burn musical instruments
NewsThe pictures you see here were issued by the Afghan government in Kabul to representatives of western media.
As before, in their post-Soviet rule, the Taliban revel in wiping out music of all kinds.
Now, having won their war with the western powers, they rejoice in cultural destruction.
The Times reports: Uzair-ur-Rahman Mohajer, the deputy director of the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, said the latest burning came after a fatwa against music was issued by the religious scholars. “Promoting music causes moral corruption and playing it will cause the youth to go astray,” he said.
And nowhere in the Koran does it say behave like this. They are ignorant imbeciles especially over their treatment of women who are only good enough to ….
I disagree. They’re not making all this stuff out of whole cloth. Their treatment of women is abhorrent but it’s not in spite of the Koran. It’s because of it:
Qur’an 4:34 (Beat your wives)
Qur’an 4:3 (Have lots of wives)
Qur’an 2:282 (Women’s testimony is equal half of a men’s)
Qur’an 33:50 (Fine to rape women captured in war)
Qur’an 4:11 (Women inherit half of what men do)
Qur’an 65:4 (Rules for having sex with underage brides)
I believe EO is talking about music.
I’m not an expert but the treatment of music as haram does not seem to be well supported in the Koran. It seems to involve seeing a musical reference in phrases like “false vain words”, which looks tenuous at best.
»Where there’s music, there can be no evil.«
Miguel de Cervantes
»For me, music is the greatest and most natural cure for violence, intolerance and stupidity. A child who makes music does not pick up a gun, but a guitar.«
Hans Werner Henze
Henze must not have been familiar with reggae musicians.
Nice quotes, but they are both wrong. Too many examples in history. (Hitler and Stalin loved music, you know. And that’s just the beginning.)
But this is what happens when the West *chooses* to lose a war.
We didn’t choose to lose the war. We got beat. And outlasted in a conflict it was unwise in the extreme to begin.
And created a new one right away.
The quotes are not wrong, but people like Hitler, Stalin and many more were wrong. They did not really listen to music but only heard music. Especially Henze ist very clear: someone who makes music cannot be violent (unless he is crazy). A musician listens to music and understands. Dictators are not musicians.
Musicians are not dictators? Seriously?
Ever dealt with Szell, Reiner, or Toscanini? Thankfully (for us, not for the musicians who had to deal with them), they led orchestras, not countries.
You seem to know how ‘Hitler and Stalin and many others’ listened to music. Amazing insight. Or pure tosh.
Thank you for underlining the difference between ‘hearing music’ and ‘listening to music’. Would you please come to Carnegie Hall and David Geffen Hall to instruct the (too many) audience members who don’t know the difference? Please!
Correct. All those wars could have been won in a heartbeat if they hadn’t been played out in the homes of the American people.
Oh sure. Just the way the British Empire was able to win its Afghan wars handily because the news was restricted back home.
Oh, wait a sec…
“Promoting music causes moral destruction and playing it will cause the youth to go astray.”
Yes, just look at the destruction wrought by Elvis.
Yes, he swiveled his hips and all was lost…
Throughout the ages, totalitarian rulers and extreme religious zealots have banned music, art, and literature.
It never works or lasts because the creative human spirit will always find ways to compose and play music, sing, paint and write.
That natural desire and need to share with each other cannot be stamped out.
That is exactly what we have with the modern Woke Left and cancel culture. Statues out, books out or re-edited, speech cancelled, people banned….it’s but a short step for mankind from one kind of oppression to the next. These things all exist on the same continuum.
You have apparently missed the news that MAGAts in the US are burning and banning books across the county.
Statues of Confederate Generals… placed on pedestals and adored by the “un-Woke” whose hate-speech should perhaps be “cancelled” or at least rebutted.
I have a hilarious December 2021 screen shot on my phone from the BBC. There’s a picture of a statue of a man on a horse being craned off its plinth with the headline “Confederate general statue to be turned into art.”
Sadly, all the extreme left-wing terrorists will go on supporting this medievalist death-cult.
Well said.
The American Left don’t tend to like Israel because they want Hamas to be free to burn musical instruments too.
More likely the alt right idiots…..
Human trash.
…and the Woke Left burns reputations.
Isn’t it funny for a culture which cannot identify what a woman is to be pontificating to middle eastern countries about how they live. The west is descending into soul and empire destroying decadence and a country like Qatar moves forward with economic progressivism. They won’t take lectures from us and I applaud that.
The point is: would you swap and move, from your western country (I guess) where ‘one cannot identify what a woman is’ to a country where let’s say women cannot drive? Or vote? Or go around alone?
‘The point is: would you swap and move, from your western country’
I suspect the real point is that they give about as much of a damn about your opinion on how they should run their affairs as you give about theirs.
Sue SF… you should reserve your comments for Gab Social where sick birds flock together. No sane person,
right or left, wants to see musical instruments destroyed.
I feel nothing but sadness for the people of Afghanistan.
“Religion divides people, music unites them”
I don’t know where this quote comes from, but it sure does speak loads here.
Let’s also recall some lyrics (written by Ira Gershwin) to his brother’s tune “Slap that Bass”:
————————————————
“Dictators would be better off
If they zoom zoom now and then,
Today, you can see that the happiest men
All got rhythm”
At least they’re not burning MUSICIANS…yet!!!
No more dancing boys then.
It depends on the instruments they burner. If they were electric guitars and amps then they have my full blessing!
Some commentators draw the Hitler-Stalin card too easily. It’s a meaningless comparison. The Taliban, and their mindset, are evil in a class of their own, here and now.
Power-crazed men, ignorant men, terrorizing men, hiding behind religion (the handy tool), and selectively redacting associated religious texts to suit their plans for domination. Nothing new. Always disgusting and terrifying. And not just an Asian phenomenon. But the Taliban are particularly revolting – agreed.
When it comes to those burning Russian books, this blog is suddenly so tolerant with the 451 farenheiters…