Taliban To Impose Media Ban On Images Of Living Things.
Afghanistan's Taliban morality ministry pledged on October 14 to implement a law banning news media from publishing images of all living things, with journalists told the rule will be gradually enforced.
No music, no images... two things that have defined Human culture for millennia. The Taliban must really love leading a miserable existence.
Just wait for the exceptions for "spiritual leaders" and government officials.
As long as it means they can control others, they are happy.
Well, not happy as such
The Republican party is salivating at the thought
Well, I know less about music, but iconoclasm is a pretty traditional feature of Islam. That's why they have all the crazy geometrical art everywhere.
And the Afghans have had music and art since forever, well after their conversion to Islam. The taliban are freaks.
No media coverage is good
Make sure that mountain is free of any trees before taking that scenic picture.
This essentially bans all photography - it's fucking weird.
I wonder where the limit is.
Like is it just photos or all depictions? If it's all depictions, how far does it go? Will certainly combinations of letters be banned? :O :P :) \o/
If so, will kanji be banned as well? We Lemmings all know this one by now
:.|:;
And I don't know any actual kanji but I do know lots of their origins are depictions of living things, plants, animals, people.
Nah, you just have to photoshop X eyes and a stuck out tongue on every living thing. They didn't say anything about dead things.
I really, really wish the linked article explained more. What are they playing at? This is such a confusing level of control.
It's a radical religious thing. Images are imperfect imitations of God's perfect work, therefore, they are blasphemy.
But apparently written religious works or talking about god's work is perfect, or that would be banned too.
Why only images of sentient beings though? Did God not create the rest of it too?
I knew someone who believed that it sucks the soul out of you if you get photographed...
God doesn't want you to mix fabrics or eat certain foods on certain days. "Confusing level of control" is on brand.
It's not about making sense though. It's about making you do what they want so that you know who is in control.
Not mixing fabrics and certain food practices were originally based on lived experience, like safety guidance, before getting coopted by religion. Kosher practices avoid cross contamination, and mixed fabrics could have something to do with temperature regulation in desert areas where it swings between extreme heat and cold daily. Or it could have existed to discourage lying about prodict quality by those who would sneak in poor quality materials.
When religion got ahold of these concepts they were absolutely twisted into controlling people.
These are not rules of Islam though. On the contrary Islam made many rules of Judaism obsolete, taking away complication in religion. Islam also provided a much clearer theology than Christianity and specifically rejects the "trinity", "holy people" and other concepts contrary to the oneness of god.
What the Taliban and other Salafi/Wahabi people do, is quite fringe and it is infuriating that the Brits and later the Americans helped the Saudis to seize power in Arabia and furthered these extremist interpretations.
taliban's oppression is not a rabbit hole you want to go down
According to wikipedia, that isn't even a problem within the Quran itself, but rather a hadith (oral tradition) from some other fellow: "Sahih Bukhari explicitly prohibits the making of images of living beings, challenging painters to "breathe life" into their images and threatening them with punishment on the Day of Judgment."
Project 2025 energy.
This is more like project 2077 energy here, amiright
So... TV news will just be text on a screen?
I suppose TV wouldn't make much sense under those circumstances.
I wonder if animation will filll the gaps.
I regret to inform you that animations are images
That's accurate to historical Islamic practice, unlike a lot of their crazy shit, but nobody else does it because it's going to be insanely difficult to work with.
Except historically the arts flourished under Islamic rule. While Islam does have an anti icon streaks it was never enforced save for the depiction of the prophet Mohammad.
I think it's an oversimplification to say that it was never enforced:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniconism_in_Islam
Fundies gonna fundie
Fuck's sake.
😂
What?!
Obviously I'm not pro Taliban or this, but one thing that has been amusing me has been the US institute for peace decrying the fact that they outlawed poppy production again because it increases poverty. Western media on the subject is a mixture of it's bad and it won't work (they've actually reduced poppy production by over 90 percent though). Pre war we were justifying sanctions due to heroin production, post war it actually increased under American administration and the fragile kleptocracy we encouraged(which "banned" poppy production), and now it's bad they're slashing and burning poppy fields.
https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/06/talibans-successful-opium-ban-bad-afghans-and-world
So just kill everything before taking the picture.
Now it's just a bunch of religious fascists trying to one up each other.
Give it enough time and they have implemented so many rules, no rule is relevant any more
Sad that we live in a world where I couldn't tell what country you were talking about just by reading your comment.
Give them enough time, they're going to bar eating and basic survival instincts. Whatever those are to them.
Are you Taliban and want someone dead, but frustrated with your fundamentalist movement's pesky adherence to the rule of law? Upset at the heretic you can't quite get proof of? Overbearing parents trying to arrange another marriage?
With new Taliban Ban on Images of Living Things®, you are back in the driver's seat. Just take a picture of your target. After it's done, the authorities will be practically begging you to murder that person to prevent the inevitable consequences, including the collapse of society and the rending of the fabric of space-time.
what can you expect from an undead demonic army prepping for the holy battle of megiddo?
What is just so nuts is how much of an outlier and how incredibly new the bullshit the Taliban is doing, yet there are people who insist that all Muslims are copies of them...
They're all dead inside, would that be an exception?
If they wish to further disempower themselves, I'm all for it.
"This is normal!" - Some Muslim in Afghanistan.
Islamic fundamental extremism didn't really find its way into Afghanistan until the 80's. It was transplanted by the Saudi government who were in part supported by the United States as a way to counter the Soviet invasion.
If you actually ever get the chance to meet an actual Afghan family, I think you would be surprised of how kind they generally are, hospitality is a cornerstone of their culture.
I think it's important to realize that the cultural identity of the Taliban to America isn't actually based off of Afghan culture, it's based off of the Saudi, and that the Afghan people are the real victims of this .
I've met a few people from Afghanistan, but I can't say if they are representative of the country, because they did have to leave.
But they were very nice people indeed.
