Lucy sulla cultura, 15 August 2024
Giuliano Battiston, in this article for the Italian online magazine, write about ‘the Taleban’s trajectory’ since their return to power (in Italian) and cites first-person but anonymous accounts such as AAN’s ‘The Daily Hustle’ or a recent piece about going on a family picnic as offering support to understanding the impact of the exclusion of women from education, from many workplaces and from the public space:
Qualche appiglio in più lo offrono i resoconti personali, in prima persona ma perlopiù anonimi per il timore di ritorsioni. Come questo raccolto dai ricercatori dell’Afghanistan Analysts Network e dedicato all’impresa di organizzare un semplice picnic in famiglia.
He also quotes a 2022 AAN report on the history of Amr bi-l-Maruf in Afghanistan (here in English translation):
Equally necessary to put current events in the right context is to know that the idea of the need to purify society is not exclusive to the Taliban. As noted in an article by the Afghanistan Analysts Network, the state institution to promote virtue and prevent vice was first established by King Nader Khan in 1929 and formalized in 1930, under the title of Amr bil-Maruf. During the reign of his son, Zaher Shah, the directorate, composed of 20 ulema, operated under the Supreme Court. The first Islamic Republic, established after the fall of the communist regime in 1992 and led by Burhanuddin Rabbani, had a Ministry of Vice and Virtue, as did the first Emirate established in the mid-1990s. In 2001, with the military overthrow of the first Taliban Emirate, Amr bil-Maruf lost its ministerial status, but “continued to exist as a relatively powerless directorate under the Ministry of Religious Affairs.”
Revisions:
This article was last updated on 29 Aug 2024
