Afghanistan's dirty little secret

PBS Frontline. Someone on the SF Gate's comments section posted a link where you can watch it online:


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/dancingboys/view/

BTW, the comments under the article are incredible. People just don't want to believe it's true and/or evil.

 

As opposed to the accepted, systematic, generational rape of young GIRLS in places like Darfur and Papua New Guinea and that sunny destination point for well-to-do westerners, Thailand. We just don't cringe as much when the details are about girls.
Anyone who's ever read about Afghanistan is aware of this hideous custom. I'm pretty sure I once dropped a reference to it in a column about sports in Kabul.

 

Gingerbread, this story may make some more uncomfortable because it involves boys & not girls.

Prison rape stories sometimes do too.

But please know that I absolutely agree with you. What happens to young girls in some cultures is also barbaric and should be addressed as well.

All of these stories deserve attention & this story should not diminish that in any way.

 

The New Yorker talked about this some in 1999. It was in an article on the extremism being bred in Pakistani madrassas (and I think it might have even been one of the first articles I remember mentioning Osama bin Laden). I recall being shocked, probably like some of the commentors mentioned in an earlier post were.

The Atlantic ran an article a couple of years ago about gay culture in Saudi Arabia that covered some of the same ground. It did a really good job of explaining (or at least trying to explain) how the men and boys separate their acts from their belief systems. Article's linked below. And here's a stomach-churning quote from it...

“It’s the land of sand and sodomites,” she said. “The older men take advantage of the little boys.” Dave, the American educator, puts it this way: “Let’s say there’s a group of men sitting around in a café. If a smooth-faced boy walks by, they all stop and make approving comments. They’re just noting, ‘That’s a hot little number.’”

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/05/the-kingdom-in-the-closet/5774/

 

Afghanistan's deep-pocketed man/boy love lobby?

 

Afghanistan is rough terrain in more ways than one. There's an old saying from the region about certain parts of Afghanistan: The birds there fly with one wing, because they have to use the other wing to cover their butts.

Next up, the Chinese, who share a tiny strip of border with Afghanistan. Unless they are able to overwhelm the place with Chinese immigrants a la Tibet, they'll get the same cold service as the U.S., the Russians, the Brits, etc., etc. (working backwards.)

Yikes. What a dismal place.

 

Yikes, I meant we cringe more when the stories are about boys.
And I've no doubt you're as disgusted about the treatment of girls around the world, too. It seems we've become so accustomed to hearing about systematic rape and trafficking of young girls, we barely blink. Thomas Friedman and magazines like Marie Claire still write about it, bless them.

I think Sebastian Junger wrote about the Afghanistan boys in Vanity Fair a couple years ago, but it's not something the public has heard about on Oprah. At least not yet.

 

interesting that it was posted on SF Gate

 

Despite all its evil, the Taliban actually punishes this practice. Without trial, of course, and they generally kill the offenders and ostracize the boy victims (they'd stone and kill the girl victims).

There is no word to describe Afghanistan. Complicated barely touches it. Neighborhood blocks hate the next neighborhood block. There is no respectable court system, never mind one law that covers adjoining towns. It's family clan vs. family clan ... and each clan has a different culture, different rules, different punishment for crossing those rules. It's not just dictated by religion, because the religion is so convoluted over the centuries, each family/neighborhood/tribe interprets it as they wish. One might despise the "without beard boy" practice (I think that's the western name); others look the other way or even celebrate it.
Whatever our military accomplishes there, will be wiped out the moment we leave. I really hope I'm wrong.

 

We should leave tomorrow

 

Exactly what is our military accomplishing there?

 

Don't ask and they won't tell . . .