Top: This photo taken on September 14, 2021 shows a Taliban fighter sitting in a courtyard at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music in Kabul. - The Taliban, who banned music outright during their brutal and oppressive rule from 1996 to 2001, have promised a more moderate brand of rule this time -- though they have made clear that they will run Afghanistan within the restrictive limits of their interpretation of sharia law. Bottom: KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN - SEPTEMBER 28: Students in a secondary school attend a lesson as education in primary and secondary schools continue in Taliban's stronghold city Kandahar, Afghanistan on September 28, 2021. (Photo by Bilal Guler/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
In the photo above, I would hazard a guess that the Taliban fighter depicted has trimmed his beard, something forbidden under Sharia law.
Reading about what is happening in Afghanistan under Taliban rule I am struck by the immorality of people, both in the Untied States and other countries, who don’t welcome these refugees with open arms, with compassion and empathy.
For example, read Afghans arrived near a small Virginia town, exposing two different versions of America.
What kind of person wouldn’t be moved by stories like the following:
'It's like a prison, a city of zombies', Afghan resident opens up on 'Life under Taliban'
The Taliban vowed no revenge. One Afghan family tells a different story
Where women took shelter from abuse, Taliban now in control
Female Afghan judges hunted by the murderers they convicted
Afghan women barred from teaching or attending Kabul University
This is minor in comparison: Taliban bans beard trims
Each and every adult Afghani refugee with access to the news has to have family and friends who didn’t make it out in time and now are living under Taliban rule. They are at the mercy of religious zealots. This has to be heartbreaking for those fortunate enough to have reached a safe harbor in a free country.
Anyone who doesn’t feel both for those left behind and for those who made it out and had to leave dear ones behind is living a lie if they claim to have any religious conviction. If they claim to be moral people they have a warped conception of what morality means. The definition is simple, as below, though the complexities of morality is a subject debated by philosophers (here) :
- The quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct.
- A system or collection of ideas of right and wrong conduct.
- Virtuous conduct.
Most people one would like to believe, to use Justice Potter Stewart’s quote about pornography, know what immoral behavior is when they see it. Unfortunately, what we see today is that far too many people don’t care to look at their own behavior and judge their own morality and change it when they see they are behaving immorally.
Those supporters of Donald Trump, those who participated in the Jan. 6 attempt to overturn the Constitution and who are being held accountable by our judicial system, ought to recognize had they gone against the Taliban in a similar way as dissidents in Afghanistan they would have already been judged by the so-called courts of Sharia Law.
The Poll: Here Are The States Offering To Resettle Afghan Refugees
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Is your state or country formally welcoming refugees from Afghanistan regardless of the opinion of some residents?
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