Nice image
 

This is a shot that doesn't make it to IotD for kinda technical reasons... it's too ordinary.

http://cellar.org/2003/afghankindergarten.jpg

Look at it.

What is it? Totally ordinary. There isn't much to it. Maybe a little too cutesy. Three typical young girls. So what?

Left to right, Nazi, Shadaba and Eqlima wait to go outside and play during an indoor ceremony officially opening the newly installed playground and the re-opening of the refurbished Khar Khana Kindergarten, on Monday, Jan. 20, 2003, in Kabul, Afghanistan. The school and playground were refurbished by the British contingent of the International Security Assistance Force.

Three girls who are bored with all the pomp and circumstance, and who just want to go outside and play. And now you see it again and say: I'm so glad these little girls are bored, or in the case on the right, anguished. Because they have to sit with their new school materials in a new school, waiting to play on their new playground, when 3 years ago females were not allowed to be taught to read or to show themselves at all.

History turned the right way for these girls. Fortune and the British taxpayers have given them a chance, at just the right age.

The coiffed hair, the baby-fat cheeks, the alert eyes, all look like great things now. They aren't ordinary at all.

The middle one is cute, and it reminds me that Afghanistan under the Taliban found itself with rather high rates of homosexuality. The very simple explanation: "If we cannot see the faces, we do not know if they are pretty," said one Afghan man.

I do not understand this, because the Afghan women, they are all pretty.

the girl on the right....hahahahahaha :D

Re: Nice image
 

I'm not so sure about Eqlima. Maybe she's just having a bad day. Nice photo.

It has to be said ...
 

"Nazi?"

Bah. Not nearly as exciting as I'd hoped. I was figuring it was something spectacular like two unnamed mid-eastern factions' little kids happy and blissfully side by side, waiting for the day where they to can "awaken" to a life long hate for the girl next to them who just moments ago was a friend...

Quzah.

I think Eqlima's going to hate everybody. Not because of membership in any particular faction. She's just going to hate everybody. On general principle.

Maybe these girls are wary. They've seen the falling back to Taliban ways.

Pretty is the least of their squandered assets.

I try to respect the religion of others (Gods know I need the same in return), but I really have a hard time stomaching a theological interpretation which inspires abuse of anyone.

Unfortunately, I just can't seem to find a term to describe the fundamentalist muslim treatment of women that isn't synonymous with abuse, so there it is...

The one they use is "respect". It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

"Slavery" seems to express the relationship for me.

A girl named "Nazi"? At a kindergarten named "KKK"? In Afghanistan? This is too tempting, I better quit.

But I'm curious about the history of that name, especially since World War II. And also the pronunciation.

I'd guess it's closer to the 'british'/Churchillian pronounciation than the american.

Afghani is written in the Arabic script, isn't it? If so, whoever transliterated that name ought to be ashamed of himself.

The Afgan treatment of women makes "barefoot and pregnant"
seem enlightened.

I'm not sure I can think the the 'fundamentalist treatment of women' in any existing religion, except maybe Wiccan, as being particularly friendly.

Of course, I have not checked out Buddhism and Hinduism, so this might be a sweeping statement. There is one prayer I know which goes 'Thank God for not making me a woman'. To which, if I ever decided to use it in my wife's hearing, she would certainly reply 'If it meant being forced to put up with (*)&)(*& like you, I'd agree.'