Of all the people the Taliban have targeted over the last 26 years — women, children, political dissidents, apostates, people who can read — surely the most unexpected must be their latest target: Mark Zuckerberg.
According to AFP, Facebook has disabled a number of new Taliban WhatsApp groups, arguing that Afghanistan’s new government is a terrorist organisation.
This has displeased the Taliban, who accuse Facebook of hypocrisy for moralising about the importance of freedom of speech while denying it to the new overlords in Kabul.
This is bizarre on a number of levels, not least because WhatsApp groups aren’t something I generally associate with cabals of insular, paranoid, fundamentalist woman-haters with a worldview straight out of the 14th century and — oh, wait, I’m hearing it now. Never mind.
What is truly absurd is that the Taliban has gone the 'free speech' route, given that what they know about freedom of expression can be written on the tiny fragments of the sixth century Buddha they blew up in 2001.
What is truly absurd, however, is that the Taliban has gone the “free speech” route, given that what they know about freedom of expression can be written on the tiny fragments of the sixth century Buddha they blew up in 2001.
Admittedly, some pundits are insisting that the Taliban have changed, or at least become fractionally more sophisticated, or at least fractionally less monstrous.
According to political analyst Irfan Yar, quoted by Australia’s ABC news, globalisation and 20 years of contact with politics has taught the Taliban how to “negotiate and cooperate with international allies”, and that they now understand that “if they impose the same repressive regime, nobody is going to accept it”.
If you believe Yar and his fellow optimists, it’s possible that the Taliban’s squabble with Facebook is proof of their newfound worldliness; that, instead of sending someone to blow up a fibre hub in Kabul and vow death to the great Zuckerberg Satan, they’re using mainstream political rhetoric to sound every inch like Donald Trump in 2020 or any famous anti-vaxxer who gets banned from Twitter because their “advice” is killing people.
But, with Wednesday’s murder of three protesters in Jalalabad, and reports of female journalists being threatened and citizens being beaten for trying to flee Kabul, you’ll forgive me if I remain unconvinced about the Taliban’s commitment to modern, democratic fundamentals like freedom of speech.
In fact, at the risk of being cynical, I’m going to keep assuming that they’re basically the murderous version of Facebook: horrified by women’s bodies; dedicated to warping reality for everyone trapped inside their carefully curated bubble; and still dangerous as hell.
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