Visit Afghanistan, land of culture, cricket and women locked in their homes | Catherine Bennett

HAfter denying Afghan women jobs, education and freedom of movement, ordering them to be fully covered, denying them access to parks, stripping them of essential health care and silencing them by denying them audible speech, the Taliban have clearly reached the point where the joy of torturing half the population must be balanced, like any sensible exercise of mass persecution, with the needs and pleasure of men and the free.

What to do, for example, with the windows? Doubly infuriating for those obsessed with power, insofar as they offer slave women the pleasure of daylight while allowing non-residents to occasionally prove their existence, these openings on the other hand benefit the women’s male owners and their son.

To immunize or not to immunize? Like Solomon, the Taliban supreme leader has now banned windows only on walls facing areas where women are still, for domestic reasons, allowed to go out. Until Afghan women can be kept – for sex, reproduction and household chores – perpetually underground, the latest decree states that new buildings must not have windows from which “the courtyard, the kitchen, the neighbor’s well and other places usually used by women” are visible. visible.

Last week, the Taliban government spokesperson confirmed on X that, for men like him, even a fully covered woman with, say, an erect mop, is too much sexual stimulation. “Seeing women working in kitchens, in courtyards or drawing water from wells can lead to obscene acts. »

If, as sometimes appears to be the case, the Taliban take into account the opinion of the outside world, they once again appear to have been right to think that it is unlikely that a new, inventive and frightening addition to the female misery is provoked – to such an extent that it casts an unfortunate light on the situation. priorities in many apparently enlightened jurisdictions – a significant retaliation.

The Windows Decree, for example, still does not constitute sufficient evidence of the Taliban’s gender apartheid for the English cricket authorities to want to cancel their match against the Afghan cricket team in Lahore next month. Cricket is also resisting pressure from women’s organizations, saying gender apartheid in Afghanistan is as blatant as the racial apartheid that once ended ICC meetings with the South African team.

The ecstatic street celebrations after Afghan cricketers reached the semi-finals of the World Cup last year confirmed that international cricket is such an important source of pride for Afghan men that offering it , the other participants take away a valuable means of influence. As for the Afghan team’s coach, Jonathan Trott, the former England cricketer, if this job doesn’t bring him into contact with the misogynistic thugs captured in the breathtakingly brilliant documentary Hollywoodgateit’s only because he has never visited the country since taking the job (in 2022, after women had already been banned from schools and the workforce) while the team plays games home matches in exile in the United Arab Emirates. But perhaps, thanks to the team’s patrons, Trott still gets to hear some of the Taliban-style bantzes recorded in Hollywoodgate: “An uncovered woman is like unwrapped chocolate.”

No less valuable to the Taliban, who continue to ignore the UN’s weak reminders that women are human beings too, is their collaboration with foreign companies just as eager to breathe new life into Afghanistan as a destination sightseeing. Judging by online reviews, with the number of visitors to Afghanistan having soared since 2021, the torture inflicted on the female half of the population has yet to come close to racial apartheid as a tourism inhibitor, so much so that vacationers are aware that their leisure choices could be considered contemptible. On the contrary, the Taliban are often presented in some itineraries and comments in an attractive light, for having ensured the security of Afghanistan. Unless of course you are an Afghan woman. U.N. officials have reported a “sharp increase” in female suicide attempts, directly attributed to women’s desperation over Taliban repression.

Specialized travel agencies, if they even allude to gender apartheid, in some cases adopt euphemisms that suggest that the Taliban’s ever-increasing attack on women’s human dignity is one of those fascinating cultural differences , like living in a tent or playing tag team with a dead goat, is what makes adventure vacations so rewarding. The very troubles of the country, without asking who is suffering from whom, only testify to the visitor’s personal taste for authentic and stimulating journeys.

Activists once titled a fact sheet advising against visits to South Africa: “Apartheid is not a public holiday.” It’s now. Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur on Afghanistan, concluded that the Taliban’s human rights violations and their enforcement “could constitute crimes against humanity, in particular the crime of persecution based on sex”. But the very nature of this persecution, by erasing it from public life, contributes to the apparent attempts at normalization by specialist travel agencies, who urge visitors to “see beyond the current turbulent times and discover a country magnificent with a rich cultural history.” Even if he would have been even richer, obviously, if the Taliban had not blown up the Buddhas of Bamiyan in 2001.

Today, the Taliban themselves are presented by a company as a charming cultural attraction. A past excursion to Safarat, for example, offers “a good opportunity to chat with members of the Taliban who will accompany us on the walk.” Or else.

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If no women can contribute, since they are not allowed to discuss, it is clear from reviews on TripAdvisor and elsewhere that many current vacationers, for one reason or another, need even less encouragement to ignore the human rights anomalies that visitors to apartheid South Africa experience. Unlike the tourists or idiots of old seeking to know the “real” USSR, the real Third Reich or the real South Africa, criticism from Afghanistan suggests that no evidence of contentment on the part of the subjugated is now required for a rewarding journey.

In the 1980s, it is true, tour operators mocked not only sanctions, but also the ANC, the Anti-Apartheid Movement, the strong leadership of the UN and the British government’s “voluntary ban” on tourism in South Africa, reflecting “Britain’s strong opposition to the principles”. and the practice of apartheid. In Afghanistan, women are still waiting.

Catherine Bennett is a columnist at the Observer