The same Taliban that banned Afghans from television - and movies, and music, from dancing, we don't even talk - now summon cameras from all over the world to make them believe that they are other people, that they should not be afraid of them, that they do not go to retaliate against anyone.
The same Taliban who shot Malala and threw acid at girls in schools say today that they will respect women's rights "within Islamic law," a disturbing statement for those who only believe the law that they make is sacred.
A spokesman for those Taliban who locked women in homes and burqas between 1996 and 2001, Mawlawi Abdulhaq Hemad, appeared on the set of the Afghan channel TOLOnews on Tuesday.
Journalist Beheshta Arghand faced the delicate challenge of interviewing him.
She did it open-faced, with her hair peeking out under the veil and a couple of meters, either for decorum or for covid protocol.
"It still amazes me that people are scared with the Taliban," said the representative of the group that organized mass executions in squares and stadiums as the only authorized spectacle.
Beheshta Arghand and Mawlawi Abdulhaq, in the interview broadcast on Tuesday on TOLOnews channel.
The TOLO network, founded in 2004, claims to be the first in Afghanistan with female presenters. Its founder, Saad Mohseni, an Afghan-Australian living in Dubai, tries to move on, but not as usual. It has removed singers and dancers from programming, but keeps soap operas, which may also upset fans.
The Taliban, who until yesterday attacked journalists, say that they will not shut down private media as long as they do not act against the national interest, that is, theirs.
Thomas L. Friedman writes in
The New York Times
that bearded men cannot behave today as before 2001 because the population that did not know their yoke - the average age is 18 years - lives attached to the smartphone and the networks, which are windows to the world.
Hopefully he's right and the screens tame the barbarians.
Or serve for resistance.
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