There is an absolutely heartbreaking documentary by the New York Times on a girls school in Pakistan that is being closed down by the Taliban. Please watch it; it really struck home with me.
I have two girls myself and their hunger for learning is astonishing. My youngest, who’s 4 1/2, is in a Montessori school where they suggested she could move up to kindergarten a year early. Once she caught wind of this, she’s been working her butt off to get into that class. Her goal (not mine, mind you. She got this into her head all by herself) is to read all of the beginners books by herself (at least a couple dozen of them) and she has started making up homework assignments for herself. Last night she was writing down and solving her own addition problems. It would astonish me that a 4-year-old could do this except I’ve seen it all before. My eldest, who’s 8, skipped a grade and just came home proudly showing us her report card. She is now reading through the entire Harry Potter series again.
Now I am imagining what I would do if someone tried to hold them back. With guns, public whippings, beheadings. I used to be not very keen on Obama’s plan to add more troops over there. But goddamn we’ve got to do something.
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Remember, we poured money into the radical groups that would be come the “Taliban” (a terrible simplification that does no justice to the complicated situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan) to stop the Soviets from secularizing Afghanistan and letting girls go to school. Ah, the good old days when the radicals we must now fight in the name of freedom were good, wholesome freedom fighters.
What can we expect from a generation raised on textbooks printed right here in the USofA that taught arithmetic through the visual aids of AK-47’s, dead Russians, etc. and taught those lessons in religious schools founded with US taxpayer monies?
And considering that the current plan for “doing something” is to give money and guns to these same groups again (so long as they promise to be friendly), we’re likely to be as successful as we were the first time around.
Its really heartbreaking that so called religious fanatics and thugs are destroying future of younger generation.Those thugs are ignorant,they can’t write even their names.They have no right to stop girls from going to schools,World community should take stronger action against these criminals.
http://pukhtunkhwatimes.blogspot.com/ (News Reports from the areas where Taliban are destroying future of everyone.)
Great blog you maintain, M Wagar. Please visit Scholars & Rogues again.
That is one hell of a blog. Thank you for posting it and for having the unbelievable guts to write it.
Your daughters are amazing, I’m happy for you. We’re all pretty blessed, indeed.
You know, I just remembered being in high school and watching footage of the Mujahideen, thinking how great it was that they’d managed to kick the Soviets out despite their enormous army, etc. Little did I know…