Are we moving backwards?

25Avelon
I prefer to give my money to a cause where I feel they can do some good. www.womensaid.org.uk/the-survivors-handbook/women-from-bme-communities/

I can't help thinking about all the families in this country and the USA (and other countries) of soldiers who fought and lost their lives there. Futile - and all for what -for things to go back to how they were.

25Avalon

I have just received an email from UNICEF asking me to contribute to help women and children in Afghanistan. Hope they send one to Joe Biden too!

But how long does it take to train the Forces, help the Government to stand on their own? NATO gave 7 years of help after combat forces withdrew and now this.
Should there be a NATO presence (it wasn't just the USA and UK) be in such countries for ever?

Should there be a peacekeeping force in every troubled state in the world on a permanent basis?

I have just received an email from UNICEF asking me to contribute to help women and children in Afghanistan. Hope they send one to Joe Biden too!

Whether we progress or regress depends on whether or not there are fixed values.
Luckygirl has listed items that are regressive, and items that are progressive. I think we all agree with her evaluation.

However the values that we hold in common are hard to compare as we can't quantify values.

What I can abstract from what Luckygirl mentions is that evildoers put ideologies before people.

Religions in all its many forms is often shown to be the cause of conflict.

For me, there are absolutely no positives with Sharia law. A system that allows a man to beat his wife, allows the death penalty in any form, that allows people’s hands or feet to be cut off, that requires multiple witnesses to a rape; I’m sorry, it’s not real justice. Plus allowing a man to divorce his wife without recourse to the law of the land is primitive. Sharia law is primitive.
People absolutely should have a criminal record if they commit crimes. How would we ensure offenders were not allowed to work with children, or patients, or vulnerable people if no records were kept. Ridiculous.

Thank you JaneJudge.I thought I was been accused of racism by saying the Taliban are savages. I now realise I misunderstood.

True, but in the absence of witnesses to a rape, the woman can be accused of adultry, the penalty for which, in extreme religious fervour, can be stoning her to death.

MissAdventure

For women, being able to find multiple witnesses when she has been raped is an almost impossible feat.

True. But then fewer than 1 in 60 rape cases lead to a charge in the English legal system: www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/23/fewer-than-one-in-60-cases-lead-to-charge-in-england-and-wales?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

For women, being able to find multiple witnesses when she has been raped is an almost impossible feat.

Gwyneth

geekesse what are the positives of Sharia law?

1. The basis of Sharia is available to anyone who can read the Qur’an - very different to the complicated legal system of western democracies, where a complex web of written laws produced by legislatures over centuries mean that only highly trained lawyers can find out what the law says about an issue. If something isn’t clearly covered by the Qur’an, it may be decided by analogy with something that is.

2. The simple structure which underlines it - acts may be one of just five categories: compulsory, recommended, neutral, discouraged, forbidden.

3. The high standard of evidence required to prove a case. A single witness is insufficient.

4. Once a punishment has been carried out, the offender’s slate is wiped clean. There’s no such thing as a criminal record.

5. The social focus is on the good of the community rather than the character of the individual.

The BBC has a useful page on Sharia here.

I’m not suggesting that Sharia is perfect, or that some interpretations of it are not distasteful to me. But I think it’s important to understand that all legal systems have strengths and weaknesses, and Sharia is no exception.

I agree with GillT, it is a way of controlling people and specifically women. It’s misogyny, at base, both in Afghanistan and in those weird Christian sects. Men are afraid of women.

geekesse what are the positives of Sharia law?

the Taliban are against the education of women just like the Catholic church used to be; that way you keep society controlled. Amongst the many things that anger me about the Taliban and other such medieval religions is that they, the man, are happy to accept modern technology such as motor vehicles, arms, mobile phones, modern medical advances to save their 'soldiers' from battle field wounds which would have killed them in past times. I just cannot begin to imagine how Afghan families with daughters must feel right now. Then people wonder how the people traffickers find their customers. As for the USA fundamentalists, preaching what they preach while living in a modern society, they disgust me.

I try to understand and accept what people believe but have never understood why the Taliban (amongst others) is against the education of girls and women - perhaps they think woman have higher intelligence and allowing them to be educated would be a threat to male dominance allowing the continuance of such atrocities as enslaving and raping women and girls.

As for those who claim religious objection to vaccines - I seem to recall when someone was faced with this objection asked who they thought had given the scientists the intelligence and ability to create the vaccine!

Yes - lots of good people of all religions and none. But it is the primitive aspects of these religions that are being latched on to as a way of living, and I find that very scary. It is almost as if they are deliberately wanting to turn the clock back. Modern western culture is imperfect, but at least there is an underlying bedrock of humanity. Why are there groups that want to wipe this out and force a reversion to primitivism.

Is there no age of reason, or is this where we will always finish up?

Biden pulled the US troops out. It was only ‘force’ that maintained law and order in so far as it could be maintained. There are many examples of what the op calls primitive religions whose values we may feel are unacceptable on scientific and humanitarian grounds. There are, however, still good people out there and we should not lose track of that.

We can look closer to home for regressions too, Hungary for example. Though I think our own country has issues with how democracy is applied

maddyone, I did feel for you that you thought the evil comment was about you, you poor thing!

‘We’ can’t even protect these abused women in our own country.

www.haloproject.org.uk/honour-based-violence-W21page-3

Alegrias1

I don't think we've necessarily gone backwards Luckygirl but I think we're not moving forwards at the rate we might expect. People will still believe their feelings and opinions before they actually believe scientific fact. Look at climate change.

We saw the Taliban commander on the news last night talking about stoning, and education for girls up to the age of 12 only; I said to DH, they're just medieval, and they are.

Then interview with the Americans as well, when the pastor said less than 1% of his huge congregation were vaccinated, I almost fell off the sofa.

Me too Alegrias.

Yes, the Taliban is medieval without doubt.

I also saw the interview on television about the lack of vaccination in America and in the Christian community there. It is indeed mind boggling. Just one question, why?

FarNorth thank you for your clarification.

This is also a huge issue

Since 2000 there have been many human rights violations that do suggest we are at the very least standing still if not going backwards. I’ve been trawling the net and it makes for very sober reading.

1. Uganda - as many as 20000 children are trained as slave soldiers (boys) or sex slaves (girls)

2. Australia still has in law that underaged disabled girls can be sterilised without consent.

3. Afghanistan - amongst other atrocities such as stoning to death, whipping and violence against women, their human rights to move freely, education and socialise with the opposite sex is completely removed. Forced vaginal examinations take place if their “morality” is under question.

4.Uganda - life in prison for homosexual men.

5. Modern sex trafficking is an enormous problem throughout the world, further enabled by the gender inequality seen as acceptable in many countries and cultures.

6. Taliban in Afghanistan - have run vast concentration camps, enslave women, extermination of the Hazara minority. Will introduce Sharia law once again when they have completely retaken Afghanistan.

7. Chinese repression of over 1000000 Uyghurs. Forced “re-education” in camps.

The list goes on and on.

So yes I do think that the world is certainly not progressing and in many cases going backwards.

I was struck by the similarity between the two news items in that both are about crude and primitive interpretations of religious texts from thousands of years ago.

I was pondering what it is that attracts people towards this.

I found it rather depressing pondering, as it seems to me that behind this is a desire for control at all costs, regardless of the fact that this results in deaths.

Is this simply a natural instinct (especially in men?) that no amount of human progress can damp down? Is humankind doomed to stay in the dark ages however much progress is made?