Just a wild guess here, but I take it that you never got very good marks for reading comprehension. But whatever, I’ll answer your bad faith question:
The racism is ignoring all of the ways in which colonial powers have fucked, refucked, and then triple fucked, the collection of tribal regions known as Afghanistan, which only exists as a nation state because of colonial powers drawing politically convenient lines on maps.
All while pretending that religion, and not the colonial conflict legacy is the root cause of these problems.
Because admitting that colonialism is why we’re here, isn’t a very good narrative for selling the next war.
So great, now it’s the white Savior’s moral obligation to fix the problems that these brown people created all on their own, and definitely did not happen as a result of over a century of colonial violence , resource exploitation, and constant warfare.
And not for nothing, but you also clearly don’t have a clue about the crimes against humanity level shit that happened during the occupation.
So stop and think, why all this coverage now, and not for the last decade of occupation?
Unfortunately you’re basically highlighting the reason that propaganda like this works: immediacy bias.
This story, and the idea of the video, of the woman being raped is immediately visible.
The historical context surrounding this story, and the political context of its dissemination, is not visible. All the stories that were neglected by the media that is cynically using this current story are not immediately in front of us.
It’s hard for people to step out of that immediate reaction because it feels like the story they just heard is happening in front of them. We’re not mentally built for a global news environment where news stories can be cherry picked for their desired impact.
It’s ironic that something called “immediacy bias” is being exploited by the media, when immediate literally means “without media”. Maybe in this case it should be called the immediacy illusion.
Afghanistan as we know it was created by Pashtuns, the majority ethnicity in Afghanistan back then in 1747 (A large chunk of Tajiks settled in North Afhghanistan fleeing the Red Army, that’s why they’re so numerous now). It’s already post-colonial, in the sense that it’s not part of Persia (or Greece) any more and avoided becoming Russian, it fought for its independence. Saying “it only exists because it’s convenient to colonial powers” is a fucking insult.
You’re erasing their own struggles and achievements for your own messed-up white saviour complex, “Oh poor brown people are poor and behave like assholes that must be because we did it”.
No, colonial conflicts did not instil misogyny in Afghanistan, least of all during the Soviet or US invasion. That’s a mixture of ancient tribal values reinforced by convenient interpretations of Islam. The US could certainly have supported nicer people than the Mujahideen to fuck with the Soviets trying to colonise but it’s not like Afghanistan was a beacon of progressivism before, on the contrary. Some enlightened absolutism in Kabul, yes, the Royals got around and studied abroad, everywhere else, very much not.
If you ask me the mistake the US made, big-picture, was to not arming women.
Let’s start with how it’s racist to stop religious fundamentalists from abusing women. This should be fun.
Just a wild guess here, but I take it that you never got very good marks for reading comprehension. But whatever, I’ll answer your bad faith question:
The racism is ignoring all of the ways in which colonial powers have fucked, refucked, and then triple fucked, the collection of tribal regions known as Afghanistan, which only exists as a nation state because of colonial powers drawing politically convenient lines on maps.
All while pretending that religion, and not the colonial conflict legacy is the root cause of these problems. Because admitting that colonialism is why we’re here, isn’t a very good narrative for selling the next war.
So great, now it’s the white Savior’s moral obligation to fix the problems that these brown people created all on their own, and definitely did not happen as a result of over a century of colonial violence , resource exploitation, and constant warfare.
And not for nothing, but you also clearly don’t have a clue about the crimes against humanity level shit that happened during the occupation.
So stop and think, why all this coverage now, and not for the last decade of occupation?
Manufacturing consent for the next foreign war.
Unfortunately you’re basically highlighting the reason that propaganda like this works: immediacy bias.
This story, and the idea of the video, of the woman being raped is immediately visible.
The historical context surrounding this story, and the political context of its dissemination, is not visible. All the stories that were neglected by the media that is cynically using this current story are not immediately in front of us.
It’s hard for people to step out of that immediate reaction because it feels like the story they just heard is happening in front of them. We’re not mentally built for a global news environment where news stories can be cherry picked for their desired impact.
It’s ironic that something called “immediacy bias” is being exploited by the media, when immediate literally means “without media”. Maybe in this case it should be called the immediacy illusion.
You’re vastly oversimplifying.
Afghanistan as we know it was created by Pashtuns, the majority ethnicity in Afghanistan back then in 1747 (A large chunk of Tajiks settled in North Afhghanistan fleeing the Red Army, that’s why they’re so numerous now). It’s already post-colonial, in the sense that it’s not part of Persia (or Greece) any more and avoided becoming Russian, it fought for its independence. Saying “it only exists because it’s convenient to colonial powers” is a fucking insult.
You’re erasing their own struggles and achievements for your own messed-up white saviour complex, “Oh poor brown people are poor and behave like assholes that must be because we did it”.
No, colonial conflicts did not instil misogyny in Afghanistan, least of all during the Soviet or US invasion. That’s a mixture of ancient tribal values reinforced by convenient interpretations of Islam. The US could certainly have supported nicer people than the Mujahideen to fuck with the Soviets trying to colonise but it’s not like Afghanistan was a beacon of progressivism before, on the contrary. Some enlightened absolutism in Kabul, yes, the Royals got around and studied abroad, everywhere else, very much not.
If you ask me the mistake the US made, big-picture, was to not arming women.
The taliban is a bunch of woman abusers because of…colonialism?
See I knew this would be fun, tell me another one