The rest is politics - “The Taliban took over the country and it's much safer”

[HiggledyPiggledy33]

Just outraged at what I’ve just heard in the rest is politics.

They are discussing why aren’t we boycotting Afghanistan, and I can’t believe what Rory is saying.

“For the first time in over 20 years, you can travel safely through the country.”

Well maybe you can Rory, but I don’t think women can - is that fine? Throw half the population under the bus, as long as you’re OK.

“The Taliban have very repressive views on women, but they've also in other ways changed”
oh well that’s ok then.

“We're in a culture now where it really suits a lot of people, particularly on the far right, to emphasise Muslim countries where women are not treated correctly”
Women not being treated correctly is the problem. Once that’s sorted, let’s look at any sensitivity about muslims.

From The Rest Is Politics: Question Time: Assad’s People - Syria, Torture, and Justice, 9 Jan 2025

Christ, that's awful.

They've always been fucking awful on women's rights. But they identify as the good guys so that's fine.

Smug centrist bastards, laying down the law from their lofty positions of self-appointed global expertise.

Yes, I am an ex-listener 😂. The toothpaste doesn't go back in the tube and some stuff you can't get past.

Fucking hell, WHAT????

They literally don't care about women. If men were being oppressed a thousandth of the way these women are there'd be global boycotts and daily marches. But women can't stand by a window in their own homes and we're supposed to focus on important things like men playing a stupid ball game.

There's a bit in Stewart's book The Places In Between where his guards were going to rape a young teenage girl and he just laughs and jokes with them, not written with any judgement, just an observation* of something unimportant that happened, so nothing surprises me about him.

*something forbidden to Afghan women

Well, I don't regret giving up on these milquetoast a few months ago.

When they were asked about what their parents were doing and both totally ignored their mothers' impressive careers was another highlight.

I was also puzzled but not impressed to hear Rory Stewart had bet on the result of US elections also.

Rory Stewart is as big a wanker as Campbell. It was pretty funny that after the US election he basically said that he hadn't got his piss poor election prediction wrong, it was the fault of the electorate for being wrong.

I used to like Rory. But that!! wow.

Plus he likes to pontificate about climate change while seeming to fly three squillian miles a year.

And I don't think he's as bright as his highly polished ego would have us believe. Spectacularly wrong on the US elections.

If men were being oppressed a thousandth of the way these women are there'd be global boycotts and daily marches.

I've thought before; imagine a far-away country of which we know little, where it turned out a matriarchal society was treating men the way women are treated in Afghanistan. How long do you think they'd last? Xi would be on the phone to Putin, Putin would be the phone to Trump, the UN would get involved, it'd all be over in a week!

it was the fault of the electorate for being wrong.

Ha! Another Brecht fan! 😀

They are tone deaf on women’s rights. Appalling.

I have a very good friend in Kabul and it’s not safe. Isis are still bombing places such as hospitals every day they tell me what a living hell it is.

I believe it was Yes Prime Minister that pointed out the difference between 'bright' and 'expensively educated'.

Still, as long as Rory Stewart can have a self indulgent jaunt there, that's fine.

Fucking hell, I'm sure the women of Afghanistan will be relieved to know their country is much safer. Fucking asshole.

@teawamutu quite! A perfect example there in our Rory.

These two are sickening misogynists. Who knew? 🙄

God, but lefty men have absolutely plummeted in my estimation the last few years. Smug, ignorant dipshits.

The countless Muslims I've met who are disgusted by the Taliban will be surprised to learn they're part of the far right.

Rory's thinking is just so extraordinarily thick. It's so binary where women are concerned. He cannot conceive of the idea that women are fully human in their own right. He has just as much bias against Muslims too if he thinks fundamentalist Islamists represent all Muslim people.

We should have a Brecht thread. Here's one to give us hope:

Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.

I used to listen to TRIP a lot but I’m sick to fuck of podcasts where privileged men share their opinions with other privileged men. Also in this category: James O’Brien; Adam Buxton

What a prick. 🙄

This isn’t the first time Rory Stewart has said this. I heard it on R4 a few months ago and it left me spitting with anger.

I absolutely loathe Rory Stewart and can’t for the life of me understand why TRIP is so popular. I’ve tried 3 times to listen to it and have had to turn it off. On so many issues that they hold forth on they have nothing more than the most superficial understanding. The whole point of podcasts is that you can hear it straight from actual experts, uninterrupted so it beats me why anyone wants to listen to these two bore on. Their confirmation bias is unbelievable.

It’s a very interesting and common talking point, he's not wrong that the far right probably don't really care about women in Iran or Afghanistan. The far right will use anything they can, especially obvious injustices to point out the problems with left-wing cultural relativism.

That the far right will make use of these wrongs doesn't make them any less wrong and also doesn't make anyone with concerns far right.

But Stewart and others using that argument does make it harder for women's rights to be recognised.

They've always been fucking awful on women's rights. But they identify as the good guys so that's fine.

This.

I also thought their US election pontifications were awful and lacking insight.

The pair of them are absolutely bloody awful. Forever expounding about stuff they don't understand. Campbell was whingeing recently about being 'trolled' by JK Rowling on X 🙄 just because she challenged him robustly on his blinkered complacent crap attitude to women only spaces. Women are an irrelevance to both of them

Give me Katty Kay and the Mooch any day of the week.