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

Won't anyone think of poor Rory? This is the feminist board, where we centre women and girls, not overprivileged podcast wankers who don't give a second thought to some of the most oppressed women on Earth when they crap on about how jolly spiffing it is to travel across Afghanistan 🙄 bla bla echo chamber something something

And now they’re turning a blind eye to the fallout, which is exactly what RS is doing, because the average situation is deemed to be better even if for women it’s immeasurably worse. It’s dismissed with an airy “it’s the bigger picture”, because yet a-fucking-gain women are just collateral damage.

Exactly.

They make the protection of women’s rights part of the terms of handover. But they didn’t, they just walked away knowing full well that the retributions and collapse of rights would begin almost immediately, which is exactly what happened. We all remember those photos of people desperately trying to get themselves and their families on the last flights out.

Yes, JK Rowling, the heinous evil woman, was instrumental in getting female lawyers out of Afghanistan.

The OP was about what Rory said?

But as I said last night, I shall leave you to your “bla bla echo chamber”. You clearly have a problem understanding not everyone sees the world exactly as you do. Best of luck to you.

There is just no end to her terrible behaviour, is there? Utterly reprehensible woman ❤️

The OP was about what Rory said?

Yes, and you've conceded that point now, haven't you? You finally agreed that the criticism of the podcast for not mentioning it was justified. I'll direct ire at pompous overpaid twats in the public eye for whom women's rights don't even register any time I like, thanks.

Good for you dear.

The International Criminal Court have issued arrest warrants for Taliban leaders for entrenching Gender Apartheid

Yes, I thought it was a positive message to send, at least. The normalisation in some quarters is utterly chilling.

It seems to me that ultimately it's foolish to try to intervene in other countries as it's not sustainable. That doesn't mean that we should ignore atrocities happening to women and not even attempt to put external pressure on them. We definitely shouldn't be playing sports with such countries.

As I understand it they are not even eligible by the rules themselves, as countries have to develop women's cricket to participate, I can't see that happening where women aren't even allowed to have their voices heard in public.

It isn't. The Taliban are corrupt but in a different way.

And the Taliban are also continuing to kill people on Pakistan. Remember that idiotic double think that was going on for a while that the Afghan Taliban = heroic anti imperialist insurgents who are totally different from the bad jihadist Pakistani Taliban who 1) shot malala yousafzai in the head 2) launched an attack on a cadet school in Rawalpindi https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-30491435
3) at one stage had Islamabad surrounded after the govt decided to 'let them live by their own laws'. This from 2009

surprise! There is no difference between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban

Meanwhile, the US government did genuinely try to ignore the Taliban 1st time around. Graveyard of empires and all that. Remember why that changed?

The U.S. was only in Afghanistan to begin with because the proposition that the war was a local phenomenon that could be ignored crashed into the Twin Towers, Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001.

https://www.kyleorton.com/p/afghanistan-report-by-oved-lobel

Governments will do what they think will suit them.

Women are always the collatoral damage in that. Thats why women's right are always the first thing to go in a authoritarian government.

They are the easiest thing to give up to corruption.

Power is hoarded by males. Corrupt males. Who want to punch down on women.

Thank you @AnnaMagnani for your post. Despite giving RS a kicking up thread, I'm sure your post gives a good exposition of what he was getting across.

It is still true I think that he's not 'seeing' women in his mental picture. I'm always shocked by this but it's very common in male descriptions of almost any scenario. I remember coming across Louis MacNeice's description of what a poet should be, and after listing several characteristics he added 'appreciative of women' and given the time and place of his writing, I realised the idea that the hypothetical poet he was thinking of might BE female was literally beyond him to imagine.

I gave up listening when they said the Archbishop of Canterbury had behaved in a dignified manner and Rory compared the new leader of Syria to Gandhi and Mandela

Having read all of the horrific reports about Iwerne, there is no way the Archbishop of Canterbury behaved in a remotely dignified manner.

The boarding school conditioning really runs deep, doesn't it?

Please can someone recommend better podcasts with the same political breadth? I was listening to them before, Tried again a few weeks ago but I can’t get past their attitude towards women.

Also, it’s not a blind spot. A blind spot is a spot, if you don’t see so many human beings you are blind.

@Persimmons123 not quite the same but I do enjoy “Honestly” presented mainly by Bari Weiss. It features a lot of very knowledgeable people and does a good job of representing both sides. It is however US based. I listen to mostly US news podcasts as I just can’t find a UK one I like enough.

I think the Rest is Politics US is better but obvs based around the USA.

Noticeably on the US election night special it was Dominic and Marina who weren't surprised Trump one.

I didn't think I'd be into the Rest is Entertainment but Richard and Marina are great. They had a very sensible episode on Gregg Wallace and being a woman working in the media.

Well I've never been there either. But I listen to people like WRN Afghanistan, Malala and I know people who used to live there. And they all agree women's lives are so much worse (and getting worser)

So I wouldn't make a comment like that.

The Afghans get something like 17 million dollars a year to develop women's and youth cricket.

Having women's and youth cricket at a national level, even if only in development is a condition of membership of the ICC - a requirement to allow their teams to play in ICC competitions.

The ICC have refused to allow the Afghan women's cricket team (in exile in hiding) membership of the ICC.

Make it make sense

I get this and in Afghanistan that’s the difficult choice they have to make.

But the topic of the podcast was whether or not to boycott cricket. The choice here is “show some solidarity with half the population” or “play a game”.

And Rory is arguing to play the game.
I do find it frightening how little women are respected that he could even argue this.

Yes I don't see the importance of men being able to play cricket either.

I do understand that not everyone sees the world as I do. It frightens me.

Because these are two clearly intelligent men, who have held positions of power and authority, and this glimpse of how they see the world is frightening.

Yes - the breadth of political topics was great.

I’ll check out TRIH recommended here.

TRIH is great, but it does not talk about weekly political affairs as much as TRIP. The American version is interesting, can't stand the mansplaining, but I am not only interested in the US.