While We Dally, Hot Zones Erupt

Despite what you are hearing from the puerile American media, substantive developments with serious repercussions are occurring in the world around us. Look past zippergate, Henry Hyde, and the daily spin-cycle that produces our national headlines to the real news--in the international section. A cursory glance will yield an exciting array of stories: the beginnings of a fundamentalist revolution in an Islamic nuclear power, a hot war between Iran and Afghanistan and tales of a genocide in the Western world.

On Friday Pakistan's lower house of parliament voted to make the Koran supreme law, clearing the way for a fundamentalist takeover of a country already made unstable by U.S. sanctions. Should the bill pass the upper house of parliament, it will grant unrestricted power for the state to enforce Islamic law, rolling back what meager secular checks currently exist. The bottom line, according to Pakistani analyst Paula Newberg, will be a severe reduction in civil liberties (i.e. freedom).

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif says the "bill is aimed at enlisting Islam in the fight against crime and corruption," denying the legislation is a power play to consolidate his rule. The Pakistani military begs to differ. Worrying that Sharif is using religion as cover for grander designs, the Army's chief, General Jehangin Karomat, advocates "a direct role for the military in running the country." To see where this is may be heading let us look towards Afghanistan, a country where government, the military and Islamic fundamentalists are one and the same.

In Taliban Afghanistan, Islamic fundamentalists make the Christian Coalition look like the ACLU. After a brutal takeover, women were-ordered to go home-and stay there. Should they desire to journey outside they must cover themselves from head to toe and be in the company of a male relative at all times. So what if you're one of 30,000 widows of fallen soldiers and have to take your sick child to the hospital? Sorry. Bang. Dead. Or at least that's what happened last week to one poor mother trying to carry her critically ill infant to medical help.

Why all this oppression? In the name of order, holiness and purity! Coordinating the crackdown is the "General Department for the Preservation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice," complete with Kalashnikov-carrying religious police who patrol the streets in pick-up trucks flying white flags, the symbol of purity. Aside from killing women who venture out alone to save their dying children, the religious police have lots of duties. They make sure all males grow mandatory beards (violators are locked up for 10 days of "religious instruction"), enforce the ban on music (too hedonistic) and confiscate television sets (the holiness and purity thing again).

Without any electronic entertainment, what is there to do? The Talibanen courage other leisure activities. They invite thousands to public soccer stadiums, where on Fridays thieves' hands are cut off, adulterers are stoned and in a grand finale brick walls fall on homosexuals. With all this success, why restrict the campaign of purity to just your own recently conquered country?

Enter Iran. Competing for the "most holy Islamic nation prize," Iran has criticized the Taliban's harsh policies, accusing them of giving Islam a bad name. This hurt the Taliban's feelings, and in response they killed eight Iranian diplomats. Not to be outdone, Iran massed 270,000 troops on the Afghan border and last Thursday commenced three hours of fighting.

In other news, Slobodan Milosevic continued his pogrom in Kosovo (against Muslims, I might add). Once again the powerful and morally upstanding leaders of the Western world looked concerned--just for a minute--and then, at the urging of powerful and morally upstanding business leaders, went back to dealing with the global economic meltdown (and/or the Tripp-Lewinsky-Starr scandal).

However titillating the 13-year-old in all of us might find Bill's latest peccadillo, push past the packaged bash-and-trash spin-cycle, turn off those dammed network excuse-for-national-news shows and pick up a reputable newspaper. Inside, turn to the international section, and read about threats to freedom, war and peace, and a mostly completed Balkan genocide. It's tyranny, oppression and grievous threats to our national security that matter, not Monica.

Christopher M. Kirchhoff'01, a Crimson editor, is a history and science concentrator in Winthrop house.