From: ibshambat@gmail.com   
      
   "If you love enough you will forgive anything," said Queen Sheherezade, and   
   Fatima did. Rapes, daily beatings, death threats, constant verbal abuse,   
   murder of her daughter - she forgave her husband Abdul everything. But Abdul   
   would forgive absolutely    
   nothing, no matter how little or insignificant. A speck of dust on the floor,   
   a pot in the wrong place, kebab slightly overcooked, a spot on the clothes -   
   all this was met with barrages of fists. Every little thing she's ever done he   
   would remember and    
   use against her years later. Nothing was ever good enough for Abdul, and   
   everything was always Fatima's fault, whatever the actual source of the   
   problem.   
      
   They had a daughter named Najida, who was nearing marriage age. Najida was   
   beautiful, and Abdul hoped to give her to the son of the town's biggest   
   businessman. Then one day she went out to the market and came back, every inch   
   of her body in agony, her    
   face and body scarred beyond recognition. A man had thrown a bucket of   
   sulphuric acid into her face because she accidentally let the burqa slip for a   
   moment and uncover her head. Najida forgave, but now she was family shame whom   
   no man would ever marry.    
   And that could not be forgiven, ever, no matter what else she did.   
      
   They had another daughter named Shaheena, who was gang-raped by a young tough   
   named Kemal and his friends. This was the worst family shame possible. So   
   Abdul beat Shaheena to death and threw her body to the dogs. That way, the   
   family no longer had to    
   live with that embarrassment.   
      
   They had a son named Hassan, who did not like what he saw around him. Abdul,   
   neighbors, kids, kept calling him traitor, calling him crazy, calling him   
   weak, calling him infidel. He still did not like what he saw. The imam   
   arranged for a public whipping    
   of Hassan, but that still did not sway him. So the imam told Abdul, "Send your   
   son to a madrasa. They will teach him true Islamic ways."   
      
   The madrasa was a boarding school dedicated to the teaching of Islam. Its   
   students were boys from all over Pakistan, cramped in small quarters. The   
   education consisted of memorizing fully the Quran and applying its teachings   
   rigorously day in and day out.   
    The boys were trained to burn with the holy fire of Islam, and it was   
   frequently heard them say, "I grow up to kill infidel." Hassan stayed there   
   until the students were summoned to holy cause.   
      
   The name of the holy cause was Taliban. The mission: Invade and conquer   
   Afghanistan and subdue it to true Islamic values. They crossed the border on   
   armored vehicles, Toyota pickup trucks, buses, old tanks. They encountered   
   minimal resistance. "Nobody    
   wants to shoot a Talib," locals said, "it's like shooting a nun." Little did   
   they know what the holy Talibs had in store for them.   
      
   The country was put under curfew, with roadblocks everywhere and inspection of   
   everyone passing by. Businesses, homes, farms, were constantly raided, with   
   any non-Quranic material confiscated and its owners publicly whipped. People   
   were publicly executed    
   - for playing music, for practicing Buddhism or Christianity, for traveling   
   without a male relative, for talking to a person of other gender. Rape victims   
   were charged with adultery and publicly stoned. Priceless artifacts were   
   destroyed, schools shut    
   down, economic activity slowed to a crawl. Women were forbidden to go outside   
   the home, and husbands were given life-and-death power over them. And most   
   promising men were drafted into the Taliban, leaving their businesses and jobs   
   unattended.   
      
   The only thing that grew under the holy Talibs were the jails. People were   
   arrested for everything and anything. Hassan was assigned as a guard to a   
   women's prison in Kandahar. "Surely," thought the commanders, "this will set   
   this boy straight."   
      
   The prison was a fetid place crawling with lice, where human feces ran down   
   the floor and food bowls were placed in it. The guards went from cell to cell   
   every day, beating the inmates black and blue. The guards demanded that Hassan   
   take part in the    
   beatings; but he could not bring himself to do it. So they claimed that he was   
   weak and corrupt, that he was not a man, that he should be shot, that he was a   
   traitor to Islam, that the women there were evil whores who had destroyed the   
   fabric of Afghan    
   society and were using, manipulating and controlling him to serve Satan. Still   
   Hassan would not take part in the beatings.   
      
   One day, the guards had had enough. Two of them accompanied Hassan to a cell   
   occupied by four young women. They pointed their AK rifles at him and said,   
   "You beat them, or we kill you."   
      
   There was no Quaranic justification for what Hassan did next. He knew that   
   this was against Islamic principle, that he could be executed for it and may   
   go to hell. But at this point he no longer cared. In the women he saw Najida's   
   scars and Shaheena's    
   corpse and realized that, if this was to become the way, then any daughters he   
   may himself ever have would be subjected to a world where this was the fate   
   they would have to suffer. And that, nothing could ever forgive.   
      
   Reaching behind for his AK, he slammed its butt into the heads of the two   
   guards, knocking them unconscious. He then took off the key ring and went   
   through the prison, opening every cell, and conducted the women quietly   
   outside.   
      
   Outside was the sound of gunshots, bombs, people running from place to place.   
   NATO troops were taking over the country. The Taliban was collapsing, and   
   Allah was nowhere in sight. There were no easy solutions, but now they had a   
   chance at a better future.   
    A future not owned by barbarism and oppression; a future with possibility of   
   freedom, peace, justice, and opportunity; a future into which it was rightful   
   and sensible to bring new life.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)