The AP Interview: Taliban pledge all girls in schools soon

[FT-02 Senator A.F.E. 🇵🇸🤝🇺🇸🤝🇺🇦]

I'm gonna call B.S. on this until proven otherwise

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers say they hope to be able to open all schools for girls across the country after late March, their spokesman told The Associated Press on Saturday, offering the first timeline for addressing a key demand of the international community.

Since the Taliban takeover in mid-August, girls in most of Afghanistan have not been allowed back to school beyond grade 7. The international community, reluctant to formally recognize a Taliban-run administration, is wary they could impose similar harsh measures as during their previous rule 20 years ago. At the time, women were banned from education, work and public life.

Zabihullah Mujahid, who is also the Taliban’s deputy minister of culture and information, said their education departments are looking to open classrooms for all girls and women following the Afghan New Year, which starts on March 21. Afghanistan, like neighboring Iran, observers the Islamic solar Hijri Shamsi calendar.

Education for girls and women “is a question of capacity,” Mujahid said in the interview.

Girls and boys must be completely segregated in schools, he said, adding that the biggest obstacle so far has been finding or building enough dorms, or hostels, where girls could stay while going to school. In heavily populated areas, it is not enough to have separate classrooms for boys and girls — separate school buildings are needed, he said.

“We are not against education,” Mujahid stressed, speaking at a Kabul office building with marble floors that once housed Afghan attorney general’s offices and which the Taliban have adopted for their culture and information ministry.

The Taliban dictates so far have been erratic, varying from province to province. Girls have not been allowed back to classrooms in state-run schools beyond grade 7, except in about 10 of the country’s 34 provinces. In the capital, Kabul, private universities and high schools have continued to operate uninterrupted. Most are small and the classes have always been segregated.

“We are trying to solve these problems by the coming year,” so that schools and universities can open, Mujahid said.

https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-education-united-nations-kabul-taliban-c07aefcb90b560bc82b60b17d9623833

[Former President tack50]

Tfw the Taliban manage to be better at reopening schools than some US school districts /s

[Silent Hunter]

What will they teach them though?

[CumbrianLefty]

They are slightly better at PR than they were in the 1990s, dunno about much else though.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

'I call all times soon' said Aslan.

[Frodo]

They are probably envisioning madrassas for girls. 

[Omega21]

What will they teach them though?

Probably reading and theology, expecting it to be a bit poorer that women's education in the Eastern Roman Empire 1 Millennia ago. So, on a positive note, they'll be better than Western Europe in Medieval times!

[Middle-aged Europe]

Believe it when I see it.

[Santander]

They are probably envisioning madrassas for girls. 

What other "education" do they need?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What will they teach them though?

Probably reading and theology, expecting it to be a bit poorer that women's education in the Eastern Roman Empire 1 Millennia ago. So, on a positive note, they'll be better than Western Europe in Medieval times!

Sorry if this sounds particularly nitpicky, but "Medieval Europe" being as allegedly backwards as most see it to be, is more the product of people in the 16th century wanting to feel good about themselves than any objective historical fact.

[Silent Hunter]

What will they teach them though?

Probably reading and theology, expecting it to be a bit poorer that women's education in the Eastern Roman Empire 1 Millennia ago. So, on a positive note, they'll be better than Western Europe in Medieval times!

Sorry if this sounds particularly nitpicky, but "Medieval Europe" being as allegedly backwards as most see it to be, is more the product of people in the 16th century wanting to feel good about themselves than any objective historical fact.

Wouldn't want to break a leg though.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What will they teach them though?

Probably reading and theology, expecting it to be a bit poorer that women's education in the Eastern Roman Empire 1 Millennia ago. So, on a positive note, they'll be better than Western Europe in Medieval times!

Sorry if this sounds particularly nitpicky, but "Medieval Europe" being as allegedly backwards as most see it to be, is more the product of people in the 16th century wanting to feel good about themselves than any objective historical fact.

Wouldn't want to break a leg though.

Of course. But then again, medical science has advanced immensely over the past 150 years. Probably wouldn't have wanted to break a leg during the (American) Civil War either.

[Omega21]

What will they teach them though?

Probably reading and theology, expecting it to be a bit poorer that women's education in the Eastern Roman Empire 1 Millennia ago. So, on a positive note, they'll be better than Western Europe in Medieval times!

Sorry if this sounds particularly nitpicky, but "Medieval Europe" being as allegedly backwards as most see it to be, is more the product of people in the 16th century wanting to feel good about themselves than any objective historical fact.

Not Europe, but Western Europe (important distinction, the West was in ruins while the East was publishing the basis of civil law), and I am mainly referring to the Dark Ages, i.e. early Medieval period.

The literacy rate in Western Europe in the Dark Ages was around 4% (down from 15-20% in the SPQR), while it remained 15-30% in the ERE, so yes, it was very much backwards relatively speaking.

Obviously towards the later Medieval Age, the already occurring shift towards science in the West coupled with the fleeing academics from the ERE, bringing with them Classical texts/Manuscripts which were long gone in the West resulted in a much different landscape compared to the early period.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What will they teach them though?

Probably reading and theology, expecting it to be a bit poorer that women's education in the Eastern Roman Empire 1 Millennia ago. So, on a positive note, they'll be better than Western Europe in Medieval times!

Sorry if this sounds particularly nitpicky, but "Medieval Europe" being as allegedly backwards as most see it to be, is more the product of people in the 16th century wanting to feel good about themselves than any objective historical fact.

Not Europe, but Western Europe (important distinction, the West was in ruins while the East was publishing the basis of civil law), and I am mainly referring to the Dark Ages, i.e. early Medieval period.

The literacy rate in Western Europe in the Dark Ages was around 4% (down from 15-20% in the SPQR), while it remained 15-30% in the ERE, so yes, it was very much backwards relatively speaking.

Obviously towards the later Medieval Age, the already occurring shift towards science in the West coupled with the fleeing academics from the ERE, bringing with them Classical texts/Manuscripts which were long gone in the West resulted in a much different landscape compared to the early period.

I'm fairly sure that for some of that graph, that is measuring literacy in Latin, which was the  lingua franca of the Western European elite. Obviously peasants could not generally speak Latin or speak it much at all, but they could still read and write their vernacular - how else would they have been able to engage in the business of contracts or all the other things ordinary people need to do to engage in their trades? Or issued complaints to their liege about their lord when they saw fit? Et cetera.
A society where only 5% could read and write anything probably wouldn't be able to function.
If you have a language that serves as the elite and clerical lingua franca but is not widely spoken among commoners, and use that as a yardstick for literacy, then of course literacy rates will be quite low.
Fact was, peasants didn't really need to know Latin; vernacular was their speak. Peasants were broadly literate and were capable of reading and writing when they needed to. What mattered most was them growing food, so that society didn't starve.
EDIT: This feels like a bit of a derail, we can continue this topic elsewhere if you want.

[Хahar 🤔]

They are slightly better at PR than they were in the 1990s, dunno about much else though.

Snark aside (and notwithstanding whatever detour this thread has taken into medieval European manuscript production), this is an example of something that's been clear for a while, which is that the contemporary Taliban is not particularly similar to the Taliban of the '90s. This Taliban has representatives posting on Twitter to express deep concern about economic disruption caused by civil unrest in important trading partner Kazakhstan. Searching the name of the Taliban spokesperson who issued that statement reveals that he is a former New Zealand resident without a documented family history of violence or extremism. Whereas the past Taliban was basically uninterested in governing aside from collecting rents from opium growers, this one appears to have the services of a large number of civil servants who accepted the obvious and went over. I don't think it makes a great deal of sense to look back at 1997 to form our expectations about what it will do.

[YPestis25]

What will they teach them though?

Probably reading and theology, expecting it to be a bit poorer that women's education in the Eastern Roman Empire 1 Millennia ago. So, on a positive note, they'll be better than Western Europe in Medieval times!

Sorry if this sounds particularly nitpicky, but "Medieval Europe" being as allegedly backwards as most see it to be, is more the product of people in the 16th century wanting to feel good about themselves than any objective historical fact.

Wouldn't want to break a leg though.

Of course. But then again, medical science has advanced immensely over the past 150 years. Probably wouldn't have wanted to break a leg during the (American) Civil War either.

I probably wouldn't want to break a leg now, either.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What will they teach them though?

Probably reading and theology, expecting it to be a bit poorer that women's education in the Eastern Roman Empire 1 Millennia ago. So, on a positive note, they'll be better than Western Europe in Medieval times!

Sorry if this sounds particularly nitpicky, but "Medieval Europe" being as allegedly backwards as most see it to be, is more the product of people in the 16th century wanting to feel good about themselves than any objective historical fact.

Wouldn't want to break a leg though.

Of course. But then again, medical science has advanced immensely over the past 150 years. Probably wouldn't have wanted to break a leg during the (American) Civil War either.

I probably wouldn't want to break a leg now, either.

Yes, but it's not quite...as bad...now that we have more ways to help the disabled. Wheelchairs, better prostethics, and so on...

[Omega21]

What will they teach them though?

Probably reading and theology, expecting it to be a bit poorer that women's education in the Eastern Roman Empire 1 Millennia ago. So, on a positive note, they'll be better than Western Europe in Medieval times!

Sorry if this sounds particularly nitpicky, but "Medieval Europe" being as allegedly backwards as most see it to be, is more the product of people in the 16th century wanting to feel good about themselves than any objective historical fact.

Not Europe, but Western Europe (important distinction, the West was in ruins while the East was publishing the basis of civil law), and I am mainly referring to the Dark Ages, i.e. early Medieval period.

The literacy rate in Western Europe in the Dark Ages was around 4% (down from 15-20% in the SPQR), while it remained 15-30% in the ERE, so yes, it was very much backwards relatively speaking.

Obviously towards the later Medieval Age, the already occurring shift towards science in the West coupled with the fleeing academics from the ERE, bringing with them Classical texts/Manuscripts which were long gone in the West resulted in a much different landscape compared to the early period.

I'm fairly sure that for some of that graph, that is measuring literacy in Latin, which was the  lingua franca of the Western European elite. Obviously peasants could not generally speak Latin or speak it much at all, but they could still read and write their vernacular - how else would they have been able to engage in the business of contracts or all the other things ordinary people need to do to engage in their trades? Or issued complaints to their liege about their lord when they saw fit? Et cetera.
A society where only 5% could read and write anything probably wouldn't be able to function.

I definitely get what you mean, I also have a hard time imagining a functioning society even where every 4th person is literate, and that was at the peak of Rome. Really crazy to think about from a modern perspective.

In general it depends on the exact area, but in total, the West was most certainly substantially worse  off than areas still ruled by remaining half of the Roman Empire. I found different figures, but all basically agree literacy collapsed at least 60-70%, which should put the best case scenario at around 7-8%. This is also true in the terms of academia, architecture, philosophy, and even things like women's rights, who could still independently own and manage property and sign contracts, since the ERE retained the original Roman laws, obviously in stark contrast to even the later Medieval Period of Western Christian Europe.

After the fall of Rome, in Britain everyone went illiterate within a generation and society collapsed to the point that coins stopped being used and people reverted to good ole bartering.

Italy had it substantially better, being ruled by the Ostrogoths, who swore to being a vassal of the ERE and didn't distance themselves that much from the old Roman identity. Plus, Justinian later retook half of the Western Empire, including Italy, which also likely boosted literacy & culture again.

Some of the drop in literacy/academia is likely also due to people returning to live on the land instead of in cities. Rome's population fell from about 1 Million to 50,000 when the Empire collapsed.  This was already a trend before the final collapse of the empire, with the once flourishing Roman middle class (formerly living in multi story apartments/Insulas) slowly dying out as the living standards deteriorated.

This was not the case in the East in the early Medieval period, with cities like Constantinople only starting to flourish. This was embodied by the insane architecture of buildings like the Hagia Sophia, the size of which would not be surpassed by any church in the West for another millennium after its completion.

Plus, in the West famines became more common, as there was no centralized entity to pull surplus food from provinces like Egypt to feed struggling areas.

All in all, if we count both East and West Europe, it was not that bad of a period, with the Romans/Greeks in the East taking over the torch of most advanced civilization during this time, and a lot of this work was passed back to the West to fuel the Renaissance when the East started falling to the Ottomans.

[All Along The Watchtower]

How positively 1950s Saudi Arabia of them!

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The Taliban get a lot of stressful torture in their lives that makes them crash into slumber. Given that inspiration is a big variable, and they may have been lacking of it, they'll send girls back to school as soon as possible, at their own pace...HONEST!