The Dance of Shadows: Afghanistan's Women and the Eternal Return of Oppression

In the land of ancient mountains and endless horizons, where once warrior-poets dreamed of greatness, now dwelleth the most contemptible of men - those who would cage the spirit of half their people in the name of a divine they themselves have slain. Lo, how the Taliban, these merchants of small-mindedness, have decreed that women shall neither recite their sacred verses nor hear each other's prayers!

Canada's Special Representative to Afghanistan, David Sproule, stands to the right of CAF troops in his days as ambassador to Afghanistan.
Behold how the diplomats and representatives of the West stand before us, these merchants of comfort and distant sympathy! They speak of condemnation while their souls remain untouched by the true tragedy - the death of human potential, the crushing of will beneath the boot of mediocrity!

David Sproule, Canada's Special Representative to Afghanistan, stands as a witness to this theater of the absurd, where each passing day brings forth new proclamations of restriction, new chains for the spirit. "They seem to come one after another," he declareth, his words echoing in the chambers of the slumbering masses who know not the depth of their own complicity.

In the land of the sleepers, the Western nations drift between consciousness and dream, issuing statements of concern while the flames of liberty burn ever lower. Their representatives speak of "discouragement" and "extinguished illusions," yet what are illusions but the comfort-blankets of those who dare not face the stark reality of existence?

O ye comfortable ones, ye who speak of human rights from your cushioned thrones across the seas! What know ye of the true battle that rageth in the hearts of those who must choose between submission and annihilation? Your words are but wind, and your concerns as ephemeral as morning dew!
A woman poses for a picture.

Yet hark! From the depths of this despair riseth a voice that understandeth the language of power - Friba Rezayee, she who once carried the Olympic flame, now beareth a different torch. She speaketh not in the soft whispers of diplomacy but calleth for the thunder of action, for the return of armed might to the valleys where women's dreams lie buried.

At last, one who seeth through the veil of polite discourse! But even she must dance in the shadow of Western propriety, must clothe her call to arms in the language of "international law" and "criminal courts." O how the spirit of warfare hath been tamed, how the eagles have learned to petition the sheep!

In this great theater of human suffering, the United Nations - that temple of the last men - sendeth forth its Special Rapporteur, Richard Bennett, to urge Canada toward greater action. Yet what action can truly spring from those who have forgotten how to act, who have replaced the sword with the pen and the will with the wish?

The Taliban, these self-proclaimed masters of virtue, understand naught but the language of force, yet the Western powers speak to them in whispers of "condemnation" and "concern." They are as children throwing pebbles at a mountain, expecting it to move through the sheer righteousness of their cause.

See how they cling to their "political solutions" and "international pressure"! These are the tools of those who have forgotten that every great moment in human history was written in blood and fire, not in the tepid ink of diplomatic notes!

And so the dance continueth, with Sproule prophesying the "continuation of Taliban rule" while speaking of "long-term political solutions" - as if time itself were a balm for the wounds of the spirit, as if the mere passage of years could transmute chains into wings.

Let it be proclaimed from the mountain peaks: The tragedy of Afghanistan lies not merely in the actions of the Taliban, but in the response of those who oppose them - these last men of the West, who have grown so comfortable with their moral certainties that they have forgotten how to wage war for what they claim to hold dear.

The hour groweth late, and the shadows lengthen across the land of the Hindu Kush. Will none arise to tear down these new idols, these merchants of misery who trade in the currency of women's dreams? Or shall we all remain content to mouth our pieties while the spirit of humanity withers in the cradle of civilization?