Taliban Calling
The extremist regime wants tourists. Why shouldn't it? It's part of the normalisation of brutality
Kim Jong Un last month posed on a beach, surfing on the 'wave of happiness' that North Korea's Dear Leader has promised tourists visiting the newly developed Wonsan Kalma coastal tourist zone. The dictator wants more international tourists. So far, small Russian groups are the only package deal North Korea receives. This month, it's Taliban's turn to invite tourists to Afghanistan. Wonsan Kalma and Afghanistan are beautiful places. But they are not on tourists maps for good reason.
Taliban's ad is made by a tour operator. It starts with a familiar chilling scene of beheadings: men, heads covered, kneeling in front of gun-wielding, presumably, Afghans. Only here, the headcover is yanked off to reveal a grinny White male flashing a thumbs-up sign. A flower tucked in the barrel of a machine gun, a close-up of an M4 rifle with 'property of US govt' etched, the 50-second ad flits between making light of Taliban as people who terrorised to stunning footage of Afghanistan. It is as extraordinarily tone-deaf as many of Trump's Truth Social posts.
Taliban meanwhile is intensifying its war against Afghan women. Banned from work and education, they're publicly flogged, refused healthcare unless a male relative's present, and their movement is fully restricted. Heavily sanctioned Taliban wants tourists to earn some hard cash. But to make a beheading scene part of a promotion targeted at Americans is a cold measure of how normalised brutality is. Will Americans go, though their govt says don't? Undoubtedly. Indifference to violence is global culture, the unthinkable is routinely normalised. So, for a certain section, what could thrill more than swinging an M4 or Kalashnikov at Afghanistan's majestic peaks? Reality and rights & wrongs can take a vacation.
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This piece appeared as an editorial opinion in the print edition of The Times of India.
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