Diemazz

An editor has expressed concern that this article may be documenting a neologism. This new term needs more reliable sources.

Talibanization (or Talibanisation) is a neologism coined following the rise of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan referring to the process were other religious groups or movements come to follow or imitate the strict practices of the Taliban. In its original usage, Talibanization referred to groups who followed Taliban practices such as:

• usually strict regulation of women, including forbidding of most employment or schooling for women;
• the banning of long lists of activities generally tolerated by other Muslims -- movies, television, videos, music, dancing, hanging pictures in homes, clapping during sports events;
• the banning of activities (especially hairstyles and clothing) generally tolerated by other Muslims on the grounds that the activities are Western;
• oppression of Shia, including takfir threats that they convert to Sunni Islam or be prepared to be killed;
• aggressive enforcement of its regulations, particularly the use of armed "religious police";
• the destruction of non-Muslim artifacts, especially carvings and statues such as Buddhas of Bamyan, generally tolerated by other Muslims, on the grounds that the artifacts are idolatrous or Shirk (polytheism)
• harboring of Al Qaeda or other Islamic militia operatives;
• a discriminatory attitude towards non-Muslims such as sumptuary laws against Afghan Hindus the Taliban regime enacted, requiring them to wear yellow badges, a practice that reminded some of Nazi Germany's anti-Semitic policies^[1].^[2][3]

The term pre-dates the Islamic terrorist attacks of 9/11. It was first used to describe areas or groups outside of Afghanistan which came under the influence of the Taliban, such as the areas of Waziristan in Pakistan^[4],^[5][6] or situations analogous to the Taliban-Al-Qaeda relationship, such as the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) in Somalia and its harboring of Al Qaeda members,^{[citation needed]} or similar harboring of Islamic extremists in Nigeria,^[7] Malaysia,^[8] or Kashmir^[9] and elsewhere around the world, such as Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the current regime of the country, has been accused of "Talibanizing" the country, especially in their persecution of the Hindu minority^[10][1][2].

In 1998 Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid described groups "along the Pashtun belt" who were banning TV and videos, imposing Sharia punishments "such as stoning and amputation in defiance of the legal system, killing Pakistani Shia and forcing people, particularly women to adapt to the Taliban dress code and way of life."^[11]

In December 1998 the Tehrik-i-Tuleba or Movement of Taliban in the Orakzai Agency ignored Pakistan’s legal process and publicly executed a murderer in front of 2000 spectators Taliban-style. They also promised to implement Taliban-style justice and ban TV, music and videos^[12]

In Quetta, Pashtun pro-Taliban groups "burned down cinema houses, shot video shop owners, smashed satellite dishes and drove women off the streets".^[13]

In Kashmir Afghan Arabs from Afghanistan attempted to impose a "Wahhabi style dress code" banning jeans and jackets. "On 15 February 1999, they shot and wounded three Kashmiri cable television operators for relaying Western satellite broadcasts."^[14]

The term was used in a Boston Globe editorial published on November 6, 1999, warning of the emerging threat of the Taliban regime almost two years before the attacks of September 11, 2001.^[15]

Reference to non-Muslims

The term is also used non-literally, and is applied to non-Islamic bodies and organizations by those who allege them to hold "repressive policies" based on their respective religions.

In addition, members of the left in the United States often use it as a political attack against the Republican Party and the Christian Right in their allegations of the right wing implementing policies based on Fundamentalist Christianity.^[16]

Sometimes, different analogous neologisms are used by the accusers, such as allegations of "saffronization" used to describe or critique right-wing policies related to Hindu nationalism^[17] or as a slur used by far left^[18][19] and anti-Hindu groups.^[20][21] Radicalized Muslims often exploit the resonance with this term to attack Hindu Nationalists as Kaffirs (infidels) and "Hindu Talibs".^[22] The term has also been used to denote Sikh Extremism (Khalistan)[3]^[23]

Like any highly politicized term, it may also be used hyperbolically or in an alarmist manner, to make a slippery slope argument, such as in the invocation of the phrase "Talibanization of Bradford" to discuss a gamut of common racial problems and tensions which fall far short of the imposition of sharia law and terrorist attacks.^[24] It may also be applied unfairly by those who do not understand Islamic culture and the basis of sharia law, or who fail to distinguish between moderate Islamic and extremist Islamist states, or misapplied to perceived threats which are not true or have yet to be proven.^[25]

See also

• Al-Qaedaism
• Islamofascism
• Puritan

References

Site Map: RSS 2.0

Recent Searches: Talibanization
Florent
David W Dickinson
Java Web Start
1915 in film
Ella Shohat
Central Province, Sri Lanka
exchange music
Suttree
First appearance

Related Pages: