Taliban ready to lift ban on girls' schools, says minister

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

The Taliban's leadership is prepared to drop its ban on girls' schools, one of Afghanistan's most influential cabinet ministers has claimed.

According to Farooq Wardak, the country's education minister, the movement has decided to scrap the ban on female education that helped earn the movement worldwide infamy in the 1990s.

Wardak said the Taliban's leadership had undergone a profound change since losing power after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

"It is attitudinal change, it is behavioural change, it is cultural change," he told the Times Educational Supplement.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/13/taliban-lift-ban-girls-schools

[brooklynite]

1. Let's party like its 1299 !

Seriously, isn't is amazing how Godly commandmants can be chucked out when they become politically inconvenient.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. If this happens, it would be a very good thing.

It would certainly do a lot to help their long-term prospects.

And I mean both the Taliban and the women who have suffered under this regime.

We shall see...

[Arkansas Granny]

12. Absolutely. The entire country would benefit from such a policy.

[xchrom]

3. well -- we will see. nt

[WhiteTara]

4. I wonder if Greg Mortenson played any role

in the change in their thinking? He has been in the region for a very long time and it could have some influence in Afghanistan.

[kentauros]

11. He is one of the biggest creators of peace in that region

(if not the biggest.)
I would not doubt it in the least that his work had some influence :)

And I strongly recommend the other posters on this thread read his books, "Three Cups of Tea" and "Stones Into Schools" to get an idea of why this one man is so important to building peace in that area of the world.

[WhiteTara]

13. Oh goodie! Another book by him!

I didn't read "Stones into Schools" and now it's on my reading list!
Thanks!

[kentauros]

14. It's basically the sequel to "Three Cups of Tea"

It's on my reading list, too, though I have the book already, just haven't started reading yet. I think I'll pull it out this evening and start :)

[woo me with science]

5. I wanna see their proposed curriculum first. nt

[CLANG]

6. But if a girl doesn't cover up right are they still going to mutilate them?

[Ian David]

7. Girls will be allowed to attend school, so long as their father sits next to them? n/t

[defendandprotect]

8. Medieval Ages actually beginning to show some cracks ... ???

[Robb]

9. Credit to Farooq Wardak, he's dogged on reconciliation, I'll give him that.

[Uncle Joe]

10. That is good news.

Thanks for the thread, alp.

[duhneece]

15. Good news is so appreciated! nt

[MH1]

17. What you said.

[chelsea0011]

16. That's very 21st century of them

[bhikkhu]

18. Afghan Taliban 'end opposition to educating girls'

Source: BBC News

Mr Wardak made his comments while in London for the Education World Forum.

He told the TES: "What I am hearing at the very upper policy level of the Taliban is that they are no more opposing education and also girls' education.

"I hope, Inshallah (God willing), soon there will be a peaceful negotiation, a meaningful negotiation with our own opposition and that will not compromise at all the basic human rights and basic principles which have been guiding us to provide quality and balanced education to our people," he added.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12188517

---

...while there are certainly grounds for skepticism, this is the best news I've heard in a long time. I've always felt that eliminating the Taliban would amount to virtual genocide in many parts of Afghanistan, but as long as they opposed education there was no way forward and no way out of the war. A well educated populace is one that can lift itself out of the past under its own direction, and see a new generation end the decades of war. There's the beginning of a hope at least.

[TheMadMonk]

19. Actual genocide and not just in Afghanistan.

The Taliban are at least as much a People as a religious sect.

[DragonSlave]

20. looks like all the bombs we dropped knocked some sense into them

I'm being sarcastic...

[No Elephants]

21. Not optimistic about females, not even a little.