Friday, 21 July 2023
Photo: Mohammad Rahmani/Unsplash

I'd like to suggest a new law. I'd call it Ellwood's Law. It would be similar to Goodwin's Law (where you lose the argument the second you mention the Holocaust) except with this law you'd lose the argument the second you say a government did something good and so we should ignore the bad. It's an argument oft employed for China (yes the CCP have overseen large-scale poverty reduction, yes there has been significant infrastructure investment under the CCP, but...). The argument got its greatest champion this week in the form of the British politician Tobias Ellwood. 

A quick recap for those who might have missed the story: A few days ago Ellwood, a senior Conservative MP, tweeted that Afghanistan was a "country transformed" following a recent visit. His tweet, accompanied by a video, also called for the UK to re-engage with the Taliban government and, in a patronising swipe at womankind, said "shouting from afar will not improve women's rights". There is a lot to unpick with Ellwood's tweet and many have done an excellent job of it. The BBC, for example, fact-checked his points and found them lacking. On the flipside, it wasn't all bad. As the editor at Index, it'll probably come as no surprise that I believe it's usually better to have a degree of dialogue, even with your enemies, than none, so yes the UK might want to re-engage. 

But the idea underpinning his tweet is that if the Taliban have improved some people's lives then maybe they are not that bad and we're all wrong? Park your criticism guys because the roads run smoothly! 

It's such a frustrating argument and feeds straight into the hands of authoritarians, who love an airbrushed version of their leadership, rally those who are willing to provide it and go after those who don't.

Looping back to China, earlier this week I was chatting with the China expert Andrew Phelan. Phelan has been the subject of many personal and brazen attacks due to his criticism of the CCP. And yet he doesn't always criticise them. He'll praise them as and when because ultimately reality is messy, the truth nuanced, blah blah. It doesn't need to be either/or. Ellwood should have been more Phelan, using his large platform to highlight positives without in the same breath diminishing the increasingly desperate experience of others in Afghanistan. 

On that note, last night, Index hosted an event in aid of Afghan journalists, many of whom are in a terrible situation, as you can read here. Those on the panel - Afghan journalists Zahra Joya and Sana Safi and Emma Graham-Harrison, who has reported from there for the Guardian and Observer - were asked about Ellwood's comments and all just sighed. Graham-Harrison added that when she visits Afghanistan (which she's done post-Taliban takeover) she has an insight Ellwood might lack. As a woman, she's told where she can go and who she can and should go with. She said she's seen several videos on social media portraying Afghanistan improving under the Taliban (shops reopened on calm streets - that kind of thing), only these videos (typically posted by men) are absent of women. In short, Afghanistan might be getting better assuming you're a) male b) content going to the park without your wife/mother/daughter/sister/female friend and c) many other caveats. Safi, who reports on Afghanistan for the BBC, went as far as saying Afghan girls might actually be the worst off in the world because of the way they are now being locked out of formal education (in North Korea girls can still go to school after all). But maybe us women should all just stop shouting about this from afar? Or maybe Ellwood lost the argument the second he implied positives negate negatives?

Jemimah Steinfeld, editor-in-chief

NB Ellwood has since profusely apologised and deleted the tweet. 

Pakistan's Ahmadi Muslims fighting to protect minarets

The Aqsa Mosque in Rabwah is largest Ahmadiyya mosque in Pakistan. Photo: Ceddyfresse

In a flagrant assault on religious freedom, police in Pakistan have called for the demolition of minarets where the Ahmadiyya Muslim community gather to worship. Some are fighting back, and being arrested. Zofeen Ebrahim, a freelance journalist based in Karachi, reports.

From the archive

Music to Yemen's ears
by Laura Silvia Battaglia
Winter 2019

With BBC Proms season upon us, read this article from a few years back about a new orchestra in Yemen, who are bravely playing music in an otherwise quiet landscape and providing a refuge for women.
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