Hello and welcome to other Monak. The Oxford Middle East podcast, my name names put his focus.
And today I'm joined by Mike Rundell and Rose Johnson to discuss the dancing boys of Afghanistan.
He covered this phenomenon's parallels in Persian poetry. What questions it raises about sexuality?
Why is it so persistently certain sectors of society, country where women are hidden behind the burqa?
Young boys take their place dancing to men as female substitutes.
But Bachir Bazzi isn't just a bizarre form of entertainment. The boys are owned often and trapped in a cycle of sexual slavery and even murdered
young boys who'd been abducted by the police commanders and were used to seven safety.
Also, sex slaves raped by the.
What exactly how exactly you control these very conflicted values within the Taliban, and that is what the people that we have developed now,
a way to to move forward that will make Afghans responsible increasingly for their own future and for their own security.
We could have got it right, but we put the worst people straight back into power.
Rose, when when you started with the podcast,
you pitched the idea to me that we should once discuss the dancing boys of Afghanistan and that we should discuss both of those.
So would you do me a favour by explaining what it is?
Yeah. But Gervasi is a praksis, somewhere between prostitution and trafficking in Afghanistan, wherein young, vulnerable boys have children.
But specifically, boys are taken into these kind of dancing troupes where they dress up as women and they'll dance kind of private functions for
specifically for men who are of quite who are who are very rich and also often got their money from less than less than reputable ways.
And so there's a lot of dancing. They dress up as women. They wear makeup. They dance to traditional music.
But there's also a lot of sexual abuse that happens as well on the side, the kind of off the parties.
We thought that this be a really interesting topic to talk about because it ties together lots of different.
Facets that are less spoken about in Afghanistan because this culture of the better body,
which means some people translated as like boy play because bacha means like a child and Bosie,
some people translate its meaning game, but it also, some people think came from the root Boston,
which means to be can inflict afflicted with love for something and to be like entranced by it.
And this goes back to culturally this practise in 12 13th century Persian and Afghani poetry,
wherein you would have the beloved who is the objects of the kind of witness who will say right now, we'll go into this more bit later.
We can go into the history bit later because it is like a contemporary problem, I think we can call it.
But it does have, you know, calling it a history is going to be wrong.
But we're going to at least go into the historical context of it.
And we're sort of the inspiration might might come from.
It's not like a direct descendant of this really ancient practise.
It's very is a modern phenomenon.
But there is the reason why we're discussing that the history is not to justify some kind of modern cultural practise,
because it is just child abuse and trafficking.
It's not a beautiful art form. It's it's horrific.
But we began to discuss the cultural background to this practise in order to look at why child abuse has taken a specific form in Afghanistan,
rather than try to justify it because it has cultural similarities and sort of historical parallels.
But it is not necessarily there's no like a causal link link between the two, but there is definitely overlap in the background.
And we're talking about parallels, I think.
Yeah, it's really, really difficult to establish any sort of real causal link between the practise in Afghanistan today and any sort of practise,
similar practise in sort of ancient Iran. I think one way you can immediately see the link, though, is in the language.
So Showerhead Bosie, which is virtually synonymous with Bachi Bonzi or say Narz atomising,
all apparent premodern Persian poetry pacifically just talks about precisely this or talks
about a gazing on a beautiful young male and the beloved in this poetry can be a woman,
but it is very often as well a young a young man and or a young boy, rather.
And that at that time, unlike its manifestation in Afghanistan today and all of the horrible consequences of that, a little bit like, say,
the relationship between poet or philosopher and his disciple in ancient Greece, it is simply one of admiration and love for your pupil.
And I think reading a lot of this poetry in that sense does disconnect us from that,
like sort of the issues and does disconnect us from this abhorrent practise in Afghanistan.
But it is interesting to so think of it as a practise went by the same name.
So just to clarify that in the same terms exist in old poetry.
But the context in which it was used was very different. Is that correct?
Yeah, I think it's that there was something very, very positive and very, very beautiful to the relationship between a disciple and his master.
And I think just like in any in any context, in any era, say in the modern era with the relationship between disciple and guru.
And we have those two brilliant Netflix documentaries to point to. I forget the name of one of them, but the other one is that is Bikram and Howard.
Just unfortunately, when you have got a guru and you are a disciple to someone who you fully surrender yourself to, that can arise out of problems.
And we see that in various different countries, various different cultures and in various different eras.
Also, when we're discussing this, something that we have to be really careful about is to not look at it through this very Orientalists perspective.
A kind of an example that kind of came up quite recently was during lockdown.
The first lockdown there was a play I think was made in America called The Boy Who Don't Start on It.
And it was put online. And so it got a lot more viewers and got a lot of backlash.
Every highlights the kind of pitfalls that Western has fell into,
because not only were there no Afghanis actually involved in creating this play or actors in it, but was the play about?
So it's about Bachir Varzi. It's about a a boy who is a dancer and he has a I think he falls in love with another boy who is a dancer.
But people have criticised it for saying that the relationship between him and his kind
of master was overly romanticised rather than being shown as just straight up abuse,
which which it is. And lots of people got lots of Afghan ego really upset because this is a practise that has has damaged has hurt so many people.
And Western, as we're looking at it through this lens of it's this kind of beautiful native culture that is so like historical and beautiful.
And it really reflects how so often narratives about Afghanistan are told by foreigners, which is actually what I'm doing right now.
But yeah, that narratives are told by by foreigners, not by Afghanis, by foreign journalists in Afghanistan or or whatever,
but that we just need to have more spaces for Afghanis to tell their own personal experiences of this.
And yeah, I'm not justify it as some kind of indigenous art because it's not.
I think even just going back, I would add about the historical tradition of shorthaired Bosie, which then manifested itself in poetry.
It's so easy for us to sort of want to create all of these links between, say, Archibald's, you know, Khalistan today, raddest.
I think that was that was about that could be a promise and say between the poetry
of that time or to sort of reread the poetry in a sort of problematic way that,
say, people who engaged in such acts will also say we're also we're also gay.
And I think that has translated into a lot of homophobia in Iran.
Or Brosius said that it shouldn't be like romanticise to not see those looked out in the necessarily Western way.
But I think many Westerners would be very tempted to look at it in a very homosexual kind of perspective and say,
oh, it's a homosexual issue between the man and his and his servant. That is.
Is that actually the case? Yes. So that was another thing that people got really upset about was the idea that
this is the battered body was some kind of manifestation of queer culture.
A lot of queer Afghanis came out and condemned this because it really isn't.
I mean, firstly, it's just simply it's just not relevant or helpful to discuss really if the people who are doing this abuse are actually gay.
But also, you know, historically, there's a horrific pitfall where people conflate homosexuality with child abuse.
And it's been a way to justify the oppression of queer people throughout history.
You know, I think in the USSR it was. Sexuality was made illegal because it was conflated with paedophilia.
It has a lot of people have persecuted queer people out of fear that their abusers have children.
And then you see it in, you know, conservative organisations in the US as well, like Christina Asians.
I read a study that's had the paedophiles on actually more likely to be gay or straight, and they actually have no preference beyond age.
I just think seeing this is a manifestation of homosexuality is just playing into homophobic tropes that are used to oppress queer people.
And so it's not strictly relevant to discuss if they are actually.
How then does that square with what makes out earlier about looking on to the beloved?
Was that you? That was Max. I could I could add actually one thing to what Rosett said, which I do 100 percent agree with.
And it's just that, yeah, there's this precisely this.
If you took if you go back to the history of, say, even Shorthair to Bosnia at the time of ancient Iran,
it doesn't correspond to any modern definition we have or understanding in the west of homosexuality or paedophilia.
And the problem is, so many of our discussions are going from the beginning from that premise.
And I think that's the problem that then presents itself. Was not looking at them in the most accurate way possible.
But is it then the case that the relationship was lost between old literature?
I know an old poetry. Was that a very platonic relationship?
Very often it was. I think it was. There is this there is this sense in a lot of this ancient poetry,
which was also a lot of the time very mystical, had a sort of Sufi background and context to it,
where love and admiration for one's pupil, one's disciple, which was often a young boy because women weren't as present in society at that time,
was almost seen as being higher than that love for women.
And it's bringing us closer to bring us closer to true beloved, which in a lot of which in a lot of instances was God,
even if I think it's Dick Davis, would have us believe that Rumi wasn't wasn't a Muslim.
So that's the sort of truth we're playing around with. Yeah. I mean, I could try and give it my best shot at reading a couple of lines by Sayadi,
where he references this particular practise of shorthaired by Xue Nawzad about.
I'm apologising in advance to all Iranians. So I really don't know how to pronounce these words.
But anyways, I'll give my best shot. Hamid Bornand Commander sabs of Fat Dort.
I'm just natural. Do you get a haven subsidy? Several Euro for non Persian speakers.
Society loves the cross of the heart, as we all know. Unlike animals that just love the grass.
So the heart refers to which literally means line. But it's referring to sort of the most, Stosh.
That would be the sort of very faint moustache would be appearing on the face of a young beloved.
And there are other lines where Satyarthi sort of writes of engaging in this practise of shorthaired by.
But he also reflects on the limits of such passions to critiquing them when they turn into simply a
problematic manifestation of a carnal passion and one that I guess if we would see today as problematic.
But people were critical of essentially what I'm trying to say is that people then were also critical of
when those relationships became more than something simply beautiful and platonic and as sharing knowledge.
I think that is important, too, to concede, because otherwise we're trying to essentially say that all of Iran's ancient poets were paedophiles.
And I think that I don't think I would be a fairly radical decision to do something about it.
The erotic kind of imagery used in so much of this poetry, it's so masterful.
Well, some people would argue it's a metaphor. Would you agree with that argument?
Because I don't know anything about us. I don't know what to think. So tourism, Yorgos, is a few numbers.
Well, my Louis' experience, I think.
Yeah, I think it's not. Yeah. I think it tows the line. I think it's not literally referring to necessarily sleeping with young boys,
but I think it is playing off their cism that they would have experienced in their lives, certainly with their wives or or with other people.
But I don't I don't think they necessarily all writing about having sex with the police who worked in the courts.
I think it's a mixture perhaps of their own sexuality.
And that's kind of fun for the audience to enjoy. I mean, it's very useful.
I mean, everyone should read some some Roomi or so, and that is Hoffer's because they are phenomenal.
Yet in this metaphor, as everything is kind of a matter for really impassioned poetry and quite dense twisting,
turning, sometimes difficult to unpick metaphors. And so it's hard to say really what people are necessarily trying to talk about.
But it didn't say nothing about the fact that the line of the small little beating started, because people often use that for women as well, you see.
And a lot of pictures of women in the harem from the earliest pictures that we have of the harm in Iran.
A lot of women have moustaches. And it wasn't seen as ugly in the way that a lot of people now exclusively male.
In that case, yeah. Exactly. So the Hap's doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be a man,
but a facial hair is actually really important in this distinction between if it's okay to sexualise a boy or not,
because and you get this also in an ancient Greek and ancient Roman culture.
But you also get it in this kind of bacha bazi in the classical sense and in the
modern practise wherein some sexual desire isn't seen as a kind of binary of.
Homosexuality and heterosexuality. It's kind of like a spectrum and sexual desire is sexual desire, regardless of the gender.
And while certain acts like sodomy is like taboo and some people would see same sex and activity as irreligious,
the idea of homosexuality being a concrete entity is just this modern and it's not reasonably fit.
And sexuality is instead defined by active and passive roles.
And if you are playing a passive role during sex that is seen as humiliating and which is quite humiliating for women.
But it's also, if you are a grown man, humiliating. Whereas it's not humiliating if you're a boy.
And the mark of when it is unacceptable is when you kind of grow a moustache or bear.
It's like when you probably get facial hair. You hit puberty. That's when it starts becoming humiliating for you to be seen as being passive.
And and that's when it starts becoming much more culturally unacceptable in this very specific cultural context,
not generally throughout the whole country, but that kind of set for.
It's almost like it's not gay. As long as you haven't got a moustache, really like it.
Just before we move on to sort of other things, I think just going back to what Rose was saying earlier about how it is automatical.
I completely agree with that invasion perpetrated by a classical Persian poetry is so, so beautiful for that particular reason.
I would just add one more example of that, which is the sort of mystical aspect to it, which I mentioned before.
But I think it's also particularly important in the context of these relationship
when a poet like Rumi and his writing saying his eyes and which is a particular form
of Persian poetry and specifically used in in love poetry when he is writing about
trams Tabrizi or writing about these particular sort of or about NAS Arabize,
you'll shorthaired Bosie again as emblematic of an ideal and almost pure,
a form of love that doesn't have to border by any stretch imagination to anything more than simply being
platonic and an admiration for the beauty of a young boy that is emulating that is emulating God.
It's just the place is just a particularly important role in sort of Sufis for the mystical practise of trying to,
in one sense, get closer to the ultimate beloved that is God and in another sense, trying to almost.
And this is an idea that I'm particularly interested in, is essentially trying to reach a stage of an ego death either.
I've got the Persian word in front of me, but I'm not quite sure if this would be how you pronounce it.
But I think it's Fanaa in a Sufi practise, the sense of killing one's ego.
And this actually reminds me of a passage. What does a killing on CECO involve?
Is this a really good question?
I think it's almost you could almost look at it linguistically when you see and say Sufi literature, actually, or Buddhist literature.
I am say I am God. And I think it is that sense in which there is no longer any boundary, dualistic boundary between, say, you and the outside world.
That is something that I've read a little bit about in Buddhist philosophy, but also now in sort of Sufi mystical literature.
But I suppose in this case, are they and the targets of love which was achieved, that's a good.
Well, I think it's what what what I'm trying to I think what I'm trying to say is that this poetry
where they're expressing their love for the beloved is almost seen as it's a transitional phase.
It's bringing them that step closer.
Rumi by writing about Shamsi Tabrizi, who's, well, this is an example of a transgenerational same sex relationship.
But even you can use as an example, or I could say when somebody is writing specifically about Nesat,
about in shorthaired Buzzi, there is a sense in which they're trying to get as close as possible to God's true love.
And to do that, they get it right. Poetry about sort of about the beloved who's often tends to be male.
It's that sort of transitional phase that trying to use language to take you to something that is ineffable, which will always essentially fail.
But it's bringing you closer than if you were to not be writing that poetry in some sense.
At least that's how I've how I've read it. It's just sort of interesting to stop on.
I think I want to talk about women. If we can, because it is sort of the elephant in the room in this case that, you know,
we focus on the boys in this case because the women are present in this context.
Is. Is there a historical reason that women didn't play as big a role in the expression of love as as as boys?
I mean, it's not it's not really my area. I don't know that. I don't know much about it.
But I think women were historically more hidden away.
And I think there were definitely like female dancers and singers.
But I think at moments when perhaps the culture got more conservative, they went into the background a bit more on the less visible.
And I think at the moment, I think that is the case in Afghanistan, where women are still caught in the house.
And just to a larger extent, they're very hidden. So that's kind of the reason why these kind of gang leaders, these boxes that own all these boys.
Maybe that's the reason why they choose boys, because they wouldn't be able to publicly display their women for the same effect,
because using these having these boys is a form of demonstrating your wealth,
but also your kind of high status as you kind of linking yourself to this historical high culture, performance art of having boys dancing,
because it is a very public spectacle of having these boys dressed very elaborately dancing and singing.
And so it is a way to demonstrate your wealth. And so they need to be able to be seen.
Therefore, they have to be boys because you couldn't do it with girls.
That's a very good transition into sort of the modern context of that, because it happens now in Afghanistan.
And as anyone who's read the news knows, Afghanistan is not in a very good state at the moment.
And one reason the boys have stayed is because women are not allowed to be
seen in public and in such a way wearing these clothes and dancing like this.
But another reason is that simple and very sad fact that the boys, especially in Pashtun tribal areas in southern Afghanistan.
They are incredibly poor. After four decades of war, which means that by selling themselves into this situation,
they do become the breadwinners of the family, which, you know, is an incredibly sad state of being.
But that's where we are. There's a brilliant documentary that anyone who's listened to this, if the interest in learning more.
Does it bring documentary in some of the BBC to the dancing boys of Afghanistan in
that they follow a particular kind of warlord type character ratio is backgrounders.
And some of the boys that he has has in his group and you see him kind of pick up a new boy and
he literally just he sees a very young boy out on the street who is obviously very poor and kind
of takes him in and starts training him because it seems that this little dance school where
they have different kind of mentors of different boys who are kind of further up in the chain,
who teach him how to do this stuff and that the boy doesn't look very pleased with any of that.
It's clearly not his where he wanted to go.
But you also see this kind of harrowing moment where one of the older boys who is quite successful, he's getting to the age where,
you know, he's probably hitting puberty and he's getting too old to be a dancer because he's not turning into a man.
And so he he says how he wants to set up his own dancing group and he can kind of see how the cycle of trauma kind of repeats people.
Who is likely to abuse people who are abused go into helping perpetuate this abuse because it's the only skill set that they've got.
And yet they're there in their social situation now. And it's kind of hard to come back from that, really.
Yeah, I do think on what you'd just to add to what you said,
wrote about how boys who had been abused in this fashion then perpetuate this particular horrible practise.
It almost reminds you of how this wasn't always problematic in amongst sort of Sufis in the classical period.
I remember reading about how these relationships between Masters and the disciples would repeat over generations.
And as we now know, that would have been that could have been for the better.
That could also have been for the worse. And there is definitely something to be said about how these of these imbalanced
relationships premised on power can just lead to really problematic outcomes.
Also, I think just taking this back a little bit, too, also, you were saying about the boys acting out of a financial necessity,
but also on what we were saying about women's role in society.
I think I came across was of a particular Afghani soldier who said that with regard to this.
So this is under the Taliban. This is like with regards to taking regard this practise about you, Buzzy, he says you cannot take wives ever review.
You can you cannot take a wife with you to a party, for instance.
But a boy you can take anywhere, which I think is just such a harrowing and almost quite revealing statement.
But if it's very well, it's well, Rosa early and that, you know, the boys can be seen in public wildly, I suppose all the daughters cannot be collopy.
But also another thing which is quite, you know,
shed some light on the situation is the fact that 48 percent of the boys who are part of this are illiterate,
according to a study by the Afghani Human Rights Commission. What is possibly the most surprising is that 86 percent of the.
Of the pimps, I guess you can almost call them, claimed that their boys are happy,
but 81 percent of the boys surveyed claimed they are very unhappy and are forced into the situation.
And it is very much about power relations, so something we forgot to mention, which is also very important,
is that these pimps tend to have very close relationships with the security services.
And it's also something you see in that BBC documentary is that one of them brags about the fact
that he can have 100 policemen come to where he is within a few minutes because of his connexions.
And it basically shows that it's very, very difficult for the boys to do anything to solve the situation because the state,
quite literally is against them gaining their freedom of gaining the quality of life which they want to get.
Once they have fallen into this situation, I mean, just to add to that, actually.
I think I'm not wrong in saying that for a lot of these, I would go with pen.
I mean, it seems to have a specific connotation that doesn't quite fit this.
But also,
I think it's the most appropriate way to use their status in society is elevated by possessing or by owning as many boys as possible in a way that is,
I think, particularly unique to the situation in that it allows them to achieve a certain societal clout.
If I can put it, put it as such, and I think that is clearly an issue that I am not quite sure how.
I mean, grassroots organisations are even allowed to operate or if there was even any true opposition to this,
I even know how you'd begin to say tackle that particular facet,
which actually could be quite interesting to maybe talk about how war and Western intervention has actually helped perpetuate this particular problem,
has helped worsen this particular problem of that your body?
Yeah, no, that that's a good point, because, you know, Afghanistan has been at war since the late 70s when the Soviet Union invaded.
And then after that, the Taliban came to power in 1996 and.
You know, but Shabbos is legal now in 2020. Almost one in 21.
But it was also legal when the Taliban came to power.
But the problem was that when the Taliban took over the government, they completely neglected the social services and basic government functions,
which led to total societal collapse within within Afghanistan,
which has then created a whole host of problems, for example, the economics problems I mentioned earlier.
And much of the Afghanis economy is based on the informal sector.
And then when the Americans came in with their very noble intentions of getting rid
of the threat of the Taliban and improving the situation of women in in Afghanistan,
they did that often by replacing the Taliban with tribal leaders more than almost any other policy they have had in Afghanistan.
It probably shows their lack of prior research before they decided to go to war,
because a consistent problem was that the people who they would put in power,
the people they would make police commissioners, for example, these would be people from tribal background who would participate in Bashur policy.
And these then would become politically influential people.
And through those policies, the Americans have basically institutionalised to a certain extent.
But Shahbazian, even though they you know, obviously I don't think any American would go that it's a good policy.
They have prioritised that major strategic aims in Afghanistan over OKL humanitarian goals,
and that has caused extreme problems with with the acceptance many local Afghanis have of the American occupation,
because they have put these people to do something which is, you know, morally repugnant.
They've put those people into power and protect them only because they are pro-American.
There was also this case where a private military company,
in order to curry favour with their local counterparts, hired a teenage boy to dance at a party.
And when this was leaked by some activists in Afghanistan, the company didn't really do much about it.
The only thing they did was called into question the war, the management oversights,
which I think is the most extreme euphemism I've ever heard for participating in something which shouldn't be encouraged in any way shape.
And, you know, obviously, this is not a podcast for American bashing.
But I do think there has been like a total failure in that case of understanding how
local or how strategic objectives can be helped by doing a good job locally as well.
And it demonstrates how incompetence is just complicity.
How does corruption exacerbate is? Well, you know, it's something that touches on that a lot as well, that, you know,
these people tend to be fairly well connected to the security services.
And it is the case that in countries without strong institutions, the security services are the most powerful,
almost the government, because if you have the guns, people will do what you say.
So when if people can be bribed to look away or participate in the activities, then of course, they're not going to do anything about it.
And due to the total lack of functioning governments in Afghanistan and the fact that the Taliban is now resurging,
it is there is very little traditional room to deal with the problem,
because the only way you'd solve with it in the West through the lawsuits or that possibility simply doesn't exist in Afghanistan.
Sadly, I think for me. And it goes back to your seven years, which I think is a really, really, really good way of looking at a situation,
which is how in incompetence does translate into complicity in this particular instance.
But then there is the bigger question raised of which we most certainly cannot try an answer here,
which is how would one or how would an organisation,
perhaps a country with noble intentions, want to go about fixing this situation,
go about wanting to eradicate, let's say, specifically focus on the practise of bacha bars?
How would one even begin to undertake that within the plethora of problems that have been exacerbated, worsened and then made more problematic?
I think it's just. It's such a this is such a difficult question, and I think this.
I mean, sort of underpinning it all is, again, as we mentioned before,
how these boys are acting out of a financial necessity, how they are the breadwinners in their families,
and if there are no other way out for the people and as we've already talked about as well,
women are forced to stay at home and unable to work and and have not been emancipated.
In that sense. I it's very difficult to feel at all hopeful in this particular situation.
Max, I remember you said before that was that was the case enough in Pakistan.
Am I was here about to talk about how is Pakistan's policies towards emancipating women?
Because this practise about your body, which to some extent had roots in the Persian Empire.
Having said that, as far was to to a large extent eradicated by emancipating women, which I thought was interesting.
I mean, it definitely Calley's contributed to, I don't know the degree of causality,
but emancipating women definitely had a positive impact on eradicating that practise and a very staunch opposition to by the government,
which as we've already established. Is it a possibility in modern day Afghanistan?
The problem, I think in the Pakistan case, and this goes back to what you were saying, Rose,
and what I touched upon when we were talking about homosocial relations relationships in ancient Greece will be in Rome, will be in Persia,
is how the Soviet Union and specifically in this case Pakistan,
have always been very quick to just see a practise with such transgenerational relationships,
is as homosexual and then very quickly to designate them as human and to be homophobic in that way.
Designate anybody who would have engaged in such acts as paedophilic, which is not entirely wrong.
But again, it's allowed, unfortunately,
homophobia to perpetuate in Eastern Europe and in Central Asia and in these countries in a way that is very, very unfortunate.
Even if they have helped eradicate this purpose, this practise of Bacha Bisi, by emancipating that women to a greater extent than Afghanistan,
I would add, I mean, to be difficult to do worse to the worst job in Afghanistan at the moment, despite all the problems that are there.
But as in another problem is that, you know, if you're trying to solve it,
either the boys or the pimps or both, you know, they get isolated socially because of what to do,
because despite how prevalent it can sometimes seem in Afghanistan, it's not something which the whole country thinks is acceptable.
It's seen as negative. It's seen as a negative thing to participate in this.
The problem is, as we mentioned earlier, that when a person or when a boy has taken part in it,
there's often a lot of shame involved and they don't want to re-enter society and have it be known that they have have been a but supposedly,
which creates a problematic situation where once, you know, by by trying to do something about it, you give it more attention.
But by giving it more attention to the results of this, people are socially isolated,
which forces them to stay within their very problematic social and economic context.
There is basically no solution to it other than creating the foundation suffocates society within within Afghanistan.
And that's something I think Western, though, should not try to do at the moment after the fairly poor track record Western countries have in Iraq,
in Libya and Afghanistan and wherever else will have been active in the last two or three decades.
Are there any great grassroots organisations that are helping at the moment?
What's currently being done? You know, there is a bit.
But as as I mentioned earlier,
the fact that the legal and political situation in Afghanistan is not conducive to free speech or challenging the powers that be.
So there is more activism in Afghanistan, which tends to focus on socio economic problems.
And I do think that's a good thing, because we if you solve the socio economic problems,
you also remove the very first background where these boys can be found due to a lack of economic possibilities.
And these access tend to transcend ethnic and religious lines in order to develop a better future, which I think is encouraging.
But obviously, there's a huge amount of interest through institutional inertia to deal with before any changes can be made.
And the activists which are involved in trying to uncover suppose supposedly they.
To what might be one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, because all of them get death threats for their work.
And there was a case relatively recently where two activists had found videos of this happening in a Facebook group
that published them so that more people could see that they were then taken into protective custody by the police,
which sounds good until in that protective custody.
They were forced to make a video where they were so recanting their statements and they were saying that the videos to had were doctored.
And it's obviously that they did this under duress and under the threat of torture, severe physical abuse.
And it just shows how deep the problem is.
And I do think that the best chance is not necessarily to treat lots of try to solve
Buster Posey on its own because it cannot be taken out of its socio economic context.
I think also it actually reminds me of.
And there was this interesting article that talked about this Navy reporting in Chechnya and the difficulties that she faced.
And she was actually an economy, her name, but she was unfortunately shot during this particular work.
But I think the one of those sort of horrible things that she uncovered when reporting on both wars and Russia's involvement in Chechnya.
And the reason why I think it's relevant here is just how official government forces and you've mentioned the police here.
We've talked about influential tribal leaders and to some extent other high ranking officials, how they keep perpetuating this particular problem.
We mentioned that the Batchelor's out of the Batchelor's have to, unfortunately, act out of some sort of financial necessity.
But from the moment that the government institutions are corrupt, to that extent,
there's just no real possibility for change until those government institutions, I guess, are no longer as corrupt.
And I guess that's the perennial question of how do you go about ameliorating such institutions or changing them,
deposing them in a so successful way in a way that empowers the people in those countries.
And it's so difficult. Think about at least I guess to some extent, even by talking about this particular issue,
which I had known very, very little about, had almost never even heard of before.
Various have mentioned it to me by just raising awareness of problems, you can in some way shape what you can in some way,
shape the dialogue and a discussion that can sometimes lead to action. So I guess that could be something to be somewhat hopeful about.
But again, it's it's it's it's a glimmer. It's a very sad day. It's a faint glimmer of hope.
And war is one of those sort of most barbaric and horrific things, horrific situations I've had to read about.
I can finish the episode, but seeing probably with the most horrific thing,
I it's all my research on this, and that is the role the better bosses have in the Taliban.
Because as as we mentioned earlier, the Taliban had outlawed such a policy.
But after the American invasion, I think the rules went out of the window for them.
What they do is that they recruit these these boys who are desperate for money.
And the Taliban then uses these boys, in effect, as Trojan horses to infiltrate police stations because as we've mentioned,
how this phenomena is very prevalent amongst the security services.
And what the deal basically, as I said, these boys and have to sleep with these policemen.
And at night when everybody's sleeping, the boys have to open the door, let the Taliban in, and the Taliban will then kill these policemen.
And apparently hundreds of soldiers and policemen have have died this way.
The absolute insanity of this whole situation is that these boys are often abused and that makes them an easy recruitment target for the Taliban.
And that allows this whole process to happen.
On the other hand, the police has gone completely morally bankrupt and threatens boys who are not affiliated with the Taliban.
Policemen will say that they are affiliated with the Taliban and say if if you run away from us,
we'll tell everyone you're a Taliban affiliate and then we'll kill you.
And because of that, the basically forces, the boys who are not Taliban affiliated to stay with the policemen.
Kind of one of the worst things I've had in a really long time. Yes, completely hopeless.
There was a police sorry,
an activist in Afghanistan who said that the Taliban have figured out the biggest weakness of the police forces is a bunch of Bozie.
If the situation for this was could be any worse. I do know I cannot imagine how that would be adopted.
This story is sort of so horrifying, I think, by virtue of now being used as almost weapons of war in some sense,
as opposed to just as if their lives hadn't been bad enough by being engaged in this self-perpetuating,
vicious cycle of what is essentially prostitution. Now they're being you have got a bonding exercise neverthought improving that that position.
It's it's ah, it's horrific. Thank you for listening to this episode of Almanack.
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