Afghanistan Watch: On vice and virtue

November 15, 2006

On vice and virtue

The BBC reported yesterday that "Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has passed a bill setting up a Taliban-style department under a cleric to enforce Islamic morality." The provincial governor cannot veto it a second time, though it may face a challenge by the Supreme Court. In any case, the impact is unclear since "the wording of the bill has been deliberately left vague and therefore open to different interpretations."

The NWFP move comes several months after Afghanistan's cabinet approved the Ministry of Vice and Virtue--albeit in a very different form from that the existed under the Taliban. As one source puts it, the Ministry may well be an attempt to "walk the tightrope between the turban and the Armani suit" by offering an escape valve for Afghan anger toward imported vices...Read on for an excerpt from an article by Aunohita Mojumdar...

The department, the Minister said in an exclusive interview, was set up by President Karzai on the urging of people from rural areas as well as the Ulema Councils of the various provinces. "We ourselves felt immorality in society was on the increase. More and more sex workers were being arrested and alcohol was being seized by the Interior Ministry police. This is worrying and we are concerned about the people."

A task force under the Ministry of Interior already exists to "combat immorality". Set up in January 2005, the task force has since cracked down on alcohol consumption and prostitution, carrying out raids and affecting arrests. Both prostitution and alcohol are banned under Afghanistan's Constitution. However, a unwritten code "allows"
foreigners to consume alcohol and it is served in restaurants frequented by them. In recent months however, alcohol, or at least beer, is also being sold openly in street corners.

In February this year the Upper House of Afghanistan's Parliament expressed grave concern at what it called rampant moral vices in Afghanistan - the widespread use of alcohol, prostitution and other social and moral evils.

...Moulvi Qasim fights shy of saying whether Western lifestyles are the reason for the reactivation of the department. While stating that all foreigners are bound by the laws of the land, he however insists that the department's activities will have an impact on Afghans "so that they do not accept anything that is against the culture of Afghanistan."...

While the E.U. and U.N. have been cautious, there are those in the international community who actually feel that the move to set up the department is a good one as it would deflect the pressure from conservative sections of the community. An aid worker who has spent more than a decade working on and in Afghanistan wondered what the
fuss was all about. The expatriate lifestyles, he said, had created some consternation and the pendulum was now swinging back. The aid worker, who did not want to be named, said the current government had always had to "walk the tightrope between the turban and the Armani suit" and this move (to reactivate the Department of Vice and Virtue) might be an instrument that would help it do that, acting as a pressure valve for conservative opinions and pressures.

Deputy Minister Qasim denies that the move was meant to address concerns about the current government's un-Islamic character but admitted that it would help improve the government's image. "The government will be strengthened if people see the government working to spread the message of Islam and morality. That will improve the picture of the government in the eyes of the people."

An Afghan youth who is critical of the international community's role in his country however felt the government had probably backed down from what it may have planned earlier following international pressure. "I see nothing new in this move. Maybe they got scared and diluted their earlier plans."