lamic Religious and Gender Apartheid: The Murder of a Christian Woman in Kabul.

When a woman friend of mine recently called to tell me that she had been offered a well paid position in Afghanistan I told her not to go. When she insisted, I said: “Alright then, you’d better get a gun, learn how to use it, and get psychologically prepared to shoot yourself in case you are captured but not instantly killed.” She was shocked, shocked. And so I continued: “But you might be easily disarmed. Better have a dentist implant a cyanide tablet, (or something more merciful), in your teeth so that you can opt out of the repeated rapes or the video-ed be-heading.” Now, she was silent and listening carefully. I continued. “You may not be held for ransom, so if you absolutely must go, I would request that your do-gooder work be carried out entirely within an American Army base-but please understand, they, too, have been successfully attacked.”

I, who once traveled everywhere, including to Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Uzbeck Republic, would not dream of going to these countries again. Not in these savage times. My long-time dreams of visiting Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, etc., have been permanently put on hold. I will visit these places in books and paintings and in friendships with those who have either chosen exile over tyranny or who can visit me here…Continue reading on Chesler Chronicles >>