“KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Insurgents beheaded 17 civilians in a Taliban-controlled area of southern Afghanistan, apparently because they attended a dance party that flouted the extreme brand of Islam embraced by the militants, officials said Monday.”
I don’t think it’s an Islam thing. It’s just the Afghan version of extreme conservatism. Unfortunately, these guys all have guns and live in a virtually lawless society. This is basically the plot of “Footloose”, except that the kids all get murdered.
Nope, Afghanistan’s culture has both dance and music as a big part of it. Pretty much every culture in South Asia has some form of dance. Many of these Taliban edicts are aimed at parts of their own culture deemed “impure”.
These attacks are motivated by political ambition, religion is just used as the justification and as an ideology to support recruitment. It the violent manifestations of the same type of behaviour as displayed in the gay marriage/evolution debates and much of the hatefilled rhetoric preached by christians in the United States. People are just going to do what they want and point to their religious beliefs as a justification. Its a major reason why despite my name I avoid blindly adhering to religious doctrine because there are so many different ways of interpretating it. Due to the ambigiuty its easy for leaders to manipulate an ignorant and uneducated populace by using religion as a justification.