The problem is that Enlightenment thinking seems to have got caught in an ethical cul-de-sac. How is it that a belief in equality makes us superior?

And the analogy of enlightenment = lightness & faith = darkness reinforces the sort of supremacist twaddle typified in White Man’s Burden, i.e. we rational Europeans must save the savages! Or at the very least, nick their produce & teach them cricket (& then accuse them of cheating when they win).

Back to Berker Band, Afgan women’s rights only mattered to western liberals when the Taliban refused to acquiesce to American interests in 2001. No one gave a rat’s arce about them before. In the same way as nobody particular cared about the homosexuals of Iran until Ahmadinejad started enriching his uranium. It is this pernicious brand of neo-conservatism gift wrapped as Humanism that is so leathal.

“- It was a lot of fun, but also very scary. Afghanistan is still a very dangerous place for modern women, and when we shot the video we had to do it very discreetely because no one could know that we were playing music, says Nargiz.” And they wear the burka not only in self-mocking irony but also because it protets their identity from the fundamentalists! My point precisely I think!