DOKUSHA

Interesting juxtaposition in yesterday’s New York Times: an article about young Germans choosing to live under Sharia law in Waziristan and an article about young Afghan women worried that the return of the Taliban will mean an end to their freedom.

What symptom of modernity is it that causes young women to choose to live a life of medievally circumscribed freedom and servitude to their husbands? It would also be interesting to see how the young German women leaving Germany for Waziristan would react to Afghan women’s fear of the Taliban. What would one of these young German women say to the young Afghan woman? We know exactly what the Afghan woman would say to the German, of course: “you’re out of your mind!”