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Bill Heath's avatar

I believe this is one of your most important posts. It tests the limits of liberal thought and tolerance. The existence of a Taliban archive is important, regardless of what one may think of the group. The contrast with the ongoing attempt to destroy US history is stark. Thank you for bringing this to light; I know none of it.

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Kathleen McCook's avatar

I found "The Taliban Reader" online. The same people that did the poetry anthology pulled together the reader from websites and newspapers which aren't (that I could find) archived anywhere. They got a lot of push back for doing these. I read enough to realize that they believe what they believe and understanding that is important. I do think they have twitter accounts so there's that.

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Erin E.'s avatar

I recently read Walking to Samarkand. Bernard Ollivier walked across Iran and Turkmenistan in the year 2000. He encountered the mullahs but also many people who didn’t want religious rule. He commented on how poetry was revered in the region.

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Kathleen McCook's avatar

Thank you. I will follow up. I love book recommendations more than anything.

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Erin E.'s avatar

It’s actually the middle in a trilogy. I got it for $1.99 on kindle through BookBub. Then I got the first one on sale for $1.99. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the last one to go on sale too 😂

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Kathleen McCook's avatar

When 9/11 happened I did what I do which is go to the library for fiction about the area. A university library. They had almost no books about the ME except lots of copies of Kahil Gabran and some of Naguib Mahfouz. When Khaled Hosseini wrote Kite Runner in 2003 we finally had some fiction that illuminated the region. The he did A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) and And the Mountains Echoed (2013). I expect he will be at work on the current refugee crisis. We just do not have much to read that lends insight so I am glad to learn about Bernard Ollivier. I like to start with novels.

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Erin E.'s avatar

He's a Frenchman, and that also adds an interesting twist to his perspective and theirs of him. I read Kite Runner but not the other two. But Olivier talks about major cities/civilizations like Merv, which I'd never even heard of before.

I'm also reading The Mauritanian. Again, I didn't even realize there was an African country called Mauritania (yikes!). It's difficult to read, but remarkable.

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Kathleen McCook's avatar

I think the French (maybe because it's not our language) don't have full push back on French Indo-China the way we do from our time there. Because the USSR closed much of central Asia for so many years we have to start over to learn. The Maghreb is what I knew of Mauritania and yes, I couldn't say much more.

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