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Thanks to peace, two unexpected words are echoing across Afghanistan’s capital: Luxury housing (apnews.com)

submitted 20 hours ago by FlashMobOfOne to c/world

19 comments fedilink hide all child comments

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — In a town that has been through it all and is clawing its way back, a man named Omidullah is looking to hit paydirt.

The Kabul real estate agent is selling a nine-bedroom, nine-bath, white-and-gold villa in the Afghan capital. On the roof’s gable, glittering Arabic script tempts buyers and brokers with the word “mashallah” — “God has willed it.”

The villa is listed at $450,000, a startling number in a country where more than half of the population relies on humanitarian aid to survive, most Afghans don’t have bank accounts, and mortgages are rare. Yet the offers are coming in.

“It’s a myth that Afghans don’t have money,” Omidullah said. “We have very big businessmen who have big businesses abroad. There are houses here worth millions of dollars.”

In Kabul, a curious thing is happening to fuel the high-end real estate market. Peace, it seems, is driving up property prices.

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[–] ShittyBeatlesFCPres 36 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

Just a reminder of what Kabul was like in 1972 before…well, it’s complicated. The Soviet and American wars didn’t help but there was a trend towards religious nationalism before either. And those were probably wealthy, urban women. But they didn’t get arrested for having books and wearing skirts. Human rights can backslide faster than you’d think, given the right conditions.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 hours ago

Geez, that sounds so familiar...

Seriously I will not be surprised of the US backslides into the handmaid's tale, but worse.

[–] FlashMobOfOne 8 points 18 hours ago

It's true. Sadly, most people don't read history books here.

[–] Stovetop 45 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Women have no rights and the poor are starving in the streets, but at least the rich can still have everything they want!

[+] FlashMobOfOne -6 points 20 hours ago (6 children)

Women have no rights and the poor are starving in the streets, but at least the rich can still have everything they want!

You know what's interesting here? That statement applies to the US too, but I think the concept of American Exceptionalism has given us a blind spot in that regard.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 50 minutes ago)

OK, so the Taliban literally have a history of selling women into slavery.

Recent history.

Now it is clear from the testimony of witnesses and officials of the new government that the ruling clerics systematically abducted women from the Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara and other ethnic minorities they defeated. Stolen women were a reward for victorious battle. And in the cities of Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif, Jalalabad and Khost, women victims tell of being forced to wed Taliban soldiers and Pakistani and Arab fighters of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, who later abandoned them. These marriages were tantamount to legalized rape. "They sold these girls," says Ahmad Jan, the Kabul police chief. "The girls were dishonored and then discarded."

Also, child marriage is common practice:

Half of all girls are married by the age of 15.

If you can't grasp the difference between how women are treated by the Taliban in Afghanistan and how they are treated in the US, then you aren't qualified to have an opinion on this subject.

The GOP's policies in the US are oppressive and horrific, but they are still a very far distance away from actual state-sanctioned human trafficking.

[–] inv3r510n 25 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

As of now women have more rights in the US but the christofascists are chipping away quickly at them. It’s dependent now on what state you’re in. I’m in a state with abortion rights codified into our constitution… whereas other women in the christofascist ran states are dying in childbirth because the healthcare they need to survive is banned.

[–] FlashMobOfOne -3 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (1 children)

the christofascists are chipping away quickly at them.

That's the thing. Our federal legislators seem to come in two flavors: the ideological right-wing people who are actively turning back the clock, and the rhetorical opposition who, by their actions, demonstrate that they only care about money and getting wealthier. It's an unfortunate combination, and with no legitimate opposition, I foresee two-thirds of the country criminalizing abortion in the coming years, just like how 2/3 of the country still has a $7.25 minimum wage.

But for me, the core principle here is that at the federal level the law is blatantly hostile to women and it's trending worse and the same is true of the poor. One of the recent SCOTUS decisions even held up the criminalization of homelessness.

[–] inv3r510n 6 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

It’s wild to me that as of time making this comment I have 12 upvotes and you have -7 and we’re in agreement with each other.

I’m interested to see if the state’s rights crowd is going to go after states like mine for having a constitutional right to abortion. Friends and I have been taking bets on what they’re gonna try. Everyone I know in my state has a “fuck around find out” attitude about if the christofascists try to interfere with us.

[–] FlashMobOfOne 5 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

Eh, that's okay. People aren't really conditioned to think in a nuanced way on Lemmy. (Or any social media platform, really) Mastodon's pretty good for more nuanced discussions of culture and politics.

I think the anti-abortion enforcement is going to be almost solely electronic in nature, because most people aren't aware of the extent to which they have opted in for their communications to be spied upon. We've already seen a few instances where someone's Messenger communications have been used to go after them punitively for seeking an abortion. With Idaho criminalizing abortion and getting away with it, it's just matter of time before every state controlled by conservatives follows suit. In states where it's permitted, it's not a stretch to argue that the judicial branch will wipe out those gains in some way.

The silver lining here is that, for all of his promises, Trump's main focus will be monetizing the presidency. He's already focused on that, with all the social media posts he's doing to promote McDonald's. He's not doing that shit for free, and there are bazillion different ways to bribe him legally.

Further, historically, nearly every president regardless of their mandate has lost Congress at the mid-terms. It happened to Clinton, Obama, Trump, and Biden. I will be shocked if it doesn't happen to Trump, and if Congress does go blue, it's at least going to be procedurally slightly harder to manifest the extremist policies he ran upon.

[–] inv3r510n 6 points 18 hours ago

Yeah. My fear, and I’ve been shouting this from the rooftops since 2001’s patriot act, is that we have the infrastructure in place already to do quite a bit of damage in two years. And look at all the major players in the tech industry - nearly every single one of the big names are fascists. Peter theil, Elon musk, mark zuckerberg… and I’m suspicious as hell of Sam Altman.

Remember, IBM made the Holocaust possible. It was the industrialization of death…

[–] Valmond 8 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

-"Whatabout the USA"

[–] [email protected] -5 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

Imagine being upset at your own life and conditions instead of joining the 2-minute hate against people on the other side of the planet. What dopes!

[–] FlyingSquid 8 points 19 hours ago

Yes, how true. Like how my wife here in Indiana right now has to sit at home and cook and clean due to being unable to work, but at least while she's at home, she doesn't have to cover herself from head to to so that no man may look at her, am I right?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 16 hours ago

Imagine the brainwashed chuds who downvoted this comment.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

Capitalism thrives on the violence of state oppression.