Like everyone else, I have watched in utter despair the videos of the women of Afghanistan singing in the shrouds they are forced to wear. They are singing in defiance of an ever-more zealous set of restrictions that the Taliban have decreed. Women’s voices are to be seen as instruments of vice. They must no longer speak in public. They cannot sing or read aloud, even in their own homes.
This dystopian scenario, rightly characterised as gender apartheid, is shocking but this is the Taliban so what did we expect? As the famous Maya Angelou quote goes: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
