TALIBAN RE-EDUCATION 101: LET'S GO FLY A KITE

11/19/2001 As Taliban control of Afghanistan cedes to a newer order of the day, or disorder, the imaginations of many Americans run in frustrated circles attempting to understand. Consider kites. The Taliban prohibited flying kites. The First Lady's radio address mentions the simple example of the kites. Of all the horrid, imposing regulations issued by the Taliban, few seem as plainly mean-spirited as prohibiting flying kites. American reaction takes it as clear evidence that the Taliban were far from "scholars" and instead were crazed. We're so innocent, us Americans, that we are dreaming of a wind sail in a sun-filled sky and a laughing toddler pulling a string. We hardly think of kites without feeling the string tug us towards the Heavens. Our happy spirit soars upwards on the wind and light. Unless we are made to live miserably, and we were not, we were made to love the small happiness of kite flying. So the ferocious Taliban appear to us crazed, stripping people of life-affirmation. A struggling government at the extreme of applying law to an innocuous pastime goes beyond reason. The rule of law is for serious purposes; controlling force and fraud, and provision of the public good. Even when government assists modest inculcation of social virtue, constraining kites is far blown. The example proves out fervid desire for maniacal control. We are also world citizens now gathering small glimmers into the chasm of benighted Taliban mentality. Kites can be imagined variously. Indeed, browsing the day's news photos, I caught sight of a giant kite, taller than the kid holding it, with astounding Hindu demons. A-oh, memory widens the pretty circle of my imaginings as I recall kite fights are par the course in Indian festivity. And fights they become. I'd heard about it perhaps fifteen years ago - glass shards are ground with sticky flour paste and massaged into the kite string. This enables kite wars between teams struggling to hack down an opposing team's demon kite from the skies. Teenage teams, glass, kite surgery to make kite war. Do we have kite teams or kite gangs? When organized and a display of disciplined violence, what happens to reveries of a gentle sail floating on the lazy, sweet breeze? Hearing of the Indian festivities years ago, they sounded fun -- charged. We have reminders also of writhing paper demons, serpent icons, in Chinese parades. With the circle of imaginings grown larger, my simple kite flight is no longer simple. Avatars of culture, kites have become political. The Taliban contribute this odd way for the personal to become political. Fear those regimes where all become the weapon of fanatical politics with no realm of free civics. All was politics and all poor politics. Statecraft, protection of and provision for the people, requires techne, skilled management, beyond the resources and vision of those who use power for venomous decree against the cozy domain of children's games. With their vision set apart from the worldly pursuit of happiness, the Taliban built no social policy but decreed against the cultural veins that threatened them. There's the pity in that. A glorious wind-sail lifts our smiles. Holding that string to the wide blue airways, our bodies luxuriate. With the wind swirling into our lungs, we feel the glory of a material world while bare arms manipulate string and our legs span the earth. We bless the caress of the breeze over God-given, enjoyable human embodiment in the sheer matter of a bright, good world. And all of this joy was too little what the fierce, terrible, oft-young Taliban knew in all the ignorance that was their sad lot. My re-education program for the Taliban who are left alive decrees they be sentenced to at least three days of kite flying. _____ Natalie H. Vania is the Founder of Arshiya Ventures.