Afghanistan Arrests Men for Wearing Suits

In the Taliban’s Afghanistan, where Islam is the law and the law is Islam, four young men have reportedly just been arrested for the crime of walking around in public dressed as characters from the British drama Peaky Blinders. Afghanistan’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice released a photo of the four offenders dressed in sharp suits, with trench coats and flat caps. Even though there are a great many worse ways in which these young men could have been dressed, they were detained, and have presumably learned their lesson. But there are lessons in this for the West as well, and no one is learning them.

CBS News reported Tuesday that the four snappy dressers, Asghar Husinai, Jalil Yaqoobi, Ashore Akbari and Daud Rasa, all of whom are in their early twenties, “had become popular in their local Jibrail township, in the southern province of Herat, for strutting through the streets in trench coats and flat caps.”

Many of the goggle-eyed admirers they attracted were no doubt wondering where they managed to obtain professionally tailored Western suits, plus trench coats and caps, in Jibrail township, which ain’t exactly Savile Row. Jalil Yaqoobi said: “At first we were hesitant, but once we went outside, people liked our style, stopped us in the streets, and wanted to take photos with us. Some comments were negative, but we only paid attention to the appreciation.”

Yet instead of seeing all this as a bit of harmless fun, however, the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice saw it as a threat. The Ministry said that the men’s suits were “contrary to Islamic values and Afghan culture.” Ministry spokesman Saif-ur-Islam Khyber explained: “They were promoting foreign culture and imitating film actors in Herat, arrested, and a rehabilitation program started for them. Praise be to Allah, we are Muslims and Afghans; we have our own religion, culture, and values. Through numerous sacrifices, we have protected this country from the spread of harmful cultures, and now we are also defending it.”

Khyber later slightly adjusted his earlier remarks, saying that the four were not actually arrested, but “only summoned and advised and released.” He elaborated on why they had run afoul of the law at all: “We have our own religious and cultural values, and especially for clothing we have specific traditional styles. The clothing they wore has no Afghan identity at all and does not match our culture. Secondly, their actions were an imitation of actors from a British movie. Our society is Muslim; if we are to follow or imitate someone, we should follow our righteous religious predecessors in good and lawful matters.”

After his arrest, one of the young men published, whether under duress or not, an audio recording in which he said: “I’m on Instagram and have five million followers. Without realizing it, I used to publish and spread things that were against Sharia. I was summoned and advised, and from today onward I will no longer engage in such sinful activities — and I have stopped.”

A friend of the four young men, however, dared to say openly that the arrests were “ridiculous.” He added: “The country always feels like a prison. Our friends wore these outfits for no political or other reason — just for fun — and the Taliban’s religious police detained them … They admired the British series and wanted to share that admiration, but it turned into a nightmare. They are now behind bars.”

The lesson for the West in all this is not that it should become as repressive as the Taliban or see eccentric clothes as a criminal affront. The lesson is that having some regard for the cultural integrity of one’s society is not always a bad thing. One need not go so far as the Taliban and yet still try to preserve a certain set of values and instill them into the younger generations. Instead, we have taught several generations of young people to hate their own country and their own culture, and to value those of others over their own.

That way lies defeat and destruction. One need not go to the point of arresting young men for wearing suits turn away from it.