"I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Voltaire.
The majority of people in this country, when they read a newspaper, generally read a tabloid. Based on that alone, they do need someone to highlight extremism.
About 12 years ago I knew an Egyptian doctor who was working on "attachment" so to speak. I went to visit her and her husband one day and found her very distressed. She told me she'd received a letter from another female doctor who she'd studied for her medical degree with in Egypt but who was an Afghan national. The letter was smuggled out by an Egyptian diplomat from the embassy in Kabul who was a friend of the (Egyptian) doctor's father.
In it it stated that she'd been told to return to her village in Afghanistan, along with her husband who was a civil engineer specialising in irrigation and sewerage systems. She'd be no longer able to work and he would have to take up subsistance farming, on orders of the government. That government was the Taliban. It is arguable that the Taliban are the ultimate incarnation of extreme Islam.
On the 26th September 1996 the Taliban took control of Kabul. Their first act was to hang former President Najibullah who was staying in a UN diplomatic compound, effectively neutral territory. The Taliban beat Najibullah and his brother senseless before putting them in a pick up, castrating the former president and tied him to the back of a "jeep" and dragged him several times round the old Presidential Palace and then shot him dead. They did the same thing with the brother before throttling him to death. Two of Najibullah's companions were also caught and received similar treatment before being hanged.
Within 24 hours of taking Kabul, the Taliban imposed the strictest Islamic system anywhere in the world. All women were banned from work, even though one quarter of Kabul's civil service, the entire elementary educational system and much of the health service were run by women. Girl's schools and colleges were closed down affecting 70,000 female students and a strict dress code of head to toe veils for women was imposed. There were fears that 25,000 families which were headed by war widows and depended on working and UN handouts would starve. Each day brought new pronouncements. 'Thieves would have their hands and feet amputated, adulterers would be stoned to death and those taking liquor will be lashed.'
TV, videos, satellite dishes, music and all games including chess, football and kite flying were banned. Radio Kabul was renamed Radio Shariat and all music was taken off the air.
The list does go on, but frankly I think I've gone past the point of losing the will to live. As an example of extreme religion, the Taliban take some beating, but it doesn't take many degrees from where we are now to reach that stage.
Almost everything Islamic extremists believe in is at odds with what modern western democracies stand for. Freedom of choice, speech, religion; emancipation for women, equal rights for everyone regardless of gender, sexuality, race and religion.
