Sunday, January 18, 2009

Afghan Acid Attacks on School Girls

Okay, this just makes me so mad. Dexter Filkins of the New York Times wrote of girls attending school in Kandahar Afghanistan who were attacked by 3 pairs of men who circled the school and terrorized the girls with the use of acid. The article states that the attacks appear to be the work of the Taliban, but I'd have to say no matter who they are it is the work of cowardly ignorant people. Prior to the attack posters had been put up: "Don't Let Your Daughters Go To School"! And, after the attacks, that worked for a while. But now, the girls are coming back. One of the worst injured girls, Shamsia has blurry vision and scars across her face from the attack. Shamsia says "My parents told me to keep coming to school even if I am killed. The people who did this to me don't want women to be educated. They want us to be stupid things."

Naturally parents didn't want to send the girls to school after the attacks, but the headmistress told them "If you don't send your daughters to school, then the enemy wins, I told them not to give in to darkeness. . ."

Darkness perfectly describes this evil. And, while education certainly is a light to get them out, I believe the light of God will be the only thing that will defeat evil in their world and ours.

Such courage these girls and women have. We don't even think about our kids not being able to get an education. We don't think at all about how easy we have it . . .

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