QUOTE(Tom Blackwell @ CanWest News Service; National Post)
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- At the Internet cafes popping up around this once culturally oppressed city, the computer cubicles usually have little doors that web surfers can shut behind them.
The reason is simple, says Abdul Qader, a former Toronto resident and owner of one Internet cafe.
In the birthplace of the Taliban, which barred people from so much as listening to the radio or taking photographs, most of the cafes' male Muslim patrons are visiting websites best viewed in private.
"The young generation use it for the sex," Qader concedes with a chuckle. "I think the word 'sex' is used here more than anywhere else in the world."
Despite the city's reputation for piety, he maintains, the interest in pornography should come as no surprise. This is, after all, a land where extra-marital relations are virtually a capital offence, and only the most daring woman exposes her chin for all to see.
"We are a sexually deprived nation," states Qader, who spent a few years as a refugee in Canada in the mid-1990s. "At 25 years, a husband cannot even see his wife ... This is a basic human, psychological need. Especially the young ones, they are curious about how it is."
Even so, Qader admits, his own business has made the "ethical" decision to have no privacy doors on its computer kiosks.
Internet cafes started emerging here a year or two ago, and are still a phenomenon primarily of the young and educated.
But their mere presence - and their proprietors' democratic approach to their use - is a graphic sign of change in Kandahar, where the Taliban first introduced its almost surreal brand of Islam. The fundamentalist government banned movies, videos, dancing and even music, which one mullah said "creates a strain in the mind and hampers the study of Islam."
As the Internet revolution belatedly comes to conservative southern Afghanistan, users are e-mailing family in other countries, digging up information for school studies, and communicating with western organizations for which they do work.
"It is the most beneficial thing in the world," raves Basir Ahmad, a 20-year-old cafe customer who this week was seeking out websites related to his English-language Grade 12 classes.
Mohammed Ihsan, 17, is another booster of the Net, which he was using this week to study up for a chance to compete in an international biology olympiad. Clad in the same combination of long, flowing shirt and baggy pants sported by virtually every Kandahar male, Ihsan said he also enjoys fashion and news sites.
But he acknowledges that some parts of the information highway should be off limits here.
"There are a lot of harmful things that are not allowed for Muslims," he says, referring to the web's pornographic sites. "If they are true Muslims, they are not watching this."
Cafe owners tend to skirt the porn issue, but are surprisingly firm about not censoring their customers.
Muslims do not all observe their faith in the same way, and web users do not all have the same standards, says Sharia Popal, of Zamrot Internet Cafe, which gives clients free rein on the Net.
"Some people are religious and go to mosque every day; some people are religious and just pray," he says. "Some people are using the Internet for porn; some people are using it for good things. It belongs to the people."
Mohammed Fahim of the Al Hadi Net Cafe said he met some resistance when he started the business about five months ago, with one landlord refusing to rent him space. He eventually found a more willing property owner and, at rates of less than $1 an hour, the service is increasingly popular. He says people come for "hours and hours" of surfing, often expanding their limited knowledge of the outside world.
But if learning is not what customers have in mind, Al Hadi will not stand in the way.
"I'm not so strict. It is the people's wishes. If they want to go to a sex website, they can watch it," says Fahim. "We cannot stop them."
Even as more educational sites enlighten Afghans about the world around them, however, the accessibility of Internet porn may be creating some new myths about the average westerner.
To many Afghan web surfers, they are "very sexy people, very pretty people, very well-built people," laughs Qader, adding Afghans seem to think that westerners "just get the girl and they can do it anywhere, any place."
The reason is simple, says Abdul Qader, a former Toronto resident and owner of one Internet cafe.
In the birthplace of the Taliban, which barred people from so much as listening to the radio or taking photographs, most of the cafes' male Muslim patrons are visiting websites best viewed in private.
"The young generation use it for the sex," Qader concedes with a chuckle. "I think the word 'sex' is used here more than anywhere else in the world."
Despite the city's reputation for piety, he maintains, the interest in pornography should come as no surprise. This is, after all, a land where extra-marital relations are virtually a capital offence, and only the most daring woman exposes her chin for all to see.
"We are a sexually deprived nation," states Qader, who spent a few years as a refugee in Canada in the mid-1990s. "At 25 years, a husband cannot even see his wife ... This is a basic human, psychological need. Especially the young ones, they are curious about how it is."
Even so, Qader admits, his own business has made the "ethical" decision to have no privacy doors on its computer kiosks.
Internet cafes started emerging here a year or two ago, and are still a phenomenon primarily of the young and educated.
But their mere presence - and their proprietors' democratic approach to their use - is a graphic sign of change in Kandahar, where the Taliban first introduced its almost surreal brand of Islam. The fundamentalist government banned movies, videos, dancing and even music, which one mullah said "creates a strain in the mind and hampers the study of Islam."
As the Internet revolution belatedly comes to conservative southern Afghanistan, users are e-mailing family in other countries, digging up information for school studies, and communicating with western organizations for which they do work.
"It is the most beneficial thing in the world," raves Basir Ahmad, a 20-year-old cafe customer who this week was seeking out websites related to his English-language Grade 12 classes.
Mohammed Ihsan, 17, is another booster of the Net, which he was using this week to study up for a chance to compete in an international biology olympiad. Clad in the same combination of long, flowing shirt and baggy pants sported by virtually every Kandahar male, Ihsan said he also enjoys fashion and news sites.
But he acknowledges that some parts of the information highway should be off limits here.
"There are a lot of harmful things that are not allowed for Muslims," he says, referring to the web's pornographic sites. "If they are true Muslims, they are not watching this."
Cafe owners tend to skirt the porn issue, but are surprisingly firm about not censoring their customers.
Muslims do not all observe their faith in the same way, and web users do not all have the same standards, says Sharia Popal, of Zamrot Internet Cafe, which gives clients free rein on the Net.
"Some people are religious and go to mosque every day; some people are religious and just pray," he says. "Some people are using the Internet for porn; some people are using it for good things. It belongs to the people."
Mohammed Fahim of the Al Hadi Net Cafe said he met some resistance when he started the business about five months ago, with one landlord refusing to rent him space. He eventually found a more willing property owner and, at rates of less than $1 an hour, the service is increasingly popular. He says people come for "hours and hours" of surfing, often expanding their limited knowledge of the outside world.
But if learning is not what customers have in mind, Al Hadi will not stand in the way.
"I'm not so strict. It is the people's wishes. If they want to go to a sex website, they can watch it," says Fahim. "We cannot stop them."
Even as more educational sites enlighten Afghans about the world around them, however, the accessibility of Internet porn may be creating some new myths about the average westerner.
To many Afghan web surfers, they are "very sexy people, very pretty people, very well-built people," laughs Qader, adding Afghans seem to think that westerners "just get the girl and they can do it anywhere, any place."