Gaming Ban Proposed in Afghanistan

Not Just the Violent Ones; All of Them

GamePolitics picked up on something recently that doesn’t necessarily give cause to an influence of games on a culture more than it reminds us of how well (or not well) the global War on Terror has been handled.

Read carefully the excerpt they published from Pakistan’s Daily Times.  Yes, they’re proposing a ban on all games, no matter how violent or innocently childish they are, among other things.  It’s the why behind it that should have you more concerned:

An Afghan legislative committee has drafted a bill seeking to introduce Taliban-style Islamic morality codes… The draft… needs approval by both chambers of the Islamist-dominated parliament and President Hamid Karzai’s (left) signature to become a law… The proposals also demand an end to dog and bird-fighting, pigeon-flying, billiards and video games, all past times favoured by many Afghans… The plans mirror many of the laws introduced by the extremist Taliban regime…

That’s right…Afghanistan may be returning to its Taliban ways.  If you read the article in full, it gets kinda scary.  So much for rooting out the terrorists, huh?

There’s no word on the chances of this bill surviving Afghanistan’s parliament.