Just so we can get all this religious stuff out of the way ...

... because the last time it was discussed on this blog it became very boring and unpleasant.

I believe beautiful creations belong to and should be cherished by all mankind.

I believe destroying sacred monuments wherever they are, to whatever religion, is wrong.

I have no more time for Israeli zealots than for Sikh zealots, Muslim zealots, Hindu zealots, white supremacists, Jehovah's witnesses or anybody who is sure they are right

I believe in tolerance.

If what the Taliban did was right because it was "their" country, the logic is simple and inescapable.

When Hitler's Nazis ruled Germany it was "their" country. So homosexuals, gypsies, communists, democrats, Jews, the mentally disabled and anybody who didn't toe the party line were slaughtered in their millions.

When Lenin and Stalin's communists ruled Russia it was "their" country. They outdid Hitler by many millions. When Mao's communists ruled China it was "their" country. They outdid Stalin by countless millions. To this day Buddhists in Tibet and Muslims and Christians all over China are discriminated against.

Following the same twisted logic if a religiously intolerant Evangelical Christian party ever got into power here it would be "their" country.

They would have every right - if temporary possession of power confers that right - to go round blowing up Sikh, Buddhist, Jain and Hindu Temples, Jewish Synagogues and Muslim Mosques.

No doubt if the National Front got into power eventually people whose skin is not quite right would be deported - because it would be "their" country.

The last time this kind of thing happened was under Cromwell. It was relatively minor compared to what I have just been talkimng about. But the results have been with us ever since, in mutilated statues and beautiful stained windows lost forever in churches all over the country.

Let those who like 17th century rules live in places where they apply.

And I believe the following rules introduced by the Taliban when they were in power and being reintroduced in those areas they now control were and are wicked and intolerant and discriminate against a group far more important than any religious, ethnic or political group.

Many of them are called our mothers. Our sisters. Our wives. Our daughters.

1. No women allowed to work outside the home, including female teachers, engineers and most professionals.

2. No women's activity outside the home unless accompanied by a close male relative.

3. Women not allowed to deal with male shopkeepers.

4. Women not to be treated by male doctors.

5. Women not to study at schools, universities or other educational establishments.

6. Girls' schools closed down

7. Whipping, beating and abuse of Women not clothed in accordance with Taliban rules

8. Whipping of women in public for having non-covered ankles.

9. Public stoning of women accused (but not necessarily proven) of having sex outside marriage.

10. Ban on cosmetics. Many women with painted nails had fingers cut off.

11. Women forbidden to talk or touch males who are not close relations

12. Ban on women laughing loudly. (No stranger should hear a woman's voice).

13. Ban on women wearing high heels, which would make a sound while walking.

14. Ban on women riding in a taxi unless accompanied by a close male relative.

15. Ban on women on radio, television or at any public gatherings.

16. Ban on women's pictures in newspapers and books, or hung on the walls of houses and shops.

And, 100% vintage Adolf Hitler, non-Muslim minorities required to wear a badge or stitch a yellow cloth onto their dress to be differentiated from the Muslim population.

And if anyone comes out with any shit that what they say Hitler did was just a fiction, let me just say that I knew people who were in those camps.