Slandering Barber

  Khost, Khowst, Afghanistan
Thursday, July 2, 2009

There seems to be a global opinion that those who bear certain occupational interests also pose as models for wickedness and corruption.  However, more intriguing to me are the names and titles which are regarded as derogatory yet uniquely specific to country or region, and more so, why. 


Here, that word - that unsurpassable insult - that trump without retort is barber, which ironically translated into Pashto is pronounced as dumb.  While they did (and some still do) consider the professional practice of cutting hair and shaving beards as trivial and meaningless fool's work, it's degradation stems more from converting idle dialogue of patrons into vicious gossip - making profits while instigating minor (but needless) communal wars.

. . .

It is a notion followed so surely by some, that only until recently usually resulted in stern retaliatory denouncements.  Often, almost annually, a barber's home or business would be set ablaze and ruined, forcing him to start all over again.  Some sort of reminder that no matter how lucrative the trade is, that his position (of perceived truth), opposite of peace, will forever reside somewhere closer to the bottom in the mind's of the people.