Now, to add to the villainies practiced by Islamic fundamentalists when they gain authority somewhere – forcing women into bourkas and men into beards, destroying precious ancient monuments of Eastern and Western civilization, rigorously punishing the slightest infraction of a narrow code of permitted expressions of tender affection, stoning to death suspected adulteresses (and occasionally adulterers), executing enemy combatants with an exhibitionistic sadism beyond the imagination of Mel Gibson – there are rumors that fiercely aniconic fundamentalist cadres in some parts of Pakistan are trying to curb the tradition of truck painting, which has been responsible for thousands of masterpieces of ornamentation (ironically, Islam’s great contribution to the visual arts).
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