RASC News Agency: A Somali-American YouTuber recently sparked widespread reactions after sharing photos and videos during her trip to Afghanistan on YouTube and other social media platforms. Marian Abdi, known as Geniada Mado on social media, traveled to Kabul in mid-July after obtaining an Afghanistan visa from the country’s consulate in Dubai. On her first day in Kabul, this prominent social media figure shared a photo, captioning it, “Visiting Afghanistan was a dream.” Like many Western YouTubers who have visited Afghanistan during the Taliban’s three-year rule, Marian Abdi claimed that “the country is recovering after 40 years of war and turmoil.”
On August 10th, Marian Abdi posted a picture of herself surrounded by armed Taliban members, all smiling at the camera. This photo alone garnered four million views on X (formerly Twitter), with hundreds of comments. Many users accused Marian Abdi of aligning with the Taliban’s misogynistic policies.
Over the past three years of the Taliban’s misogynistic, ethnocentric, and extremist rule, dozens of social media influencers and well-known YouTubers from Western countries have traveled to Afghanistan in an effort to whitewash the image of the ruling terrorists. They have attempted to portray the situation in the country as normal. These women travel and film videos in a country where Afghanistani women are denied the right to move freely in their own land. Meanwhile, the Taliban’s terrorist regime ensures the safety of these Western women, allowing them to act as lobbyists for the regime, thus helping to sanitize its image.
