Islamist Double Standards
British Muslim journalist Adel Darwish recently pointed out the hypocrisy of Islamists who use the language of personal freedom to decry restrictions on the wearing of veils. MEMRI provides some excerpts:
"I support a woman's freedom, Muslim or non-Muslim, to wear whatever she wants, provided that the conditions for such freedom exist. Most importantly, she should, when adult, be able to choose from several available options.
[...]
"Most of those who raise the slogan 'a woman's right to wear the veil' are Salafi fundamentalists who reject the principle of a person's freedom of choice to begin with. The proof is that they immediately declare a person's life forfeit because he dares to interpret a Koranic text in a way that contradicts their ideology - although Islam rejects the concept of a priesthood or intermediaries between God and human, whether he is a man or a woman. It is a person's right to make personal mental efforts to interpret Koranic verses. By the way, nothing in the Koran requires a woman to wear a veil. There is no need, therefore, for an intervention or a fatwa by Al-Mahallawi, Al-Qaradhawi, or anyone else.
"The boisterous minority accuses the West of failing to understand the 'Muslim people's culture.' Have they tried to understand British culture? My wife, for example, does not dream of recreating herself in a bikini in the gardens of Islamabad. At the same time, in British culture, it is neither polite nor tactful to have a conversation with another person while wearing sunglasses, let alone hiding the entire face behind a veil. Why do those who choose to come to Britain to live not try to understand certain basic cultural concepts of this country including freedom of expression and thought, personal efforts at interpretation, and equality between the two sexes instead of showing disdain for the country's culture on the pretext of the right of a minority within a minority?"
(Emphasis added-DD)
The ultimate goal of Islamists is a state governed by a strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law. The actual record of such states makes a mockery of the idea that Islamists believe in freedom.
posted by Dave at 12:34 AM
2 Comments:
Australia's most senior Muslim cleric has suggested that women who do not wear headscarves are to blame for sexual assaults, comparing them to uncovered pieces of meat.
Sheikh Taj El-Din Hamid Hilaly, the mufti of Sydney's biggest mosque, said in a Ramadan sermon that sexual assaults might not happen if women wore a hijab and stayed at home.
Hilaly criticised women who "sway suggestively", wear make-up and no hijab, or Islamic headscarf, for inviting sexual attack.
"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the back yard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem," Hilaly told about 500 worshippers, according to a newspaper translation.
Keysar Trad, Hilaly's spokesman, said
From Alexander Thomas Darwin
London NW3
The article by Adel Darwish (He is a veteran Fleet Street British journalist, an expert on the Middle East and a media commentator), which appeared in Al-Sharq alAwsat English website, seem to be a bit different from the original (The Veil Debate in Britain: Constitutional Aspects found at http://www.mideastnews.com/veildebate15oct06.htm) penned by Mr Darwish following the row ignited by the leader of the commons Jack Straw.
It is either the original column was censored by the Saudi Owned asharq al-Awsat, or it has been back-translated badly; because a few days earlier, Al-Sharq al-Awsat published a good Arabic version of Mr Darwish's column. And since translation, especially of metaphors and cultural references has to be modified to make sense to readers from different culture, the re-translation or back translation of a translation, made the column appear different from the original. If it is the latter, it is likely that who ever translated the column used also a soft-ware translation programme that translates word for word rather than asking the writer for the original in English which can be found at http://www.mideastnews.com/veildebate15oct06.htm, and curiously it is an opinion editorial under the section of ' Terrorism' on the website, but to be fair, there is no section on Islam.
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