Thanks for clarifying to me why I wear Islamic dress. I thought I was doing it out of love and obedience to God; rather it seems (in your opinion) I was doing it to give the bird to freedom and democracy. Oh, I guess that explains why I rarely leave the house because (apparently) I so love to provoke and intimidate – I don’t know about you guys but I was never intimidated much by Batman *shrug* LOL. *I* thought I didn’t leave the house very much because I was tired of getting spat on, abused and harassed (including being run off the road in my car while driving and having my house needlessly searched by police due to cowardly, false and anonymous tips)- I guess those people weren’t very intimidated by Batman either. Don’t worry; I come from a long line of survivors with thick skin: my Jewish heritage including my great-grandmother who escaped from Nazi-Germany/Holocaust. Yes, I know, “bear it or shed it”; hence, I don’t leave the house much. So much for pursuing my post-grad studies. I’ll continue the stereotype of the oppressed, uneducated Muslim woman – but note, my oppression and lack of (further) education is not by any means coming from my fellow Muslims or Islam, it is from some of the “civilized” members of my western society.

While I respect your right to your opinion and point of view to which you are more than entitled; your (and Ali’s) presumptions of the whys and wherefores of Muslim women wearing hijab/niqab aka “burka”- I feel- is both inconsiderate and incorrect. You may have your view but it’s not mine.

I don’t mean to come across as belligerent (oops, I forgot, I’ve already been tarred with that brush merely due to the fact that I wear Islamic dress, silly me) but have you ever stopped to think that us (vacuous) Muslim women have more on their minds than mere fashion (like education, raising a family, safe and secure living, healthcare, employment). Perhaps someone better tell that Ban Ki-moon so he can hold the General Assembly front row at the Vera Wang show during fashion week. Where does Peacekeeping rate on the scale compared to Victoria’s Secret’s new line in cleavage-boosting wonder bras. How about asking Muslim women what important issues are to them? I can guarantee the last thing they will complain about is the “burka”.

Maybe we can agree that ignorance and angry hatred afflicts like a disease people from all religions and cultures (Muslims included) but it doesn’t mean it is right or that all their fellow members agree. Life is too short to waste on hating. We don’t all have to be the same.

Just my views. I’m not a scholar or expert on neither Islam nor spokesperson for Muslims. I am just a Muslim; I am just me.

Regards,

Aliyah

(Yes, I am fully aware of the irony of my name)

Fabulous new word, worth remembering:

DHIMWIT. (check out website for clarification)

From the position of a warning sign, I can see the logic of your statement that it should perhaps be ground for deportation (or similar punitive action perhaps on a smaller scale- imprisonment, fine, etc, sort of the way Europe punished hate speech. If nothing else, a big ol’ red flag). At the same time, I’ll be honest, I have a very hard time wrapping my liberal ideals around the proposal that naming your kid something people find offensive should be grounds for punishment by the government. So I guess I’m sort of stuck.

The name is simple. Imagine someone calling themselves Niggerkiller, or GayBasher. What do you think would happen at the moment the child is born?

Are you familiar with how names are given and registered? Any indepedent minded registrar will refuse any offensive name, along with Social Security! Most civilised countries, have common sense rules about naming your child. viz http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/articles/2007/06/22/1182019319582.html

It is a lot less far fetched than you think. Imagine in Israel, naming your child Shachid if your palastinian. How will the Israeli state treat you?

it is difficult to see what you represent other than the kind of evasive liberal rhetoric which is fodder for the Islamists

To hell with the Islamists. Islam isn’t the prism through which I view the world. I believe in the necessity of human rights while also realizing the necessity of sometimes slightly curtailing those rights to keep security.

Always ready to take a stand for taking a stand, regardless of where they stand.

*shrug* I’m not sure what you want from me. Should I be waving a sign saying, “Jihadis go home?” (Or maybe just the ones named Jihad…)

If the law was excesive in France, was it excesive in Turkey, where has been in effect since 1918?

I don’t have an opinion about Turkey, knowing next to nothing about it. I know a little more about France. Off the top of my head, I think the idea of Turkey being a nation of Muslims (albeit under a secular government, like France) enforcing a law probably makes some difference in calculating my liberal sensibilities as opposed to France enacting a law that effects everyone except Christians. (And the Christians who wear life-size replicas of the cross on their necks, of course.)

The Attorney Generals position was a give-away to Islamic impudent abuse of myopic Western notions of tolerance. It was a give away to hip liberals taking a stand for taking a stand, political capital gained at the expense of a declining state.

You say tomato, I say to-maaah-to. If people wearing religious clothing is that big of a threat to France, it’s in more trouble than it thinks- and the Conseil knew that. And I’m still waiting to see if banning the scarves actually achieved anything.

And that’s not discrimination or racism, its defence against a declaration of War. Jihad, remember? But of course, you still think Islam is nice and cuddly

I think that deporting someone for naming their child a name you find offensive is bullshit. That’s what I think.

Do you still refuse to admit that a drawing of Mohammed shagging a camel is potent because of its illicit nature?

Help me out here- when did you ask that question?

There are no mainstream critics of Islam! They are dwindling on the fringes!

And? What would you like me to do about this? Go kick CNN’s ass?

It is as if you were refusing to see reality. Without offending you, what exactly do you know about Islam? Do you actually consider it equal to Hareidi interpreation of the Torah? Do you think it is equal to Christianity or Budhism, or more potently, do you think it has a right to impudence?

I think Islam has serious problems, most specifically with large amounts of people using it as justification to kill, rape, and intimidate. I also realize that these problems are not limited to Islam, or that it has a monopoly on them. Do I consider it “equal” to Haredi Judaism? That depends what you’re talking about- do you mean, do I have as many problems with the two religions? The answer is clearly no. There’s plenty to criticize about the Haredi world (and the non-Haredi world, for the record), but they aren’t going around massacring people. Their problems are on a substantially lower level. Even the religious Zionist crowd, which I have my share of issues with (more, in some ways, than with Haredim), while having some of the same kinds of disturbing ideology as Islam, seems to do a decent job of keeping it contained and within the realm of the theoretical. By the same token, I know that not all Muslims are sharpening their knives to do us in, even if their silence enables those who do. I can criticize them for not speaking out, but I’m not going to lump them all together.

…You keep throwing around “equal,” and I’m not sure how you’re using it. Could you clarify?

I think everyone should have the right to impudence. The problem comes, as I said, when you start getting your crap on other people. The issue then becomes which tactics are best in trying to stop it.

Theodore Lessing redux. Secularized jews (half religious, half whatnot) vibrant and enthusiastic, bubbling with fancy, pointless thought. Always ready to take a stand for taking a stand, regardless of where they stand. Can the world really balance out on the tip of your nose?

***

If the law was excesive in France, was it excesive in Turkey, where has been in effect since 1918? Quoting wiki is great, but do you know the issue? The Attorney Generals position was a give-away to Islamic impudent abuse of myopic Western notions of tolerance. It was a give away to hip liberals taking a stand for taking a stand, political capital gained at the expense of a declining state.

Then there is the idea of secularism.

Americas’ ideas of seperation of church and state are as quirky as they are outdated. Why else would both houses of congress have chaplains, and every single state constitution mention G-d? There is a seperation of church and state, but not G-d and state. Hence declaration of independence? Hence absurd debates about creationism in schools. The Monkeys haven’t climbed down from the Scopes Trial?

To consider the French law excesive is as unoriginal as it is hostage to uncritical mainstream reporting.

***

No, naming a child Jihad (Murderer, or Queer, or Cunt) shouldn’t be outlawed… his family needs to be promptly deported to whatever theocratic-retroactive Rock and Stan they choose!

And that’s not discrimination or racism, its defence against a declaration of War. Jihad, remember? But of course, you still think Islam is nice and cuddly…

“look at that nice teddy bear…”
-em, that a woman in a Batman costume, sir.

***
As for Islam, media, and freedom. Give me a break. You gotta be kidding?! Do you still refuse to admit that a drawing of Mohammed shagging a camel is potent because of its illicit nature? I mean are liberal incantations and substance oxymoronic?

Where is the meat? I mention a fact, the Secular Islam Summit, where is the coverage? Irstad invited to CNN publicly, then privately rejected. Where is the outrage? Islam a religion of peace, where is the contra, the naysayer, the mainstream critic? Where? There are no mainstream critics of Islam! They are dwindling on the fringes!

***

Islam is not about a Jihadi wing. It is about Ostriches. About the Quran, cultural superiority, and Western ignorance coupled with the Ostrich syndrome.

***

I absolutely cannot understand your position FriarYid. It is as if you were refusing to see reality. Without offending you, what exactly do you know about Islam? Do you actually consider it equal to Hareidi interpreation of the Torah? Do you think it is equal to Christianity or Budhism, or more potently, do you think it has a right to impudence?

The liberal media wasn’t the only source of concern at the French ban- what about the fact that it also forced Jewish and Sikh kids to take off their hats. I’m glad the French are being even-handed but I can’t imagine there weren’t some Jewish and Sikh families that were more than a little put off by that.

Then again, I’m not French. I accept that they have the right to deal with their problems and interpret their laws as they see fit. Vive la difference.

Kids named Jihad? Again, I don’t see what the alternative is- it’s free expression. I don’t think that having banned baby name lists is all that productive or helpful in protecting society from evil names, particularly when Jihad, as opposed to say, swastika, actually has multiple meanings, not all of them involving wading through your enemy’s blood.

I genuinly feel, Islam has a special place in our Political Discourse. It is untouchable.

I don’t know what to tell you. I’m against sacred cows as a general position; I don’t think they’re healthy for democratic discourse, and certainly agree that there’s a big problem with people being afraid to speak their mind on the problems with Islam specifically. By the same token, I think the liberal/conservative divide is playing a significant role here- the “culture war” takes one’s views of Islam and terrorism as a major indicator of one’s political position. Combine that with some of the extreme rhetoric coming from the right and you get what I suspect is a sizeable number of liberals who, like me, don’t support violent riots because a cartoon hurt Muslims’ feelings, but also don’t think the answer is to kill or convert them all, a-la Ann Coulter. So they tend to drift further left, perhaps to the point that they actually do cease to view Islam in any real critical light. (The same thing, incidentally, happens in reverse- people from the center-right share some values with liberals but think they’re too weak or are downright appeasing Islam and overlooking its problems, so they want nothing to do with them.)

If it wasn’t so stone age, would it enjoy all the Cultural relativist protection?

Hard to say, not being a member of the mainstream media. I think it would be easier to play cultural relativism with Islam if the Jihadists didn’t keep moving the discussion away from the theoretical and into the concrete. You don’t have to agree with something to support/defend it under cultural relativism, but it’s a heck of a lot more challenging to do so when the people under the microscope are trying to kill you.

Of course, yet another issue is how much the Jihadist wing of Islam can be viewed as representing the totality of the group/ideology…