"Imagine you're a woman. When your brother is born, people say: 'It's a boy, how wonderful,' and when you are born they say: 'How wonderful, it's a little girl' â using the diminutive form.(2) Your arrival is welcome if [you are] the first or second girl, but it's best if there are no more than two, so that nothing undesirable happens to the mother. On the other hand, your brothers' arrivals are welcomed â the more the merrier.
"Imagine you're a woman. You always need your guardian's approval, not only regarding your first marriage, as maintained by the Islamic legal scholars, but regarding each and every matter. You cannot study without your guardian's approval, even if you reach a doctorate level. You cannot get a job and earn a living without your guardian's approval. Moreover, there are people who are not ashamed to say that a woman must have permission to work even in the private sector.
"Imagine you're a woman, and the guardian who must accompany you wherever [you go] is your 15-year-old son or your brother, who scratches his chin before giving his approval, saying: 'What do you think, guys, should I give her my permission?' Sometimes he asks for... a bribe [in return], heaven forbid! [But] your brother avoids taking such a bribe in 'cash' because his self-respect prevents him from touching a woman's money. So he prefers the bribe to be a car, a fridge, or an assurance of money that you will pay in installments [for him], until Allah gets him out of his financial straits...
"Imagine you're a woman, and you are subject to assault, beatings, or murder. When the press publishes your photo [together with] the photo of the criminals and [descriptions] of their brutality, there are people who ask: 'Was the victim covered [by a veil] or not?' If she was covered up, [the question arises:] 'Who let her go out of the house at such an hour?' In the event that your husband is the one who broke your ribs, [people will say] that no doubt there was good reason for it.
"Imagine you're a woman whose husband breaks her nose, arm, or leg, and you go to the Qadi to lodge a complaint. When the Qadi asks you about your complaint, and you say, 'He beat me,' he responds reproachfully 'That's all?!' In other words, [for the Qadi], beating is a technical situation that exists among all couples and lovers, [as the saying goes]: 'Beating the beloved is like eating raisins.'
"Imagine you're a woman, and in order to manage your affairs you must ride in a 'limousine' with an Indian or Sri Lankan driver... or that you [must] wait for a younger brother to take you to work, or that you [must] bring a man who will learn to drive in your car, and will practice at your expense... because you yourself are not permitted to drive.
"Imagine you're a woman in the 21st century, and you see fatwas [issued] by some contemporary experts in Islamic law dealing with the rules regarding taking the women of the enemy prisoner and having sexual intercourse with them. Moreover, you find someone issuing a fatwa about the rules of taking the women of the enemy prisoner even in times of peace, and you don't know to which enemy women it refers.
"Imagine you're a woman who writes in a newspaper, and every time you write about your [women's] concerns, problems, poverty, unemployment, and legal status, they say about you: 'Never mind her, it's all women's talk.'"
Endnotes:
(1) Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), October 9, 2005.
(2) The expression 'How wonderful' is used here to translate the Arabic phrase ma sha'a 'llah (literally, "that which Allah wills"), which is used to express joy and gratitude and to ward off the evil eye, but is also used ironically.
#1
Soon the Arab Press no doubt will trot out some idiot Saudi female who'll lecture us the usual BS about how she loves her status and how deranged Westerners are in their sexual objectification of women, and on and on.
#2
I think we should send all the liberals to saudi arabia, there they would find a fertile playground for their high handed ideas. Saudi arabia is rife with the kind of abuses that they percieve in American culture. Yes, I think they would be much happier over there, with so much work to do.
#5
Soon the Arab Press no doubt will trot out some idiot Saudi female who'll lecture us the usual BS about how she loves her status and how deranged Westerners are in their sexual objectification of women, and on and on.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/24/2005 20:58 Comments ||
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#12
Me too, lol. I can hear the gears turning...
"I'm cool. She's naked, but I'm cool. I'll look her in the eyes. I won't look at her boobies. Nope - fix on her eyes. Don't look down. Uh oh, I forgot to breathe... I'm gonna pass out..."
'The year is 50 B.C. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely⊠One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders." So, for over four decades, has begun one of the world's most popular comics about the cunning little Gallic warrior Asterix and his overweight pal Obelix. Powered by the village druid's magic potion, the dynamic duo bash the hapless Romans, enjoy lavish boar banquets and travel the world.
But the latest offering, "Asterix and the Falling Sky," shows what a fine line there is between charming and distasteful. Since Goscinny's death in 1977, the illustrator Mr. Uderzo has taken on the writing duties as well and the comic has been in slow decline. Last week's release marks a new low. Mr. Uderzo worked four years on the book. It feels like 20, considering the strange 1980s-style Japano-phobia at the heart of the story.
In "The Falling Sky," our Gallic village comes under attack from space aliens from the planet Gmana, an anagram for Manga, the Japanese word for comics. Wearing a cockroach-like body armor, the villain has a yellow face and Asian features and flies a rocket modeled on a Samurai warrior. The Nagmas, as they are called, are vindictive, envious and domineering. They only copy from other cultures but create nothing original themselves.
In a bizarre twist here, the Gauls get help from unexpected quarters -- extraterrestrial Yanks led by Toune, as in "loony." He's a cross between Teletubbies and Mickey Mouse, purple-colored, with a white face and white gloves. Red-caped "super clones" that bear an uncanny resemblance to a dim-looking Arnold Schwarzenegger come to his aid from a planet called Tadsywine, an anagram for Walt Disney. Some reviews have focused on this supposedly anti-American plot line. Toune's boss is Hubs (i.e. Bush). Yet, if anything, the Americans are France's "white" allies against the Asian menace, and Mr. Uderzo himself claims to pay homage to the "great Walt Disney."
The real story here is that all good things can come to an end in the wrong hands. So Asterix, once great, is now merely crude. After 44 years, Mr. Uderzo has managed to give French chauvinism a bad name.
Posted by: too true ||
10/24/2005 08:23 ||
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#1
Right. And you've never seen Japanese cartoon/manga representation of blacks. Considering how racist the Japanese are, just ask any multi-generational japan born Korean, this is a small 'turn around is fair play'. Anyway bashing Japanese is easy, ask the Danes what happens when you do cartoons about Mooslems. What do you expect, courage, by the French?
#2
How lame... Such a pity, the original comics were very, very funny, and very literate, too. My daughter loved them--- they were among the first things she wanted me to read aloud to her, and the first books she read for herself.
#3
I agree, it's not good, we offered it to one of my sister when she was at the hospital last week to give birth to a little Ulysse (who sez hello to the world!).
It's indeed a bit xenophobic (manga is big in France, though, perhaps Uderzo doesn't like competition), and overall, it's too "modern" and is plain boring, no fun at all.
#7
If they wanted to play on Japan the should have had Astrix sail to Japan. The spaceship thing is just so out of character from the old comics as to be pathetic.
It is difficult to hear anything about the state of Christianity in Europe today that doesn't describe a spiritual decline. Average church attendance in France, Sweden and the Netherlands is down to 10% in urban areas, compared to 60% in the 1960s, according to the Gordon Conwell Theological Institute in Boston. "There is no longer evidence for a need of God, even less of Christ" Pope Benedict XVI recently told Italian priests. "The so-called traditional churches look like they are dying."
But the rising secular tide in the West has, quietly and behind-the-scenes, prompted the Eastern and Western churches to accelerate efforts at reconciliation. A possible reunification of the Christian Church and its combined 1.4 billion members isn't out of the question. The overtures were begun by the late Pope John Paul II -- the first Pope to visit Eastern Orthodox countries since the 1054 schism who was also the first to apologize for the 1204 Catholic sacking of Constantinople -- and continued by Benedict XVI. In a recent Common Declaration, the two churches acknowledged a "shared common ancestry." From the Vatican's own newspaper to Pravda, talk of unity is being taken seriously.
Early feelers: Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras first 'communicate' in 1964.
After several false starts, Rome and the Patriarchate of Constantinople -- the name still used for the "first among equals" of 15 autocephalous Eastern Orthodox churches -- held their first talks at the Vatican in June 2004. The meeting marked the first official step toward "full communion," the most critical standard in Christian doctrine of recognition between two churches or denominations, requiring total mutual agreement on the most essential aspects of church doctrine.
This process began fitfully 40 years ago. At the 1964 Second Vatican Council, then-Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople terminated mutual ex-communication -- that is, the formal non-recognition of either church's jurisdictions -- between Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox for the first time since 1054. That was the year when centuries-long theological disputes within Christianity broke out in a doctrinal fight, permanently dividing the church. An earlier 4th and 5th century "Eastern" schism in the Church resulted in the so-called "Oriental" churches, such as the Coptic and the Armenian. These too have agreed to participate in the current reconciliation talks.
Upon his ascension in April, Pope Benedict XVI made the "ecumenical movement" -- the idea of a universal Christian church -- his main goal. He will travel to Istanbul for further talks with Patriarch Bartholomeos in November. Pope John Paul II, according to his official biographer George Weigel, was practically obsessed with trying to achieve unity with Orthodoxy.
For their part, the Eastern churches have extended a wary hand, following years of post-communist insecurity that reconciliatory overtures reflected the Vatican's strength vis-a-vis the Eastern church. While the Greek Church is more open to Rome, the Moscow patriarchate blocked a visit by Pope John Paul II in Russia, and only officially received Vatican officials last year. But the Russian church removed one obstacle to unity by canonizing the family of Tsar Nicholas II in August 2000, a move intended to put to rest concerns about its past ties with the Soviet regime.
More than theological niceties are involved here. Both churches are facing an existential threat from secularism as well as their liberal offshoots in North America. At heart is the recognition that historical Christian heritage and identity are threatened. As Cardinal Walter Kasper, who coordinates ecumenical dialogue at the Vatican, recently noted in an address commemorating Vatican II's "Decree on Ecumenism": "There are problems⊠and new challenges⊠such as doctrinal and ethical liberalism as well as an aggressive fundamentalism by both old and new sects⊠There is the real danger of relativism and indifferentism."
Much of the momentum toward unity may be credited to an institution with no official ties to either church. Pro Oriente was founded here in Vienna in 1965 by late Cardinal Franz König to strengthen "underground" relations between Rome and the non-communist Eastern Orthodox churches. König became something of an unofficial diplomat of the Vatican to the Soviet Bloc, and a legend in his own time. Later, König pushed the Church to take a clear stand against anti-Semitism, and acknowledge that the Jews should not be held responsible for the crucifixion.
After a millennium apart, reconciliation won't be easy. One sore spot is the so-called Uniate problem: Eastern Catholics, predominantly in the mostly Orthodox Ukraine, follow Eastern "rites" but answer to Catholic Rome. Some Eastern Orthodox leaders consider the Uniates a menace. Eastern churches also look askance at Westerners who identify Christianity with political and social causes.
Yet the Catholic Archbishop of Moscow, Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, captured the current mood well. "Despite the difficulties," he said two years ago, "we hope that relations between the Orthodox and the Catholics will develop and preserve the Christian values in the life of Europe and the world."
Ms. Kurapovna, a writer in Vienna, is working on a book on Byzantium.
Posted by: too true ||
10/24/2005 08:20 ||
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#1
Reuniting the Church would indeed be a historical event of great importance. It'll still take 20-50 years to complete, if it happens at all.
#2
Not to be conspiracy-oriented, but I do believe that the (all in all recent) secularization of Western Europe is mostly voluntary.
<<>>
IMHO it's due to the shift to the left undergone with the 60's "revolution" (the Frankfurt school's neo-left and its engineering of all the "isms" in the name of the marxist notion of "progress"); Atomic Conspiracy's idea of the embrace of so-called counterculture by the mass media certainly fits in that process.
Add the disastrous Vatican II, the 60-70's influence of communism and free masonry in Catholic church (I'm not being conspiratorial either, french catholic hierarchy is quite influenced by freemasonry, see for example the masonic symbols-ridden Evry new cathedral, or the fact that bishops are designated by the interior minister, who is always a free mason), and you've got a *very* ill Church, with lots of recruitment problems, while for example the traditionalist catholic movements who still use the Pie V liturgy are full of young people and offer many seminarists. Note that traditional catholics in France still have LOTS of babies, 5-6 is not uncommon.
Also, in France there is a "tradition" of atheism and anticlericalism enforced by free masonry, (the main Fm lodge in France is atheist and socialist in a "3rd Republic kind of way", not to mention deeply associated with trotskysts), while traditional anglosaxon FM are deist and conservative.
All in all, I'm not talking about "satanic forces", but rather of a culture war lost by the Western civilization (destroying western civilization to let the "progress" triumphes was/is one of the main aim of marxism) in western Europa, while it still is raging in the USA.
I take this was easier in Europa because democracy was there built against "tradition", in tabula rasa revolutions, while in the USA it was built on it, following the example of GB.
This vaccuum is very sad, because what was supposed to fill it was itself a lie and a failure, IE marxist Paradise on Earth.
Now, there is only hedonism, materialism, nihilism (hence the lack of life and babies), and in the near future, islam.
#4
If unity means the Eastern Orthodox churches adopt or accommodate the suicidal policies of the Western Euro churches, then I advise them to run away as fast as they can.
Posted by: ed ||
10/24/2005 9:05 Comments ||
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#5
Not likely they'll go that way. The eastern churches are pretty well rooted even after communism.
#6
Dumb idea that would only alienate the faithful of each tradition and fail to attract the current unfaithful. Each church has been around a long time with a long tradition of surviving good and bad times. This too shall pass. A consolidation would be an indication of industry contraction.
#7
The big problem in Europe was with State religions the state chose each church's pastor and paid for the church. To be successful a church should be an enterpise subscribe to by its members.
Put another way the EU churches are welfare states. The US churchs live or die like workers and companies.
#8
The Freemasonry influence is at the heart of the conspiracy stuff regarding Calvi's murder in from Blackfriar's Bridge and Marcinkus', "God's Banker", trial involving the Vatican bank and the Mafia. The tidbits about French cathedrals is interesting, as these ecumenical conferences have been hosted in Lyons. All the negative press has them hurting for funds, I suspect, and the hierarchy is accustomed to quite a lavish lifestyle. The true gospel is free.
#9
A big flaw in Xtianity is its willingness to try and co-opt pagan rituals. Ironically, in trying to subvert paganism, it has preserved paganism. Even in middle Europe, many rural towns still boast maypoles, and their Xtian holidays are as blended with paganism as is voodoo.
In northern Europe, the stern-jawed and unpleasant state-sponsored Protestant Xtianity is dying, and the Asatru (Aesir) gods and goddesses have idols in increasing numbers of residences.
The irony is reserved for those who see Xtianity as the only force capable of restraining Islam. In a way, this is true, but only in Africa, where Anglicanism is making major inroads against the Moslem.
In Europe, cultural forces and secularism itself stands against them. Their pacifism and multiculturalism are deceptive, for unlike Americans, who are generally moderate about these things, Europeans tend to vacillate between this pacifism, as one extreme, and barbaric xenophobia on the other.
In time, I would not be surprised seeing the continentals behaving towards Moslems much like the Serbs did in the Balkans' war, not too long ago.
#11
Big churches, like big governments and big businesses, are removed from the needs of their adherents. The Islamic faith follows the franchise model (as does evangelical christianity) and is more successful these days. Of more interest than consolidating churches is the fact that U.S. evangelical churches are now establishing missions in Europe, just as they have in Africa and Asia for centuries.
#12
Forget Catholic, forget Orthodox, forget all the schisms, if who ever is standing in the pulpit is preachin straight from the Bible and not from Political Correctness, something strange happens. More people in that church's neighborhood start showing up. No matter what part of the planet that church sits on.
#14
Screw god believers of all stripes. Jesus Christ is nothing but the name of a dead parasitic lazy bum, whose pacifism nearly brought down the West. Civilization stagnated until religious wars forced Europeans to set up Secular States. The current "faith based" occupation, will be lifted and our enemies will be destroyed.
If the White House was not being run by a platitudinous religous crackpot, then Western grievances against Eastern barbarism would be channelled against Koranimal savages. A war against Muslim terror cannot be won when a US President denies that jihad conscription bounds 100% of Muslims, to terror war.
Rantburgers who celebrate the subsidized Islamism of Afghanistan and Iraq, would do well to take off their "faith based" blinders, and add up the costs and benefits of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on those 2 demographic garbage dumps. You write off bad investments; why not write off useless people?
Last dig: hey pious prayer monkeys! Given that the light flowing from some distant stars was generated 3 billion light years ago, how can creation have occurred a couple of years before the Egyptian pyramids were built? Hmmm...why do I suspect ad hominen thinking?
Posted by: Vlad the Muslim Impaler ||
10/24/2005 21:35 Comments ||
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#15
thanks Vlad - rot in hell
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/24/2005 22:19 Comments ||
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#16
Gosh Vlad, thanks. Your blinding wisdom has caused me to see the light. I will denounce all ideas of faith, hope, charity and forgiveness right this moment and demand that all Muslim grandmothers, grandfathers, mothers, fathers, and children who live peaceful lives be burned at the stake this very moment. And then why stop there? let's burn all the God believers to make the world safe for the pure and holy non-believers such as yourself.
From Teheran Times. Which do you think it's gonna be? Fact or fantasy?
By Hassan Hanizadeh
Finally, after four months, the committee investigating the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri submitted its final report to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan last week. In his 35-page report, chief UN investigator Detlev Mehlis has accused some high-ranking Lebanese and Syrian officials of being involved in the Hariri assassination in February 2005. However, the Syrian government rejected the report, calling it politically motivated, and demanded the investigation of the Hariri murder be continued.
That might be because they were named in the report. They had two options: deny it or confess. Nobody's said "I dunnit" yet, except for the Paleo who made the tape with a gun held to his head.
It seems that the Mehlis report was compiled based on a number of false assumptions and that political considerations were given priority.
Proceding from false assumptions might negate the value of the report. The motivations of the investigation are immaterial, unless they effected the factual conclusions.
This is a unique situation, since, despite the fact that many political figures have been assassinated across the globe over the course of history, neither the United Nations nor the international community has ever taken any measures to investigate such assassinations, until now.
Perhaps more of them should have been investigated. The fact remains that this one was, apparently be a competent investigator...
The fact that so much emphasis is being placed on solving the Hariri assassination puzzle indicates that an international conspiracy is being organized to politically besiege Syria and thus destroy the Tehran-Beirut-Damascus triangle.
Ahah! I knew it! It's an insidious conspiracy, hatched in a smoke-filled back room by Bilderbergers and Masons and Templars and other such riff-raff!
In fact, more damage has been inflicted on Syria following the assassination of Hariri because Hariri was an ally of Syria, so Damascus had no reason to plan his assassination.
"As we all know, alliances in the Middle East remain rock-steady and consistent from moment to moment, month to month, and year to year. There are never fallings out, never disagreements, never betrayals. And certainly never assassinations."
Some irrelevant issues, including a telephone conversation between Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and a member of the pro-Syrian Al-Ahbash Sunni Muslim group in Beirut a few minutes before the blast that killed Hariri, or the possibility of the participation of the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), led by Ahmed Jibril, in determining Haririâs destination on the fateful day, are cited in the Mehlis report.
"We know them. They couldn't possibly be involved. Musta been Illuminati. Or maybe Zionists!"
This report is legally null and void according to international law because one can not accuse individuals based on certain assumptions without arresting the suspects, recording their statements, and formally charging them in a local or international court.
It's not a charge sheet. It's a report. Mehlis isn't the cop on the beat. It's up to the Lebs and the Syrians to arrest the perps. The Lebs seem to be in the process of doing so, quite to my surprise.
In addition, certain points bring into question the legitimacy of the Mehlis report. For example, it is not clear if the United Nations is authorized to investigate the assassination of political figures in an independent country that possesses an independent judicial system. If it is, on the basis of which article of the UN Charter was the Mehlis committee formed?
"They shouldn't have done the investigation in the first place, and anything they find out should be discarded."
If the UN is authorized to investigate assassinations, why did it not establish special committees to investigate the assassinations of former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, former Swedish prime minister Olof Palme, former Hezbollah (Lebanon) secretary general Seyyed Abbas Musawi, and former Lebanese presidents Bashir Gemayel and Rene Muawwad?
I think the writer has a black belt in fallacious reasoning. He seems to be hitting every fallacy there is.
Although the criminals involved in the Hariri assassination should be punished, the UN investigation should not be used as a means to pressure other countries or to get even with countries that are opposed to U.S. policies.
But what if the perps are the selfsame leaders of those countries which are opposed to U.S. policies, caught carrying out a campaign of murder most foul?
Undoubtedly, the Mehlis report will be a prologue for the ratification of United Nations resolutions against Syria and will also be used to provoke opposition groups in Lebanon to act against Emile Lahoud, which would not only exacerbate crises in the Middle East but would also pave the way for Israel to carry out propaganda and political maneuvers against independent countries in the region. Israel is satisfied with the Mehlis report more than any other country in the world because the political isolation of Syria would be to the benefit of the Zionist regime.
See? Told you it's all a Zionist plot.
Therefore, since regional countries must cooperate with each other to solve regional crises at this critical juncture, this report will not help efforts to establish stability and security in the Middle East.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/24/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
whew! If the Iranians had agreed with the report, we would all have had cause for concern.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
'The year is 50 B.C. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely⊠One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders." So, for over four decades, has begun one of the world's most popular comics about the cunning little Gallic warrior Asterix and his overweight pal Obelix. Powered by the village druid's magic potion, the dynamic duo bash the hapless Romans, enjoy lavish boar banquets and travel the world.
