The problem with the one-eye veil for women, and a solution
Saudi cleric Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan has come up with a solution for troublesome women who wear eye makeup to look seductive as they peer through the slit in the black hoods they wear whenever they step outside. He wants them to wear full veils with a single eyehole.
The problem with this idea, of course, is that every time a woman blinks, men will think she is winking at them. Writing to India Uncut, Amit Varma has a neat solution:
I have an alternative solution to your problem. I suggest that you introduce veils for men that cover both their eyes. That way it will make no difference if the women are winking, blinking or, heaven forbid, naked.Saudi cleric calls for one-eye veil for womanGood idea, no? You’re welcome.
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But God would still be able to see them.
Apparently, the Saudi God doesn't have x-ray vision.
How about a periscope instead? :x
In the old Europe town of Kelm the Jewish ghetto (according to legend) had separate streets for men and women.
Something like Douglas Adams peril sensitive sunglasses would work for me, like those electronic welding helmet visors, c'mon web filter software writers lets see what you can do.
I suggest that they remove women's eyelids enitirely.
I mean, come on - if you are going to go this far in the name of religion, you might as well go the distance...
He's an eyehole.
I obviously think the whole veil thing is silly, but from a strictly practical standpoint: wouldn't it be easier to convince women to give up eyeshadow than binocular vision?
typical right wing religious 'bat-shit' nuttery.
Make all women wear make-up, and wink at everyone, all the time
simple.
@6: Clearly you don't know any women. In a war between vanity and safety, beauty always wins.
See: high heels.
What if they wore those things the Tuskan Raiders wore in Star Wars?
Perhaps it's not religion: Muslim clerics have a standing bet on how many rules they can keep piling on women until they finally start putting rat poison in the men's food en masse.
See, that's too far.
If Muslim women want to wear the burqa because they believe in its necessity or some sense of matrimonial honor, great.
But if a woman is going to these ends to try and circumvent the burqa, then they should just not be wearing one.
Unless there's an untapped "sexy eyes behind the burqa" fetish they are going for. Which if there isn't one, sounds like there will be soon.
I get the impression that Saudi men are so easily and uncontrollably sent into fits of lustful desire that their women must be covered at all times lest they be compelled to rip off their clothes and violate them at every opportunity while American men pious and have so little want for feminine beauties and sexual acts that women must parade nearly naked on the streets and strike seductive poses on the tops of sports cars before men will show a hint of interest.
*cheek, meet tongue.
i was in dubai back in march08 and found it very difficult to not gaze into those eyes while passing. thank god i was not arrested.
I suppose they could just remove the eyes of all the women. Okay, I retract that even as a tasteless observation. Some of these so-called clerics might well react with interest and speculation as opposed to horror.
REBDAV: You mean the Wise Men of Chelm?
BUT those men may still be lusting after those veiled women, which is the crime here, the lusting. It would be better to just have the men walk around completely naked all the time, so if they start lusting . . . we'll know!
(wink wink, nudge nudge.)
Wonder when then start losing the women with htis kind of things.
It might be worth pointing out that some cultural systems are truly inconsistent with the concept of liberty. It's probably also a good idea to point out that the logic and reason filters that are a part of most decision making are switched off during religious discussions.
#9: I know this is going to sound abrasive, but there's really no other way to say it:
Not all women are idiots.
I propose that tony stark outfit every oppressed muslim woman with full iron man armor. that way the theocracies won't have to see any skin when the uprising comes.
You know. . . blinding all the men, that's not such a bad idea. . . for example, the other day I saw Sarah Palin winking at me, and I felt so dirty I wanted to gouge out my own eyes.
Amit Varma has just gotten to the heart of the problem.
Better idea: Mandatory black eye makeup surrounding women's eyes, like a raccoon mask, so no skin would show.
#17, no, no...men are not the problem. The crime is being female, clearly. If the men displayed public boners, the clerics would doubtless stone to death the closest cowering heap of tent material that incited this lust with her cheap, intentional and tawdry display of...er, shapeless, asexual lumpiness.
@#21- god, me too. I've refrained so far but will seriously consider it again if McIdiot somehow wins in Nov.
My suggestion to the women is to simply leave any nation creating such a law. If their husbands, sons and fathers respect them they'll follow. Anyone remaining can have the place for a generation, and then sane people can move back in.
Stupid governments making the spiritually religous moderates all look like crazy extremists.
While plenty of witty observations do spring to mind, I am at the same time speechless. Personally I don't have a problem with veils. A few female Muslim friends explained their perspective of it, and I understand their reasonings and even desire to wear them. But this is beyond logic.
Something like this could only come from a deeply ingrained hatred of women.
@Sciurus: Wha...? Please rephrase that statement. I can't quite understand what you mean.
The Saudi government is a terrible system of religous oppresion making crazy laws that really are in no way representing the true intentions of Islam. It truely saddens me when I see things like what this Sheikh is wanting to do.
Sorry for not being able to word things right my fever is running high.
My suggestion to the women is to simply leave any nation creating such a law.
That might be a little challenging when you're not allowed outside without your husband or father, you're not allowed to drive and you can't board any other conveyance without your owner.
Saudis give Islam a bad name.
The fact is that these women could be executed or beaten for not wearing these vails created by little dicked men. Sorry, but these actions are subhuman and despicable. I don't care what their violent, separatist, homophobic, cowardly, totalitarian religion says! Let women live happily! The women mentioned above "who don't mind" have been indoctrinated since birth(one could assume)you'd be blissfully floating about in delusion too. I abhor all religions equally but Islam is the worst. It is the biggest obstacle standing between present humans and relative world peace.
I abhor all religions equally but Islam is the worst.
No. Just the trendsetter. Look at the increase in crazy in the US in the last 50 years. You think that's going to stop? Radical Christianity is on the rise. And I know that nobody reads the news from India, but Hindu nationalists have been winning a war to take over the country for some time now. The only reason that we have focused our attention on Islam is oil. If we were trying to squeeze oil out of India, we'd be up in arms about dowries, bride burnings and female infanticide. Anger at Islam is the direct result of the marketing department of the military industrial congressional complex.
Having spent most of this year in this miserable country, I must say that most of your proposals are plain silly.
Women have the right to remain silent in this country and to behave modest. Without permission of their husband or father they cannot do anything, not leave the house, not talk to anybody, not leave the country.
If they don't follow they will be punished. Beating with the hand, lashes with the stick, or beaten to death as the 27 year-old girl whose father caught her chatting over the internet with an unrelated man.
Women there would never blink to strangers unless they felt secure. Which they cannot with any Arab man.
Many of the women on the street in Riyadh, or rather in the hundreds of shopping malls there, wear a full cover, i.e. a semi-transparent veil over the slit. Only some leave that aside. And only Asian foreign Muslim women or girls show their whole face but do cover their hair.
The Saudi men are opportunistic chauvinists who have no discipline whatsoever. Religion is just the façade, the real reason is that they are used to do whatever they like unless they don't criticize the king or Islam. If they keep to that not much happens to them, whatever they do.
Most women accept wearing the Abaya (the black full body veil) and many do it gladly. But being abused and deprived of their rights is another thing. Nobody likes that.
Divorcing a woman is as easy as saying good morning. Saudi men have liked recently to marry foreign (Arab) women thus leaving many Saudi women unmarried or divorced at home with their parents. Trapped without the chance to break out unless there comes along one of these gentlemen...but as their idol, they prefer the younger ones. 9 years and above. (Well, this is really an exception and arouses criticism even here, but 14 is okay.)
Apart from all that, Saudi men and women are, of course, the same as you and me. They have the same wishes, desires, pleasures or fears. Just that the society gives a bad man all the rights in his hands to do how he pleases. And there is a lot of them, not only there, of course.
And let's not forget the many Saudi women abusing their Asian house maids (standard equipping for a Saudi family) - with words or by depriving them from their salaries or food or beating and torturing them, eventually dropping them half dead in the desert. The women appear to be none better in this miserable country.
Are all men and women like this? No, of course not. But far too many.
Maybe they could just wear sunglasses. Living in such a sunny climate, don't they worry about UV protection anyways?
addressing post#34- you're preaching to the choir, christianity is insane too. Lets hope Sarah Palin dosen't make it to the whitehouse! But, Islam is without question at the very core of why terrorists blow people up. They've been given permission and they absolutely believe that. Scary.
Hey. . . I'm as offended as anyone else about the treatment of women under strict interpretations of Islam, as I would be if women and children here in the US (or anywhere) were/are treated according to strict Old Testament rules (i.e. "disobedient children and adulterers should be stoned to death" etc.), but the tone of the original post was wry and comical, and so I responded with my own sarcastic jokes.
The fact that I joke about it doesn't mean I'm not outraged, and besides, whether I post jokes or long angry diatribes on a website doesn't change the situation in Saudi Arabia, so I may as well joke.
Religion is a crutch for the weak, ban it from the earth.
Religion is a beautiful thing until the second person gets involved - then it goes straight to hell.
at #33 and #34 - execution for not wearing the veil - no, but beating yes.
These Retaliban and Catholiban, the radical Christians, are made from just the same wood. Without Reformism and Enlightenment in the 18th century, the Christians would not differ much from the Muslims today. Let's not wear our noses too high.
Everyone who claims a war is a mission from God is not only born a few centuries too late, he/she shows also that there are no arguments to explain and justify why destroying the lives of some 30 million people just in order not to bring democracy to them, not to take weapons of md from them and not even to get hand on their oil is a worth cause.
#38 ammend that to antisemitic Christian teaching of so called "Old Testament" laws without understanding a word of it or how the legal system works. But I agree if christians were allowed to run loose with our laws it would look alot like Saudi Arabia.
Isn't it nice that the US got rid of the historical but British backed Hashemite dynasty for the Wahabist house of Saud which so far are allowed to do as they wis as long as they leave Saudi ArAmco alone to pump the oil and play to the Anerican tune in foreign policy.
#36 coldspell,
You are the voice of reason; thank you.
Reading the original post once more, one aspect of the problem with Islam in KSA are these Sheikhs. Mostly very old men, but not all of them, they are religious authority and legal judges in one person. Whatever they decide cannot be disputed, not even by the king.
I have seen these guys say the most horrible things publicly on TV in KSA, from why it is just to rape your wife, over how to do the beating of your wife properly and in accordance with Islam to why the Jiahdists need to be supported by every Muslim. No authority stands above them, no censorship applies to them, no criticsm allowed.
Not quite the same, but similar with the Imams or Mullahs in the mosques spreading all across the world.
There's a very similar idea discussed in the Talmud. The minimal amount of makeup considered to count for having value is enough for one eye. The reason is that a woman who is covered everywhere but a single eye might wish to put makeup around it.
I think we're missing the easiest solution. If you want to prevent lustful thoughts in men, castration at puberty is your solution.
But seriously, the burqa isn't to assuage lustful thoughts of men it's just one more method to oppress the women. What amazes me is the sheer number of western women that marry Saudi men and take on the burqa. Do these women respect themselves so little that they'd accept horrific oppression for a rich husband?
My wife suggests we form an organization of militant feminists to go build a safe haven compound and rescue oppressed women. Trespassing males will have their wangs removed with blunt rocks.
Sa'udi women wear the niqab, not the burqa.
I'm a moderate on this issue. My solution has three parts:
STEP ONE: Kill every member of the Saudi religious police.
STEP TWO: Kill every Saudi sheikh, the Saudi royal family to the tenth cousins, and every Saudi man who has ever beaten his wife or performed an "honor killing."
STEP THREE: Evacuate every Saudi woman who's willing to leave, and her children, to a sane Islamic country, like Turkey.
I deplore the extremist solution (nuke Riyadh, Mecca, and Medina) as unfair to the many sane and peaceful Moslems who would then be unable to make Hajj. And yes, I know my solution is rather difficult to implement, but moderate solutions often are.
OK, now for the serious part: Everything I hear about Saudi Arabia makes me sick to my stomach. How can we be allied with these scumbags? Even IRAN is comparatively sane! Does anyone know of any organization equivalent to the Underground Railroad in the US during slave times, that helps women escape from Saudi Arabia and find opportunities in other countries (I mean besides prostitution; there are plenty of THOSE organizations)? I'd love to contribute money to such an organization.
And actually I'm not quite joking about killing the Saudi religious police. If someone wiped them out I wouldn't shed a tear.
Kill the ulema if you want, but the king is a closet reformer.
Anyone who thinks covering up one eye would be less alluring obviously has never heard of Veronica Lake.
I don't see why the single eye hole is necessary at all. Cover it all up. I've seen those around a couple of years back. You could still see because the cloth is not totally opaque.
That's just a lousy solution. All those one-eyed women are going to be accidentally seducing men by bumping into them. They won't have any control over it - all the stonings in the world won't overcome a lack of depth perception.
Moreover, there's still a visible eye. Men can guess what the other looks like, and from there, the mind cannot help but imagine more. An ear, a forearm, the area of skin between the lip and the mouth... soon every man will see her in a Victorian-era bathing suit.
A better solution is obvious: goggles!
It makes me think of the scene in "Persepolis" (the book and the movie) in which, after being told not to run by the moral police because it draws attention to her behind, Marjane shouts, "Then stop looking at my ass!"
My wife suggests we form an organization of militant feminists to go build a safe haven compound and rescue oppressed women.
Does anyone know of any organization equivalent to the Underground Railroad in the US during slave times, that helps women escape from Saudi Arabia and find opportunities in other countries
I used to think that to, but unfortunately, it wouldn't work. Although the intention is good, the 'let's go save everybody from their own culture' attitude is patronizing and it attracts more animosity and resent towards westerners.
Of course, I think every person in the world should have a right to dignity, respect and freedom. However, cultures and nations must evolve from within in order for changes to last. I'm sure that women in Saudi Arabia, despite obvious abuse, still love their family and feel a sense of belonging to their nation and culture, precisely because they are human beings. They are treated like children (or worse, like objects); but to think that whisking them away from their country and background would 'save' them is also viewing them as inherently helpless and hopeless.
While I am sure that some women stay because they feel they have no other choice, others stay because they don't actually want to leave. They would want to improve their status for themselves as well as for the sake of their country and culture, without defecting to foreign ways.
We have to have faith that these women will find the way to empower themselves withing their world and that they will be able to build a better life and nation.
Also, please forgive the several typos... :P
#47, Hollywood Bob -- I am so with you. I've often thought of it as a great movie, where a bunch of bored wealthy U.S. ladies have been taking this intense boot camp class at a gym. Looking for a cause in their life, they decide to go over to Saudi and jack these fools up.
or beam a subversive show into Saudi called "Those Damn Wacky Christians" where you lampoon all the stupid conventions of Muslim culture under the guise of making fun of christianity. Every show ends with one character going "But hey, isn't that kinda like ..." and the rest all go "no, no, no entirely different!"
All those in favor of Dainel @ #52 wearing a full niqab with eye mesh during a Saudi Arabian summer, raise their hands!
@#55 Sekino:
So basically you're saying that it's ok to ignore basic human rights violations because it's their culture. That because all they've ever had was oppression that nothing should be done to change it? You probably right, these women probably love their families, and feel they belong to their culture but they could do that without the fear of being beaten to death. The parallels with battered spouses in western countries are frightening; "He only hits me when he's mad." "I should try harder to keep the house clean." etc. Fear doesn't breed love and respect. These women are suffering from Stockholm syndrome plain and simple. The funny part is that the countries of the western world have the power to change it, we buy the only thing they have of any value, but out of "respect" for their religion, and fear that they'll cut off our access to oil, we do nothing. The saddest part is that things will never change for Saudi women, in 50 years when oil is no longer valuable and the Saudis are back to riding camels, their women will remain oppressed and the countries of the world will care even less than today.
For now I'll say that accepting oppression and abuse for the sake of respecting a culture is simply a cop out. Why not just say "It's been that way forever and they don't seem to mind the beatings, the rape, the murder, the mutilation, etc.; why should we care?"
I'm all for respecting other cultures, once they have proven that they deserve to be respected. Many of the cultures of this world has proved they deserve no respect, western apathetic cultures included. Respect no matter what the form, be it the respect of one culture for another, or that of a husband and wife/father and daughter, should be earned, not automatically given, or taken by force.
@#57 Maddy:
That would never work, fundamentalists don't have the brain power to realize that you're subtly making fun of them. Blatant outright mockery is the only thing that works on zealots.
On a similar note, I always figured the best way to deal with terrorist was to turn them from the minor nuisance they are to completely marginalized laughing stocks. If they release a video, dub it over with "Durkha durkha's" from Team America, play with the video so that Bin Laden has on a rainbow wig, lace bustier and is talking into a purple dildo. And then if they blow something up, blame it on an accidental gas leak. What self respecting terrorist would want to be associated with Osama bin CrossDresser. :-D
It really disgusts me when I read about another "cleric" abusing their holy book. The convolutions these guys go through in reinterpreting their writ just goes beyond the pale. Never mind that reinterpreting the Prophet's words is the WORST offense against Islam you can commit, even if you are a so-called conservative.
But for every one of these guys, you can find news articles and discussions of ten other clerics who are just shaking their heads, going "why us? why do we get the loons who think because they can grow a beard they have a right to represent the creator? Never mind, making him STFU would be breaking faith...sigh..." There are plenty of reasonable Imams and clergy who aren't nutjobs.
Faith is not the ability to force others to live by your standard through force. Faith is all about being able to live up to YOUR standards regardless of what the world does around you.
If this cleric had any security in his faith, he should not have any issue with what women wear. He should be able to get on a crowded bus full of young unclothed nubile women and not have an improper thought, if his faith were really that strong. The ones who he should chide are the weak men in his mosque, but then he would have to start by getting up in the morning and realizing the first man to start with looks him in the face every morning washing for prayer...
note- Christian "conservatives" aren't any better, but they are still forced to live in mostly pluralistic society, regardless of their nefarious machinations. And if you think I am wrong, then wear a BSD shirt in a small Kentucky or Kansas town and see how far down the street you make it before you get run over or shot at. The difference is solely a matter of scale, location, and the fact that the culture of Saudi Arabia is a monoculture with a single product- take the value of the product away, and the rest crumbles very quickly. It is the necessary evil of commerce and multidimensional trade between the US states that prevents exactly the same situation from arising under a different banner in particular US states.
@ HollywoodBob
For now I'll say that accepting oppression and abuse for the sake of respecting a culture is simply a cop out. Why not just say "It's been that way forever and they don't seem to mind the beatings, the rape, the murder, the mutilation, etc.; why should we care?"
I figured what I said would be interpreted as such. Again, I also am totally disgusted by what these women have to live with. I did not say we should not care but that the situation is a lot more complicated than simply jumping in and showing 'em how much better it can be. And, unfortunately, doing so WOULD NOT WORK (and trust me: I wish it could).
You say that I must be calloused to think that way, but I just don't feel entirely comfortable dismissing all these women as empty, helpless vessels.
I know it is distressing to see human beings suffering and it is natural to want to just grab them away from it. But, again, that would be only a temporary solution. Eventually, the displaced women would need to reclaim their past, their backgrounds and their identity. Simply moving them away would NOT give them closure or real power.
Sorry if I seem pessimistic, but I think the bulk of history supports that real, deep cultural changes happen through the people, not by outside forces barging in. We can provide some help but not conduct the revolution.
stop driving your cars.
How about this: We spirit away any woman who wants to go. We train all these women in hand-to-hand combat with weapons, and also with common household objects. We also teach them to be flawless markswomen with every available rifle and handgun possible.
Then we send them back to Saudi Arabia with new identities, and marry them to unsuspecting Saudi men; they become the assassin squad that takes down the religious police, the honor killers, wife beaters etc.
Good plot for a novel. Bad plan for a progressive takeover of SA in the real world, more's the pity.
or you could cut off the money that props up the regime
I highly recommend the webcomic Jesus and Mo. They have a shirt that captures the essence of this situation.
@ #53: the goggles, they do nothing!
Xopher: You do realise that it's attitudes like yours that Islamic terrorists use to justify their actions, right? You openly say that you think it's OK wipe out large populations of Saudi people and condemn their way of life, then you are outraged when they start to kill in the name of their cause?
I read this this morning in the paper and thought "this is the stupidest thing I have ever heard". Not only does it deprive women of depth perception and make it impossible for them to wear glasses if they need them (and having worn an eyepatch for a few days due to injury, I can also vouch that it causes massive headaches) - it doesn't even prevent men from seeing their eye makeup! Last I checked, you can see makeup just fine on only one eye. If they must make yet more idiotic rules confining women, they should just ban eye makeup or call for sheer/lacy veils over the eyes or sunglasses, rather than half-blinding the women.
Of course, the entire idea that women should have to cover themselves and be prisoners in their own homes because MEN can't control themselves if they see even a sliver of female skin is appallingly sexist. It makes men nothing but animals in a theoretical sense... and women objects and slaves in a real one. To claim it's ok because it's someone else's culture is simply wrong; these women aren't choosing to be born into a culture where they can be beaten or raped or killed for nothing at all, even if they've mostly been brainwashed or Stockholm Syndromed into acceptance by the time they are adults.
I have no problem with a woman deciding she wishes to wear loose fitting clothing and cover her hair because she considers it appropriate modesty for religious or cultural or personal reasons. (Although, Muslim women: in America, wearing a burqa/niqab rather than just an abaya and headscarf draws MORE attention to you - if it's really about modesty to you or even to your husband, you're better off without it. Westerners don't see a modest woman; we see a woman dressed like Darth Maul. And if it's really about modesty, you shouldn't be carrying a designer purse and wearing half a dozen rings and inch-long acrylic nails, either.)
What I have a problem with is when any woman is *forced* to "cover". The line the clothing rules are based on says a woman's face and hands can remain uncovered, btw, so to even claim it as religionsly based is a lie - the full burqa/niqab is nothing but a symbol of oppression, and this cleric, and the entire regime, are nothing but misogynists. And any woman who willingly gives up every last bit of freedom she has, in order to marry a man who shares those beliefs, is an idiot (and then some). Unlike several of the previous posters, I am not anti-religion; I'm Christian myself - I'm just anti-fundamentalism and anti-oppression.
...Saudi cleric Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan needs to meet the same fate all those boy-buggering Shiite Muslim clerics deserve: painful deaths after being exposed for the scum they are. The Muslim faith isn't the problem, it's the idiots who "preach" it.
COULD THIS STORY BE FAKE?
Check out this article, which has the same premise,
which is openly an April Fool's satire:
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/143/story_14334_1.html
I won't get going on fundamentalism, whatever form it takes. It is vile.
The clerics who spew this sort of hateful nonsense are personality disordered, they are narcissists or borderlines or have antisocial personality disorders or some dreadful co-morbid cocktail of the above.
To abuse a group of human beings so, to hobble them and control and torture them shows pathological levels of cruelness. It is self centered beyond the pale. There is a total lack of empathy and a childishly oversimplified world view and black & white thinking, all of which are the defining characteristics of such personality disorders.
There is no point in fantasizing about rescuing victims of a culture created by such people. There is no point in conversations and trying to get through to the clerics and goons who make and perpetuate these conditions. We need to get to the root of the problem.
The thing to do is to pour our efforts into understanding what causes these disorders, into learning how to diagnose and cure them. Seriously, we should be putting the kind of money we spent on the Iraq war into mental health research. Not that we have such money.
And the point wouldn't be to immediately run out and cure other people from other cultures. Hell, that could be damn tricky in cultures where crazed clerics announce that childhood vaccine programs to fight diseases like polio are actually western plots to sterilize Muslim people.
The point would be to work on the problem here. We've plenty of toxic cluster B's in our society, in our churchs, in Washington, on Wall Street. You don't pay yourself hundreds of millions of dollars of money you've conned from other people if you have a lick of empathy. You don't pauper thousands and thousands of people if you don't believe the world stops and starts with you and you alone. You don't cause that amount of suffering if you do not relish causing pain.
If we could reduce this kind of mental illness here, in the United States, it would not mean we could cure the world and all it's ills. People would still disagree. People would still be stupid. People would still be shortsighted. But at least those who can cooperate, who are thoughtful, who do take the long view and do care about others and who seek to make life better would not be hampered by so many of the truly toxic destructive ones.
And once we have our act together, it can spread. And who knows? The human race might just survive.
Look, the obvious solution is to put the women into Dalek-like vehicles that hide their form. The women are able to see using a small LCD screen hooked up to a camera outside the Dalek body.
The only problem I can see is that this is dangerously close to allowing women to drive.
SoupIsGoodFood 66: You do realise that it's attitudes like yours that Islamic terrorists use to justify their actions, right? You openly say that you think it's OK wipe out large populations of Saudi people and condemn their way of life, then you are outraged when they start to kill in the name of their cause?
Well, I see a few differences. For example, the Saudi religious police are a terrorist organization, albeit one sanctioned by the state; taking them out isn't exactly like blowing up schoolbuses (or locking girls in a burning building because they couldn't go out without their headscarves, as the religious police have done; all the girls died). Honor killers, same kind of shitheads, they all deserve to die.
But the main difference is that my putting forth that ridiculous plan was a way of expressing my outrage and fury, not an actual advocacy of a course of action. You apparently didn't read all the way to the end of my post, where I said
It's a bad plan because it relies on violence, which pretty well rules it out in my book, and, of course, because it wouldn't fucking WORK. I'd've thought that was obvious, but now I see I need to clarify.I DON'T THINK TRAINING SAUDI WOMEN AS DEATH COMMANDOS IS A GOOD IDEA. IT'S JUST A NICE FANTASY.
And if I wrote that as a novel, it would be a satire, and the heroine would finally see that violence never solves anything, and explain this to her husband by breaking his arm when he tries to beat her.
simple wear a full face helmet like motorcycle rider, darth vader or storm trooper. has the additional benefit of protecting their heads too.
Oh, for pity's sake.
SUNGLASSES.
And/or take one testicle off guys who are excessively distracted by women. That should calm 'em down.
Yeah, that's treating men like randy dogs And how are they treating the women?
all the fanatics and violent scum that create and support this oppression had or have mothers.
What #33 wrote says it all, but I couldn't help thinking that Saudi Arabia is "Islam: ur doin it wrong".
The topic is cold but maybe the one or other interested is reading this.
Some background info:
#72: "...the Saudi religious police are a terrorist organization..."
The religious police is a lot different from what you probably think they are.
Essentially they are the "good guys of the neighbourhood" - volunteers of especially straight and firm belief (yes, comment on this, please) whose prime task is to give a good example and to make sure that the people fight against their own laziness and against temptations and exercise the religious duties.
They are usually dubbed "mutawa", which means something like to drive people into the mosques. Their official name is "Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" and also called "vice cops".
The problem with their activity is that they act for what is seen to be a good cause. So if they find something unacceptable, it is their decision and nobody can challenge it and they have the right to arrest without evidence. Well, even if they might not officially have that right, effectively they are not blamed for wrong measures because they are the good guys working for a good cause. You get the picture.
They are not the secret police and not a group of terrorists (though they can terrorize a neighbourhood) nor an official police force.
#71: "The only problem I can see is that this is dangerously close to allowing women to drive."
Women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia (and Kuwait), which is why this joking remark is especially bitter. The official reason is that they could get in contact with unrelated men by driving a car, the practical reason being that the traffic is already no so dense that there are frequent jams.
There are some activist women who "fight" against this and are rumoured to drive around at night, which is quite a risky business. Women have continuously approached the king and he promised that this matter will be solved in parliament if they remain patient.
Islam does not forbid women to drive, because when the rules were composed there were obviously no cars. So it is, once more, a matter of interpreting some sentences or half sentences from the book, which happens frequently by leaving out negating or qualifying parts of a sentence and claiming that something is written in Qur'an.
Some courageous women went to demonstrate in Riyadh for their right to drive and blocked some road until the police came and took them away. They were sentenced to lashes for disobedient behaviour and their husbands and fathers to public chastisement as they "were not able to control these women".
This story is why I didn't like this joke.
"The problem with their activity is that they act for what is seen to be a good cause. So if they find something unacceptable, it is their decision and nobody can challenge it and they have the right to arrest without evidence. Well, even if they might not officially have that right, effectively they are not blamed for wrong measures because they are the good guys working for a good cause. You get the picture."
are you describing those civilian quasi-cops in London?
Custodian 77: The religious police is a lot different from what you probably think they are.
Actually, your description is pretty much exactly what I thought. And yes, I think they're terrorists. They're using fear to enforce what THEY DECIDE is how Islam should be practiced. And don't tell me they don't kill anyone. You remember the 13 girls, prevented from leaving a burning building by the religious police?
I say they're terrorists, and I say to Hell with them, as literally as possible, and as soon as possible. (NOTE to SoupIsGoodFood: there is a difference between saying "I hope they die," which is what I'm doing here, and saying "I'm going to kill them," which I'm not doing.)
Okay, in that sense you are right, Xopher. And yes, I remember. Most people think of terrorists in a different way, but I figure now that you know what you are talking about.
And right, Takuan, such good citizens are not restricted to Saudi neighbourhoods. Although I don't know the quasi-cops you refer to, I don't think they are like the vice cops.