Author: Mick Hartley

In Saudi Arabia, jokes about the in-laws take on a whole new meaning:

Fatima, the forcibly divorced wife of Mansoor Al-Timani, and her two children — a two-year-old girl and a nine-month-old boy — languish in prison, arrested along with her husband in Jeddah earlier this year by secret police for being an unwed couple living together.

They had been married for over three years when the wife’s family intervened and requested the divorce on the grounds that the husband misled them on his tribal background….

The judge in the present case declared the marriage void on July 20, 2005 over the objection of the couple, who refused to attend most of the hearings.

own choosing. This can be dangerous, as we have seen with Catholic paedophile priests: when community leaders become the custodians of their own morals and are not subject to scrutiny, all kinds of wrongs can take place and all manner of fundamentalist tendencies thrive.

Indeed – as these articles on domestic abuse in the Amish community, via Ophelia Benson, demonstrate.

Chicago Tribune reporter Paul Salopek, on “What I saw in Darfur” (via):

Vastly oversimplified as a good-versus-evil contest between African farmers and rampaging Arab herdsmen armed by Khartoum, the complicated struggle in Darfur is about to get a lot murkier–and more unstoppable. Once loosely united by the neglect and cruelty of the central government, the region’s squabbling rebels now maul each other. They are a messy obstacle to peace. Many have devolved into ethnic militias, or worse, simple bandits. Insurgents I interviewed on the Chad border had little vision for the future of their people. Some resembled warlords from such dismal places as eastern Congo: sleek businessmen of war using children as cannon fodder….

An African Union peacekeeping force can’t stanch the bloodshed in Darfur, despite a promised addition of 4,000 troops. Sources as varied as Sudanese military officers, rebels, refugees and even frustrated AU officials themselves said the ill-equipped force remains outgunned and overwhelmed. Moreover, their credibility as an honest broker is in tatters. A typically depressing incident overheard in prison: In August, pro-government raiders called janjaweed attacked women and children gathering wood within sight of an AU firebase in southern Darfur. Several women were shot down. I was told that the AU contingent of Nigerian soldiers didn’t lift a finger. Only when infuriated villagers surrounded the peacekeepers’ base, chanting and waving sticks, did the AU at last react–dispersing the civilians with armored personnel carriers.

who died in 1975, is well-known in the art world, which made the decision by gallery director Iwona Blazwick all the more surprising to her.

Bellmer’s work includes dolls of naked young girls.

“It surprised me because Bellmer’s work is very well known. She already knew it well and by committing to take our exhibition she must have known what would be on the walls,” Beaumelle said.

“I tried to protest,” she said, adding that the move was “a little excessive but there’s no need to make a fuss about it.”

The gallery may also have removed some art depicting young girls because it was worried about the reaction of anti-pedophile groups, Beaumelle added.

Hmm. By speaking to Reuters you’ve already made the fuss.

I wonder if there’s any truth in this. It could be that Agnes, for reasons best known to herself, is stirring it. On the other hand there’s something wonderfully comic about an art gallery censoring a surrealist – especially a notoriously provocative one like Bellmer – because they’re worried he might give offence.

Well, here’s a powerful speech from Iraqi MP Iyad Jamal Al-Din, on Lebanese TV, though it has to be said that the others featured in the programme (clip 1285) look less than convinced:

Iyad Jamal Al-Din: Blessed be America for giving Saddam a good kick, sending him straight into the abyss of jail. Blessed be America for giving Mula Omar a good slap, sending him straight into the garbage bin of history and into the dunghills of oblivion. These people were tiny idols, who humiliated their peoples, and turned Allah’s property into states and His servants into slaves. It was the moral duty of America, as the greatest and strongest power in this world, to topple these rodents, who treated their people ferociously. We should be happy. Instead of going to Britain for asylum and to beg for food, we should welcome them, so they can rid us of these despicable dictators, who have plundered Iraq’s resources and turned the Iraqis into their slaves. Now there is freedom in Iraq, there are elections. People who never even dreamt of being ministers have become ministers through free elections. We did not know what democracy was until America brought it against our will. We did not want democracy or freedom…

Interviewer: At the same time, one can claim that there is much violence in Iraq, and this might even lead to a civil war. Some officials have acknowledged this. Blood is spilled in Iraq every day. Is this the price of democracy and freedom?

Iyad Jamal Al-Din: Yes, because we do not know what freedom is or what to do with it. We are like a tiny bird born in a cage. Its father and mother were born in the same cage, and so were its ancestors – for the past 1,400 years. Along came America and broke the cage open, but the bird does not know how to fly, because it has never used its wings. We do not know what to do with the values of freedom, because we were born slaves, the sons of slaves, the sons of slaves – for the past 1,400 years, with this inferior culture. I am not talking about the beautiful, tolerant, Islamic religion, which respects humanity. But there is an Arab Islamic culture, which, in many of its aspects… I don’t mean all its aspects, because there is the Sufi culture, which is wonderful. But the official culture teaches you to become a slave to the ruler and to obsolete values and traditions. This is why we do not know what to do with the modern values of democracy.

Further to the Jack Straw business – and Norm’s post…

I mentioned in my earlier post that the number of women walking around with a veil in my part of London had noticeably increased in the past couple of years. I don’t think that’s because of an increase in the number of Muslims round here – there’s been a sizeable Muslim presence here for years – and it would be naive to assume that all of a sudden more and more young women are deciding to assert their increased spirituality. This is part of a regrettable dynamic within a section of the Muslim community (to use an unfortunate but necessary phrase) whereby the ratchet has been turning one way only – away from integration into British society, and towards an increasingly inflexible and extreme interpretation of Islam.

There are parallels here with the case of Shabina Begum, the Luton schoolgirl who appealed against her school’s decision to stop her wearing a jilbab, a more extreme version of the dress which the school had agreed was suitable for Muslim girls. On the surface this might have seemed to be simply a case of a restriction on the girl’s freedom, but in fact the girl – a 15-year-old orphan – was clearly being used by people with political axes to grind, in particular her elder brother, a member of Hizb-ut-Tahrir. By winning the case, the school managed to put a stop to attempts to increase division and create a tension within the school and community, whereby young girls would feel pressured to show the extent of their Islamic devotion by adopting increasingly strict clothing.

Similarly the issue of the wearing of veils is not simply one of freedom of choice. Wearing a veil – or feeling compelled to wear a veil – has a political dimension at a time when the relations between Muslims and the rest of us has become a major concern. Now Jack Straw has used his position as a senior politician, representing a constituency with a large Muslim population, to open up some space for debate and to lend some support to the concerns of the more moderate Muslims who’ve been shouted down by the extremists for too long.

There’s this letter, for instance, in today’s Times, from Hesham El-Essawy, Chairman of the Islamic Society for the Promotion of Religious Tolerance:

Jack Straw is absolutely right. The veil that covers the entire face is not at all an Islamic tradition that can be supported by the Koran or the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. It is only a cultural phenomenon indicating excessive piety.
It must be remembered that the Prophet warned his followers not to become excessive in their practice and their conduct.

At last the ratchet may be starting to turn the other way – and, who knows, a few more women may find arguments as to why they shouldn’t have to dress up in medieval clothing to walk the streets of 21st century Britain.

A typically robust response from the UN to the letter from Sudan warning Arab and African nations not to contribute to any peacekeeping force:

The president of the Security Council for October, Japanese Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, said some members felt “the language [in the letter] was inappropriate and offensive”.

Mr Oshima said a resolution condemning the letter had been considered, but it was decided to concentrate on how to restore peace in the troubled region….

Britain’s ambassador to the UN, Emyr Jones Parry, said the letter was “unacceptable”, but that it would be best to ignore it.

“In my view… the best thing one can do with it is to actually just quietly assume it hadn’t been sent,” he told the BBC.

The council said it was seeking “clarification” of the letter from Sudan’s UN ambassador.

Well said Jack Straw:

Muslim women in the UK who wear full veils make “better, positive relations” between communities more difficult, Commons leader Jack Straw has said.

Failing to show the mouth and nose was “a visible statement of separation and of difference”, the MP wrote in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph.

Now he asks women who meet him if they would consider taking off their veils. […]

[H]e told BBC Radio Lancashire that this was “an issue that needs to be discussed because in our society, we are able to relate, particularly to strangers, by being able to read their faces, and if you can’t read people’s faces, that does provide some separation”.

He said he understood why some women wanted to be covered, citing a recent meeting with a constituent who “said she felt more comfortable when she was outside wearing the veil and she was less troubled by people”.

“What I’m saying on the other side is, would those people who do wear the veil think about the implications for community relations,” he said.

That seems to me to be exactly right: it is indeed a visible statement of separation and of difference, and it’s also an affront to an unspoken understanding that in public places, where people interact, you should be able to read their faces. I posted about this some time ago, and used the phrase “democracy of social interaction”.

The number of women wearing a niqab (if I’ve got the terminology correct) has increased dramatically in my part of London recently. A couple of years back they were very rarely if ever seen; now I may see three or four in a day. And yes, I find it offensive. Not because it’s a visible sign of difference, or because it functions as a symbol of female subservience – though it is and it does – but because it shows a lack of respect for the open social interaction of the streets.

And despite the expected blather from Muslim spokesmen, the comment from the MCB guy suggests that at least a debate can be had on the subject:

Dr Daud Abdullah of the Muslim Council of Britain said it was up to individual Muslim women whether to wear the veil, adding he understood the matter “does cause some discomfort to non-Muslims”.

“Even within the Muslim community the scholars have different views on this.

“Our view is that if it is going to cause discomfort and that can be avoided then it can be done. The veil over the hair is obligatory.”

can’t possibly know what we’re going through because if they did, it would stop.” I think that’s the most horrible thing about going back to Darfur. You can’t lie to these people any more. You go back to the same places and you see a lot of the same people, because it’s the same people who have been sitting in these makeshift shelters for three years.
Maybe for them all that’s changed is that their families in the towns where these displaced camps are around – they now no longer have anything. They’ve given everything to the people who have been burned out of their homes – so they’ve joined them.
You go back and there’s a real blankness when people look at you. It’s just “Oh, you’re back.”
What people really don’t get about Darfur is that they see it as a wasteland, a land before time. These people have radios. They get the BBC World Service, and in a lot of the cities where their families have homes, people have satellite dishes, they have Al-Jazeera and they hear great amazing speeches that people are saying on their behalf – but their life hasn’t changed. I think that’s the most horrible thing about Darfur.

women in Muslim society, among other causes, have influenced the radical behavior of Muslim extremists.

According to Kobrin, Mary Loughrey, a vice president with the book publisher, called to tell her that “because of security reasons they feared for the safety of the staff and themselves.”

I suppose we should be grateful that the publishers were at least honest about their reasons.