Egypt. A court in Egypt has upheld the three-month prison sentence given to the leading comic actor, Adel Imam, for insulting Islam in his films and plays. Is that an accurate translation? Is that really what the charge is? “Insulting” Islam? How do you “insult” an abstraction? In English, at least, you don’t. You don’t “insult” …
Monthly Archive: April 2012
Apr 23 2012
Poke the hatred in its eye
Mona Eltahawy pulls no punches in her Foreign Policy article on the hatred of women in the Middle East. She’s pissed, man. I could find you a host of crackpots sounding off on Woman the Insatiable Temptress, but I’m staying mainstream with Qaradawi, who commands a huge audience on and off the satellite channels. Although he …
Apr 23 2012
What you need to know
A reader sent me a link to this Dear Daughter letter. Dear daughter – You should know that you are hated. It’s true; she needs to know that.
Apr 23 2012
Delusions of choice
And now I’ll spell out exactly why I think the Collective Response is so wrong and bad. The hijab is a statement of female subordination, and it’s also a statement of loyalty or obedience to a ferociously misogynist and coercive religion. Some people are “offended” to be told that. It doesn’t follow that it’s not true. …
Apr 23 2012
A note was left
To expand on one part of the Adele Wilde-Blavatsky and the Collective Response issue… Wilde-Blavatsky said at the beginning of her article Last month, an American-born Iraqi woman, Shaima Alawadi, was viciously murdered in the United States. According to reports, her daughter stated that a racist note was left outside the family home before the attack. …
Apr 22 2012
You know what you can do with your collective response
Maryam points out, in agreement with Adele Wilde-Blavatsky, that the hoodie and the hijab are not the same. Wilde-Blavatsky published an article arguing that on the website The Feminist Wire on April 13. What I take issue with here is the equating of the hoodie and the hijab as sources of ethnic identity and pride. …
Apr 22 2012
It’s always priorities, isn’t it
Ah the Catholic church in Ireland - always shameless, always brazen, always ignoring the harm it does to other people while demanding infinite respect for itself. This time it has its mitres in a knot because a broadcaster said it had fucked things up in Ireland. Yes, and? The Communications Office of the Irish bishops has …
Apr 22 2012
No life for girls
Bangladesh has one of the highest rates of child (read: girl) marriage in the world; 20% are married off before the age of 15. This of course means they get pregnant young, and give birth young. This means they get fistulas. This ruins their lives. There are tens of thousands in that situation, as there …
Apr 22 2012
Bruce on Day Four
A guest post by Bruce Everett Day Four – Sunday: Last day of the convention proper… I have to confess, owing to considerations arising out of personal matters not mine to recount, coupled with a genuine need for more sleep, I missed the first three speakers of Sunday’s presentations: Eugenie Scott, Tanya Smith and Annie …
Apr 21 2012
Strictness and violence
Maryam points out this helpful item: a speech last summer by Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, religious advisor to Ahmadinejad, explaining that human rights have no place in Islam. Oh. Well thank you; that’s what critics keep saying, and it’s helpful to have the corroboration. Mesbah-Yazdi, the theoretician of violence, gave a new speech at the end of …
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