Political Crossfire Forums

[Lucky Luke]

Angelicus wrote: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/australasia/article1932715.ece

"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the back yard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem."

He added: "If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab [Islamic headscarf], no problem would have occurred."

According to this, this imam says that if a woman chooses not to wear the hijab and dares go out in public, then she deserves to be raped.

Not only should he "apologize" he should step down from his position as a spiritual leader, and be kicked out of Islam too.

The top Catholic cleric blamed the victims of child abuse for what happened to them, I never heard Cardinal Ratzinger going back to his own policy of excommunicating any victims of sex abuse who decided to report the crimes of some priests to the authorities or the media.

This is what the German cardinal was doing before becoming pope:

Quote: Crimen Sollicitationis was written in 1962 in Latin and given to Catholic bishops worldwide who are ordered to keep it locked away in the church safe.

It instructs them how to deal with priests who solicit sex from the confessional. It also deals with "any obscene external act ... with youths of either sex."

It imposes an oath of secrecy on the child victim, the priest dealing with the allegation and any witnesses.

Breaking that oath means excommunication from the Catholic Church.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/5389684.stm

Quote:

Let's have both clerics kicked out of office and may be prosecuted.

:-D
:-D

[mendosan]

Lucky Luke wrote: Angelicus wrote: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/australasia/article1932715.ece

"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the back yard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem."

He added: "If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab [Islamic headscarf], no problem would have occurred."

According to this, this imam says that if a woman chooses not to wear the hijab and dares go out in public, then she deserves to be raped.

Not only should he "apologize" he should step down from his position as a spiritual leader, and be kicked out of Islam too.

The top Catholic cleric blamed the victims of child abuse for what happened to them, I never heard Cardinal Ratzinger going back to his own policy of excommunicating any victims of sex abuse who decided to report the crimes of some priests to the authorities or the media.

This is what the German cardinal was doing before becoming pope:

Quote: Crimen Sollicitationis was written in 1962 in Latin and given to Catholic bishops worldwide who are ordered to keep it locked away in the church safe.

It instructs them how to deal with priests who solicit sex from the confessional. It also deals with "any obscene external act ... with youths of either sex."

It imposes an oath of secrecy on the child victim, the priest dealing with the allegation and any witnesses.

Breaking that oath means excommunication from the Catholic Church.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/5389684.stm

Quote:

Let's have both clerics kicked out of office and may be prosecuted.

:-D
:-D

According to your source it was enforced for 20 years so it stopped 1982, I don't understand how this contributes to the debate. And I is a particularly sensative isssue in Austarlia because of the racaly motivated gang rapes by lebannese muslims of white Australians.

www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/13/1026185124700.html

[Lucky Luke]

mendosan wrote: Lucky Luke wrote: Angelicus wrote: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/australasia/article1932715.ece

"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the back yard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem."

He added: "If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab [Islamic headscarf], no problem would have occurred."

According to this, this imam says that if a woman chooses not to wear the hijab and dares go out in public, then she deserves to be raped.

Not only should he "apologize" he should step down from his position as a spiritual leader, and be kicked out of Islam too.

The top Catholic cleric blamed the victims of child abuse for what happened to them, I never heard Cardinal Ratzinger going back to his own policy of excommunicating any victims of sex abuse who decided to report the crimes of some priests to the authorities or the media.

This is what the German cardinal was doing before becoming pope:

Quote: Crimen Sollicitationis was written in 1962 in Latin and given to Catholic bishops worldwide who are ordered to keep it locked away in the church safe.

It instructs them how to deal with priests who solicit sex from the confessional. It also deals with "any obscene external act ... with youths of either sex."

It imposes an oath of secrecy on the child victim, the priest dealing with the allegation and any witnesses.

Breaking that oath means excommunication from the Catholic Church.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/5389684.stm

Quote:

Let's have both clerics kicked out of office and may be prosecuted.

:-D
:-D

According to your source it was enforced for 20 years so it stopped 1982, I don't understand how this contributes to the debate. And I is a particularly sensative isssue in Austarlia because of the racaly motivated gang rapes by lebannese muslims of white Australians.

www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/13/1026185124700.html

Please do show us where my source said that it stopped in 1982.

Here is an extract of my source that says it is still going on:

Quote: The Catholic Church has 50 million children in its worldwide congregation and no universal child protection policy although in the UK there is the Catholic Office for the Protection of Children & Vulnerable Adults.

In some countries this means that the Crimen Sollicitationis is the only policy followed.

And this is from your own link:

Quote: "There is no evidence before me of any racial element in the commission of these offences," she said. "There is nothing said or done by the offenders which provides the slightest basis for imputing to them some discrimination in terms of the nationality of their victims."

Are you in denial Mendosan?
Do both clerics deserve to be kicked out of office or not?
:-D
:-D

[mendosan]

If im totally honest I don't know lucky luke, its not for me to say weather the Muslim cleric said anything theologically wrong or just expressed his beliefs from his interpretation of Islam, which doesn't merit me a non-muslim who knows very little of Islamic dogma about womens dress.

There is a totally separate issue with the pedophile priests and the subsequent covering up by the Vatican, and I remain unaware as to your motives for mentioning it, but certainly I can see your point regarding Pope Benedict's suitability to be in office and not in prision.

However I do not see how the two are related, maybe you can explane your motives for comparing the apparently unrelated issues.

Also as you have an interest it in sex abuse in the catholic church may be check this out Pope urges action on sexual abuse

[Lucky Luke]

mendosan wrote: If im totally honest I don't know lucky luke, its not for me to say weather the Muslim cleric said anything theologically wrong or just expressed his beliefs from his interpretation of Islam, which doesn't merit me a non-muslim who knows very little of Islamic dogma about womens dress.

There is a totally separate issue with the pedophile priests and the subsequent covering up by the Vatican, and I remain unaware as to your motives for mentioning it, but certainly I can see your point regarding Pope Benedict's suitability to be in office and not in prision.

However I do not see how the two are related, maybe you can explane your motives for comparing the apparently unrelated issues.

Also as you have an interest it in sex abuse in the catholic church may be check this out Pope urges action on sexual abuse

Someone here opened a thread about what one Muslim cleric said and how he should be kicked out of office for what he said and how the Muslim religion was wrong when one Cleric says such a thing about the rape of women.

I have showed what the top Catholic Cleric has done as Cardinal and what is still done today in his name in many countries of the world. I have no intentions of blaming all Christians for what the current Pope did and still is done under his papacy but I will not let someone telling us how wrong a religion is just because of the words of one Cleric.

Now can you see how both are not related Mendosa?

:-D
:-D

[Angelicus]

Lucky Luke wrote: mendosan wrote: If im totally honest I don't know lucky luke, its not for me to say weather the Muslim cleric said anything theologically wrong or just expressed his beliefs from his interpretation of Islam, which doesn't merit me a non-muslim who knows very little of Islamic dogma about womens dress.

There is a totally separate issue with the pedophile priests and the subsequent covering up by the Vatican, and I remain unaware as to your motives for mentioning it, but certainly I can see your point regarding Pope Benedict's suitability to be in office and not in prision.

However I do not see how the two are related, maybe you can explane your motives for comparing the apparently unrelated issues.

Also as you have an interest it in sex abuse in the catholic church may be check this out Pope urges action on sexual abuse

Someone here opened a thread about what one Muslim cleric said and how he should be kicked out of office for what he said and how the Muslim religion was wrong when one Cleric says such a thing about the rape of women.

I have showed what the top Catholic Cleric has done as Cardinal and what is still done today in his name in many countries of the world. I have no intentions of blaming all Christians for what the current Pope did and still is done under his papacy but I will not let someone telling us how wrong a religion is just because of the words of one Cleric.

Now can you see how both are not related Mendosa?

:-D
:-D


"the words of one cleric"

I guess you missed the qoutations from the Quran itself.

Go re read them and then tell everyone about "the words of one cleric".

This attitude towards women is not simply isolated too just "one cleric".

Furthermore, when we catch priests doing such things as child abuse, despite what you claim the pope may or may not have said, when we catch them here a couple of things happen.

1) There is great outrage from the community.

As opposed to the complete lack of outrage from the islamic community over what this guy is teaching.

2) We put the perpetrator in prison for a very very long time.

And well I don't see this imam or those who act upon his teachings anywhere near a prison do you?

So please do the rest of us, and yourself a favor, wake up, smell the coffee, and stop pretending that there is any comparison moral or otherwise between the two communities.

[CountryGuy]

Beyond that, why would this Christian issue be any form of reason to accept what this Muslim cleric said? If I recall correctly, no one was claiming "But the Muslims did this, waaaaa" when the issues around child molestations came to light.

Why is it that people must rip their individual usual suspects whenever a group they apologize for does something wrong? Can't you just say "Yes, what x did was morally reprehensible"?

[Lucky Luke]

Angelicus wrote:


"the words of one cleric"

I guess you missed the qoutations from the Quran itself.

Go re read them and then tell everyone about "the words of one cleric".

This attitude towards women is not simply isolated too just "one cleric".

Furthermore, when we catch priests doing such things as child abuse, despite what you claim the pope may or may not have said, when we catch them here a couple of things happen.

1) There is great outrage from the community.

As opposed to the complete lack of outrage from the islamic community over what this guy is teaching.

2) We put the perpetrator in prison for a very very long time.

And well I don't see this imam or those who act upon his teachings anywhere near a prison do you?

So please do the rest of us, and yourself a favor, wake up, smell the coffee, and stop pretending that there is any comparison moral or otherwise between the two communities.

Your thread is very clear Angelicus, a Muslim cleric said something and you extended his views to all Muslims. Those words are the words of one cleric Angelicus, not the words of Islam. Many Muslim countries forbid the wearing of the veil in public places making your claim absurd.

I claimed nothing Angelicus, I posted here a transcript of the Crimen Sollicitationis, read it. Those are not the words of one cleric, they are the written policy of the Catholic church.

Furthermore, the current Pope is making sure that no priests are caught doing such things as child abuse, instead the Pope is making sure that a couple of things happen.

1) The community stays in the dark about the abuse, whoever talks is excommunicated and the priest is moved on to another community.

2) The perpetrators are protected for a very very long time by the Vatican before they get caught if they do.

The hypocrisy is indeed to ask the islamic community to show outrage over what some cleric has said about the rape of women while denying that the raping of children is still happening by many Catholic priests in the full knowledge of the head of the church, not some cleric but the Pope himself.

:-D
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[emerald]

Quote: 1) There is great outrage from the community.

As opposed to the complete lack of outrage from the islamic community over what this guy is teaching.

the only reason that there is very little outrage from the muslim community is because this issue has nothing to do with religion itself, it is based on opinion. an opinion that if a woman dresses provocatively then she is inviting trouble. that is an opinion that MANY people hold, not just in the muslim community, the number of times i've heard comments over rape cases, like 'she deserved it dressing like that' or 'she asked for it' by british and american and other europeans, so it isnt just an issue that somehow islam teaches.

Quote: 2) We put the perpetrator in prison for a very very long time.

And well I don't see this imam or those who act upon his teachings anywhere near a prison do you?

firstly there is no law against saying ones opinion, even if wrong, therefore there would be no reason for this cleric to be imprisoned. secondly he didnt say all men you have a green light to go rape any woman u see wearing very little clothing. in islam rape is a very serious criminal act, the punishment for which is death. therefore your assumption that he's somehow 'teaching' other to rape or it's ok to rape or whatever is ludicrous.

[Snake]

I've got an off topic question, but what is the burka (sp?) for? I never got it, is it a submissive thing, is it a religious thing? Not even close?

[emerald]

Quote: I've got an off topic question, but what is the burka (sp?) for? I never got it, is it a submissive thing, is it a religious thing? Not even close?

the burkha is only really worn in Afghanistan, it's very extreme version of hijab, which is generally meant as modest clothing, not covering every length of you in cloth. in saudi women generally wear, along with a head scarf and abaya (which is a thin coat thats worn over the head) with a niqab (which is a piece covering the face with eye slots), if u go to syria you'd find most probably wearing a long coat and head scarf, in egypt the majority only wear a headscarf and whatever clothing underneath as long as it covered the body. each country has it's own dress code, every muslims believe differently as to how they should dress, thats an individual issue. i do belieive some men enforce it onto their women in order to have control of them. but i have been pretty suprised now by the number of women, single and married who like the idea of the face covering...it's at the end of the say a choice, but it certainly isnt a neccessity in islam.

[Blinky]

Theres a thread about this tucked away in the Australian section:
http://www.politicalcrossfire.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=68426

But don't worry, there has been outrage. The media has turned on him:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/sheik-tries-to-lie-his-way-out-of-trouble/2006/10/29/1162056864793.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

and only a small group of his personal associates are defending him. The Prime Minister has made several statements over the last week condeming him, and we are waiting to hear the results of a meeting of some of the country's other senior muslims leaders as to whether or not to demand this idiot resign and cease spewing his cave-man bile at the local mosque where he made the initial comments.

As long as people remain outraged at this, he will surely have to step down. I just hope it doesn't just "go away" because no decisions are made for a while and the public forget about him and move onto to something else.

[Lucky Luke]

CountryGuy wrote: Beyond that, why would this Christian issue be any form of reason to accept what this Muslim cleric said? If I recall correctly, no one was claiming "But the Muslims did this, waaaaa" when the issues around child molestations came to light.

Why is it that people must rip their individual usual suspects whenever a group they apologize for does something wrong? Can't you just say "Yes, what x did was morally reprehensible"?

Here a cleric has said something he certainly should not have said CountryGuy, I would not tell you that what he did was morally reprehensible but what he said was. However the question is where is the outrage from the Muslim community and the answer is every religion tries to defend its own when they go out of line. One thing for sure we Christians are guilty of the same if not worst. This is what I was trying to put forward to show our hypocrisy on the matter.

:-D
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[Lucky Luke]

Furthermore this cleric was quick to apologise, it is indeed difficult to be outraged when such apology is made:

Quote: "I unreservedly apologise to any woman who is offended by my comments. I had only intended to protect women's honour," the statement published in The Australian said.

"Women in our Australian society have the freedom and the right to dress as they choose.

"Whether a man endorses or not a particular form of dress, any form of harassment of women is unacceptable."

A spokesman for Sheikh Hilali earlier said the quote had been taken out of context and referred not to sexual assault, but to sexual infidelity.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6086374.stm

However I can see where the problem might come from, this cleric like most Muslim clerics in the western world was born in a Muslim country and the Muslim communities in the west are complaining that their clerics do not understand the western society enough to represent them or to speak for them. Here is another example of this problem:

Quote: Islamic studies in Britain's higher education institutions are failing to meet the needs of a 21st-century multicultural society, according to a report published today.
Academics at Dundee's Al-Maktoum Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies examined 55 UK higher education departments and centres currently offering courses in the study of Islam and Muslims.
............
The report claims Muslim schools and colleges run by Muslims for Muslims is not the answer.

"Multiculturalism is not about separatism, ghettoisation or Balkanisation; it is instead recognition of diversity, the need for common ground, mutual respect and cultural engagement," it states.

It adds that some departments concentrated on "out of date and irrelevant issues", while others chose local religious leaders as lecturers for "political correctness".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1931309,00.html

Islam and its clerics will adapt to western societies, no doubt, just like Christianity is now part of Africa or South America's culture.
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[L337SIMBA]

Angelicus wrote: emerald wrote: Quote: But when it is codified into the tenets of a religion about 1.6 Billion people follow..... that makes it a big problem.

yes, and i happen to be one of thos 1.6 billion who follow that religion, yet as i stated above i totally disagree with that comment and the thinking behind it. that is one muslims cleric, i am sure that many more say the same stuff, but it is based on opinion, not on anything written in the quran, not in the practice of islam itself. and i've had this argument with many people before, muslim and non muslims and those who come up with the pathetic excuse that any woman deserves getting raped if she is wearing provocative clothing then theyre are idiots and have no emotion for what rape would do to a person, so how can they find excuses for it and blame it on the woman. it is opinion, it is not one of the 6 pillars of islam, so dont worry.

First off this man is the senior cleric for muslims in the nation of austraila not just some cleric.

So again why isn't he removed from this post as the senior Imam in the Great nation of Austraila if so many muslims don't agree, find it disgusting, and are outraged by this kind of comment/thinking?

Angelicus I completely agree with you...but on one point I believe that this moron is not a cleric he is a radical mullah or cleric. And after this outrageous comment (for which he should be both reprimanded and kicked out of his position INDEFINITELY), he ended with the usual USA and West bashing...This guy is one of your typical Islamofascists ranking with Mullah Omar (Afghanistan)....and so on

This man must be dealt with! Swiftly!
nandan

Edit - Mmm to add something This blockhead is frieking DEFEENDING the rape of a woman. Now that is just f********************ing absurd (which gets me very angry). As I said earlier he's just one of your usual Islamofascists that want to bash the USA or Western culture at any point they can get. OR to opress women EVEN FURTHER! Wow. Defending that rape of a woman can be tolerated...now that ...now that is low. Shame on you if you believe what this radical cleric is saying is good for the human cause..shame

[Snake]

emerald wrote: the burkha is only really worn in Afghanistan, it's very extreme version of hijab, which is generally meant as modest clothing, not covering every length of you in cloth. in saudi women generally wear, along with a head scarf and abaya (which is a thin coat thats worn over the head) with a niqab (which is a piece covering the face with eye slots), if u go to syria you'd find most probably wearing a long coat and head scarf, in egypt the majority only wear a headscarf and whatever clothing underneath as long as it covered the body. each country has it's own dress code, every muslims believe differently as to how they should dress, thats an individual issue. i do belieive some men enforce it onto their women in order to have control of them. but i have been pretty suprised now by the number of women, single and married who like the idea of the face covering...it's at the end of the say a choice, but it certainly isnt a neccessity in islam. So it's more of a traditional peice of clothing. I think I get it now....

[Angelicus]

"Your thread is very clear Angelicus, a Muslim cleric said something and you extended his views to all Muslims."

NO, you yourself infer that, whats the problem, have a guilty conscience?

Those words are the words of one cleric Angelicus, not the words of Islam. Many Muslim countries forbid the wearing of the veil in public places making your claim absurd.

Really, wich Islamic nation forbids the wearing of a veil?

Oh and it wasn't my claim to start with, I'm not the one who said that women who don't wear veils deserve to get raped, the imam you are attempting to justify and defend did.

[Margo]

Remember Salmon Rushdie? There was hardly any outrage over the threats imposed on him either. From the insanity over Danish cartoons to the Pope's remarks, the lack of outrage only proves how shamefully prevalent Western tolerance has become today. I believe that Western intellectuals can talk a good talk about freedom of expression, but when it comes right down to it, they say nothing when this freedom is denied to others...the hypocrisy makes me sick. The constant excuses of victimhood to explain why more freedoms are taken from people all over the world, especially in the Middle East where women are particularly vulnerable to extremist's interpretation of Islam is, to say the least, very disturbing to me. Victimhood and appeasement are so entwined at this point that I can no longer tell the difference. There are a lot of reformers in the Middle East but unfortunatley their voices are being out-shouted by extremism, appeasement and victimhood. I firmly believe that people in the West have got to start thinking for themselves and trust their instincts as to what should be considered worthy of outrage. How many people in the West would meekly submit to women being forced to wear the veil or forced to undergo female circumcision? Makes one wonder...
Anyway, a good read on the subject of victimhood and appeasement is by Victor David Hanson written in 2004 that helps explain the pathetic tolerance we have for that which offends. I've included some highlights below if interested.

http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson052604.html

There was victim status for everybody, from gender, race and class at home to colonialism, imperialism and hegemony abroad. Anyone could play in these "area studies" that cobbled together the barrio, the West Bank and the "freedom fighter" into some sloppy global union of the oppressed--a far hipper enterprise than rehashing "Das Kapital" or listening to a six-hour harangue from Fidel.
Of course, pampered Western intellectuals since Diderot have always dreamed up a "noble savage," who lived in harmony with nature precisely because of his distance from the corruption of Western civilization. But now this fuzzy romanticism had an updated, political edge: The bearded killer and wild-eyed savage were not merely better than we because they lived apart in a premodern landscape. No, they had a right to strike back and kill modernizing Westerners who had intruded into and disrupted their better world--whether Jews on Temple Mount, women in Westernized dress in Tehran, Christian missionaries in Kabul, capitalist profiteers in Islamabad, whiskey-drinking oilmen in Riyadh, or miniskirted tourists in Cairo.
Yet in the new world of utopian multiculturalism and knee-jerk anti-Americanism, in which a Noam Chomsky could proclaim Khomeini's gulag to be "independent nationalism," reasoned argument was futile. Indeed, how could critical debate arise for those "committed to social change," when no universal standards were to be applied to those outside the West? Thanks to the doctrine of cultural relativism, "oppressed" peoples either could not be judged by our biased and "constructed" values ("false universals," in Edward Said's infamous term) or were seen as more pristine than ourselves, uncorrupted by the evils of Western capitalism.
Who were we to gainsay Khomeini's butchery and oppression? We had no way of understanding the nuances of his new liberationist and "nationalist" Islam. Now back in the hands of indigenous peoples, Iran might offer the world an alternate path, a different "discourse" about how to organize a society that emphasized native values (of some sort) over mere profit.
So at precisely the time of these increasingly frequent terrorist attacks, the silly gospel of multiculturalism insisted that Westerners have neither earned the right to censure others, nor do they possess the intellectual tools to make judgments about the relative value of different cultures. And if the initial wave of multiculturalist relativism among the elites--coupled with the age-old romantic forbearance for Third World roguery--explained tolerance for early unpunished attacks on Americans, its spread to our popular culture only encouraged more.
This nonjudgmentalism--essentially a form of nihilism--deemed everything from Sudanese female circumcision to honor killings on the West Bank merely "different" rather than odious. Anyone who has taught freshmen at a state university can sense the fuzzy thinking of our undergraduates: Most come to us prepped in high schools not to make "value judgments" about "other" peoples who are often "victims" of American "oppression." Thus, before female-hating psychopath Mohamed Atta piloted a jet into the World Trade Center, neither Western intellectuals nor their students would have taken him to task for what he said or condemned him as hypocritical for his parasitical existence on Western society. Instead, without logic but with plenty of romance, they would more likely have excused him as a victim of globalization or of the biases of American foreign policy. They would have deconstructed Atta's promotion of anti-Semitic, misogynist, Western-hating thought, as well as his conspiracies with Third World criminals, as anything but a danger and a pathology to be remedied by deportation or incarceration.

The new cult of romantic victimhood became gospel in most Middle East departments in American universities. Except for the courageous Bernard Lewis, Daniel Pipes and Fouad Ajami, few scholars offered any analysis that might confirm more astute Americans in their vague sense that in the Middle East, political autocracy, statism, tribalism, anti-intellectualism and gender apartheid accounted for poverty and failure. And if few wished to take on Islamofascism in the 1990s--indeed, Steven Emerson's chilling 1994 documentary "Jihad in America" set off a storm of protest from U.S. Muslim-rights groups and prompted death threats to the producer--almost no one but Samuel Huntington dared even to broach the taboo subject that there might be elements within doctrinaire Islam itself that could easily lead to intolerance and violence and were therefore at the root of any "clash of civilizations."
Instead, most experts explained why violent fanatics might have some half-legitimate grievance behind their deadly harvest each year of a few Americans in the wrong place at the wrong time. These experts cautioned that,instead of bombing and shooting killers abroad who otherwise would eventually reach us at home, Americans should take care not to disturb Iranian terrorists during Ramadan--rather than to remember that Muslims attacked Israel precisely during that holy period. Instead of condemning Wahhabis for the fascists that they were, we were instead apprised that such holy men of the desert and tent provided a rapidly changing and often Western-corrupted Saudi Arabia with a vital tether to the stability of its romantic nomadic past. Rather than recognizing that Yasser Arafat's Tunisia-based Fatah organization was a crime syndicate, expert opinion persuaded us to empower it as an indigenous liberation movement on the West Bank--only to destroy nearly two decades' worth of steady Palestinian economic improvement.
Neither oil-concerned Republicans nor multicultural Democrats were ready to expose the corrupt American relationship with Saudi Arabia. No country is more culpable than that kingdom in funding extremist madrassas and subsidizing terror, or more antithetical to liberal American values from free speech to religious tolerance. But Saudi propagandists learned from the Palestinians the value of constructing their own victimhood as a long-oppressed colonial people. Call a Saudi fundamentalist mullah a fascist, and you can be sure you'll be tarred as an Islamophobe.

[emerald]

Quote: So it's more of a traditional peice of clothing. I think I get it now....

pretty much, it just differs from country to country as to how a muslim woman chooses to dress and what is accepted/or not in their societies.

Quote: Really, wich Islamic nation forbids the wearing of a veil?

Tunisia for one does not allow women to even wear the head scarf in public places, let alone a veil. i think in turkey women in the public sector or gvt sector are also not allowed to wear the head scarf. in egypt certain university courses entail that a woman does not wear islamic dress. and i'm pretty sure other north african countries have similar policies.

[emerald]

stupid comp and triple post