I've met some pretty disgusting flavors of Christianity in my time, growing up near CBN in Pat Robertson's stronghold of Virginia Beach, but even at the nastiest "kicking heathen ass" (this is a real quote) flavor of Christianity, even the most idiotic Old Testament Pseudo-Christians who haven't clued in that Jesus's message wasn't "an eye for an eye", wouldn't sentence a rape victim to six months in prison & two hundred lashes. Even the most moronic "she was asking for it" dim-wit would consider that her offense, riding in a car with someone she wasn't married to, had already been amply punished by the rape that ensued.
The center of Saudi Arabia isn't some backwater where no-one knows what Islam is supposed to mean; this's the center of the freakin' religion. Imagine the Pope or the Ecumenical Patriarch calling such a thing just -- it just boggles the mind. My mind has now been made up -- I was ready for all manner of arguments in favor of "moderate" Islam, but upon seeing this, while I don't know what justice is, it's obvious that Islam is far removed from anything remotely just.
Honestly, if it weren't for all the innocents who'd suffer, I'd say just nuke Mecca and wipe Islam off the face of the Earth. It's a disease.
6 comments:
I saw the news item on CNN this morning and still have a sick feeling from it. I don't even know what to say, except that I'm terribly glad I don't have any female relatives living in Saudi Arabia.
There's no central Islam: I know a number of "nice" muslims. All of whom have vaguely Americanized.
But as a whole? Well, duh... these people are primates living in the iron age. There's simply no excuse for combining depravity and barbarism like this.
If you want to really get hacked off, I can loan you my copy of "Infidel."
Funny thing I've head from many of my muslim friends. The worst thing to ever happen to Islam was that the Arabs founded it. Their culture influenced many of the perceived practices but if you actually read some of the text is can be downright moderate and progressive.
Seriously - don't equate the BS of Wahabism with Islam as a whole, just like one shouldn't equate the hard core Satanists with Wicca or the Spanish Inquisition with all of Christianity. Remember bad things are done in the name of god all the time.
All that being said I am also appalled with the sentence, but to me and many others it says more about Saudi Arabian society than it does about Islam. And that being said - that society and its continued reliance upon Wahabism and other ultra-conservative traits is the real disease.
I'm inclined to agree with you, but to disagree as to the scope of the problem: there is NO muslim society that accords women even a vague shadow of the rights we take it for granted they should have. Perhaps the Ahmadijjat may stand a chance... but they are far from the mainstream.
Anyway, I'm an outsider, and to pretend that I can tell the difference between those who wish to act like human beings, and those who are wolves in sheep's clothing is foolish. I can only judge by actions -- and anyone who would sentence a woman to being lashed like this because of others' evil deserves to be skinned alive.
Napier has already taught us the answer to these questions: we have only to remember our lessons.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
What strange bedfellows the U.S. and Saudi Arabia makes. We castigate places like Castro's Cuba, Saddam's Iraq, and (currently) Musharaff's Pakistan. And yet, faced with Al Quaeda members/ leaders originating in Saudi Arabia and that country's gross human rights violations, the U.S. still needs Saudi Arabia on its side in regards to that part of the world.
What a wild and wacky world we live in.
That is, sometimes it sucks to be part of a global community.
I would go for that. I would also go for building that gallows. I just love the fact that none of the women's lib movements in the US never seem to bring this stuff up when talking about the WoT or in Iraq or Afghanistan. Oh no, the white guys in the US are the REAL evil in the world.
Yeah.
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