imra-usa.org

Photo Credit: Times of Ummah

Although cards and gifts are exchanged between men and women on Valentine’s Day, it’s really all about the woman. No man is going to cry if he doesn’t get flowers from his woman. Men could not care less.

Since this day is all about showing our love for our womenfolk, the rulers of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iran get their turbans all in a twist. If men start to treat women with love and respect they will as a consequence be contradicting the teachings of the Quran – and that is blasphemy.

Muslims will tell you that women are treated with respect in Islam; the following article from 2005 tells a different story about how Arabs and Muslims really treat women.

The Middle East Media Research Institute, 12 Apr 2005, Arab Feminists on Women’s Rights: Cats and Dogs in the Developed World Have More Rights than Women in the Arab and Muslim World

Marking Valentine’s Day and International Women’s Day, the Arabic press published numerous articles dealing with the status of women in the Arab and Muslim world and the denial of their rights, on the part of both governments and public in general. The progressive websites www.metransparent.com and www.elaph.com published articles by feminist authors harshly critical of the state of women’s rights in these countries. The following are excerpts from articles by Saudi author W aj iha Al-Huweidar and by Tunisian authors and researchers Dr. Iqbal Al-Gharbi [1], Dr. Munjiyah Al-Sawaihi, and Dr. Raja bin Salama:

Wajiha Al-Huweidar: “Covert Animosity and Open Discrimination Against Women Prevail in Arab Countries”

Writing in Elaph.com on March 7, 2005 Saudi author Wajiha Al-Huweidar explained: “All of the Arab regimes are U.N. members and have ratified the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights, which clearly establishes justice and equality in the rights and obligations of all citizens. Despite this, women in our chauvinist countries are still considered the property of their relatives. All Arab countries, without exception, harbor covert animosity and open discrimination against women. To this day, all official bodies reject any scientific discussion of a solution to women’s problems – while on the other hand the men, who benefit from women’s oppression, continue to regurgitate [the mant r a] that ‘women are respected’ [in Arab and Muslim societies]…

“Arab countries’ legislation patently discriminates against women and clearly denies their rights, which affronts them as human beings. They are still treated as though they contaminate purity, and arouse temptation and immorality. What is astounding is that most Arabs, at all levels and in every area – whether governments, institutions, or individuals – still consider women’s issues a religious issue, and thus believe that her concerns should be dealt with through outdated chauvinist [religious] interpretations…

“An improvement in women’s status will not come through invalid solutions which have been proven ineffectual. The laws grant female citizens only half a voice, diminish women’s rights, classify them as having only partial sense, denigrate their importance, doubt their capabilities, permit beating and banishing them, permit their caging within four walls, allow their husbands to treat them as they see fit, and allow them to be bought and sold according to legal agreements. When women fail [in matters forbidden by religious law], the laws welcome their barbarous execution.

“These laws are clearly no longer suited to an era in which cats and dogs in the developed world have more rights than Arab women, and more even than those of Arab men…

It should be noted that Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iran are Islamic states and that Islamic law is the law of the land. It is Islamic law that permits and even encourages the subjugation and mistreatment of women. One cannot blame the mistreatment of women on culture alone – Saudi culture is Arab, Pakistani culture is Indian, and Iranian culture is Persian – the only thing similar is that all three share the same religion: Islam.

Planck’s Constant

(A general view shows the Swiss mountain resort of Davos December 28, 2011. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann)

Leaders of the Arab Spring sought to assure the world’s elite in Davos that the rise of political Islam is not a threat to democracy, and pleaded for help creating jobs and satisfying the hunger of their people for a better life. Politicians, activists and entrepreneurs from countries that have cast off dictators and held free elections in the last 12 months were prized guests at the World Economic Forum, where they asked for patience, understanding and investment.

The new prime ministers of Tunisia and Morocco, both chosen from Islamic parties, dismissed Western worries about a surge of political Islam across North Africa and sought to dispel the notion that the promise of last year’s protests had faded.

“I do not believe the new regimes should be called political Islamist regimes. We must be careful with our terminology… For the first time in the Arab world, we have free and honest elections that led to democratic regimes,” Tunisian Prime Minister Hammadi Jebali told a Davos panel.

Twelve months ago, stunned Davos delegates watched live television images of crowds surging into Cairo’s Tahrir Square in a political earthquake few had anticipated. Arab officials and civil society activists urged Western executives and commentators not to demonize the Islamic movements that have gone from prison to parliament and the corridors of power in a year of stunning transformation.

“I would like to ask the businessmen in the room. Have you suffered from the victory of the Islamists? You supported the dictatorships in the past,” Moroccan Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane said.

“Today we can guarantee your interests more than they did in the past.”

Read the full story by Warren Strobel and Paul Taylor here.
.
Follow all posts on Twitter @ RTRFaithWorld

Follow all posts via RSS

Follow all posts via Google+

FaithWorld

(Moroccan women walk past the Hassan II mosque in Casablanca February 24, 2011. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol)

An Islamist group seen as the main opposing force to Morocco’s monarchy has suspended its involvement in a movement inspired by revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, citing the need for a new deal with secularist activists to bolster its ideology. Al-Adl wal Ihsane’s move comes at a tense time for the February 20 Movement whose regular protests, aimed at stripping the Arab world’s longest-serving dynasty of its sweeping powers, have thinned considerably in recent weeks.

On Monday, it suspended its youth wing’s involvement in the February 20 Movement, said Fathallah Arsalane, a member of al-Adl wal Ihsane’s (Justice and Spirituality) Guidance Council.

“We have suffered marginalisation at the hands of some parties in February 20 and this involved the ceiling of political demands, a ban on making public statements and the use of slogans that reflect our group’s ideology,” Arsalane told Reuters. “We are stopping our action within the February 20 Movement but we can continue outside it … We want a real partnership with everyone, including secularists and left-wing activists.”

Al-Adl is seen as Morocco’s biggest and best-organised Islamist group. It is active mostly in universities and in helping the poor, but it is banned from politics due mostly to what is seen as its hostile rhetoric towards the monarchy.

“Why do we have to tie ourselves to the extent of saying ‘No, we need to mention that we want a constitutional monarchy?’. For some it may sound too bold a demand, others may think it’s too shy,” he said. “Why did they have to prohibit slogans like “Allah is the Greatest” and others against prejudice. In doing so, you marginalise a large fraction of Moroccans”.

Read the full story here.
Follow all posts on Twitter @ RTRFaithWorld

Follow all posts via RSS

Follow all posts via Google+

FaithWorld

Arab Spring into a Nuclear Winter?
Photo Credit: A Game of Roles

I warned readers in my article of June 2008, that if Obama became President he would be such an incompetent moron that his actions would drive the price of gold to ,000 an ounce.

When I wrote that article gold was trading at 883.50 per ounce. How close did gold get to that prediction? Just a few months ago it was a hundred dollars shy of the mark.

I say give the idiot another four years and gold should surpass the ,000 mark.

Here’s something that should help the gold price peak:

Haaretz Daily Newspaper,
22 Nov 2011,
Arab Spring will just bring upon Islamist dictatorships

The United Nations Development Programme’s 2002 Arab Human Development Report stated that “deeply rooted shortcomings” existed in Arab countries. In other other words, Arab societies were sick. According to the report, this sickness was reflected in the lack of “respect for human rights and freedoms,” the status of Arab women, and the poor state of “knowledge acquisition and its effective utilization.”

The follow-up report in 2003 stated: “True democracy is absent and desperately needed. The educational system is severely retarded; schools produce ignorant young men and women. Most of the [Arab] intellectuals] realize, even if they deny it, that most of what was said in the most recent Arab Human Development Report is true.

So if you were thinking that the so-called Arab Spring was going to fix all that, well, you’d better think again. It looks like the Arab Spring will be followed by an Arab Winter. On second thought, this is a development that was entirely predictable: The Islamists are going to inherit the mantle of the dictators.

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Muammar Gadhafi in Libya were corrupt dictators who outlived their days. They all suppressed the Islamic movements in their respective countries, and were all thus on the side of the seculars in their own perverse way. The same holds true for Syria’s Bashar Assad, whose father, Hafez, killed some 20,000 people in the city of Hama in 1982, quelling a rebellion by the Moslem Brothers. Now, his son, Bashar, no less ruthless, seems to be about to go the way of Ben Ali, Mubarak and Gadhafi.

…

But who is going to win the elections when they take place – in Egypt, in Libya and eventually in Syria?

We already have a preview: In Tunisia, the country that had been the most secular and westernized of the Arab states, the election was won by Ennahda, the Islamic party, with the advocates of a secular Tunisia left far behind.

The western media, in an attempt to put a good face on what has clearly been a disappointing outcome, insists on calling Ennahda a “mildly Islamic party.” But the facts are there for all to see: Tunisia is coming under Islamic rule. And there is no reason to expect a different outcome in Egypt, Libya or Syria, when elections are held there.

A wave of Islamic rule, with all it entails, is sweeping across the Arab world. It will replace secular dictatorships with Islamic ones. We should have expected nothing else.

…

Observers may fool themselves into believing that the Islamic parties contesting the elections in the Arab countries are “mildly” Islamic, or “moderate” Islamists, but their leaders are neither mild nor moderate.

Soon Islamist extremists running these new Arab governments will be seeking nuclear weapons. Will Obama handle them as he handled Ahmadinejad and Iran? Will he commit America to the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons as he pledged in Prague in April of 2009?

Planck’s Constant

It is time again to offend hundreds of millions of followers of the most barbaric cult in the world. Here for your reading pleasure are 13 jokes sure to offend most Muslim Arabs.

Jokes which reflect real world events are followed by a link to my article on the matter in brackets.

1. A sex therapist is travelling through the Middle East getting data on goat-sex.

   First he visits Mahmud, an Iraqi goat herder on the outskirts of Baghdad. “Tell me” he says, “What method do you use for goat sex?” Mahmud replies, “Well I trap her head in a fig bush then attack from behind”.

   Next, the therapist goes to Egypt and visits Amar who works on the banks of the Nile, and asks him the same question. “Well” says Amar, I push her into the mud and when her back legs are stuck strong I grab her from behind and give it to her real good.”

   Finally he Visits Abdul in the Gaza strip and again asks the same question. Abdul answers, “”I stick her left front leg over my right shoulder and her right front leg over my left shoulder and as she stands on her back legs facing me …”

   “Hold on” interrupts the researcher, “this is unusual”. “Unusual?” asks Abdul, “In what way?”

   “Well,” says the researcher, “all the other Arabs take the goat from behind, none of them face the sheep”

   “What”! exclaims Abdul, “No kissing?”

   [How to get a Muslim`s goat - sex with animals]

---

2. I had a upsetting phone call in work: my mother phoned me and said there were Muslims in our family tree. I went straight home and I’m glad I did – they looked so good hanging from there.

---

3. Q: What do you call a Muslim woman on birth-control?
   A: Making the world safer.

---

4. Q: An Egyptian, A Syrian, and an Iraqi jump off a bridge, who hits the ground first?
   A: Who gives a shit?

---

5. 70% of Palestinian males say they enjoy sex in the shower; the other 30% haven’t been to prison yet.

   [Muslims in UK Prisons]

---

6. Ahmed’s wife, unhappy with his mood swings, bought him one of those mood rings so she could monitor his mood.

   She discovered that when Ahmed is in a good mood, it turns green and, when he’s in a bad mood, it leaves a big f*cking red mark on her forehead.

   [Is wife beating really allowed in Islam?]

---

7. An Arab woman walks into a London shop and buys 1 egg, 1 bottle of milk and 1 sausage, the shopkeeper asks – “You’re single, aren’t you?”

   “Yes,” she replies, “how could you tell?”

   “You’re an ugly c*nt!”

---

8. I bought a Saudi woman’s diary on e-bay:

   Monday – stayed in
   Tuesday – stayed in
   Wednesday – stayed in
   Thursday – stayed in
   Friday – stayed in
   Saturday – stayed in
   Sunday – stayed in

---

9. Q: Which sexual position produces the ugliest children?
   A: Ask Helen Thomas’ parents.

   [Helen Thomas is an Idiot]

---

10. I shit myself last night at the airport – a frigging Palestinian rushed in screaming “Allah Allah Allah Allah …. allava coke and a bag of nuts please,” the stuttering bastard.

---

11. An Englishman, Frenchman, American and a Saudi on a plane going to the U.N. in New York when all of a sudden there’s engine trouble!

    The pilot says over the P.A. system that there’s only one parachute onboard.

    The Englishman, ever the gentleman steps up, opens the door, shouts “GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!” And jumps.

    The Frenchman, always the effin copycat steps up, goes to the door and shouts “VIVE LA FRANCE” and jumps into the abyss.

    The yank then steps up, looks out the door at the two bodies gathering speed toward the ground, takes a step back then shouts “REMEMBER 9/11″ and throws the Arab out the door!

---

12. Q. How long does it take an Arab woman to take out the trash?
    A. Nine months.

---

13. A young Arab asks his father “What is this weird hat that we are wearing?”

    “Why, it’s a ‘chechia’ because in the desert it protects our heads from the sun,” says the father.

    Then asks the son “And what is this type of clothing that we are wearing?”

    The father is Obliged to reply: “It’s a ‘djbellah’ because in the desert it is very hot and it protects your body!”

    The boy gets even more curious: “And what are these ugly shoes that we have on our feet?”

    Again the father lovingly explains: “These are ‘babouches,’ which keep us from burning our feet when in the desert!”

    Finally the son says, “Tell me Abba?”

    “Yes my son?”

    “Why the f*ck are we living in Detroit and still wearing all this shit?”

---

This has been a Thursday 13 post [# 66] and is updated on some Thursdays.

Planck’s Constant

Egyptians protest outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo after tearing down a concrete protection wall nearby

Here, in the photo above, we see the fruits of President Obama’s efforts to bring much-needed change to the Middle East.

Al Jazeera English, Egyptians break into Israeli embassy in Cairo

Israel’s embassy in Cairo has been stormed by protesters who tore down one of the outer embassy walls and threw thousands of documents from the embassy’s windows.

The angry Egyptians also replaced the neighbouring country’s flag with their own after breaking in on Friday night.

The group had left a mass rally at nearby Tahrir Square, where organised protesters called for reforms by the military, which now governs Egypt.

“Thousands of documents were being thrown out of the windows, but it’s unclear which floor they were coming from,” our correspondent Sherine Tadros said.

“Indications are that it’s pretty much a chaotic situation. Protesters set on fire two police vehicles.”

Sources at the Egyptian interior ministry told Al Jazeera that up to 300 people had been injured as the result of clashes around the embassy, and one died of a heart attack.

I would like to point out that while Al Jazeera reports that the military now governs Egypt, it is obvious that the military did not interfere; the military police nearby did nothing to stop the attack.

I wonder if this will be the modus operandi by the military when Muslim mobs begin destroying the ancient artifacts of the country, see Did the New Rulers of Egypt Read My Article?

If the military is simply allowing anti-Israeli sentiment to vent, they may well jeopardize not only the uneasy peace with Israel but with US largesse as well:

Commentary Magazine, Egypt’s Rulers Are Letting the Mob Rule

Egypt’s military knows very well the price of abandoning the peace with Israel would be disastrous. It would not only put their untested forces in harm’s way, but also take away the government’s pipeline of U.S. aid that the military prizes. They may believe allowing Islamist and nationalist agitators to besiege Israel’s embassy gives these haters a meaningless victory without doing any real damage to the country’s strategic needs. But as Mubarak learned to his cost, Cairo mobs sometimes take on a life of their own. Fueled by the hate that is part of the country’s popular culture, the impulse to demonize Israel and Jews can’t be quarantined. If left unchallenged, it will only grow and lead to worse things than a torn flag or a demolished security wall.

Egypt’s leaders need to counteract this trend before it gets even further out of control. And they need to be told bluntly by Washington that if they don’t, the flow of baksheesh into their coffers will soon end.

I do not want to mislead any of my readers, the destruction of Egyptian antiquities, a new war with Israel, and economic collapse in Egypt if the US stops sending aid would drive up the price of gold higher than it is now (it hit 83 this morning) and make me mucho money. But this is precisely why I voted for Obama: I knew he wouldn’t know how to handle crises like these.

I expected him to screw up royally and send gold into the stratosphere. So far he’s doing great. When I announced back in June of 2008 that voting for Barack H. Obama will make me Rich gold was trading for a thousand dollars an ounce less.

I love this guy.

Planck’s Constant

(Bahraini anti-government protesters in central Manama, February 16, 2011/Hamad I Mohammed)

The astonishing popular protests against Arab autocrats that have churned the region for three months are the authentic birth pangs of a new Middle East. Israel’s American-backed attempts to bomb Hezbollah and south Lebanon into submission in 2006 did not change the region, as Condoleezza Rice predicted it would. Nor did the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq three years earlier, which former President George W. Bush touted as introducing democracy to the Arab world, have much effect.

The change now is coming from within — and from below. Ordinary people taking to the streets swept away the presidents of Egypt and Tunisia. The leaders of Libya and Yemen are fighting for survival. Arab leaders almost everywhere else are trying to fend off real or potential challenges with a mix of repression and concessions.

“The rulers are running scared, with good reason — the people have terrified them,” said Rashid Khalidi, professor of Arab studies at Columbia University in New York. “The spectre of popular power haunts the dictators and monarchs.”

The region’s mostly Muslim citizens are at last proving they are no exception to the democratic trends that have transformed eastern Europe, Latin America and much of Africa and Asia in recent decades. The pro-democracy movement will reshape the Arab world as powerfully as the ideologies of Arab nationalism, socialism, communism and political Islam in the last 150 years, argues Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Endowment’s Middle East Center in Beirut.

“It is a sea change,” he said. “The change is profound. It hits people’s identities, their core. “Islam is still the most powerful current, but this paradigm has in a way superseded and absorbed it, creating the democratic, pluralist, human rights value system as the dominant one.”

But ousting authoritarian rulers is one thing, installing stable systems of representative government quite another. Turkey’s mixed experiences suggest a possible partnership between the government and the military in Egypt that could promote stability, if not full civilian rule for now. Turkey’s AK party, which combines Islamist roots with a modern outlook, has gradually forced the military to retreat from politics, an achievement admired by Arab reformers.

Khalidi said the Turkish model was attractive “in the sense of keeping the military out of politics, having an independent foreign policy, accepting the idea that Islam plays a role within politics, but in an essentially secular system”.

Read the full analysis here.

.

Follow FaithWorld on Twitter at RTRFaithWorld

Subscribe to all posts via RSS

FaithWorld