Islamic Council of Victoria – Propagandists of the Year
The Age Melbourne Magazine has published a list of the Melbourne’s 100 most influential people in a special Top 100 edition.
One of those listed is ICV’s Sherene Hassan, described oxymoronically as Muslim and feminist.
This indomitable woman has given more than 100 presentations on Islam this year, and if we are in any doubt as to the message she is spreading, just listen to her words:-
she “deplores that Islam is often linked with misogyny and is doing her utmost to confront this belief.”
Well Sherene, you’ll have to try hard, given that this month a 16 year old in Canada was allegedly killed by her father and brother for the crime of refusing to wear a hijab . And in Saudi Arabia, when a young woman was gang raped, the courts initially sentenced her to 90 lashes for "mingling", the crime of being out in public with a male who was not her relative, then increased her sentence to 200 lashes and six months in prison.
Yet Sherene deplores our linking Islam with misogyny! Well, I have news for you: Aussies are not that stupid.
Sadly though, most Aussies don’t get a voice in these politically correct times, while the likes of Sherene are encouraged to spread their deceitful message to the naïve and ignorant.
“I’m passionate about building bridges” she says. “I don’t want my children to grow up and feel alienated. I’m bringing them up to be very proud Australians.”
Sadly though, most Aussies don’t get a voice in these politically correct times, while the likes of Sherene are encouraged to spread their deceitful message to the naïve and ignorant.
“I’m passionate about building bridges” she says. “I don’t want my children to grow up and feel alienated. I’m bringing them up to be very proud Australians.”
I guess by that she means proud Muslims living in Australia, being careful to keep apart from infidel Aussies, except when on “interfaith” and other public relations junkets. Given that our government pours massive funding into privileging Muslims, Sherene’s children will no doubt be provided with special uniforms at state schools, and even their own Muslim toilets on campus, so they are not contaminated by infidels.
Maybe if the ICV truly wanted to build bridges, they would allow discourse about Islam, rather than rushing to take legal action under Victoria’s notorious vilification laws every time anyone tried to tell the truth about Islam and what is in the Qu’ran. But of course Islam is not about building bridges, but imposing its racist supremacist ideology and overturning our democratic freedoms.
Sherene boasts that she “encounters groups who are uncomfortable because they’ve never met a Muslim. At the end of the session, just being able to break down barriers and laugh and joke with them – that means a lot to me.”
Islamic dress code, rites and customs, food and eating requirements as well as teachings about Muslim superiority create a real and premeditated apartheid barrier, which cannot be overcome by superficial shows organized by Muslim propagandists.
Yes, I’m sure it does. It means your taqiya has worked its charm, and those people who had justifiable reservations about what Islam is and does will go away feeling reassured.
But one day they will realise they have been fooled and will join the growing chorus of those who realise the danger that Islam poses.
There’s still time to turn back the tide; let’s just hope we don’t leave it too late!
Set as favorite
Bookmark
Email this
Comments (22)
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Sherene looks very sincere in the photo. However, sincerity has never been an indication of being grounded in reality. Interesting that Sherene is trying to pursue some kind of wish fulfilment in saying Islam and mysogyny don't go together (they do, and how) while Pamela Bone journalist and feminist, says the following of Muslim women's groups she has met:
'Muslim feminist groups such as Women Living Under Muslim Laws are raising their voices against the misogyny of sharia laws...'
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22882381-7583,00.html
So which group of Muslim women is telling the truth? I think Sherene, you are sadly deluded. and your delusions are feeding a group of ageing western liberals who do not want to do anything to help Muslim women in anguish. As Bone says in the article quoted above:
'...but, with some honourable exceptions, there is no rallying by Western liberals against the gender apartheid under which women in large parts of the Islamic world live, as there was against racial apartheid in South Africa.'
And you know why the liberals, feminists among them, donot want to help their Muslims sisters? Because, Sherene, they do not care. They themselves are racist and believe Muslim women are not worth caring about or fighting for. You miss seeing their deep seated racism. If a white western woman is raped, the screaming never stops. If Iranian, Iraqui or Pakistani women by the thousands are raped, not a whisper. Planting a tree and saving the whale are frankly more important to them.
Sherene, I hope you 'get' this - and save yourself the effort of proving the unprovable.
Islam is the most racist and apartheid system of thought and those who have escaped from it like Nonie Darwish, Ayan Hirsi Ali, my Sydney friend who has just left Islam and countless others, are only too willing to testify to their lucky escape from such a controlling, mysogynystic ideology.
'Muslim feminist groups such as Women Living Under Muslim Laws are raising their voices against the misogyny of sharia laws...'
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22882381-7583,00.html
So which group of Muslim women is telling the truth? I think Sherene, you are sadly deluded. and your delusions are feeding a group of ageing western liberals who do not want to do anything to help Muslim women in anguish. As Bone says in the article quoted above:
'...but, with some honourable exceptions, there is no rallying by Western liberals against the gender apartheid under which women in large parts of the Islamic world live, as there was against racial apartheid in South Africa.'
And you know why the liberals, feminists among them, donot want to help their Muslims sisters? Because, Sherene, they do not care. They themselves are racist and believe Muslim women are not worth caring about or fighting for. You miss seeing their deep seated racism. If a white western woman is raped, the screaming never stops. If Iranian, Iraqui or Pakistani women by the thousands are raped, not a whisper. Planting a tree and saving the whale are frankly more important to them.
Sherene, I hope you 'get' this - and save yourself the effort of proving the unprovable.
Islam is the most racist and apartheid system of thought and those who have escaped from it like Nonie Darwish, Ayan Hirsi Ali, my Sydney friend who has just left Islam and countless others, are only too willing to testify to their lucky escape from such a controlling, mysogynystic ideology.
1
December 28, 2007
what is the standing of this woman in her 'community'? not the amorphous agglomeration of mutually exclusive sects which congregate together in the face of imagined slights and attacks but her specific 'church'. Which local religious leader has vested authority in her to speak? Does she speak out against injustice in her church? In the world ? perpetrated by her fellow 'muslims'? Or does she disappear when these uncomfortable truths raise their ugly heads and live in the collective denial of Muslims, Muslim women and Western Muslims?
2
December 28, 2007
Wendy,
She is as sincere as a saltie before his meal.
Sherene's role is to sell Islam to the Kuffar and this is what she does.
Unfortunately for us, our authrorities wnat to desperately believe that this snake oil is in fact a wonderful "cure it all" medicine.
Sweet Potato,
None
Nope. She only denies that there is any injustice in her "church".
At the same time her "church" preaches this injustice openly.
Meanwhile our leaders tie themselves in knots trying to explain to us that Islam does not mean what it preaches.
She is as sincere as a saltie before his meal.
Sherene's role is to sell Islam to the Kuffar and this is what she does.
Unfortunately for us, our authrorities wnat to desperately believe that this snake oil is in fact a wonderful "cure it all" medicine.
Sweet Potato,
Which local religious leader has vested authority in her to speak?
None
Does she speak out against injustice in her church?
Nope. She only denies that there is any injustice in her "church".
At the same time her "church" preaches this injustice openly.
Meanwhile our leaders tie themselves in knots trying to explain to us that Islam does not mean what it preaches.
3
December 28, 2007
'except when on “interfaith” and other public relations junkets'
These "interfaith" meetings are just cunning,cynical ploys to spread Islam. To Islamists it is merely another golden opportunity for these dawagandists to meet non-Muslims to try and convert them.
They gather well-meaning, naive non-Muslims together, ostensibly to "explain Islam". They then give them a generous dose of takiyya literature to work its poisonous spell.
They, on the other hand, have absolutely no interest at these "interfaith" meetings to listen to other points of view as they arrogantly assume they have the monopoly on truth.
Wakey wakey future dhimmis before it's too late!
These "interfaith" meetings are just cunning,cynical ploys to spread Islam. To Islamists it is merely another golden opportunity for these dawagandists to meet non-Muslims to try and convert them.
They gather well-meaning, naive non-Muslims together, ostensibly to "explain Islam". They then give them a generous dose of takiyya literature to work its poisonous spell.
They, on the other hand, have absolutely no interest at these "interfaith" meetings to listen to other points of view as they arrogantly assume they have the monopoly on truth.
Wakey wakey future dhimmis before it's too late!
4
December 29, 2007
My my - don't the muslim girls look oh so pious & pure with their sweet benign smiles. These kids really do believe they are doing God's work. If a muslim gains a convert to Islam they actually believe they will gain special favours from Allah in the afterlife. Their favorite targets are gullible teenagers and people who are having personal problems. Even our prisons are a great recruiting ground for fundlementalist Islam. One would think our authorities would put a stop to this wouldn't you? But you would be wrong. Our authorities (especially our elitists) are too busy falling over themselves to appease our newest arrivals. Of course the followers of Islam merely see them as 'useful idiots' until such time they can gain the upper hand in this country. This article is a great insight to how the useful idiot advances the cause of Islam throughout the West. LINK
5
December 29, 2007
Lynette,
Is it just me or do the Muslim girls appear to be a bit to heavy for their age (they look 111-12)?
At this age they probably are genuine in seeking friendship although they do feel superior as they are thoroghly brainwashed by their Muslim controllers.
Is it just me or do the Muslim girls appear to be a bit to heavy for their age (they look 111-12)?
don't the muslim girls look oh so pious & pure with their sweet benign smiles
At this age they probably are genuine in seeking friendship although they do feel superior as they are thoroghly brainwashed by their Muslim controllers.
6
December 29, 2007
Exactly. Theyaretaught that they are superior to the Infidel. Be it Jew, Christian, Hindu, Buddist, or calathumpian. What I truely object to is how smug they are about it...and to enforce their message they go about prattling on how immoral & decadent us unbelievers are. Subtle as a sledgehammer ain't they? I wonder how far we would get if our girls where to rock up with a bible tucked under their arm & preached in reverse the delights of being a Christian. Tolerance isn't exactly one their stongest suits. You would have their minders intervening within seconds!! 
7
December 29, 2007
Sweet Potato,
Thanks for referring to Cassandra. For any unfamiliar with the story, Cassandra was cursed by the gods to prophesy the truth but not be believed. She warned about the Trojan War, but no one believed her. Many thought her mad, but she was only trying to warn people of impending disaster.
One of the causes of the Trojan War was the abduction of Priam's sister, Hesione. Priam sent messengers to Greece to demand her return, but they were rejected . Cassandra predicted vainly that the resulting Trojan War would end in tragedy. Priam had her locked up to avoid her uttering any more warnings.
Cassandra predicted the Greek siege behind the gift of the Trojan Horse, but the Trojans ignored her and were thrilled with the the Greek gift of a giant wooden horse. Her warnings were ignored, and we know the result!
Similarly with Islam: those of us who warn of the dangers and the impending destruction of our society from within from Islam are treated as insane - sadly, our warnings are falling on deaf ears. Will people awake in time?
Thanks for referring to Cassandra. For any unfamiliar with the story, Cassandra was cursed by the gods to prophesy the truth but not be believed. She warned about the Trojan War, but no one believed her. Many thought her mad, but she was only trying to warn people of impending disaster.
One of the causes of the Trojan War was the abduction of Priam's sister, Hesione. Priam sent messengers to Greece to demand her return, but they were rejected . Cassandra predicted vainly that the resulting Trojan War would end in tragedy. Priam had her locked up to avoid her uttering any more warnings.
Cassandra predicted the Greek siege behind the gift of the Trojan Horse, but the Trojans ignored her and were thrilled with the the Greek gift of a giant wooden horse. Her warnings were ignored, and we know the result!
Similarly with Islam: those of us who warn of the dangers and the impending destruction of our society from within from Islam are treated as insane - sadly, our warnings are falling on deaf ears. Will people awake in time?
8
December 29, 2007
Wendy,
I'm not sure that Sherene is deluded. I suspect she knows exactly what she is doing. Shame that the ageing Western liberals don't realise, and will not heed the warnings. I agree with you that these women are the real racists, as they choose to condone the racism and mysogyny of Islam, and ignore the plight of Islamic women.
Dan,
I agree; this women is a saleswoman for Islam and does an excellent job. No doubt she reaps many rewards, from kudos to hard cash.
Shafee al-Apostate
'These "interfaith" meetings are just cunning,cynical ploys to spread Islam.'
Spot on! And a think the word 'dawagandists' is an apt one - took me a while to realise what it was!
As you say, the non-Muslims they target are naive (though some are after the main chance - lots of funding and kudos thrown in. Don't let's give these useful idiots too much credit)
Lynette,
What an absolutely brilliant article. Thanks for drawing attention to it. Its a MUST READ and should be widely circulated.
Sadly our authorities are often in it for the money and the kudos, just like the non-Muslims doing "interfaith". They have much to lose from abandoning their Islamist buddies, and all they would have to gain is a clear conscience. Since most don't have a conscience to start with, that's not much incentive.
I'm not sure that Sherene is deluded. I suspect she knows exactly what she is doing. Shame that the ageing Western liberals don't realise, and will not heed the warnings. I agree with you that these women are the real racists, as they choose to condone the racism and mysogyny of Islam, and ignore the plight of Islamic women.
Dan,
I agree; this women is a saleswoman for Islam and does an excellent job. No doubt she reaps many rewards, from kudos to hard cash.
Shafee al-Apostate
'These "interfaith" meetings are just cunning,cynical ploys to spread Islam.'
Spot on! And a think the word 'dawagandists' is an apt one - took me a while to realise what it was!
As you say, the non-Muslims they target are naive (though some are after the main chance - lots of funding and kudos thrown in. Don't let's give these useful idiots too much credit)
Lynette,
What an absolutely brilliant article. Thanks for drawing attention to it. Its a MUST READ and should be widely circulated.
Sadly our authorities are often in it for the money and the kudos, just like the non-Muslims doing "interfaith". They have much to lose from abandoning their Islamist buddies, and all they would have to gain is a clear conscience. Since most don't have a conscience to start with, that's not much incentive.
9
December 29, 2007
You know, I had a thought when reading the article and the comments. If I was someone who came in here with no knowledge of what the truth is concerning Islam, you'd appear to be a pretty racist lot. The real truth though is that everything that's been said here is true. Cassandra said: "sadly, our warnings are falling on deaf ears. Will people awake in time?" I doubt it actually, Cassandra, as people are far more interested in security than freedom. Our leaders and most of the public are willing to do anything to appease for even the appearance of peace. People are willing to give up a little freedom here and a little there until in the end they end up with nothing worth having.
I'll continue to do my bit in trying to warn those who'll listen - Islam is totally evil, with nothing to offer in the way of life, creativity, liberty and the right to make our own choices. No wonder the socialists get on so well with them - they have much the same elitist mentality. The only difference is the source.
I'll continue to do my bit in trying to warn those who'll listen - Islam is totally evil, with nothing to offer in the way of life, creativity, liberty and the right to make our own choices. No wonder the socialists get on so well with them - they have much the same elitist mentality. The only difference is the source.
10
December 30, 2007
well said Lynette why dont we rock up to interfaith and prostlyse back to the smug muslims. How about we bring our bible and try and convince them of the truth we could also bring the Gilgimesh, Bhfgavad-Gita the book of mormon, dianetics and many more and prostilyse to them rather then letting islamic dogma dominate. 
11
December 30, 2007
Morris ,
' If I was someone who came in here with no knowledge of what the truth is concerning Islam, you'd appear to be a pretty racist lot'. Strange because among us we represent a wide range of ethnic and religious groups - spanning the globe in fact - we are a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-viewpoint group of people who are united in seeing the danger posed by the anti-democratic totalitarian life Islam imposes on its subjects and seeks to impose on others. many people from many different backgrounds and viewpoints see Islam as dangerous, especially the ex-Muslims among us.
You and Cassandra raise the interesting issue of why people are not listening - I think part of the problem is that westerners do not take it seriously that someone would want to destroy them - they are accustomed to making their fulminating statements on politics and religion from an armchair, as chardonnay socialists and latte liberals but they do not realise that this is not where it's at - there is someone with a gun at their heads , as with Benazir Bhutto , who wants not only to point the gun at our heads, but to shoot it, and blow up as many of us as possible. It's for real.
Moderate Islam? Look at what happened to Benazir Bhutto.
' If I was someone who came in here with no knowledge of what the truth is concerning Islam, you'd appear to be a pretty racist lot'. Strange because among us we represent a wide range of ethnic and religious groups - spanning the globe in fact - we are a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-viewpoint group of people who are united in seeing the danger posed by the anti-democratic totalitarian life Islam imposes on its subjects and seeks to impose on others. many people from many different backgrounds and viewpoints see Islam as dangerous, especially the ex-Muslims among us.
You and Cassandra raise the interesting issue of why people are not listening - I think part of the problem is that westerners do not take it seriously that someone would want to destroy them - they are accustomed to making their fulminating statements on politics and religion from an armchair, as chardonnay socialists and latte liberals but they do not realise that this is not where it's at - there is someone with a gun at their heads , as with Benazir Bhutto , who wants not only to point the gun at our heads, but to shoot it, and blow up as many of us as possible. It's for real.
Moderate Islam? Look at what happened to Benazir Bhutto.
12
December 30, 2007
Sherene Hassan cannot be trusted to tell the truth about Islam. I remember her newspaper articles on clitoridectomy where she lied that it had nothing to do with Islam and tried to palm equal blame to Christians and all Africans. How disgusting, as I possess as do many others, text where Mohammad fully endorses the practice and Islamic laws that list clitoridectomy as 'obligatory, or sunnah, or at the least worthy of merit depending on the Islamic legal school yet there is no Christian text or Jesus endorsing the practice. And it isn't African but is practised by muslims in the middle-east, India, Malaysia, and Indonesia (and brought to our western countries!)and a smaller % of animists and African Christians who have lived under Islamic dictates and culture for 1300 years! It has not spread around the world with Christianity but with Islam!
As for feminist- where to begin but at the very least this woman covers herself from head to toe supporting Islam's view that a woman's body is shameful and must be hidden or they deserve what they get from uncontrolled muslim men.
What 'feminist' would adhere to this without adding the paedophilia, polygamy and instant divorce for men, slavery, rape, beating, ploughing like a field, restricted legal standing and rights, inferior in intelligence/religion/morals, populating hell etc!!!
As for feminist- where to begin but at the very least this woman covers herself from head to toe supporting Islam's view that a woman's body is shameful and must be hidden or they deserve what they get from uncontrolled muslim men.
What 'feminist' would adhere to this without adding the paedophilia, polygamy and instant divorce for men, slavery, rape, beating, ploughing like a field, restricted legal standing and rights, inferior in intelligence/religion/morals, populating hell etc!!!
13
December 30, 2007
{{You know, I had a thought when reading the article and the comments. If I was someone who came in here with no knowledge of what the truth is concerning Islam, you'd appear to be a pretty racist lot.}}
It's like banging you head against a brick wall isn't it. I constantly have to remind people that Islam is not a race....however Islam is made up of many races, including the caucasian race. I couldn't care less what race a person is quite frankly. I always go by how a person behaves rather than what their race is. Islam is a religionand nothing more. A religion I might add that is being practiced along fascist lines. They seek world dominence and have no tolerance towards other world religions. This article brilliantly outlines why this religion behaves in the way it does.
http://www.studytoanswer.net/myths_ch8.html#ch8-2
And to make the point even clearer - followers of this intolerant religion destroyed the 5,000 year old ancient buddas of Afghanistan. An evil act that was decried throughout the civilised world.
It's like banging you head against a brick wall isn't it. I constantly have to remind people that Islam is not a race....however Islam is made up of many races, including the caucasian race. I couldn't care less what race a person is quite frankly. I always go by how a person behaves rather than what their race is. Islam is a religionand nothing more. A religion I might add that is being practiced along fascist lines. They seek world dominence and have no tolerance towards other world religions. This article brilliantly outlines why this religion behaves in the way it does.
http://www.studytoanswer.net/myths_ch8.html#ch8-2
And to make the point even clearer - followers of this intolerant religion destroyed the 5,000 year old ancient buddas of Afghanistan. An evil act that was decried throughout the civilised world.
14
December 30, 2007
Sherene obvioulsy dont believe in what she is saying either, why else would she continue to live in the decadent West? Indeed, if she was to be given a choice where to live in the West where there are equal rights for all or in some Islamic land like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia or any other Sharia paradise I am in no doubt where Sherene choice would lay. The problem with women like Sherene as with most Islamists is that they are totally and completely incapable of telling the truth- it just means nothing to them no more than the actual reality does. The only way around this is to continue to expose the hideous treatment of women in Islam, little more is required than to open Islam up as being one of the biggest cons in human history. Little wonder they work themselves into a lather everytime they are confronted with the truth as laid down in their own koran, hadith and sira.
15
December 31, 2007
The Realist,
No, sherene doesn't believe in what she is saying, but sadly gullible Westerners do. She is practicing her religious obligation - taqiya. Westerners, schooled in Judeo-Christian ethics where we are told it is morally wrong to lie, cannot comprehend a "religion" which encourages lying and killing, so deny Islam is like this. And the best way to deny it is not finding out about Islam and listening to Sherene-type lies.
I agree continuous exposure of Islam must be the way forward. It should be exposed for the fraud it is.
No, sherene doesn't believe in what she is saying, but sadly gullible Westerners do. She is practicing her religious obligation - taqiya. Westerners, schooled in Judeo-Christian ethics where we are told it is morally wrong to lie, cannot comprehend a "religion" which encourages lying and killing, so deny Islam is like this. And the best way to deny it is not finding out about Islam and listening to Sherene-type lies.
I agree continuous exposure of Islam must be the way forward. It should be exposed for the fraud it is.
16
December 31, 2007
To Realist & Cassandra,
You & others should find this excellent video very informative. The only warning I will give is that sections of it are graphic. It's not for the feint hearted or children. But everything that is depicted in this video is authentic & true.
http://www.terrorismawareness.org/videos/108/the-violent-oppression-of-women-in-islam/
You & others should find this excellent video very informative. The only warning I will give is that sections of it are graphic. It's not for the feint hearted or children. But everything that is depicted in this video is authentic & true.
http://www.terrorismawareness.org/videos/108/the-violent-oppression-of-women-in-islam/
17
December 31, 2007
The Islamist War on Muslim Women
By Jeff Jacoby
Bostom.com | Monday, December 31, 2007
THE "QATIF GIRL" won a reprieve last week. On Dec. 17, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah pardoned the young woman, who was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison after she pressed charges against seven men who had raped her and a male acquaintance in 2006. Two weeks earlier, Sudan's president extended a similar reprieve to Gillian Gibbons, the British teacher convicted of insulting Islam because her 7-year-old students named a teddy bear Muhammad. Gibbons had been sentenced to prison, but government-organized street demonstrators were loudly demanding her execution.
In January, Nazanin Fatehi was released from an Iranian jail after a death sentence against her was revoked. She had originally been convicted of murder for fatally stabbing a man when he and two others attempted to rape her and her niece in a park. (Had she yielded to the rapists, she could have been flogged or stoned for engaging in nonmarital sex.)
The sparing of these women was very welcome news, of course, and it was not coincidental that each case had triggered an international furor. But for every "Qatif girl" or Nazanin who is saved, there are far too many other Muslim girls and women for whom deliverance never comes.
No international furor saved Aqsa Parvez, a Toronto teenager, whose father was charged on Dec. 11 with strangling her to death because she refused to wear a hijab. "She just wanted to look like everyone else," one of Aqsa's friends told the National Post, "and I guess her dad had a problem with that."
No reprieve came for Banaz Mahmod, either. She was 20, a Kurdish immigrant to Britain, whose father and uncle had her killed last year after she left an abusive arranged marriage and fell in love with a man not from the family's village in Kurdistan. Banaz was choked to death with a bootlace, stuffed into a suitcase, and buried in a garden 70 miles away.
More than 25 such "honor killings" have been confirmed in Britain's Muslim community in recent years. Many more are suspected.
There has been no storm of outrage about the intimidation and murder in Basra, Iraq, of women who wear Western-style clothing. Iraqi police say that more than 40 women have been killed so far this year by Islamists; the bodies are often left in garbage dumps with notes accusing the victims of "un-Islamic behavior."
By Western standards, the subjugation of women by Muslim fanatics, and the sometimes pathological Islamist obsession with female sexuality, are unthinkable. Time and again they lead to shocking acts of violence and depravity:
In Pakistan, a tribal council ordered a woman to be gang-raped as punishment for her brother's supposed liaison with a woman from another tribe.
In San Francisco, a young Muslim woman was shot dead after she uncovered her hair and put on makeup in order to be a maid of honor at a friend's wedding.
In Tehran, a father beheaded his 7-year-old daughter because he suspected that she had been raped; he said he acted "to defend my honor, fame, and dignity."
In Saudi Arabia, the Islamic police prevented schoolgirls from leaving a burning building because they were not wearing headscarves and abayas; 15 of the girls died in the inferno.
The president of Cairo's Al-Azhar University, a renowned center of Islamic learning, described the proper method of wife-beating in a television interview: "It's not really beating," Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tayyeb explained on Egyptian television. "It's more like punching."
When the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in 1996, the repression of women was among their first priorities. They issued a decree forbidding women to leave their homes, with the result that work and schooling for women came to a halt, destroying the country's healthcare system, civil service, and elementary education.
"Forty percent of the doctors, half of the government workers, and seven out of 10 teachers were women," Lawrence Wright observed in "The Looming Tower," his Pulitzer Prize-winning history of Al Qaeda. "Under the Taliban, many of them would become beggars."
Women are not the only victims of this rampant misogyny. Mohammed Halim, a 46-year-old Afghan schoolteacher, was dragged from his family and horribly murdered last year - disemboweled and then dismembered - for defying orders to stop educating girls.
All these are only examples - the tip of a dreadful iceberg that will never be demolished until Muslims by the millions rise up against it. As for the rest of us, we too have an obligation to raise our voices. It took a worldwide outcry to spare "Qatif girl" and Nazanin. But there are countless others like them, and our silence may seal their fate.
By Jeff Jacoby
Bostom.com | Monday, December 31, 2007
THE "QATIF GIRL" won a reprieve last week. On Dec. 17, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah pardoned the young woman, who was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison after she pressed charges against seven men who had raped her and a male acquaintance in 2006. Two weeks earlier, Sudan's president extended a similar reprieve to Gillian Gibbons, the British teacher convicted of insulting Islam because her 7-year-old students named a teddy bear Muhammad. Gibbons had been sentenced to prison, but government-organized street demonstrators were loudly demanding her execution.
In January, Nazanin Fatehi was released from an Iranian jail after a death sentence against her was revoked. She had originally been convicted of murder for fatally stabbing a man when he and two others attempted to rape her and her niece in a park. (Had she yielded to the rapists, she could have been flogged or stoned for engaging in nonmarital sex.)
The sparing of these women was very welcome news, of course, and it was not coincidental that each case had triggered an international furor. But for every "Qatif girl" or Nazanin who is saved, there are far too many other Muslim girls and women for whom deliverance never comes.
No international furor saved Aqsa Parvez, a Toronto teenager, whose father was charged on Dec. 11 with strangling her to death because she refused to wear a hijab. "She just wanted to look like everyone else," one of Aqsa's friends told the National Post, "and I guess her dad had a problem with that."
No reprieve came for Banaz Mahmod, either. She was 20, a Kurdish immigrant to Britain, whose father and uncle had her killed last year after she left an abusive arranged marriage and fell in love with a man not from the family's village in Kurdistan. Banaz was choked to death with a bootlace, stuffed into a suitcase, and buried in a garden 70 miles away.
More than 25 such "honor killings" have been confirmed in Britain's Muslim community in recent years. Many more are suspected.
There has been no storm of outrage about the intimidation and murder in Basra, Iraq, of women who wear Western-style clothing. Iraqi police say that more than 40 women have been killed so far this year by Islamists; the bodies are often left in garbage dumps with notes accusing the victims of "un-Islamic behavior."
By Western standards, the subjugation of women by Muslim fanatics, and the sometimes pathological Islamist obsession with female sexuality, are unthinkable. Time and again they lead to shocking acts of violence and depravity:
In Pakistan, a tribal council ordered a woman to be gang-raped as punishment for her brother's supposed liaison with a woman from another tribe.
In San Francisco, a young Muslim woman was shot dead after she uncovered her hair and put on makeup in order to be a maid of honor at a friend's wedding.
In Tehran, a father beheaded his 7-year-old daughter because he suspected that she had been raped; he said he acted "to defend my honor, fame, and dignity."
In Saudi Arabia, the Islamic police prevented schoolgirls from leaving a burning building because they were not wearing headscarves and abayas; 15 of the girls died in the inferno.
The president of Cairo's Al-Azhar University, a renowned center of Islamic learning, described the proper method of wife-beating in a television interview: "It's not really beating," Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tayyeb explained on Egyptian television. "It's more like punching."
When the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in 1996, the repression of women was among their first priorities. They issued a decree forbidding women to leave their homes, with the result that work and schooling for women came to a halt, destroying the country's healthcare system, civil service, and elementary education.
"Forty percent of the doctors, half of the government workers, and seven out of 10 teachers were women," Lawrence Wright observed in "The Looming Tower," his Pulitzer Prize-winning history of Al Qaeda. "Under the Taliban, many of them would become beggars."
Women are not the only victims of this rampant misogyny. Mohammed Halim, a 46-year-old Afghan schoolteacher, was dragged from his family and horribly murdered last year - disemboweled and then dismembered - for defying orders to stop educating girls.
All these are only examples - the tip of a dreadful iceberg that will never be demolished until Muslims by the millions rise up against it. As for the rest of us, we too have an obligation to raise our voices. It took a worldwide outcry to spare "Qatif girl" and Nazanin. But there are countless others like them, and our silence may seal their fate.
18
January 01, 2008
Lynette,
The video, horrible though it is, and the article should be obligatory in all universities/schools. Instead, we get syrupy Muslims, Jews and Christians going into schools telling lies about it's peaceful nature and how women are liberated under Islam.
I think Jacoby sums up the main problem -
'By Western standards, the subjugation of women by Muslim fanatics, and the sometimes pathological Islamist obsession with female sexuality, are unthinkable.'
Yes, we just can't believe somethng so hideous can exist and be called a religion. So we deny it exists and pretend Islam is something else entirely i.e. a moral religion, when it is completely amoral and barbaric.
The video, horrible though it is, and the article should be obligatory in all universities/schools. Instead, we get syrupy Muslims, Jews and Christians going into schools telling lies about it's peaceful nature and how women are liberated under Islam.
I think Jacoby sums up the main problem -
'By Western standards, the subjugation of women by Muslim fanatics, and the sometimes pathological Islamist obsession with female sexuality, are unthinkable.'
Yes, we just can't believe somethng so hideous can exist and be called a religion. So we deny it exists and pretend Islam is something else entirely i.e. a moral religion, when it is completely amoral and barbaric.
19
January 02, 2008
If "Hijab is freedom, not oppression", then could a Muslim please explain this:
"Wearing the hijab is an obligation which means not wearing it is a haaram and it's from the major sins,
and Allah will punish those who commit a major sin. And the punishment is in the hell fire, and that could be
for a very long time in the hell fire thousands of years. A Muslim female should not take of the hijab under
any circumstances, taking it of is disobeying Allah. And Allah knows better." - Sheikh Shady Suleiman
Sydney Muslim Youth (www.sydneymuslimyouth.com)
"Wearing the hijab is an obligation which means not wearing it is a haaram and it's from the major sins,
and Allah will punish those who commit a major sin. And the punishment is in the hell fire, and that could be
for a very long time in the hell fire thousands of years. A Muslim female should not take of the hijab under
any circumstances, taking it of is disobeying Allah. And Allah knows better." - Sheikh Shady Suleiman
Sydney Muslim Youth (www.sydneymuslimyouth.com)
20
January 05, 2008
Adam Michel - it means, as Alice in Wonderland found out - 'Words can mean anything you want them to mean' . Freedom means coercion, it is not obligatory but it will be punished by hellfire, it is a matter of choice, but the punishement for disobeying is eternal death.
Islam was never strong on logic and the law of non-contradiction. In fact it seems to have had difficulty with that essential feature of western rational thought.
Averroes the 12th century Muslim philosopher, who studied Aristotle, was banished when he asked rational questions that conflicted with Islamic thought.
By contrast, in western philosophy, matters of faith can be approached with philosophy. there is a rationality and reason pervading the universe(even if full of suffering).The Bible is replete with psalmists and writers seeing God in the order and splendour of the universe. The Gospel of St John, in the first sentence uses the word 'logos' 'In the beginning was the 'logos' - that is there was a reason,a beginning of everything - which is also translated as God and he is is in constant communication with us. In the Bible God is always coming to man, the divine realm is being revealed in a way man can apprehend and God wishes to be a loving Father to us, and to be friends with man.
In Islamic writing, Allah is a far away judge who does not come near us, but remains inscrutable, quite capricious and contradictory in his judgements and hence rationality can not be applied to any aspect of faith. One must simply placate this distant severe figure. Hence contradictory statements, illogical statements are less of a surprise to Muslims. They are taught not to seek explanations.
In any case, where you do get claims of Islamic accomplishment in various fields which require rational thinking, it turns out that there is a great if not overwhelming debt owed to the Assyrians. This is very informative:
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=E2F416C9-2309-43FF-9584-0F9E1D83A58C
Islam was never strong on logic and the law of non-contradiction. In fact it seems to have had difficulty with that essential feature of western rational thought.
Averroes the 12th century Muslim philosopher, who studied Aristotle, was banished when he asked rational questions that conflicted with Islamic thought.
By contrast, in western philosophy, matters of faith can be approached with philosophy. there is a rationality and reason pervading the universe(even if full of suffering).The Bible is replete with psalmists and writers seeing God in the order and splendour of the universe. The Gospel of St John, in the first sentence uses the word 'logos' 'In the beginning was the 'logos' - that is there was a reason,a beginning of everything - which is also translated as God and he is is in constant communication with us. In the Bible God is always coming to man, the divine realm is being revealed in a way man can apprehend and God wishes to be a loving Father to us, and to be friends with man.
In Islamic writing, Allah is a far away judge who does not come near us, but remains inscrutable, quite capricious and contradictory in his judgements and hence rationality can not be applied to any aspect of faith. One must simply placate this distant severe figure. Hence contradictory statements, illogical statements are less of a surprise to Muslims. They are taught not to seek explanations.
In any case, where you do get claims of Islamic accomplishment in various fields which require rational thinking, it turns out that there is a great if not overwhelming debt owed to the Assyrians. This is very informative:
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=E2F416C9-2309-43FF-9584-0F9E1D83A58C
21
January 08, 2008
Islam was never strong on logic and the law of non-contradiction. In fact it seems to have had difficulty with that essential feature of western rational thought.
Well said Wendy. There are many things islam can be rightly accused of, but intelligence isn't one of themn.
22
January 09, 2008
Write comment
This content has been locked. You can no longer post any comments.
