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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: c.hinton who wrote (231807)	5/21/2007 3:44:21 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

You'd have to say that the Victorians, the folks in the middle ages, and lots of other people (including, I think we'd have to say, the entire whole old testament and that God's fairly misogynistic view of women)- were "delusional". To want to subjugate women is, alas, not delusional, and is fairly common- and common to many religions. Oh sure- the religions say the same sorts of things in their defense- "we're really "elevating" the status of women by viewing them as worthy of protection/segregation/a pedestal/etc"- and the flip side of that is the anger directed at the "whores" who don't conform. I mean the Madonna/whore complex didn't start with the Muslims...I think we can tell that from its title. Most religious people claim they'd die for their Gods, or their religion, or something or other. Isn't that the test of religious faith? If you aren't willing to die for your religion, can you honestly claim you are very religious? And much easier than dying for your religion, is killing someone else for it. So much simpler. Seems to me what the extremists really are is very committed to a moral scheme which WE find has no relationship to the reality WE want to see embraced by everyone. This is basically the same fight extremist Christians have in this country. The extremist Christians see secularism as a "moral vacuum" and they are hop up and down mad that they can't inject their moral view and religion in to the public square. Oddly enough they fail to understand that what extremist Muslims want to do is pretty much the same thing- but the extremist Muslims are simply willing to be a little more deadly in the service of their God. Interestingly, in the movie Jesus Camp I saw one of the few examinations of this. The woman running the camp said something along the lines of "They're willing to be soldiers for their God. We need to have the same sort of soldiers for Christ". Once you get to that point, you see there's very little ideological difference between the "control" desire of either religion, and the difference at this point is simply one of means- and means can change pretty fast under pressure.

To: c.hinton who wrote (231807)	5/21/2007 4:26:16 PM
From: Sdgla	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Reality : Female Pakistani Minister Resigns Over Hug Pakistan’s woman tourism minister tendered her resignation today after hardline Islamic clerics accused her of obscenity for hugging her instructor after a charity parachute jump. Nilofar Bakhtiar, the Federal Minister for Tourism, was pictured wearing a brightly coloured jumpsuit and hugging her instructor after a tandem jump to raise money for child victims of the earthquake that struck Pakistan in October 2005. The images provoked the wrath of clerics in Islamabad, who accused Ms Bakhtiar of posing in an obscene manner and violating the Islamic moral norms. A religious court set up by the clerics at a radical mosque in Islamabad issued a fatwa, or religious edict, against Ms Bakhtiar when the photographs first appeared in local newspapers last month. They urged the Government to punish her and fire her from the Cabinet. Ms Bakhtiar failed to win the support of Cabinet colleagues and the Government appeared to cave in to the demands of the militants. As she announced her intention to resign today, Ms Bakhtiar complained of a campaign of intimidation against her. Earlier this month she was sacked as head of the womens’ wing of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League. Ms Bakhtiar dismissed the fatwa against her, saying it had no legal, religious or moral authority. She said that the photographs showed her being congratulated for making the jump at a charity event in France and that the allegations of immoral behaviour were baseless. She said she had no regrets and would do it again happily if it helped the people of Pakistan. Her resignation was the latest blow to women politicians in Pakistan. Less than two months ago a Punjab provincial minister was shot dead by an Islamic cleric in the eastern city of Gujranwala because she was not wearing a veil. Ms Bakhtiar told a Senate Standing Committee that her life was under threat. Human rights and political activists and many other Pakistanis had condemned the campaign against her and expressed support for the minister. But the Government did not take any action against the clerics, who are campaigning for the establishment of a Taleban-style conservative Islamic rule in the capital, and instead urged her to resign. The clerics have already set up a parallel justice system and openly promote vigilantes in the city. In a newspaper interview published today Ms Bakhtiar said she was disappointed by her Cabinet colleagues who had failed to stand by her, and that she was hurt by the way her parachute jump had been sensationalised. The chief cleric of Lal Mosque in Islamabad, Maulana Abdul Aziz, is leading the campaign to establish a hardline sharia regime with his brother, Abdur Rashid Ghazi. The brothers have made headlines in recent months for openly challenging the Government and for encouraging religious vigilantes to patrol the streets of the capital. The mosque’s baton-wielding devotees have set up so-called morality patrols telling local shops not to sell “un-Islamic” music and movies. Followers have become a common sight at traffic lights where they warn women to stop driving as it is a “sin” against Islam. Shrouded from head to toe in black burqas, women students of a seminary known as Madrassa Hafza attached to the mosque regularly raid houses which they claim are being used as brothels.