Unveiled Women Are Animals
So says an Iranian official. Click here to see the picture of a bloody woman at Gateway Pundit. Lovely, eh?
Tehran, 21 May (AKI) – Iranians who do not abide by Islamic dress code rules are animals, according to an Iranian government aide quoted by Iran’s official news agency IRNA. “Anyone abandoning the principles of Islamic dress codes become members of the animal world,” said Zahra Suizi, an education ministry official. In an interview on the moralization campaign launched last month by the government of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, under which women can be arrested if they do not strictly abide by Muslim dress codes, Suizi said the veil “is a moral and religious obligation.”
“The hijab (veil) represents the essence of women and it is the symbol of a population and a country,” said the government official.
One hopes that Iran will eventually grow out of this.
It might not be a bad idea to remember that is was not all that long ago that suffragettes in western nations were beaten, jailed, and force-fed when they went on hunger strikes.
Even more recently in our history, blacks were segregated with the blessing of the federal government and lynched while local authorities looked the other way.
I think most Americans hope that equal rights for women become a reality worldwide. But also let us remember that injustice exists everywhere, including at home, and not use this issue as an excuse to demonize Muslims.
Hand it to the liberals. They said that there would be a theocratic dictatorship descending if Bush was re-elected and they were right…just got the country wrong.
The tighter they grip, the more star systems will slip though their fingers.
Thats it Anjin, when shown a picture of a woman beaten bloody for not wearing a veil, point to the United States as a justification for brutal acts by a theocratic dictatorship. Anjin, if you were the pilot, we would crash. It sounds as if you care nothing for this country as it always seems to be our fault, or we did the same thing. BS, no woman was ever beaten in this country by the Government for not wearing a veil. I suppose it is somehow Bush’s fault. Might I suggest Carter instead.
Sufragettes have not been beaten, jailed, or force-fed in my lifetime.
Blacks have probably been lynched in my lifetime. They have probably not been lynched during my adult lifetime.
Sufragettes are being beaten bloody in Iran now.
It really does make a difference.
I don’t think Steve is demonizing Muslims. He is demonizing the ruling Islamists in Iran. That, too, really does make a difference.
Exactly right, that and the tribalism that often relies on Islam to justify their depravities in the name of hanging onto power.
Do these events mitigate past ugly events in the U.S.? No. Does it mean we should forget them? Of course not. By the same token, I sure hope Anjin-san’s position is not that because of our past ugly behavior such behavior by the Mullahs if Iran should be ignored or even condoned.
Update:–added an essential “not” to the last sentence. Typing too fast.
Pretty sure I did not call for condoning or ignoring repression by Iran’s Mullahs, who are a very ugly bunch. Hopefully they will be overthrown, and Iran will get better government.
What I am saying, is that we need to have some perspective. Kent, our government has killed innocent people in Iraq who did not do a damn thing to us. Women. Children. This year. This month. Are you so sure of your moral high ground? How would Dr. King judge our actions? How would Gandhi judge them? Or Jesus? No well, I would think.
As I have said before, it is much easier to point fingers elsewhere then it is to look in the mirror.
I am old enough to remember blacks being lynched in our country, and it has stayed with me to this day. When I think about repression and injustice, I ask myself how things are in my own backyard, as well as on the other side of the world.
The state of California is now spending more on its prison system then it does on higher education. We have plenty of work to do right here at home.
And I do think that the right wing blog sphere/press demonizes Muslims. Or does no one here watch fox news?
Nice try Anjin (not san). Your attempt at explaining away your moral equivalence just failed miserably, but please feel free to try again. How about invoking the Salem witch trials to justify Iranian hanging of gay teenagers? Maybe you’d rather bring up the battle of Poiter in 732 to justify Muslim attempts to blow up non-Muslims wherever they can find them? Hey, I heard a meteorite once crashed into the earth and wiped out the dinosaurs, so, a fortiori, it must have be ok for the Muzzies to seek nukes, right?
The Muzzies? How can we possibly take you seriously when you say something so incredibly stupid?
For those of you who missed it, Anjin isn’t condoning Iran, or offering excuses for them, or anything else you might like to cast as an evil liberal plot against our country. He’s saying that what Iran is going through now is a stage that every society goes through and eventually emerges from. Islam is going through the same stages that Christianity has gone through, they’re just several hundred years younger, and they’re going through those stages in a world where information travels faster and further, and individuals can do exponentially more damage. Imagine what would have happened if nuclear weapons existed during the 100 years war.
Anjin-san, and he’ll correct me if I’m wrong, was saying that though our cultures are different _now_, they do not have significantly different histories. That should give everyone hope that the Muslim world will rise above this just like the Christian world eventually did.
John,
Please show the class even one instance where I have attempted to justify or ignore atrocities committed in Iran, or anywhere else for that matter.
As for nukes, need I remind you that there is only one nation on Earth that has used them in battle?
Need I remind you that now that American has shown the will, to go along with the means it already possess, to remove by force governments it does not like on the flimsiest of pretexts, that governments are concluding that possessing nukes may be the only thing that can keep them safe from being attacked by America. Witness Bush’s rather toothless whining about N Korea…
Michael, I think you have a clear understanding of what I am trying to communicate, though we may be wasting our time on John.
Anjin-san:
I really don’t give a damn what Dr. King or Gandhi would think of our actions. Jesus is another matter. Considering that the Islamists are effectively making war on Christianity, one can make a case for jus ad bellum, even if the conduct of operations is occasionally and regrettably inconsistent with jus in bello. Our response to the latter should be to maintain strict discipline among our troops.
Innocents die in war. That’s why peaceful resolutions are much preferable to war, when they are possible. They’re not always possible.
It’s also why we have things like the Geneva and Hague Conventions, whose original purpose was to protect innocents. That’s why their protections are denied illegal combatants, whose activities increase the danger to noncombatants.
I point out that the great majority of innocents killed in Iraq are killed by the insurgents, not our government. That’s an important difference.
I don’t watch Fox News. The right wing I know is not demonizing Muslims; it is demonizing Islamists. That, too, is an important difference.
What significance do you put on the observation that California spends more on prisons than higher education? Are you suggesting California should spend less on prisons? Or more on higher education? On what grounds?
I spend more on my house than on toys for my children. Does this prove I love my house more than my kids?
What significance do you attach to our use of nuclear weapons against Japan? Are you suggesting a moral equivalence between us and the Japanese, or between us and Iran today? Because it sure sounds like it.
Michael:
I think you are being very generous in your interpretation of what Anjin-san is saying. Your thesis is reasonable and reasonably expressed, though I disagree with it. Islam is not Christianity; religion shapes culture; and culture shapes history. Ergo, it simply doesn’t follow that Islam will show the same historical progression as Christianity.
All,
How on earth did a report of Iranians beating a woman bloody for not wearing a veil turn into a discussion of whether the Iranians are entitled to build nuclear weapons? Have we all gone nuts?
Anjin-san, whether it is wasted on John or not doesn’t really bother me, other people will read it and it will not be wasted.
Kent, admittedly we don’t have a very large sampling of global religions to track historical patterns with any real scientific accuracy, but I think the histories of Christianity, Islam and to a lesser-known extent Judaism and Hinduism have all gone through similar cycles of fundamentalism and enlightenment during their growth. There were times when Islam was more tolerant and less fundamentalist than Christianity at the same time, and times where it was the opposite. Currently it seems that Islam is deep into a fundamentalist cycle and Christianity may be on the downward side of enlightenment, while Hinduism seems to be on the upward swing.
Wherever the boot of oppression treads upon the human neck Anjin-San and his moral vacuity will be there to defend it.
He will deflect attention from human oppression and defend it by gleefully proclaiming that somewhere, sometime the United States of America has done worse.
TJ…
Like I said to John, please share with everyone a post where I have “defended” oppression in Iran or anywhere else in the world.
If you take the trouble to actually read my post, it says that the leaders of of Iran are a nasty group and I hope they will be deposed. I believe I also called for equal rights for women worldwide. Plase show me the defense of opresssion in my remarks.
What is your plan for freedom in the middle east? The Bush plan? You know… we have to kill these people in order to free them.
I suppose these type of swift boat posts are all that folks who lack the ability to debate the issue have to fall back on.
My point is that when if we are going to stand in moral judgement upon others, is that we must first take a good hard look at our own actions and into our own hearts.
Here is a concept for you TJ. “Let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone.”
Anjin-san, I think a more apt concept is “Know your enemy”. By looking at our own history, and understanding our own actions, the motivations that led to those action, and how we overcame them, we will see how to get Islam to do the same.
Nobody bombed Christianity out of it’s fanaticism.