Humanity: Good News, Bad News

[cupn00dles]

Man, that happened ages ago.

And funnily enough, how almost every single Muslim in the entire country disagreed with him, and condemned him, and asked him to step down. Oh, but let's listen to this one person!

You are either oblivious to the events in your own country or deliberately twisting the facts. Not surprising. Okay, here's the truth:

This guy:



Who is no less a figure than the titular "Grand Mufti of Australia":

For the last three decades, the public face of Islam in Australia has been the Federation of Islamic Councils, or AFIC. In 1988, AFIC appointed an honorary mufti who became the titular head of the Islamic community in this country. Egyptian-born Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali, has himself become a source of friction within the community.

Said in a Sydney sermon in September 2006, at the beginning of Ramadan:

“If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden, or in the park, or in the backyard without cover, and the cats come to eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat’s,” The Australian quoted Hilali as saying.

“The uncovered meat is the problem,” he was quoted as saying. “If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred.”

He said women were "weapons" used by "Satan" to control men.

"It is said in the state of zina (adultery), the responsibility falls 90 per cent of the time on the woman. Why? Because she possesses the weapon of enticement (igraa)."

Which can be used in court as a legal defense of sexual assault:

Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward said Al-Hilali, who has the title Mufti of Australia, had a history of making such comments and should be thrown out of the country.

"It is incitement to a crime. Young Muslim men who now rape women can cite this in court, can quote this man, their leader in court," she told Australian television.

Yet he thinks nothing of it, claiming to have only been protecting the honor of women, and he even repeats his initial comment comparing women to meat:

On the fourth of the month of Ramadan, while we were in this blessed mosque, and after the nightly prayer, the sheik read from the Sura of al-Maida, and I was commenting on the verse, "The man thief and the woman thief, cut off the hands of both..."

God put forward man before woman in theft and woman before man in adultery. And then I started to present the seductive means, and how the man should control his urges.

I am guiding my daughters, my women. I call for chastity. And if this country is going to forbid us from protecting our honour, and preserve our dignity, I preserve my honour with money that I do not spend, may God not bless money after the honour is lost.

Australia is a multicultural society. Whoever wants to, let them take their clothes off. Whoever wants to go naked, let them go naked. Whoever wants to get drunk, let them get drunk. Whoever wants to smoke hashish, let them smoke hashish.

It's a free country; it's none of our business. But it is our right to tell our women the text of the verse 59 of the Sura of al-Nour (The Light) ... of the Sura of al-Ahzab (The Clans).

Verse 59 of the Sura of al-Ahzab: "Oh, Prophet! Say to your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers that they let down upon them their over-garments; this will be more proper, that they may be known, and thus they will not be given trouble." This is the word of God.

Some of our women who are Westernised say that the religious hijab does not accord respect. The religious hijab, they say, does not increase respect for the woman or protect her.

We order the wearing of the religious hijab that God has ordered us to wear. There is nothing to this ... when we condemn debauchery, shamelessness ...

The Australian Bureau of Statistics says that every six minutes in Australia there is an assault against a male minor or female minor. This is rape, and it is present in the Western societies. We are fighting this rape. We are fighting this.

We want to protect the honour of all the people. And we do not encourage our sons to rape. A Muslim man is ordered to refrain from looking. Rape, to us, is a crime worse than adultery. It borders on murder.

We have said it and declared it 100,000 times, that Islam is against rape. Islam does not instruct to rape. Islam prohibits rape. In Islam, the crime of rape borders on the crime of murder.

And still, those who are sick in the heart ... only when the cow is brought down on the ground, you see a lot of knives ...

Everybody is issuing a statement to look good in the eyes of the Government.

I say: By God, if they put the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left hand ... the sun, the moon, Australia, America and the Western world, in order to give up the principle of the Islamic, moderate, Koranic calling, then I swear to God that I will remain all by myself until God makes me a martyr!

Crowd: Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar!

Hilali: It's not about cowardice. I order according to my Koran. And I adhere to the principles of my Koran. And I know that this is a democratic society, and it allows me to speak the word of truth. I don't care ...

It's not about that. We are building the Australian society. And when we order chastity, when we preserve our honour, when we preserve our daughters, it doesn't mean that we are fanatics and extremists ... and we describe the woman as so and so, as meat ... We were comparing.

When you leave a piece of meat in the yard without supervision, when you put a piece of meat on the footpath, the voracious wolves will snap at it. That is our comparison.

And yet, despite global condemnation, he will not face censure:

But he said he had no intention of stepping down. Instead, al-Hilali will not give sermons for two or three months, though he will not face censure for his comments, a spokesman for the governing association of his mosque said.

The decision prompted further condemnation.

So you see, Burning Z, that this is not just "one person" as you so cavalierly put it, nor is this one person facing any real retribution from his sponsors. This is the face of Islam in a developed and advanced country: Australia. And you, as an Australian Muslim, are personally responsible for it. Unless you stop apologizing for this man by trying to write him off as "one person" who made a comment "ages ago," and actually start making an effort to get scum like this removed from their pedestals of power--be they official or popular--you are liable, culpable, and guilty for his remarks. This is as surely as United States citizens are personally responsible for having elected this idiot president of ours to power, and are guilty of propping him up unless we work to rectify our grave blunder.

But you don't want to hear about that. You want to pretend it isn't a problem. Maybe that's because you yourself advocated physically abusing women in another thread on this Compendium. Maybe it's not that you don't want to see a problem. Maybe you really don't see a problem with the Mufti's remarks.

So a hearty fuck you to your bullshit religion and your inexcusable defense of its most fanatical leaders, Zeppy. You are a part of the problem.

Here's something Hadriel said:

I could lay out the numerous moral and political problems inherent in actually banning a religion, and why, short of systematic genocide, it's completely unenforceable, but why bother?  Analysis would pale in terms of potency to the fact that these people have actually gotten J this mad at them.

"This mad" is right. But it's not just me. I would like to think that all civilized people who got wind of this disgraceful story would be "this mad" about it. And I would like to think that such people would reject this fucked up religion not by the fiat declarations that Hadriel describes, but by universal revulsion. Nonetheless, if anybody in power wants to make any fiat declarations against Islam, I'm not going to argue with them. I'd rather spend my breath where it's needed.

Edit: Here is the face of the scandal now:

Your training to winning the World Freaking Largest Post Ever contest is complete, young'un.

You are officially ready to Huge Post the Universe.

[Burning Zeppelin]

I'm not fucking defending him. I think he is a lowly piece of shit too. I'm just saying that, no, I didn't vote him in, no, I didn't even know he existed til he negotiated with terrorists to let an Australian man free. Oh, and for advocating physical abuse, that was a long time ago, and I'm sure I didn't say what I wanted to say clearly enough (as I do).

I can't believe you actually think that most Australian Muslims support this guy. My mum, my dad, my sister, my neighbours, family friends, and many other people think this guy is a dickhead.
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2006/s1775557.htm

Oh, I'm a part of the problem am I? Right, because 14 year old kids have a giant say in the community

And you accuse me of twisting the fucking truth. This isn't really about you trying to express your view on this matter, since everyone knows your view. This is really just you wanting to stir up an argument to make you feel bigger and better than anyone who disagrees slightly with what you say. I do not support domestic violence, or anything else. It is also possible for a woman to support Islam and Feminism. But hey, what would I know, I only have a sister who writes for a feminism magazine. And who reads books about empowered female Muslims, who battle for the search of truth and justice. Fuck you and your fucking one minded view of Islam, a religion so big it doesn't always go in one way. Fuck you and your one minded view of how the world should work. And at that, I doubt your world would work, because it'd be filled with people like you.

And that was a pretty long post, but still, it was a pretty cool layout and stuff. But even with the incentive of even more cooler looking posts, I don't want to argue anymore.

[Hadriel]

What's really funny about his so-called apology is that although he probably doesn't advocate rape, the implication that he thinks women are lesser beings still stands, and he never once apologized for that.  Stupid motherfucker.

[ChibiBob]

How about I, as a woman, tell you all to shut the fuck up? So everybody believes the world turns in a different way. So what? You've obviously not going to change any minds with pithy, prepubescent name-calling, so either shape up or ship out. So Zeppy misspoke. So what? I don't think the two of you have a flawless record in that regard, either. So he thinks of women as lesser creatures -- good for him, let's just hope he doesn't run for elective office. Honestly, I couldn't give a rat's ass about being the "lesser sex," because I don't see myself as being such. If you can't deal with others having their own opinions, how on earth have you all been able to remain on any/all message boards without the banwagon coming your way?

Opinions =\= automatic truth.
Opinions = a natural right to free thought.

Stop turning this board into a pulpit and get over yourselves.

[ZeaLitY]

Yes! I can imagine the big bang of Lord J's post as delivered by:

[Lord J Esq]

Honestly, I couldn't give a rat's ass about being the "lesser sex," because I don't see myself as being such.

You might not care about the issue of sexism, but your life as you know it would have been almost impossible were it not for the radicals and feather-rufflers. That makes any defiant nonchalance (a contradiction in terms?) on your part especially shortsighted. And in the broader sense, all people--female or not--would suffer were we to exist in such a society where women were valued somewhere between an underclass and chattel. History shows us only the most inconceivable echo of what we lost by societies' treatment of women as slaves, all over the world, for thousands of years.

Your opinion that I cut with the hullabaloo is nullified on grounds of absurdity. You don't have to listen to me; that's what the X is for in the top corner of your browser. But you'd be a fool to ignore the influence of powerful people like Mr. Grand Mufti over in Aussie Land. I cannot in good conscience ignore his sort of evil.

[ChibiBob]

Honestly, I couldn't give a rat's ass about being the "lesser sex," because I don't see myself as being such.

You might not care about the issue of sexism, but your life as you know it would have been almost impossible were it not for the radicals and feather-rufflers. That makes any defiant nonchalance (a contradiction in terms?) on your part especially shortsighted. And in the broader sense, all people--female or not--would suffer were we to exist in such a society where women were valued somewhere between an underclass and chattel. History shows us only the most inconceivable echo of what we lost by societies' treatment of women as slaves, all over the world, for thousands of years.

You misunderstand me. I do care about sexism -- how can I not? I live in the South, it surrounds every aspect of my life -- but I don't necessarily have to take up arms against every dumbass yahoo who has an opinion about it contrary to my own. I can make my own life more productive as a woman without having to get anywhere near involved with pricks like him. Women in the past had very few men to support them, so they were the ones who ignored all foul calls and made a lasting imprint in society at the advent of the Rights movements. So certain men consider me to be lesser than them. Fuck them, I say. I can do just as well ignoring them as I would swinging the Mallet of Righteous Anger; I'd rather make a difference than talk about one.

And if Mr. Grand Mufti is so influential in Australia, why's he getting assraped by the press and the citizens, including Muslims, alike for his comments? Power of that sort is a gift granted by the people -- there's nothing saying those people can't be Indian givers and take it away, which is exactly what's happening.

[Burning Zeppelin]

Honestly, I couldn't give a rat's ass about being the "lesser sex," because I don't see myself as being such.

You might not care about the issue of sexism, but your life as you know it would have been almost impossible were it not for the radicals and feather-rufflers. That makes any defiant nonchalance (a contradiction in terms?) on your part especially shortsighted. And in the broader sense, all people--female or not--would suffer were we to exist in such a society where women were valued somewhere between an underclass and chattel. History shows us only the most inconceivable echo of what we lost by societies' treatment of women as slaves, all over the world, for thousands of years.

Your opinion that I cut with the hullabaloo is nullified on grounds of absurdity. You don't have to listen to me; that's what the X is for in the top corner of your browser. But you'd be a fool to ignore the influence of powerful people like Mr. Grand Mufti over in Aussie Land. I cannot in good conscience ignore his sort of evil.

He might have influence over certain groups, but as far as I know, he has no influence over anyone close to me.

You don't have to listen to me; that's what the X is for in the top corner of your browser

But that would close all my pr0n!

And if Mr. Grand Mufti is so influential in Australia, why's he getting assraped by the press and the citizens

One should not be critcized over ones sexual fetishes

[Hadriel]

If you can't deal with others having their own opinions, how on earth have you all been able to remain on any/all message boards without the banwagon coming your way?

A whole lot of flaming, mostly.

Penn & Teller have done episodes of Bullshit! about religion in general.  It's not hard to conceive of one specifically devoted to Islam.

[Burning Zeppelin]

But what is funny is that in Sharia law rapists are executed

[grey_the_angel]

If you can't deal with others having their own opinions, how on earth have you all been able to remain on any/all message boards without the banwagon coming your way?

A whole lot of flaming, mostly.

Penn & Teller have done episodes of Bullshit! about religion in general.  It's not hard to conceive of one specifically devoted to Islam.

pen and teller couldn't out debate the 9/11 conspicrist.

so what did they do? show the craziest mother fuckers they had and go "lol crazy. our goverment would never kill people for its own agenda!"

These two couldn't debate a 4th grader without cussing.

[ZeaLitY]

They curse so they can't get slammed with slander suits. But yes, airing an interview and then ridiculing the person on the television show isn't exactly live debate.

[Hadriel]

It doesn't have to be live debate.  It just has to be right.

[grey_the_angel]

It doesn't have to be live debate.  It just has to be right.

... uh... *looks at president bush's debates.* ... I'm sorry wha?

[ZeaLitY]

Good News: Two items to offset the really bad one.

* http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/diet.fitness/10/30/trans.fat.ap/index.html Kentucky Fried Chicken is booting trans fat in a bold move in support of health.

* http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/10/31/hubble.ap/index.html The Hubble is to be repaired. This might generate some confidence in the ailing space program.

Bad News: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_Review is complete. Either spend 1% GDP to research global warming now, or face up to a 20% GDP recession for the United Kingdom and the greatest market failure ever seen. But along the way, Stern summarizes a lot of facts about global warming. It's a good read; I wish our administration would take it to heart. To read it:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/30_10_06_exec_sum.pdf