The opposition leader Tony Abbott has demonstrated it repeatedly, she says.
Author: Ophelia Benson
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Tarek Fatah on “honor” killings and verse 4:34
Another father who allegedly became outraged at his wife and daughters for dishonouring him and his religious and cultural beliefs.
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A new contestant
Stephanie has some thoughts on Reap Paden. Who? I don’t know, really, except that he’s a friend of Justin Vacula’s. I saw a comment by him, or a mention of his podcast, or something, during the short period in which I was attempting to get Vacula to correct his misrepresentation of me on his podcast. (So many guys, so many podcasts.) That was all. I had no opinion on him until last Saturday, when someone pointed out a shouty podcast he’d just done and I listened to a bit of it. Man, it was shouty all right. He spent the first several minutes shouting at Stephanie louder and louder and louder and LOUDER. Calling her a fucking bitch over and over again. Not much substance, just louder and louder fucking bitch.
I skipped ahead and listend to a bit more – some more guys had joined him and they were talking about Rebecca (why? I have no idea) by pretending to be talking in her voice, saying, “I’m a stupid cunt” and “I’m a dumb cunt” and laughing a lot. Oh, so that’s who that is, I thought. Another one to avoid.
I see people saying it’s good they talk like this, because that way people can realize what they’re like. Huh. I don’t think so at all. It would be much better if they weren’t like it. Talking like this is what makes them like it, so if they stopped talking like this, they wouldn’t be like it, and that would be better. If people talk to me and don’t call me a fucking bitch or a cunting cunt, then that’s better than if they do and so I find out what they’re like. I don’t want to find out what they’re like if they’re like that, I want them to hide it.
So anyway this Reap Paden commented on Stephanie’s post. He showed us what he’s like again.
You already lost Stephanie. You are just too damn dumb to figure it out.
Listen to this well-
I don’t give a fuck what you say I don’t give a fuck what you do. There is nothing you can do to stop me from doing/saying what I feel needs to be said.
I’m one of those people you won’t make quiet. You can’t win
It doesn’t matter what simpletons like you say about me. Intelligent people will figure it out while you spin your wheels trying to make yourself look good.
Anytime you open that hole under your nose about me and I hear about it, I will have a reply to it.
In the future if you don’t want to be called a bitch I would suggest you refrain from being one, seems simple enough to me.
That last bit is especially interesting. He will call us bitches because we are bitches, and it’s our own damn fault that he calls us bitches, because we’re too bitchy to refrain from being bitches.
I have my doubts.
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Malala
I heard a long report on BBC World about Malala Yusufzai a couple of hours ago, including a big chunk of an interview with her. On top of everything else, she’s fluent in English. I looked for it via Google and thought I’d found it but was surprised at how cheery the reporter sounded – then I belatedly looked at the date: it was last January. She starts reading from the diary she wrote for the BBC at 1:25 in.
The report I heard today interviewed the New York Times reporter Adam Ellick, who got to know her in 2009. He posted a photo to Twitter. The other guy is her father.
Nighat Dad tweeted pictures of herself with Malala.
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Don’t execute the rebellious child lightly
Charlie Fuqua, a Republican candidate for the Arkansas House of Representatives, wrote a book called (frighteningly) God’s Law. It’s not a satire; he really thinks there is such a thing and that he knows about it. One item of god’s law is that rebellious children should be subject to the death penalty.
The Huffington Post quotes from the book via The Arkansas Times.
The maintenance of civil order in society rests on the foundation of family discipline. Therefore, a child who disrespects his parents must be permanently removed from society in a way that gives an example to all other children of the importance of respect for parents. The death penalty for rebellious children is not something to be taken lightly. The guidelines for administering the death penalty to rebellious children are given in Deut 21:18-21:
This passage does not give parents blanket authority to kill their children. They must follow the proper procedure in order to have the death penalty executed against their children. I cannot think of one instance in the Scripture where parents had their child put to death. Why is this so? Other than the love Christ has for us, there is no greater love then [sic] that of a parent for their child. The last people who would want to see a child put to death would be the parents of the child. Even so, the Scrpture [sic] provides a safe guard to protect children from parents who would wrongly exercise the death penalty against them. Parents are required to bring their children to the gate of the city. The gate of the city was the place where the elders of the city met and made judicial pronouncements. In other words, the parents were required to take their children to a court of law and lay out their case before the proper judicial authority, and let the judicial authority determine if the child should be put to death. I know of many cases of rebellious children, however, I cannot think of one case where I believe that a parent had given up on their child to the point that they would have taken their child to a court of law and asked the court to rule that the child be put to death. Even though this procedure would rarely be used, if it were the law of land, it would give parents authority. Children would know that their parents had authority and it would be a tremendous incentive for children to give proper respect to their parents.
See he’s not really urging that children should be executed. He’s just saying there should be a law on the books that would allow them to be executed for not giving proper respect to their parents. Moderation itself.
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Fury in Pakistan over attack on Malala Yousafzai
It has been condemned by most of Pakistan’s major political parties and human rights groups including the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and Amnesty International.
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The bullet missed her brain
I’m finding a lot of commentary and some (possible) news about Malala Yousafzai on Twitter (via #Malala).
The important item is a new update on her condition.
Doctors at the Saidu Sharif Medical Complex said that Malala was out of danger after the bullet penetrated her skull but missed her brain.
“A bullet struck her head, but the brain is safe,” said Dr Taj Mohammed.
“She is out of danger,” he added.
Dr Laal Noor, from the same hospital, confirmed that the bullet broke her skull but missed her brain.
“The bullet struck her skull and came out on the other side and hit her shoulder,” he told AFP.
The same item includes more evil shit from the Taliban.
SWAT: The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) which attacked National Award Peace winner Malala Yousafzai on Tuesday have said that they will target her again if she survives because she was a “secular-minded lady”.
A TTP spokesperson told The Express Tribune that this was a warning for all youngsters who were involved in similar activites and added that they will be targeted if they do not stop.
…
Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said his group was behind the shooting.
“She was pro-West, she was speaking against Taliban and she was calling President Obama her idol,” Ehsan said by telephone from an undisclosed location.
“She was young but she was promoting Western culture in Pashtun areas,” he said.
One item claims that Imran Khan says it’s about the drones.
According to Imran Khan, Pakistani Taliban’s violence is a reaction to drone attacks. Was
#Malala a drone pilot?God hates women and schoolgirls.
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Loon wants death penalty for “rebellious children”
“The guidelines for administering the death penalty to rebellious children are given in Deut 21:18-21,” Charlie Fuqua wrote in his book God’s Law.
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Because she was secular
A 14-year-old schoolgirl in the Swat valley in Pakistan has been shot in the head. The Taliban says it did it. Malala Yousafzai is also a campaigner for girls’ education. She was attacked on her way home from school in Mingora. She’s reported to be out of danger.
Ehsanullah Ehsan told BBC Urdu that they attacked her because she was anti-Taliban and secular, adding that she would not be spared.
Clear and to the point.
She kept a diary for BBC Urdu starting at age 11.
Correspondents say she earned the admiration of many across Pakistan for her courage in speaking out about life under the brutal rule of Taliban militants.
One poignant entry reflects on the Taliban decree banning girls’ education: “Since today was the last day of our school, we decided to play in the playground a bit longer. I am of the view that the school will one day reopen but while leaving I looked at the building as if I would not come here again.”
She has since said that she wants to study law and enter politics when she grows up. “I dreamt of a country where education would prevail,” she said.
The Beeb has some of it translated into English.
Saturday 3 January 2009
I had a terrible dream yesterday with military helicopters and the Taleban. I have had such dreams since the launch of the military operation in Swat. My mother made me breakfast and I went off to school. I was afraid going to school because the Taleban had issued an edict banning all girls from attending schools.
Only 11 students attended the class out of 27. The number decreased because of Taleban’s edict. My three friends have shifted to Peshawar, Lahore and Rawalpindi with their families after this edict.
On my way from school to home I heard a man saying ‘I will kill you’. I hastened my pace and after a while I looked back if the man was still coming behind me. But to my utter relief he was talking on his mobile and must have been threatening someone else over the phone.
A schoolgirl. 14. She wanted to go to school, and she wanted other girls to be able to go to school. Bang.
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Pakistan: girls’ rights activist, 14, shot
A Pakistani Taliban spokesman told the BBC that they attacked her because she is anti-Taliban and secular, adding that she would not be spared.
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Salman speaks
Hey look, Salman Rushdie is on C-Span live right now. Well actually not right now, the woman who co-owns Politics and Prose is on right now, introducing him. Melody was on before that.
Now Robert Siegel is talking.
So watch and listen!
I’ll live-blog it, that’s what.
Paraphrase: It’s very difficult to write about duration. It was like the pampas, as Borges described it. You can’t take a picture of it, because it looks like a field. You can only get a sense of it by traveling in it, and then it just goes on and on, and it’s always the same, and it goes on and on, and it’s always the same, and it goes on and on.
The fatwa was like that.
One of the greatest things about the history of literature is that writers have always taken on ogres. When Mandelstam wrote about Stalin he knew who he was. When Lorca wrote about Franco he knew who he was. Writers have always stood up to tyrants.
The Satanic Verses wasn’t primarily a novel about Islam. It was primarily about migration.
I have less religion than you could inscribe on a chewed-off fingernail. [applause]
After he signed the absurd statement of religious faith, he felt like throwing up. “At that point, I just thought the hell with it. No more appeasement, no more apology. Fuck it.”
Out of that moment – it was an awful moment – he became the person he is, the person who could say what he says.
It was Christmas Eve 1990. Weirdly enough, I remember it. I was horrified that he’d made a “statement of faith.”
We can’t live in a world where what we can say is determined by violence.
[On the bounty] No one’s ever taken this old gentleman seriously, even in Iran, because he doesn’t have the money.
That’s one of the problems with Iran is that even the liberals are assholes.
What you need when you write for children: you need lots of jump.
It’s strange coming to Washington with Christopher not here.
We invented this game of titles that didn’t quite make it. A Farewell to Weapons. Toby Dick. aka Moby Prick. Blueberry Finn.
They weren’t close friends until the fatwa. They became close friends because he wanted it that way.
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You’re both right
I’d forgotten about NonStampCollecter (and that that was his name) until Theo Bromine posted a video in The return of snipping this morning. So that’s who NonStampCollecter is! I saw the name in another context but didn’t know who it was. Oh hooray. Boy do I like NonStampCollecter.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB3g6mXLEKk&feature=share&list=PL6D440558124742F5
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Nowhere were servants better treated
Update: this item is from 1996. [hides scarlet face]
There’s an Alabama State Senator (Republican) running for Congress, who says slavery was a good thing for the people who were slaves.
Mr. Davidson referred to Leviticus 25:44 — “You may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you” — and quoted I Timothy 6:1 as saying slaves should “regard their own masters as worthy of all honor.”
“The incidence of abuse, rape, broken homes and murder are 100 times greater, today, in the housing projects than they ever were on the slave plantations in the Old South,” he wrote. “The truth is that nowhere on the face of the earth, in all of time, were servants better treated or better loved than they were in the Old South by white, black, Hispanic and Indian slave owners.”
Is that a fact. That’s what it was all about, was it? Being kind and loving to “servants”?
Like hell it was. It was about money. Slavery exploded as farmers started settling in Mississippi and raising cotton there. It was horrible, unhealthy work, and it could be hugely profitable provided you could get the labor. Cotton and slavery combined to make slaveowners rich. There was no love involved.
Speaking of the issue at a news conference, Mr. Davidson said today that although his ancestors fought in the Civil War, they did not own slaves.
“The issue is not race,” he said. “It’s Southern heritage. I’m on a one-man leadership crusade to get the truth out about what our Southern heritage is all about.”
Well that’s what the slavery part of “Southern heritage” is about – gouging cheap labor out of black people, first via slavery and then via Jim Crow laws. And by the way it’s insulting to a lot of Southerners to call that “Southern heritage.”
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Alabama senator says slavery was good for black people
The bible says slavery is ok and the Southern slave plantations were fabulous for the slaves says State Senator Charles Davidson.
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Galloway sues National Union of Students for libel
The NUS called him a rape-denier after he said Assange had been accused of nothing more than “bad sexual etiquette”.
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Day of Agreement
Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and One Law for All are calling on everyone to join the Day of Agreement.
It’s quite easy to do.
On 10 October, upload the day’s logo as your avatar on social media, Tweet #dayofagreement or try it with your colleagues, family and friends.
You can also join our five minute flash-mob at 12 noon in central London. (Email for more details).
Just remember, you can’t disagree with anyone – your colleagues, spouse, lover(s), mates, neighbours, children, bosses, or even politicians…
You are not allowed to dissent, ‘offend’ or question.
And before anyone gets too excited, they have to remember that they must also agree with everything you say. It’s only fair…
Seems impossible?
But that is what is expected of those of us who question, criticise or choose to leave Islam, including many Muslims and ex-Muslims…
Try it.
And while it all seems a bit of fun – on October 10 International Day against the Death Penalty – don’t forget that there are many living under Sharia law who are daily facing threats, imprisonment and execution for merely expressing themselves.
Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain
BM Box 1919, London WC1N 3XX, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 7719166731
exmuslimcouncil@gmail.comOne Law for All
BM Box 2387
London WC1N 3XX, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 7719166731
onelawforall@gmail.comwww.onelawforall.org.uk
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Mona Eltahawy talks about women in the revolution
Via Taslima, Mona Eltahawy talks to Robin Morgan. Mona is determinedly hopeful, but not blind to the reality.
Mona: I think we’ve reached the stage in Egypt where people understand that with a president from the Muslim Brotherhood movement and a still very powerful military, we’re caught between a very bad rock and a very horrible hard place because you’re talking about two sides of one coin: authoritarian, totalitarian, doesn’t believe in civil liberties and for whom and for which women’s rights are, absolutely at the bottom of any totem pole hierarchy and one of the highlights in my last visit to Cairo was attending a meeting that veteran feminists Nawal El Saadawi called in which it brought together various feminist groups, women and men who are interested in focusing on women’s rights at this very, very sensitive stage in Egyptian history. We still don’t have a constitution, and we don’t have a parliament, and the constitution is currently being written by a group of mostly men who I would not hesitate to call misogynists, many of whom actually believe it’s ok for a girl who is only 9 to marry and many of whom are not concerned with women’s rights at all. So we recognize that this is a very sensitive time and if we don’t jump on this it will jump on us. And So Nawal El Saadawi is trying to coordinate all the various groups on the ground into an initiative but I know her initiative is one of at least three. So I think women’s rights activists are looking around now saying, “Ok look, there are so many of us and we’re doing very similar work, let’s get together because we need that power of us together to fight against this misogyny, to fight against this hatred of women, to fight against the military and the fundamentalist movement for whom women’s rights are not a priority.”
That plus a miracle.
Mona’s planning a book.
Mona: I’m writing a book that is based on an essay I wrote a few months ago called “Why do they hate us?” and this essay caused a huge ruckus because the point that I was making is that uh a lot of the misogyny against that uh we experience as women in the Middle East and North Africa is driven by sheer hatred for women.
Robin: Yes.
Mona: Clearly and obviously this is not just limited to that region or that…
Robin: Oh you think? [laughs]
Mona: It’s global I’m sure but that’s where I come from and so that’s the region I can most talk about. So I want to write a book that I’m determined to call “Headscarves and Hymens.”
Robin: “Headscarves and Hymens”
Mona: “Headscarves and Hymens” because it’s such a…
Robin: You’re such a wimp, you just just don’t take risks, [Mona laughs] you know. what a pity. If you only had a spine, Mona. [Both laugh]
Mona: I’m trying to provoke them and see how far I can go with this, it’s my contention that for women in the Middle East and North Africa, we’ve come to a point where it’s all about what’s on our heads—the headscarves—and what’s in between our legs—the hymens. So whether you’re talking about female genital mutilation or the so called virginity tests i.e. sexual assault and rape enacted upon female revolutionaries in Egypt by the military it’s really about Headscarves and Hymens and you know one of those women who survived these horrendous virginity tests and sued the Egyptian Military. A young woman called Samir Abrahim she told a great story during this meeting that Nawal El Saadawi called. She said, “Listen people, we need to get working women in these meetings because I know this woman, who was selling vegetables, she was selling rocket arugula somewhere and this extremist, this Islamist, came up to her and said, ‘Woman you’re not covered properly’ and you know what she did? She took off her blouse and said, ‘How do you like me now?’” [Robin laughs] So those are the kinds of stories that I want to document but also the kind of violations that we have to recognize but you know also one of the things that my books wants to do is to say that we have to identify as feminists. The time where all of these amazing young women who are saying, “No, no, no, it’s not about women’s rights, it’s about everyone’s rights,” I understand that. But we’re at a critical moment in our history and the region and the way we fight it is by identifying it as such. We are feminists, and we draw upon this wonderful history of Nawal El Saadawi, of Doria Shafik who invaded the Egyptian parliament with fifteen hundred women in the 50s, of Hoda Sha’arawi in 1923 who…
Robin: Took off her veil, yes.
Mona: We’re feminists are here and we are fighting.
Yes. You have to spell it out. If you say “everyone’s rights” then it never is. You have to spell it out.
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Robin Morgan and Mona Eltahawy talk
“With a president from the Muslim Brotherhood movement and a still very powerful military, we’re caught between a very bad rock and a very horrible hard place.”
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Join the Day of Agreement
From Maryam Namazie and Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and One Law for All:
Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and One Law for All are calling on everyone to join the Day of Agreement.It’s quite easy to do.
On 10 October, upload the day’s logo as your avatar on social media, Tweet #dayofagreement or try it with your colleagues, family and friends.You can also join our five minute flash-mob at 12 noon in central London. (Email for more details).
Just remember, you can’t disagree with anyone – your colleagues, spouse, lover(s), mates, neighbours, children, bosses, or even politicians…
You are not allowed to dissent, ‘offend’ or question.
And before anyone gets too excited, they have to remember that they must also agree with everything you say. It’s only fair…
Seems impossible?
But that is what is expected of those of us who question, criticise or choose to leave Islam, including many Muslims and ex-Muslims…
Try it.
And while it all seems a bit of fun – on October 10 International Day against the Death Penalty – don’t forget that there are many living under Sharia law who are daily facing threats, imprisonment and execution for merely expressing themselves.
Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain
BM Box 1919
London WC1N 3XX, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 7719166731 +44 (0) 7719166731
exmuslimcouncil@gmail.com
One Law for All
BM Box 2387
London WC1N 3XX, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 7719166731 +44 (0) 7719166731
onelawforall@gmail.com
