Author: Ophelia Benson

Speaking of Saudi Arabia…

“The essence of Wahhabism is purity,” says Lawrence Wright, author of a Pulitzer-prize-winning book about al-Qaeda. “They are only interested in purification – and that’s what makes them so repressive.”

So if you get a nineteen-year-old girl who gets herself raped fourteen times by seven men, that’s a lot of dirt that needs purifying. It takes 90 lashes, and if she yips about it, it takes 200.

I looked at the role of Wahhabi literature – used in Saudi schools and exported round the world – in promoting suspicion and hatred of non-believers. The Saudi ambassador in Washington, Adel Jubeir, assured me a series of steps had been taken to reform the country’s educational system to instil values of tolerance. Saudi educationalist Hassan al-Maliki remains to be convinced. “They are teaching the students,” he told me, “that whoever disagrees with Wahhabism is either an infidel or a deviant – and should repent or be killed.”

That’s purification for you. You have just two choices: agree with us (by agreeing with us in the first place or else by repenting and agreeing with us) or be killed. Thus pure societies come into existence: by killing everyone who refuses to agree with the locally-prevailing system of purity. Kind of makes you fond of dirt, doesn’t it.

Well that’s nice. Reasonable; fair; compassionate; useful; sensible; impressive.

An appeal court in Saudi Arabia has doubled the number of lashes and added a jail sentence as punishment for a woman who was gang-raped. The victim was initially punished for violating laws on segregation of the sexes – she was in an unrelated man’s car at the time of the attack.

She was raped fourteen times. The seven men who were convicted got prison sentences but

the victim was also punished for violating Saudi Arabia’s laws on segregation that forbid unrelated men and women from associating with each other. She was initially sentenced to 90 lashes for being in the car of a strange man. On appeal, the Arab News reported that the punishment was not reduced but increased to 200 lashes and a six-month prison sentence.

Two. hundred. lashes. For being raped fourteen times. What’s the punishment for being mugged? Being put in an acid bath full of piranhas?

Why does Ruth Gledhill call Bari ‘leader of Britain’s Muslims’? Why would anyone (apart from aspiring MCB aparatchiks at least) call him that? Britain’s Muslims don’t have a leader, as I imagine most of them would agree. Britain’s Christians (for instance) don’t have a leader, so why say Britain’s Muslims do? In fact why even talk about ‘leaders’ at all? Think of who else liked to bandy about the word – there was the dear Duce, and the dear Führer – but anyone else? It’s not really a very exact term, so why use it? (Because it’s not an exact term. Yes I know, but that’s what I’m complaining of.) We don’t even call heads of state ‘leader of X’s Ys’ – we call them presidents or prime ministers or juntas, as the case may be.

I’m tempted to think it’s sinister and infantilizing, but when I grab my elbow and tell myself to think more carefully, I have to conclude that it’s just an artifact of the excess deference that was paid to the MCB for a long time. The head of the MCB has to be called something, and since everyone seemed to think the MCB was in some way representative (even though it wasn’t), it doubtless seemed to make sense to call him (it always is a man, of course; one of many strikes against the ‘representative’ delusion) ‘the leader.’ But the whole idea has been getting a second look lately, so let’s pull our socks up and not flatter the head of the MCB any more.

This is quite funny. Christianity Today did a survey asking ‘What do you think is the most compelling argument for Christianity? ‘ The choices are: 1) The exquisiteness of the physical world; 2) The reliability of the Scriptures; 3) The life and character of Jesus; 4) Christianity’s positive influence on culture and individuals; 5) The experiences of individuals; 6) Something else.

Notice anything about the arguments? They’re not arguments! They’re so not arguments. They’re not even gestures at arguments – they wouldn’t be arguments even if you generously supplied some missing steps. Well I suppose 2 could be if some facts were completely different – if the ‘Scriptures’ actually were ‘reliable’ and if they didn’t contradict themselves all over the place. But the others?

The ‘exquisiteness’ of the physical world for instance? Which exquisiteness? That of shit? Tumors? Pus? Maggots? Wet rotting vegetation? Rotting corpses? But okay, suppose you restrict that ‘argument’ to hummingbirds and fuschias and cheetahs and sunsets – what is the argument? Sunsets are pretty therefore Jesus died and was resurrected? I don’t quite follow. Same with the life and character of the guy himself. One, it’s a mixed bag, not to say contradictory (see above), and two, that might be the start of an argument for emulating Jesus in certain selective ways, but it’s not an argument that Jesus died and was resurrected, or that he’s God. 4 of course is a bluntly utilitarian argument for why Christianity is a social good, but I take ‘compelling argument for Christianity’ to mean ‘compelling argument for the truth of Christianity’ – but maybe that’s my misunderstanding. Then there’s 5 – the experiences of individuals as a compelling argument for Christianity. I have an inner sense that Jesus is God – there’s your compelling argument (or do you have to multiply it by a billion to make it compelling? I’m a little behind on the technical aspects of these compelling arguments). It seems weak, because what if you have an inner sense that your cat is God? Or perhaps by ‘experiences’ is meant ‘I was upset so I turned to Jesus and I felt better.’ But then, again, you could still substitute your cat.

Of course there’s always ‘Something else.’ That’s probably the one reserved for all the actual compelling arguments. The ones that we never actually…quite…see.