There are fewer things more symbolic of the mysoginy of Arab culture than the Saudi ban on women driving. With no basis in any Islamic text, and the majority of scholarly opinion from Iran to England being against it, the ban epitomizes the backwardness of this 21st century kingdom, not just for non-Muslim liberals who cluck admonishingly at the repression of women, but for Muslims whose feeling about it range from anger to embarrassment.
Thanks to this woman, it might be about to change:
. . . is that he sometimes reveals that he operates under a misconception that is, unfortunately, common amongst people at his end of the political spectrum, and that is also, unfortunately, something that the wingnuts and bedwetters are not entirely incorrect about. Specifically, he believes that people of all faiths, on average, take their scriptures equally seriously. The result is this somewhat embarrassing exchange between Galloway and this British documentary film-maker. I'm posting it here because I have, in the past, posted clips of Galloway laying waste to opponents on a variety of issues related to Muslims and Anglo-American involvement in Muslim countries.
The discussion, which begins with a civil tone, ends with Galloway assuming the tone of an interrogator, while simultaneously himself refusing to give any response to what was a completely fair question repeated ad nauseum by the guest.
Much has been made of Galloway's other public gaffes, but for me these have only called into question his judgement, and not his character or the soundness of his positions. This exchange, however, does create doubt about the latter.
While the Old Testament does contain far more violence than the Qur'an, for one reason or another, the overwhelming majority of British Jews or Christians don't take it all that seriously. That's not to say that they don't have any faith at all, but it does say that they have developed a variety of rationales (some less convincing than others) to effectively ignore most of it.
Amongst Muslims, particularly within the reactionary neo-Salafi school promulgated by the ibn Saud, not only the Qur'an, but Prophetic narrations from canonical secondary sources are taken, in a decontextualized form, as literal instructions that are binding upon Muslims for all eternity without qualification.
This does not validate the anti-Islam thesis that Muslims are all therefore suspects in a vast conspiracy to crush Western Civilization, but it does mean that one would indeed have a harder time finding a British church in which people were prescribing the death penalty for apostasy, than a mosque in which the same was being said. Without a knowledge of the Muslim community from the inside, that fact provokes either blind denial from those sympathetic to the Muslim community, or blind hate from those with xenophobic or imperialistic tendencies.
Ultimately, though, what infuriates me about the school of Islam promulgated by the ibn Saud is not that it creates a distraction from the genuine material grievances that create anti-Western sentiment in the Muslim world.
As for Galloway, he lost his seat in the British election. I have a feeling though, that this isn't the last we shall hear of him.
. . . regardless of what your religious beliefs are.
From AFP: Swiss businessman builds minaret in protest
BUSSIGNY, Switzerland — A Swiss businessman appalled by his fellow countrymen's decision to ban minarets has extended a chimney above his company building into a minaret in protest.
"It was scandalous that the Swiss voted for the ban. Now we have the support of all the far-right parties across Europe. This is shameful," Guillaume Morand, who owns a chain of shoe stores, told AFP.
The businessman, who is not a Muslim, explained that the he had constructed the mock minaret at his building near western Switzerland's city of Lausanne in protest, and at the same time, to "send a message of peace."
More than 57 percent of voters upset opinion polls and defied their government by approving the right wing motion to ban minarets -- the turrets or towers on mosques from which Muslims are called to prayer.
The outcome of the referendum brought by members of the hard-right Swiss People's Party (SVP) and other right wing groups was also hailed by anti-immigrant party leaders elsewhere in Europe.
Morand blamed other political parties in Switzerland for not having campaigned against the far-right motion ahead of the referendum.
"They were all against it but they did not explain the issue clearly to the country," he said, pointing out that only the SVP's controversial poster campaign was visible.
The SVP had sought support for the ban through a poster campaign depicting a burqa-clad woman against a background of a Swiss flag upon which several minarets resembling missiles are erected.
Morand said he viewed the ban was all the more "scandalous" given that Switzerland actively encourages Arabs to "visit the country and to spend their money here."
The minaret, which has been in place since Tuesday, has "generated a lot of interest," he said, adding that he will wait and see before deciding if further action was needed to push his point.
The fearmongers out there will doubtless retort "Try putting up a steeple in Saudi Arabia!" as they are wont to do. This tells us something about them, however, which is that they aspire to no greater example of religious pluralism than what is set by the ibn Saud.
As everyone knows, the world isn't making anymore oil. We may never "run out," but supply will eventually dwindle to the point that widespread use won't be feasible. Its a question of "when" not "if." The same goes for natural gas, coal, and anything else that we dig out of the ground and burn by the trillions of tonnes.
The discussion in North America over this has been fueled (haha) partly by environmentalism, but also by paranoia. The world's largest proven reserves of oil are on the Arabian peninsula, especially in the part ruled by those odious Saudis. While I despise them for their self-serving perversion of religion, disregard for human rights, and intolerable kowtowing to their great protector Uncle Sam, the feeling amongst populist politicians in the West seems to be that they don't kowtow enough.
I used to wonder what the Saudis would do when their oil ran out. They've a population of 20 million surviving in the desert. How would they import food without the foreign revenues?
Someone over there has evidently had some brains. This is a highway outside Riyadh. The green circles are irrigated fields. You can look closer just by zooming in on Google Maps, where I got that shot.
All is not peachy, however. 70% of the kingdom's potable water comes from desalination. How do you desalinate water? You heat it up. And what do you suppose the Saudis are using to heat it? Not oil, but natural gas, which they have lots of, but wisely do not export (even I am willing to give them this much credit).
Like I said, though, it will all eventually run out. Back in the 1980s, Saudi Aramco's magazine engaged in some self-congratulatory musing about how they would just switch to solar energy production and continue merrily along. After all, what does the peninsula have, if not an inexhaustible supply of sunshine?
