Letters to the Editor
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I'm almost at the point of wondering if CB posts while drunk, too
Look, by calling people baboons, are you helping to raise the bar of discussion to your own apparently sterling standard?
Decry the lack of civility, and then call everybody baboons.
You sort of shot yourself in the foot there, pardner.
If your only point is to say that internet discussion boards are futile as agents of change---well, fine, but what does that have to do with the topic at hand?
Or are you just so darn mad that you'll throw any old thing out there? Like:
Talking about this is futile! Stop, damn you, stop!
Well, who cares if internet chatter isn't actually going to change anything in Spain or Germany? (and thank God it doesn't!) Does that mean it cannot be spoken of?
I think you're just trying to shut us up. And that stuff about Algeria? Quite off-topic.
It's late in Canada. Get some sleep.
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What's The Difference?
"What is the difference between wearing a head scarf to school for religious reasons and allowing the religious members to practice:
a) polygamy
b) animal sacrifice
c) female genital mutilation...."
Well, here's one difference: we would object to and outlaw all the things in your list regardless of whether the were prompted by religious motives or not. We do not object to them simply because they are religious.
But if girls wore head scarfs simply because it was the non-religious fashion in their sociological group, or because it was a new trend, we probably wouldn't bat an eye.
I am progressive, liberal, gay, anti-sexist. But I think we should be careful about prohibiting something JUST because it's associated with a religion, particularly a religion we don't like. We should have a better reason than that.
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I wish
Boy, Tina, do I wish I WAS drunk. I had the bad luck to pull the weekend night shift, and am working right now, multitasking in fact, which puts unpredictable strains on my time and makes me write in short-hand (yes the Algerian reference was relevant to the point I was making), and without aforethought. Oh, and also inspires certain levels of irritation which flow over I guess.
And it ain't all that late yet in this part of Canada, we aren't all located in the Eastern Time Zone, I've got more than 6 hours of crisis management in front of me, and this was supposed to be a quiet weekend. Damn.
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what's the point of your list, androgyne symbol man?
Androgyne Symbol Man asks: What is the difference between wearing a head scarf to school for religious reasons and allowing the religious members to practice:
a) polygamy -
Polygamy is only illegal in the US when it's called polygamy. When it's called swinging or threesomes or anything else, go for it. Look at Hugh Hefner and his four (?) public lovers. If he were Muslim or Mormon he'd be in trouble and the Hollywood lot would probably abhor not fawn over him. Religion (=culture) is the reason that taking multiple spouses is illegal, not the sex.
b) animal sacrifice
Not sure why you thought to bring this in. The rules of halal slaughter easily fit into modern hygienic practice. And no animals are slaughtered in Islam except to be eaten (including religious offerings, which are immediately divided among the poor after sacrifice). BTW, almost ALL NZ meat for export is halal.
c) female genital mutilation
This is not an Islamic issue; don't make it one.
d) underage arranged marriages
There is no necessary relationship between underage marriage and arranged marriage. They are two separate issues: one involves rules establishing minimum ages for marriage (and more importantly, license to engage in sexual activity); the other represents an expansion of government supervision over how we socialise and make decisions about our sexual partners. But the truth is, it is already the case that no children can be legally married in a state against the prevailing laws. Even so, religious prejudice raises its head. Parents allowing their 14-yr old daughter to shack up with her 15-yr old boyfriend at home aren't breaking any laws; parents who look on that relationship as a potentially permanent one are. As for arranged marriages, whether a marriage partner is chosen or recommended by someone's parents or by a popular television show, it does not fall under the purview of the law. All such are legal. One gets featured on ET, though, the other in political and misislamic media.
e) eating of what we consider domesticated pets
Not sure where this one came from. What animals are you talking about? Cats? Canaries? Turtles? Goats? Certainly not dogs, a forbidden form of meat. And who cares if you and your friends love rabbits as pets, but others love them more as satay?
f) killing their own animals for food according to their practices that may differ from our regulations.
In my Slovenian/Croatian neighbourhood in Cleveland plenty of people arranged the basement slaughter of goats and made their own slivovic. Illegal, yes. Christian, yes. Anything to be bothered with, no. And you should know, my friend, that you will look long and hard and fruitlessly to find any ahadith that say people have to slaughter their own food at home. You're confusing homesickness with shari'ah.
So my view, in answer to your question, is there is no difference between restrictions against school children wearing the veil and restrictions against consensual polygyny (or polyandry, for that matter). Both are forms of prejudice, both seek to deracinate and negate immigrant (or indigenous, or historical) groups. Both want to lift cultural belief to the level of legislative management in order to make newcomers (or oudblijvers) give up their original identities and take on new ones more acceptable to the white middle classes. Both are also deeply sexist of course: no one here is calling for men to stop wearing shalwar kameez or ghalabiye. It's only women's choice that they seek to control, not men's.
PS Hermaphroditegraph - you aren't really Marshall Mathers, are you? I can't read your username without thinking "two trailer park girls go round the outside, round the outside". Am I right?
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tina schrier
I don't know about Germany, but here in Spain, there most certainly is home schooling - in Europe, no less