|
Post by humphreyclarke on Mar 20, 2009 19:24:40 GMT
|
|
|
Post by zameel on Mar 20, 2009 23:03:43 GMT
I don't know exactly what the OIC proposed be included in the law of defamation but I'm sure it would not silence "criticism" of Saudi policy - nobody is more appalled by it than Muslims, even those living within the police state. If we can pass laws against antisemitism or holocaust denial, surely we can pass laws against the new antisemitism, Islamophobia; and this does not entail silencing criticism, no less than criticising Israeli policy entails antisemitism. The very fact that we have a law against defamation is proof enough that "freedom of expression" exists only in the mind and cannot be exported into the real world; it is idealist not realist. It is an interesting fact, since the topic of the Shariah has cropped up, HIV prevalence in the Muslim population of Africa is significantly lower than in the non-Muslim/Christian population (the difference is something like 0.7% among Muslims and 7% among non-Muslims); studies have shown this is (unfortunately) not primarily due to abstention but because of the stigma against alcohol (which causes disinhibition) and circumcision (according to the UN AIDS website there is compelling evidence that circumcision reduces the risk of AIDS). The classical Muslim jurists have also been quite relaxed about contraception, but this probably had little implication. On Grayling's assertion that women are worth half of men in Islam, it would be pointless responding to an empty claim, but a little on Islam's view on gender which I think some may find interesting: masud.co.uk/ISLAM/ahm/gender.htm (which specifically addresses Islam's attack on Christianity's war against the body and women who symbolise the flesh in the flesh-spirit dichotomy) masud.co.uk/ISLAM/ahm/boys.htmwww.youtube.com/watch?v=snQZCJzRxw8 and www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-FzC03otTc (talks by Hamza Yusuf) Feldman remembers "When the British applied their law to Muslims in place of Shariah, as they did in some colonies, the result was to strip married women of the property that Islamic law had always granted them — hardly progress toward equality of the sexes" and in the following talk (http://cambridgekhutbasetc.blogspot.com/2009/02/islam-gender-marriage-sexuality.html) Tim Winter recalls an early French feminist, Valentine de Sainte Point, who found her home in Islam.
|
|
|
Post by turoldus on Mar 21, 2009 9:38:36 GMT
Well...its more anti-islamic to be honest, but he gives the pope a good kicking along the way and puts the boot into all religion for good measure. You don't want him to sound islamophobic, do you? Even fighting atheists care about balance and political correctness.
|
|