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October 23, 2006

Half The Story

The mainstream press is gobbling up, at face value, the piece by Brit journalist Yvonne Ridley, "How I Came To Love The Veil. Ridley, after castigating Western liberals for "obsessing" over clothing, says:

Yes, it is a religious obligation for Muslim women to dress modestly, but the majority of Muslim women I know like wearing the hijab, which leaves the face uncovered, though a few prefer the nikab. It is a personal statement: My dress tells you that I am a Muslim and that I expect to be treated respectfully, much as a Wall Street banker would say that a business suit defines him as an executive to be taken seriously. And, especially among converts to the faith like me, the attention of men who confront women with inappropriate, leering behavior is not tolerable.

I was a Western feminist for many years, but I've discovered that Muslim feminists are more radical than their secular counterparts. We hate those ghastly beauty pageants, and tried to stop laughing in 2003 when judges of the Miss Earth competition hailed the emergence of a bikini-clad Miss Afghanistan, Vida Samadzai, as a giant leap for women's liberation. They even gave Samadzai a special award for "representing the victory of women's rights."

Some young Muslim feminists consider the hijab and the nikab political symbols, too, a way of rejecting Western excesses such as binge drinking, casual sex and drug use. What is more liberating: being judged on the length of your skirt and the size of your surgically enhanced breasts, or being judged on your character and intelligence? In Islam, superiority is achieved through piety -- not beauty, wealth, power, position or sex.

Naturally, the mainstream media omit < a href="http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=23059">key elements of the backstory:
Yvonne Ridley is a member of George Galloway’s RESPECT party, and has written numerous essays defending Islamic terrorism. She described those murdered in last year’s terrorist attacks in Jordan as “collaborators.” She wrote, “I think I’d rather put up with a brother like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi any day than have a traitor or sell-out for a father, son or grandfather.” She described Shamil Basaev, the mastermind of the massacre of Russian school children at Beslan, as “a Shaheed,” or martyr. She was fired by Al Jazeera because she was too extreme even for them.

This is mainstream media at its absolute worst, promoting the propaganda of radical Islamists without even a hint of context. If they’re going to publish this crap, at the very least they should tell us who is writing it. What the hell is wrong with the Washington Post?

What's wrong is that, in so many ways, they're on the wrong side.

Posted by Mitch at October 23, 2006 05:03 AM | TrackBack
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