Two Women, Two Cultures

The path of righteousness in Islam grows narrower every day:

A debate is rising over “honor murder” following a case that belatedly revealed that a young Saudi Arabian woman was killed by her father for chatting on the Internet social network site, Facebook.

British daily Telegraph quoted Monday’s Middle East news sites including al-Arabiya as saying, “Social networking sites, like Facebook, are causing social strife in the Islamic nation and the incident is an example.”

Wrong. What this incident exemplifies is the Arabs’ selective use of Western technology. Mostly they prefer to stick to armament improvements. Young women who learn the ins and outs of “social networking” - which is an inescapable part of Western culture for that age group - are at risk of bodily harm or death for the sin of availing themselves of a remedy for isolation and loneliness.

According to the report by al-Arabiya, a Saudi woman was beaten and shot by her father after being caught while chatting with a man on Facebook.

This is a typical case of honor murder whereby a woman, discovered to associate with another man, is murdered by her family members as punishment for “denigrating the honor of family.” Punishable acts, once limited to offline relationships, such as having a kiss, sleeping together, and sharing a table, have now expanded to online relations.

What these anachronistic leftovers cannot see is that it is they who dishonor their families and their culture, holding them up for ridicule to the rest of the world because of their paranoid need to control women’s access to the world. They aren’t honorable in any sense of the word. In fact…
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…it is no wonder that they still retain slavery as an option for their “workers.” Saudis remain literal slave drivers who insist that women alone will carry the burden of “honor” for them…as though they were camels, beasts of burden.

No, I take that back. They like their camels better.

The tragic incident, which had remained concealed for some time, was revealed to the media when Saudi preacher Ali al-Maliki began criticizing Facebook, claiming the network as a “door to lust.” Maliki said, “These days, young women and men are spending more on their mobile phones and the Internet than they do on food.” He went on to argue that those sites that destroy Islamic culture should be shut down to stem social strife. He sternly warned women frequenting Facebook to stop visiting the site.

This “incident” isn’t “tragic” at all; it’s obscene and demeaning. The imam sounds like a Baptist preacher from the 1920’s, worked into a lather about dancing and jazz music and playing cards. In fact, one could question Ali al-Amaliki’s emphasis on lust. He’d probably give us an earful, just based on his own experience. Beware the preacher who talks too much about carnal desire: he’s often a closet Don Juan himself.

Facebook is now estimated to have more than 30,000 users in Saudi Arabia. A majority of them use nicknames and post drawings on their pages instead of photographs. Because of this, some have dubbed this the “Faceless” network.

Islam religious leaders blame social networking sites for becoming a hotbed for homosexuals and a place for obscene material. Following Syria’s lead, which banned access to Facebook last November, some Islamic countries have stepped up Internet censorship and are cracking down on those operating the sites.

Muslim women, however, are standing up against these harsh measures. One female journalist said, “The Internet is an outlet where women let out their pent-up emotions and an avenue where they can associate with youth around the world to learn diverse cultures.” She added, “Though authorities ban access to Facebook, we will continue to visit similar social network sites.”

In other words, how can you keep them down in the women’s quarters’ once they’ve been online?

Good luck, fellows. You’re fighting a losing game because you can’t kill them all…though I suppose you could die trying.

Meanwhile, for the other face and fate of females in the Middle East, there’s this story:

History is being made in the Israel Air Force. A female Arab soldier has joined the IAF’s elite Airborne Combat Search and Rescue Unit 669, for the very first time in this illustrious unit’s history.

The soldier currently serves as a medic with the unit, and is also expected to soon receive training to become an airborne medic.

Unit 669 is considered one of the IDF’s premier elite units. Its main function is to rescue and extricate wounded soldiers from combat zones, under heavy enemy fire in most cases. The unit also often helps rescue civilians injured during various catastrophic incidents.

Seeing as the unit is typically involved in sensitive, and highly classified, IDF operations, soldiers serving in this unit require an extremely high security classification.

A Muslim soldier has consequently never served in this unit in either an administrative or combat capacity, that is until the aforementioned Muslim medic managed to circumvent this barrier as well.

The female soldier in question, a resident of an Arab village in northern Israel, volunteered to serve in the IDF, though not obligated to do so. She completed her medic training course with top honors, and was immediately placed with unit 669. The unit was stunned to learn of her Muslim origins, and an investigation later revealed that an error was made concerning her security classification.

In spite of this error, the unit’s commander insisted that the medic remain with the unit because of her truly exceptional skills. The soldier will even attend training to become an airborne medic this July. She could very well make history by becoming the first Muslim airborne medic in IDF history.

There are other Israeli Muslims serving in various capacities in the IDF. Needless to say, they are volunteers. What makes this one special is her skill and intelligence…and the Israelis’ willingness to utilize her gifts in such a critical area.

How long can a culture last when it kills its women for imagined moral lapses? When the oil is gone, Saudi Arabia will sink into the sand.

Despite sixty years of failed attempts by their enemies to eradicate the Jewish homeland, Israel will still be there, prospering in the area they have made fertile and productive. By then, the suicidal in-fighting of the Arabs will have returned their peoples back into wandering desert tribes.

Both outcomes are cultural choices


Hat tip: Rolf Krake.