Sunday, February 24, 2008

Grotesque Saudi Arabia

The stories about the muttaween continue to intrude their cruel dogma into real life in Saudi Arabia. Remember the ban on Saint Valentine’s Day, or the poor woman who was arrested for having coffee in Starbucks with an office colleague while they waited for the electricity to be repaired at a planned conference? How about the odious and tragic story of the young girls beaten back into their burning school because they didn’t have headscarves on? Not even their parents could save them.

The latest stupidity would be funny if it weren’t so dangerous for those arrested:

President of the Religiosity Police Saudi Arabia began interrogating 57 men Saturday who were arrested after allegedly flirting with women in front of a shopping mall in the holy city of Mecca, a local newspaper reported.

The country’s religious police arrested the men Thursday night, alleging behavior that included dancing to pop music blaring from their cars and wearing improper clothing, according to the Okaz newspaper, which is deemed close to the government.

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice runs the religious police, who are charged with enforcing Saudi Arabia’s strict Islamic lifestyle.

Its members patrol public places to make sure women are covered and not wearing make up, the sexes don’t mingle, shops close five times a day for Muslim prayers and men go to the mosque and worship.

The police - informally known as the muttawa, literally “enforcer” - don’t wear uniforms. But they are recognizable by their long beards and their robes, shorter than the ones normally worn by Saudi men. They also shun the black cord that sits atop the headdress worn by most Saudi men.

Here’s the kicker though:
- - - - - - - - -
…the men who were arrested Thursday could be released if they could prove they did not flirt with any women. Otherwise, they will be transferred to court and stand trial…

How in God’s name does one disprove such a nebulous charge as “flirting”? And just how powerful are the Religious Police?

The International Herald Tribune carried some details from the commission’s Al-Hisba newsletter report. These goons are officially known as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. Here’s the breakdown:

  • 16 percent increase over the previous year in their 2007 budget.
  • the force carried out 8.16 million activities last year, including patrols, lectures and publicity campaigns to guide people about Islamic religious requirements.
  • These activities were meant to “serve society and protect its intellectual, ideological and moral safety.” It said the government body employed 5,029 people in 2007.
  • Its members patrol public places to make sure women are covered and not wearing make up, the sexes don’t mingle, shops close five times a day for Muslim prayers and men go to the mosque and worship.
  • They have been labeled the muttawa (“enforcer”) and dress somewhat differently than the average Saudi men: shorter skirts, longer beards, and the absence of the usual black cord which circles male headdress.
  • The commission also set up 66 centers, held 583 forums and distributed 6.8 million pamphlets and books to instruct people on their Islamic duties.

    Ominously, the commission’s agents carried out 416,756 patrols to prevent vice. It said the commission, out of its concern not to expose violators, dealt with 94 percent of the cases inside its centers. and sent the rest to relevant authorities to deal with them as they saw fit. At least one man has died in their custody.

Saudis claim to support the Enforcers but at the same time, they complain that these bullies use their power to interfere arbitrarily in people’s lives.

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As Rick Moran says in The American Thinker:

The incongruity of this nation sitting on half the world’s oil reserves grows more grotesque by the day.

[…]

The description of what the young men were doing is so common in the west that it shocks us and makes us pause to think of how it would be living in a society like that.

P.J. O’Rourke once wrote that Saudi society was set up by men with teenage daughters. Not allowing boys to see a girl’s face, dressing them head to toe in a canvas sack, and being able to execute them if they violated the rules was a teen daughter’s father’s dream come true.

Perhaps there’s more to that theory than just a joke…

It’s been well over a year since the blog, The Religious Policeman, became inactive. It was run by a Saudi living in the UK. He dedicated it to those girls who were beaten back into the flames for the sake of propriety.

For those of us who used to read him on a regular basis, The R.P. was a breath of fresh air. In his last post, there was this prophesy:

The blog will remain here for as long as Blogger does. Maybe, millennia from now, extraterrestrial digital archeologists will chance upon it, and wonder about this “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” where half the people wore black and half the people wore white. An earnest Zargian Ph.D. student will expound in his thesis the theory that the land was so inhospitable, only chess pieces could live there. The rules of the game involved moving around a black rock in ever-decreasing circles. He will speculate as to whether, had the rock been in the Southern hemisphere, they would have circulated in the opposite direction.

Meanwhile we can wonder at the fate of the 57 men. Obviously, the “flirting” behavior had been going on for a long time because this was a coordinated raid in a number of different places. The authorities just let it go on until they had enough victims for a huge round up and headline…just a reminder to everyone that none can escape the long, strong, capricious arm of the Enforcer.

My guess? There will be a few sacrificial victims. The men who belong to families that are more powerful will get off, but there will be a show trial for others, ending in beheading.

What a grotesquerie Saudi Muslims are.

14 comments:

DJMooreTX said...

I think the wrong image has been posted. It appears to show a middle-aged American being arrested by two cops in American police uniforms.

Nobody is wearing a beard, a robe, or a headdress.

Mother Effingby said...

I agree, DJ, they look like they are arresting Tim Conway.

Dymphna said...

Mr. Moore--

I agree it looks strange. That's why I put the URL in the alt tag, hoping someone could shed light on it.

If that guy is Saudi, I'm a leprechaun. OTOH, they didn't say they just arrested Saudis. They said they went to a number of malls.

But it was also supposed to have taken place in the evening...

I think I'll look in Google images and see what I can find.

First, though I have the sad duty of putting up a post about a blogger who committed suicide. No doubt it's making the rounds now...we first found out about last week, but couldn't verify and no one knew where to look for him...

Anyway, check back later and I'll probably have found another image. Unless, that is, the Religious Police took away cameras.

Dymphna said...

jauhara--

I agree: TIM CONWAY in a bad tie. In fact, as I studied the pic, I wondered if that's what the Religious Police were calling "immodest dress."

Hey, let's start a rumor that Tim Conway "reverted."

I'm just kidding. One April Fool's Day the Baron photoshopped Bill Gates in Saudi gear. That one kind of backfired as we still get hits on the sitemeter bearing the title "Bill Gates Muslim?"

I don't dare google it. Don't want to know. I think it may even have made Snopes by now. How could we know that Islam doesn't get jokes?..well, we probably should have guessed.

Ironically, at that very time Gates was in Israel handing out moolah for science studies for research.

If there were a Judgement Day, Saint Peter would fix a beady eye on me and say "so you allowed that Bill Gates hoax to stay up, did you?"

I'm trying to think of an excuse.

ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ said...

Folks, the graphic is a photo shop product. Someone placed Karl Rove's head on the perp being frog marched. I would suspect Joe Wilson' wet dream.

Dymphna said...

Thanks...so Karl Rove looks like Tim Conway. Whaddya know. Whoda thunk it.

But tell me, what is "perp walked"? It looks like they are dragging a reluctant person who is ruining his shoes by dragging his feet.

Maybe I should google "perp walk."

Yes, I do remember: "Google is your friend."

hank_F_M said...

Dymphna


If the goons of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice are checking to be sure the shops are closed five times a day for prayer, are these same goons participating in prayer??

I would think the goons are good candidates to be brought before the Sharia Law courts. Nothing like a taste of ones own medicine.

laine said...

"P.J. O’Rourke once wrote that Saudi society was set up by men with teenage daughters. Not allowing boys to see a girl’s face, dressing them head to toe in a canvas sack, and being able to execute them if they violated the rules was a teen daughter’s father’s dream come true".

O'Rourke didn't think it through. The father of the North American teen probably wouldn't think it his sacred duty to kill her to restore his family honor if she slipped the cage and met a boy at the malt shop, or even more innocently, ditched her bag for western dress.

Homophobic Horse said...

PJ O Rourke is a leftist and has a habit of psychologising these things to avoid implicating One of the Worlds Great Religions©

Anonymous said...

Maybe there are two P.J. O’Rourkes, H. Horse? Here's a few quotes from the famous (non-leftist) one:

A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them.

The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.

The U.S. Constitution is less than a quarter the length of the owner's manual for a 1998 Toyota Camry, and yet it has managed to keep 300 million of the world's most unruly, passionate and energetic people safe, prosperous and free.

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.

There's a whiff of the lynch mob or the lemming migration about any overlarge concentration of like-thinking individuals, no matter how virtuous their cause.

To grasp the true meaning of socialism, imagine a world where everything is designed by the post office, even the sleaze.

Personally, I believe a rocking hammock, a good cigar, and a tall gin-and-tonic is the way to save the planet.

There’s only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

VinceP1974 said...

PJ is a Leftist? LOL.

Zenster said...

The above photo is that of Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Ghaith. He heads Saudi Arabia’s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. Last, but not least, he also occupies a special place on my list of terrorist facilitators that need to be exterminated through a campaign of authorized military assassinations.

Were America to begin such a program of targeted killings, there might be some small hope of averting the looming Muslim holocaust. The West must summon up enough courage to scrape away Islam's top echalons of jihadists. Lacking such determination, the task will fall to far less competent strategists, such as Europe's spineless generals who currently envision nuclear "pre-deterrance". A partial list of Jihad's central players follows:

1. Ayman al-Zawahiri
2. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
3. Ayatollah Kahmeini
4. Mullah Muhammad Omar
5. Abu Bakar Ba'asyir (Bashir)
6. Moqtada Sadr,
7. Abu Hamza al-Masri,
8. Mullah Krekar (AKA: Abu Sayyid Qutb),
9. Khaled Meshal
10. Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
11. Ismail Haniya
12. Mohammed Abbas
13. Yusuf al-Qaradawi
14. Tariq Ramadan
15. Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilali
16. imam Omar Bakri Muhammed Fustuq
17. imam Abdel-Samie Mahmoud Ibrahim Moussa
18. imam Sheikh SyeSyed Mubarik Ali Gilani
19. Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal
20. Sheik Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi
21. Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahar
22. Prince Sultan Ibn Abd al-Aziz
23. Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz
24. Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz
25. Muhammad Taqi Usmani
26. Yasin al Qadi (Saudi terrorist financier)
27. Imad Mugniyah, — Iranian master terrorist
28. Sheikh Abdullah bin Jibreen — top Wahabbi cleric
29. Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan — top Wahabbi cleric
30. Sheikh Nasser Al-Omar — top Wahabbi cleric
31. Sheikh Essa
32. Abu Waleed Ansari
33. Abu Yahya al-Libbi
34. Maulana Ilyas Kashmiri
35. Ahmed Abu Laban — DEAD — January 19, 2007
36. Sheikh Abu Yahya al-Libi (al Qaeda CEO)
37. Sheikh Abdel-Aziz Al al-Sheikh — Saudi Grand Mufti
38. Ramadan Shalah — Islamic Jihad leader
39. Ali Abdullah Saleh – Yemini President
40. Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Ghaith — head SA’s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.

We can begin by killing these pivotal operatives in Islamic jihad or continue to see the West ravaged by their minions. NOBODY has the courage to blame these prime movers for causing so much hatred and suffering. For that same reason, ALL OF US will be centered in jihad's crosshairs until a select few tire of such nonsense and begin purging Islam's ranks of these bloodthirsty monsters.

Failure to do so will make World War Two's slaughter look like a walk in the park. The more we allow Wahabbist dogma to spread, the more that Muslims will necessarily pay a collective price for such jihadist dreck.

Only by snuffing the vanguard of Saudi funded radicalism will there be any chance of saving a significant portion of Islam that does not practice such abhorrent savagery. Should we lack the spine to do so, the VAST MAJORITY OF MUSLIMS will perish for their unwillingness to rebel against their jihadist masters and our own inability to properly distinguish between factions of an enemy that did little to differentiate themselves.

VinceP1974 said...

Can I add Hugo Chavez to the list?

Frans Groenendijk said...

@Zenster. I know only a dozen men from your list. Where do you offer arguments why this 40 (and more?) men should be on the list?