Ruminations

Blog dedicated primarily to randomly selected news items; comments reflecting personal perceptions

Thursday, August 05, 2010

Medieval and Modern

Veiled Saudi women talk on their <span class=It is a rudely unpleasant photograph, one of a woman in Oman, completely covered with a black burka, not even her eyes visible behind the black veil. The photograph is a head-and-shoulders shot. (No, not the photograph seen here, taken from the Blackberry site.)

The woman's hand holding the Blackberry up to where her ear would be under her shroud, has purple splotches on it. They resemble an acid burn. Making one think of how many Arab and Muslim communities have instituted a heritage custom of visiting upon women who disobey the dictates of their fathers, brothers, husbands, a kind of end-stage discipline.

Honour killings are seen in some of these communities as a just and fair and appropriate form of honour-restitution. A woman, or a girl suffering the loss of her life because she has, by her manner of behaviour, whether it is being seen in public in the company of a man other than her husband, or a young girl wearing clothing considered to be an insult to female modesty under Sharia dishonoured her family.

Or punishment for having been raped.

A girl raped? She must surely have conducted herself inappropriately, somehow led the man on, and men being what they naturally are endowed with, poor creatures, cannot resist the temptation of female flesh. The burka, therefore, becomes mandatory. Not necessarily to save the girl or the woman from being raped, but to save the family honour from disgrace.

The burka-clad women, dressed in head-to-toe covering, meant to hide the features of her face, the conformation of her body, presents as a medieval abomination, woman as chattel. But here's the modern touch; in her hand instant communication, a Blackberry.

But to put things into perspective, the kind of view that demonstrates just how absurd all of this is, the disgrace it represents to the individual liberty and freedoms of women in the Muslim world, the latest out of the United Arab Emirates is that women using Blackberries should be prepared to dress their handset in a burka designed specifically to cover the communication device in a modest manner. They are to be used exclusively as telephones, not for access to the Internet.

Photo from NewsBisuit

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