Abu al-Khair said that the judge sentenced Badawi to five years in prison for insulting Islam and violating provisions of Saudi Arabia’s 2007 anti-cybercrime law through his liberal website, affirming that liberalism is akin to unbelief.
I have to wonder what Raif Badawi wrote or otherwise said that may have been so egregious in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as to have the kingdom throw him in jail and the court sentence him to seven years in prison plus 600 lashes.
While the kingdom modernizes — “Related Stories” dredged up on the New York Daily News page include such titles as “Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah grants women seats on the nation’s top advisory council” and “King Abdullah: Saudi Arabia women can vote, hold elected office” — the persistent throttling of expression, the disproportionate sentencing, and the medieval cruelty of lashing to boot (imagine having that to look forward to each week for, say, 30 weeks) tell of a willful egomania thundering atop a fragile surface of faith.
Every tyrants first concern in power has to do with making a convincing case for authority and maintaining it.
Perhaps with that in mind, we say in the United States with regard to the famous Freedom of Speech principle, “Without the First Amendment, all of the others are worthless.”
The Mellow Jihadi reports, “Raif’s site discussed the role of religion in Saudi Arabia, and he has been held since June 2012 on charges of cyber crime and disobeying his father – a crime in the conservative kingdom.“
About eight months ago, Reuters reporting on the Raif Badawi case noted, “Judges base their decisions on their own interpretation of religious law rather than on a written legal code or on precedent.” That is, if I may interpret, responsibility for this ethical and moral confusion may not rest so much with King Abdullah as with an archaic clerical class, but also, alas, that which doubtlessly supports his authority.
Following Reuter’s latest on the case (published two hours ago) back to Human Rights Watch, this wrap may sum the Saudi state of mind:
Abu al-Khair said that the judge sentenced Badawi to five years in prison for insulting Islam and violating provisions of Saudi Arabia’s 2007 anti-cybercrime law through his liberal website, affirming that liberalism is akin to unbelief. The judge ordered the closure of the website and added two years to Badawi’s sentence for insulting both Islam and Saudi Arabia’s Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, or religious police, in comments during television interviews.
Even while King Abdullah presses for reforms and aspects of modernity course through or make their way into the cultures of the Arabian Peninsula, the Anachronisms cling to a power today deeply mocked and reviled among the educated worldwide, and whether by way of “listening posts” or the perhaps guilty indulgence of going solo online, one by one, logged on and searching the world’s largest information mirror, that is how they will see themselves.
By way of the design in human nature, for which one might credit God, God being God, what Saudi Arabia’s most dogmatic clerics and judges had wished to avoid for want of pride has become precisely that which they must encounter in the feedback supplied by the World Wide Web.
For the biggest form of blasphemy that we all almost always commit is to force another to live in fear for believing, speaking, thinking and sometimes even existing, as we justify it in the name of our faith or stand silent as we bear witness.
No videos, sketches or hate speeches have hurt Islam more than the reckless army of blood thirsty goons justifying vandalism in the name of religion.
As I have said in previous articles, a devout government must always support such principles as libertarianism, modernity and valuing women, beauty, art and science. It must not allow the slightest pressure or measure or reference reminiscent of pressure. It must turn its back on the possibility of radicalism and, as a “devout” administration, must apply democracy in the most perfect manner. We must admit that Mohamed Morsi and Recep Tayyip Erdogan have made errors on this.
The World Wide Web has turned out a global mirror. Signal sent — signal returned: in language, we see ourselves as others (not always remote) may see us.
If the latest sentiments out of Pakistan and Turkey prove sustained, that thing called “The West” may have to resign itself to following rather than leading in the realm of ethical and moral investigation and righteousness, no doubt, however, while welcoming the competition.
Friends, Judaism is the defeat of probability by the power of possibility. And nowhere will you see the power of possibility more than in the state of Israel today. Israel has taken a barren land and made it bloom again. Israel has taken an ancient language, the language of the Bible, and make it speak again. Israel has taken the West’s oldest faith and made it young again. Israel has taken a shattered nation and make it live again.
Excerpt: “In Memoriam: Leonard Garment, 1924-2013”
July 15, 2013 at 4:47pm
Statement by Leonard Garment, United States Representative, to the United Nations General Assembly’s 3rd Committee (Human Rights), on equating Zionism with racism and racial discrimination, October 17, 1975.
My delegation has read the new proposal before us. It is unusually straightforward. It asks to determine “that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.”
As simple as this language is, we are concerned that what may not be fully understood is that this resolution asks us to commit one of the most grievous errors in the 30-year life of this organization.
This committee is preparing itself, with deliberation and foreknowledge, to perform a supreme act of deceit, to make a massive attack on the moral realities of the world.
Under the guise of a program to eliminate racism the United Nations is at the point of officially endorsing anti-semitism, one of the oldest and most virulent forms of racism known to human history. This draft explicitly encourages the racism known as anti-semitism even as it would have us believe that its words will lead to the elimination of racism.
I choose my words carefully when I say that this is an obscene act.
Whether from the Muslim Brotherhood perspective or the latest in secular democratic fashion, Egypt has not been “squared away” merely by its military’s recovery of unwanted administrative power.
Morsi during his authority was not able to ensure security and order on the Sinai Peninsula which the gas pipeline pass from Egypt to Jordan and Israel. As a result, militants systematically arranged explosion on the gas pipeline that deathly affected on country economy.
Today Egypt is dragging into a civil war day by day. The Statements made by General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi directed to the ousted president gives a hope for some citizens towards a brighter future.
Fuad Sahbazov appears to be an undergraduate studying international relations at Baku Slavic University in Azerbaijan, and his note in Strategic Outlook may remind that practically any view of political drama will be one among many in the open conversation of a vastly enlarged multi-state intelligentsia.
I may be alone at my desktop, but “we” are not alone at all, and some portion of political polarity falls away with a crowd of talkers too large and too mixed to sustain it.
There’s no going back to what was, this possibly a recurring theme with today’s inputs from Russia perhaps still dragging the chains of the Soviet empire.
* * *
With Mubarak’s exit, which may be far less about an American arrangement with a military than the forestalling of the establishment of a Mubarak Dynasty (mission accomplished on that), Egypt has been shaken up, and with the Muslim Brothers the first to foam and bubble away from the surface, the state has now to establish its themes as a democracy IF its people in cooperation with the military, rather than subordination by it, prove capable of compromise, practicality, and realism across a broad spectrum in the invention of a truly contemporary Egypt.
* * *
Maya Sarsa & Troupe, July 3, 2013:
– A song that TALKS OPENLY about MARIJUANA breaks SOCIAL TABOOS
– The BREAKING of SOCIAL TABOOS is a CHALLENGE to a ‘HIDING’ society
– The song promotes SECULARISM and undermines RELIGOUS FUNDEMENTALISM
– The song promotes INDIVIDUALITY and TRYING NEW THINGS
– ‘SIGARA BUNI’ pulls the MASK OFF Egyptian Society
* * *
When Tahrir Square quiets down and that preceding becomes safe again, tourism and expanded trade will return — and perhaps a few progressives too may attend to more difficult and pressing combined economic, ecological, and social issues.
For authentic people — good people; prudent, responsible, and responsive politicians; professionals of high integrity, start with journalists and teachers, but much including dancers and other artists who engage their work with beautiful, lively, and soulful connection — a whole society is a “big tent”, a “great salad”, a circus and a fair with room for everyone, some perhaps a little easier to take and to work with than others, but even so, everyone.
For the time being, Obama and NATO may be taking the heat in relation to the assembly of Syria’s civil war and its mix of ends, including the neutralization of Iran, and interests, including expansion of Sunni influence in the middle east.
However, the old Soviet relationship with the Assad regime and whatever updates or transformations have attended Vladimir Putin’s time at the helm of the Russian Ship of State will most certainly haul Putin back to the hot lights on the world stage.
At this time, he has gotten the Russian Navy out of Tartus and enabled Russian civilian citizens in Syria to leave en masse over time.
If Putin wishes to promote Russian influence with the Syria to come, if he wishes to one day leave a good record of his accomplishments for Russia (that as opposed to having the phantoms of his enemies emerge to steal that light from him), he’s going to have to intercede soon on behalf of the humanity affected, and this especially in light of measures taken to equip the Assad regime to remain at war to this point.
This is not to ascribe to Putin responsibility for Assad excesses or rebel barbarism, which latter he has used well to embarrass Obama; it is to suggest he take some measures in concert with others to damp the Syrian furnace or, alternatively, involve Russia immediately in broad humanitarian amelioration of the effects of the war.
On supply of Russian humanitarian aid for Palestinian refugees in the territory of Syria
On July 11, two aircrafts of the Emergencies Ministry of Russia delivered 70 tons of urgent humanitarian aid to Latakia for Palestinian refugees in the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic, including food and other essentials.
The government of Palestine, as well as the Palestinian refugees with deep gratitude perceived this Russian humanitarian action effected with proper level of security on behalf of Syrian authorities.
The Russian Federation will continue providing required humanitarian aid to the friendly Palestinian people both in the bilateral format and in the line of specialised international organisation.
Has this movie not been shown before?
I thought it had ended about 21 years and seven months ago even though to some it would seem like only last week — or as if it didn’t happen at all.
Be that as it may, while the world, much less “the government of Palestine” (which one?) most certainly appreciates the shipment to Syria of other than shore-to-ship missiles, one might expect a little more effort on general terms from the modern Putin-guided (one way to put it) democracy.
Having become apprised of the “knowledge of good and evil,” Adam and Eve leave Eden equipped with human consciousness, self-consciousness, and conscience as well as perhaps rather fashionable skins sewn for them by God Almighty Himself (Genesis 3).
The arrival of that language — inspired, invented, disseminated, borrowed, and twisted — within the monotheist psyche sets the stage for progressive awakening across time, for we know ourselves to be conscious, self-conscious, and possessed of conscience, and there is nothing quite like the expression of all of that in legal code to tell the character of separable related cultures along psychological axis made plain through reflection in the eyes of others.
Until today in the Arab world, it was perfectly fine to arrest the complainant in a rape incident, find her guilty of having in various ways tempted the man or men by way of behaviors forbidden by Koranic edict, and sentence her to a term in jail.
Enter Marte Deborah Dalelv, that shameless hussy who broke the first rule by which dictatorships are sustained: silence!
“The AP does not identity the names of alleged sexual assault victims, but Dalelv went public voluntarily to talk to media.”
It sounds so harmless “to talk to media.”
What Dalelv did by doing so was drag Dubai’s ethical, legal, and moral confusion out into the sunlight, and while not for the first time in the vicinity — the 2008 setup and gang rape of Alicia Gale at a Starwood Hotels outpost in the United Arab Emirate played in the news earlier this year as a related lawsuit with publicity made its way into the courts — it has proven such an embarrassment (remember: God made us self-conscious and possessed of conscience) that Dubai, ever conservative — or inclined to mask its shame for the time being — maintained Dalelv’s “conviction” but truncated her 16-month sentence with a swift pardon.
Whether or not Dubai’s legal atmosphere and code change to align with a modern philosophy of human rights, and whether slowly or swiftly, we shall see, but to judge by the Dalelv case, it may be on its way, for if nothing else, Dubai wants to push this latest eye-roller away from its brand.
Dubai, however, cannot push the same away from its consciousness or conscience.
By the graces of the World Wide Web, the world’s largest social feedback system, it’s greatest mirror, it’s learning what it looks like in and through the eyes of others.
I have altered the provocative voice to maintain only the line of thought pursued.
The answering voice, and more at length here, enough so to justify my noting that I have Martin Pembroke Harries’ permission to reprint his views here, takes an atheist’s stance in the formulation of ethics. We’ve had some back-and-forth about circumcision, Abraham, obedience, and conscience, but here the topic around which the notes weave is grrrrrl power, which he defends well.
Other editing: I’ve added line breaks for readability and italicized the “point” voice to Pembroke’s counterpoint.
* * *
Women are shy in the Koran and won’t perceive the crime the way a male would.
Is this a wind-up? I can’t decide whether you’re serious or a master of sarcasm.
If you are being serious, when you suggest to, say, Sheikh Hasina the prime Minister of Bangladesh, or Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the prime Minister of Argentina, or Hilary Clinton, the former US Secretary of State, that their testimony would be worth half that of yours simply because you are a man, you would be well to stand well beyond their swinging fist distance!
While the Koran authorizes beating a wife after other steps have been tried, it tells us not to maim them. In the west, it seems there are no rules.about how to beat one’s wife.
Again, is this for real?
If so, this is what religion can do to a nominally decent man, it forces him to justify the indefensible.
Do you think that because Sharia states that you can’t break her face when you beat your wife, that is some how a reflection of the nobility of Islam?
That is so sad first of all, but monstrously embarrassing soon afterward.
And let’s be honest, there is nothing in the Quran that states you can’t break your wife’s face when you’re beating her – If you actually read the Quran 4:34, you’ll find that there is no restriction at all.
Please don’t tell me I can find on the book shelves of my local mosque library “101 Halal ways to beat your wife!”, or “How to lovingly protect your wife from the shame of her disobedience through the use of a good timely thrashing” or “Sharia Wife-beating made simple and with a Smile – avoid the face, and Carry On!”
A woman in Islam may be a wife, mother, sister, or daughter. There is no disrespect in that.
I’ve read numerous Muslims state that there is this nominal respect for one’s OWN mother and one’s OWN sister, but once your average MENA Muslim male leaves the house, that’s where respect for women, in general, ends.
Women lead in the percentage of Muslim reverts in the United States. If the religion was so bad for them, why would they revert?
Yes, This is the case because non-Muslim females are marrying Muslim males – for love no less!
It’s probably to please the groom’s parents more than actually believing Mohamed’s story; whereas Muslim females are forbidden to marry non-Muslim men – often at the threat of her life. Again, this a shameful example of not giving equal rights to women. If Muslim men were forbidden to marry non-Muslim women the number of ‘converts’ would plummet.
Lastly, have you got the statistic of how many ‘converts’ have subsequently unconverted? Or how many have converted only nominally in order to facilitate the marriage? Those numbers would be far less flattering wouldn’t they?
Islam disallows Muslim daughters from marrying non-Muslims. If you have a problem with that, it’s your problem.
Well, first of all it’s the daughters’ problem.
I respect your atheism. I want you tor respect my belief in Allah.
No. I respect *your right to believe* what you want, but there is no way you should expect me to automatically respect *what you believe*. Nor should you expect me to automatically respect your right to practice your religion if the tenets of the religion are anathema to rational social harmony – and on those grounds masking the face would be contrary to those ideals. I’ll respect what you believe with respect to Mohamed’s story and social mores only if it reflects justice, morality and rationality – and there is your problem. But it shouldn’t be a big problem, it’s only unsubstantiated religion – folklore – after all.
There are probably a number of non-religious issues upon which we might agree. For instance, I reckon chicken biryani is a food of the gods!
* * *
Harries is entitled to his opinion, but I myself never regard folklore as trivial: language is always (always) a cultural tool and what is invented in it, whether out of necessity and the need for useful signals or out of desire or play or the want of excitement and greatness (even if only in our own heads), each language and its lore and literature becomes a suspension for cultural self-concept.
With that, I’ll take this post a little further.
* * *
Surat 4:34:
“Men are in charge of women, because Allah has made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah has guarded. As for those from whom you fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High Exalted, Great.” (Pickthall’s version of the Koran, Quran, 4:34)
Dr. Shafaat gets into the matter of entangled loyalty well with this statement on the violence involved:
“Beat them”. If even separation fails to work, then it is suggested that men use beating. To this suggestion of the Holy Qur’an there have been two extreme reactions on the part of some Muslims. The first reaction is being apologetic or ashamed of the suggestion. The second is to use it as a justification for indulging in habitual wife battering. Needless to say that both these reactions are wrong. The Quran as we believe is the word of God and is thus every word in it is full of wisdom and love. To be apologetic about any part of the Quran is to lack both knowledge and faith.
For every word to be “full of wisdom and love”, some additional exegesis seems necessary, for Dr. Shafaat continues:
In regard to the suggestion about beating, the following further points should also be noted:
a) According to some traditions the Prophet said in his famous and well-attended speech on the occasion of his farewell pilgrimage that the beating done according to the present verse should be ghayr mubarrih, i.e. in such a way that it should not cause injury, bruise or serious hurt. On this basis some scholars like Tabari and Razi say even that it should be largely symbolic and should be administered “with a folded scarf” or “with a miswak or some such thing”. However, to be effective in its purpose of shaking the wife out of her nasty mood it is important that it should provide an energetic demonstration of the anger, frustration and love of the husband. In other words, it should neither seriously hurt the wife nor reduce it to a set of meaningless motions devoid of emotions.
That power continues to reside in the man (this is a locus-of-control issue) and not in the woman (how should one of the fair sex respond to or treat a “rebellious man”?) seems less an issue than the management of the degree of violence expressed, either physically or symbolically.
* * *
In working with thought as language behavior subject to modification by context in time plus the relative insularity of minds and the language-inventing cultures that create content and self-concept as well as a righteous sense of both license and prohibition, there’s much conversation needed about what I’ve started calling the “humanity of humanity”, i.e., mankind’s better potential in character, and in relation to that, a reconciled psychological outlook.
It’s worth a look, especially to men who may have doubts about how tough may be the “rebellious” woman they have been otherwise so licensed to beat, they themselves having been so pandered to as to have been granted by power on high exclusive control over what many other humans might as fervently and justifiably believe ideal as an equally empowered and inclusive love and partnership.
* * *
One more note on the laying on of hands by either partner in a marriage: when it has come to that, somebody, one or the other, please, leave the home, call a lawyer, and arrange for a separation.
I don’t know what to watch or what to look for in Syria today: unsettled borders with Lebanon and Turkey? The impact of the war on children? On journalists? The count in refugees and the too familiar hardships with which they are forced to live, courtesy of the Great Cock Fight about nothing?
Six million, that most noted among dismal figures, yaws the mind into the unfathomable.
***
Kamal Hamami, the FSA commander, was killed as he went to a meeting of al Qaeda-backed rebels to discuss joint operations against the Syrian army, a U.S. official said, confirming Middle East press reports.
Hamami had opposed the al Qaeda-linked rebels and said there was no place for them within the opposition forces.
Do you recall the Al Qaeda-type infiltration of a small refugee camp in Lebanon and the group’s effort to fund themselves by robbing a bank, thus also revealing themselves?
When the fighting broke out between Lebanese Defense Forces and “Fatah al-Islam”, close to 30,000 Palestinian refugees were bused away, and because under a pan-Arab compact, Lebanon had agreed not to enter the camp — if you don’t already know how this story goes, you will roll your eyes or shoulders or both at what happens next — Lebanon’s military cordoned the camp, positioned tanks where needed, and took it apart, “built it down”, round after round after round. Only at the end, and to reach hold-outs beneath the ground, was the site bombed (Shawish, Hesham, “Helicopters pound militants with 400-kilogram bombs at Nahr al-Bared,” The Daily Star, Lebanon, August 20, 2007).
There’s a side trip down a damned memory lane — I almost forget I was thinking about Syria.
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