Posted on 12/11/2009 9:43:13 AM PST by goldstategop
The other day, George Jonas passed on to his readers a characteristically shrewd observation gleaned from the late poet George Faludy: No one likes to think of himself as a coward, wrote Jonas. People prefer to think they end up yielding to what the terrorists demand, not because its safer or more convenient, but because its the right thing . . . Successful terrorism persuades the terrorized that if they do terrors bidding, its not because theyre terrified but because theyre socially concerned.
This is true. Resisting terror is exhausting. Its easier to appease it, but, for the sake of your self-esteem, you have to tell yourself youre appeasing it in the cause of some or other variant of social justice. Obviously, its unfortunate if Canadians get arrested for plotting to murder the artists and publishers of the Danish Muhammad cartoons, but thats all the more reason to be even more accommodating of the various sensitivities arising from the pervasive Islamophobia throughout Western society. Etc.
Yet this psychology also applies to broader challenges. By way of example, take a fluffy feature from a recent edition of Britains Daily Mail: Its Barbie in a Burka, read the headline. Yes, as part of her 50th anniversary celebrations, one of the worlds most famous childrens toys, Barbie, has been given a makeover. And, in an attractive photo shoot, there was Barbie in traditional Islamic dress, wearing full head-to-toe lime-green and red burkas. At least, Im assuming it was Barbie. It could have been G.I. Joe back there for all one can tell from the letterbox slot of eyeball meshing.
But Britains biggest Barbie fan, Angela Ellis, was thrilled. Bring it on, Burka Barbie, she said. I think this is a great idea. I think this is really important for girls, wherever they are from, they should have the opportunity to play with a Barbie that they feel represents them.
Well, Barbie is 50. And at an age when Katie Cougarer, CouricAmericas all-time champion network news-ratings limbo-dancer, is being photographed ill-advisedly doing the lambada at the Christmas office party, there is perhaps something to be said for belatedly mothballing your 76-inch plastic bust. Or as the Canadian blogger Closet Conservative put it: Great news: that bitch Barbie has finally reverted. And theres no need for expensive accessories like books or cars or a life, added Tim Blair of Sydneys Daily Telegraph, because Barbie in a Bag isnt allowed to leave her home unless accompanied by a male relative (Mullah Ken, sold separately).
Mullah Ken? Im not so sure about that. Given the long-time rumours, Kenll be lucky not to find himself crushed under one of those walls the Taliban put up for their sodomite-rehabilitation program. Youll be glad to know the dolls are anatomically accurate: Burka Barbie has no clitoris, and, just like Mohamed Atta on the morning of Sept. 11, Kens genital area is fully depilated.
But we mean-spirited types are in the minority. The other day, I was watching, as one does, a German lingerie ad, for Liaison Dangereuse. It began with a naked womanbit blurry and soft-focus, but you could see she had her hair in a towel and everything else in nothing at all, and there were definite glimpses of shapely bottom, the swell of her bosom and whatnot. All very Continental.
She applies her lipstick, sashays into her dressing room wiggling aforementioned posterior, hooks her brassiere, rolls up her seamed stockings, slips into her stilettos, and thenwith one final toss of her glossy luxuriant hairpulls on her burka and steps out the door. Tag line: Sexiness for Everyone. Everywhere.
Very clever. The agency is Glow of Berlin. Might win them an award. Yet the superficial cool and the O. Henry switcheroo at the tail seem less cutting-edge state-of-the-art than sad and desperate wishful thinking. For one thing, if the comely young lady were truly a believer as opposed to a jobbing infidel thespian, her underdressed gig would earn her death threats, if she were lucky, and, if she werent, actual death.
Still, Burka Barbie and Fatimas Secret are minor and peripheral. What about the so-called most powerful man in the world? The U.S. government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab, and to punish those who would deny it, President Obama told his audience in Cairo earlier this year. I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal.
My oh my, hes a profile in courage, isnt he? Its true that there have been occasional frictions over, say, the refusal of Muslim women to reveal their faces for their drivers licencesSultaana Freeman, for example, sued the state of Florida over that right. But the real issue in the Western world is the right of women and girls not to wear the hijab. A couple of weeks ago in Arizona, a young woman called Noor Almaleki was fatally run over by her father in his Jeep Cherokee for becoming too Westernized. If there were a Matthew Shepard-style gay crucifixion every few months, liberal columnists would be going bananas about the climate of hate in America. But you can run over your daughter, decapitate your wife, drown three teenage girls and a polygamous spouse (to cite merely the most lurid recent examples of North American honour killings), and nobody cares. Certainly, theres no danger of Barack Obama ever standing up for the likes of poor Miss Almaleki to a roomful of A-list imams. When it comes to real hate crimes, as opposed to his entirely imaginary epidemic, the president of the United States has smaller cojones than Ken.
If you eschew the Grand Cherokee in favour of the Toronto subway, you may have noticed that the poster girl for the latest social justice campaign is a Muslim woman. Drop Fees for a Poverty-Free Ontario is the ringing cry, and next to it is a hijab-clad lady speaking up and speaking out. Its something to do with the cost of post-secondary education, which, like everything else in Canada, is supposed to be free. The image is a curious choice as an emblem for educational access: after all, one of the most easily discernible features of societies that adopt Islamic dress is how ignorant they are. In Afghanistan under the Taliban, girls were forbidden by law to attend schooli.e., not just fritter-away-half-a-decade-on-Ontario-taxpayers post-secondary education, but kindergarten and Grade 1. In Pakistan, 60 per cent of women are illiterate.
According to the UNs 2002 Arab Development Report, half of all women in the Arab world cannot read. And even in Canada, the ability of the woman on the subway poster to access that post-secondary education depends not on the fees but on her father or, if shes already been married off to her 16-year-old cousin back in Mirpur, her husband. The Saskatchewan Internet maestro Kate McMillan summed up the poster thus: Subjugation of womenits the new normal.
Traditional Islamic dress is not so traditional. Talk to any educated Muslim woman who attended university in the fifties, sixties or seventiesback when they assumed history was moving their way and a covered woman was merely a local variant of the Russian babushka, something old and wizened you saw in upcountry villages. Now you see them in the heart of the metropolisand I dont mean Beirut or Abu Dhabi so much as Paris and Brussels. Its very strange to be able to walk around, say, Zarqa, hometown of the late insurgent Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and look 90 per cent of the women in the eye, and even be rewarded with a friendly smile every so often, and then to fly on to London and be confronted by one masked face after another while strolling down Whitechapel Road in the East End. The burka, the niqab and the hijab are not fashion statements but explicitly political ones, and what they symbolize in a Western context is self-segregation.
That Drop Fees campaign would never dream of dressing up its poster gal as June Cleaver, Donna Reed or any other outmoded sitcom mom in twin-set and pearls. Golly, that would send all sorts of disturbing signals to todays liberated females, wouldnt it? What signal is Barbies burka sending? That, in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, women were forbidden by law from ever feeling sunlight on their faces? Hey, theres a positive message for young girls.
Phillip Longman is a demographer who is widely regarded as the antithesis of the Muzzies-are-coming alarmists like me. Yet his most famous essay on the world currently taking shape is titled The Return of Patriarchy. Dont worry, its not the bad kind of patriarchy of 1950s sitcom dads. Its the groovy multiculti kindwhich presumably is why white liberal progressives are so eager to mainstream it. Perhaps they figure it can just be contained to the likes of Noor Almaleki, but I doubt it. Ive mentioned previously a Euro-pal of mine, non-Muslim, whos taken to covering herself in certain quartiers of an evening in order to avoid harassment by youths. She does exactly what that German lingerie lass doesand with the merest correction to the sign-off: Subordination for Every Woman. Everywhere.
"If there were a Matthew Shepard-style gay crucifixion every few months, liberal columnists would be going bananas about the climate of hate in America. But you can run over your daughter, decapitate your wife, drown three teenage girls and a polygamous spouse (to cite merely the most lurid recent examples of North American honour killings), and nobody cares. Certainly, theres no danger of Barack Obama ever standing up for the likes of poor Miss Almaleki to a roomful of A-list imams. When it comes to real hate crimes, as opposed to his entirely imaginary epidemic, the president of the United States has smaller cojones than Ken."
Indeed. Its not about Barbie's being dressed in a hijab or a burka. Its about us.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
Well, the nice thing about buying your kid a Burqa Barbie is that you won’t have to buy a toy car, since Burqa Barbie won’t be allowed to drive it anyway.
Come on, its just a market opportunity. Mattel, like all retail, is having a tough time and Barbie is carrying the load for the whole company.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
“Only Ken can drive it. She can’t go anywhere without his permission. Must be nice to be a liberal to support folks who make sure women truly remain the “second sex.”
Aren’t their goats the second sex?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
Detachable head?
Not so fast! There will be the Barbie "Dream Cave" and the Barbie "Jihad" accessories. Also, let's not forget "Al Queda Ken", and his Bitchin' Bachelor Hut!
Mosque sold separately.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
Steyn is the best.
Does Burka Barbies come with an optional suicide vest to be worn under her burka when she is on a jihad?
“It could have been G.I. Joe back there for all one can tell from the letterbox slot of eyeball meshing. “
Probably G.I. Jihad with a bomb belt.
The bomb belts must match her shoes and handbag. I am sure that she would never go out in public without her "Semtex gray" designer shoes.
“But Britains biggest Barbie fan, Angela Ellis, was thrilled. Bring it on, Burka Barbie, she said. I think this is a great idea. I think this is really important for girls, wherever they are from, they should have the opportunity to play with a Barbie that they feel represents them.”
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If it’s skintone, I can understand that, but a piece of clothing?! If a child wants the Barbie to dress like her, let her dress it, throw a wash cloth over it. Why validate oppression?! UGH! Burka Barbie looks like she’s in a soft-sided cat carrier...
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
Wow! This sure gives young muslim girls something to strive for. If they lose the doll, they could just put a potato under the burka and no one would know the difference !
Franklin Graham thread on women under Sharia
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2405461/posts
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
“...its just a market opportunity...”
I disagree. This episode illustrates the surrender of the West. Remember when the Feminazis took the initiative to protest against an electronic Barbie for saying “math class is hard”? At least she was able to go to math class.
Mattel is more plastic than Barbie is if they cannot see the subversive nature of this. Have they not heard of the morality police in Iran? Have they not heard about Muslim girls in Paris who are afraid to go out to the streets wearing western clothing for fear of assault from Muslim teens and men?
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