Posted on 10/26/2003 9:09:04 PM PST by Stultis
"Naked" Miss Afghanistan slammed "We condemn Vida Samadzai, she is not representing Afghanistan's women, and this is not women's freedom." Surabi said according to Afghan culture women should not demonstrate their worth using their "beauty or bodies" but by their skills and knowledge. "In the name of women's freedom, what this Afghan girl has done is not freedom but is lascivious," the minister said. The 25-year-old Afghan contestant, who lives in the United States, is the first Afghan woman in 30 years to participate in the Miss World international beauty contest being held in the Philippines capital this week. The dark-haired, black-eyed Samadzai, apparently from a Pashtun tribe, was born and raised in Afghanistan but left for the United States in 1996 to escape the extremist Taliban regime which forced women to cover themselves from head to toe. Under the harsh regime women were not allowed to work outside their homes or go out without a close relative beside them. After the fall of the militia in 2001, an increasing number of women left the burqa, or veil, at home and some took jobs. The only other Miss Afghanistan was Zohra Daoud, who joined the Miss Universe contest in 1972.
AFP
27oct03
PRESIDENT Hamid Karzai's minister for women's affairs yesterday condemned Miss Afghanistan, as Vida Samadzai became the country's first woman in the post-Taliban era to appear in a bikini during a beauty contest in Manila.
"Appearing naked before a camera or television is not women's freedom but in my opinion is to entertain men," Minister Habiba Surabi said.
I don't buy into that. The logical outgrowth of that appeasement philosophy only emboldens the Islamofascists.
Besides, what would you think if someone insisted that women should not give rapists any reason to rape more; or that blacks shouldn't give the KKK any more reason to hate them; or that Jews shouldn't give the Nazis any more reason to hate them, so on and so forth.
Bottom line: it's not our fault that another culture wants to stay stuck in the 14th century while the rest of the world is at the dawn of the 21st.
Do we know if she is a moslem? If she's not ---- it's none of their concern.
There are plenty of modest western women --- but it's not "modesty" in muslim countries, it's called fearing for their lives ---- they get shot in the head if they show their faces --- it's not a choice to be modest.
Take a casual look at sacred scripture to learn what God brings to civilizations when the measure of their sin is full.
Those of you who joke and think this is a good thing are dangerously wrong. There is a God. He requires we behave decently and morally, specifically in matters of sexuality.
This generation will witness horrible events as a result of its choices and behavior.
BTW, rethink your statement that posters here are "modern promiscuous sex-promoting anti-religious bigots"
Your "shame" is your problem. Deal with it.
Not all ---- but all defend the child rape that mohammed did ---- and didn't Iran lower the "age of consent" to a ridiculously low age after they booted out the Shah?
Of course not. In my view, however, it is important to keep up the pressure against islamism (and islamic chauvanism more generally) and at the same time encourage and defend mainstream/moderate/modernist/secularist/traditionalist/minority sect muslims. The carrot and the stick should work together.
An overly tolerant (politically-correct/muliculturalist) approach to Islam ultimately provides space for the islamic extremists to disperse their poison, and allows them to slither into positions of leadership that are sponsored and recognized by the multiculturalist intelligencia, but not genuinely earned in the broader muslim community.
While individual muslims must be protected, and their individual and religious rights must be protected, Islam itself should NOT be protected from external criticism. Such criticism will serve, IMHO, to strengthen diversity, creativity and tolerance within Islam, and spur the development of internal criticism as well. This is what happened with Christianity, which both liberalized (in the best sense of the term) and realized renewed vigor and fecundity under the withering criticism of enlightenment skepticism.
Miss World Pageant will be on December 6.
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