While I haven't read the document in question, judging from the Brothers' response, the UN thinks it would be useful to raise the age of marriage, decriminalize homosexuality, make contraceptives more readily available, and give unmarried mothers the same rights as married ones. The Brothers are not pleased:
"The document includes articles that contradict established principles of Islam, undermine Islamic ethics and destroy the family, the basic building block of society, according to the Egyptian Constitution," the movement wrote. "This declaration, if ratified, would lead to complete disintegration of society, and would certainly be the final step in the intellectual and cultural invasion of Muslim countries, eliminating the moral specificity that helps preserve cohesion of Islamic societies."
A concern about cultural colonization is what spurred the foundation of the Muslim Brothers 80 years ago. Founding member Sayyid Qutb, executed by the Nasser regime in the 1960s for his activism, spent time in the late 1940s in the US and was horrified by what he considered the country's loose morals and materialism. A desire to preserve Egypt and Islam from what its leaders view as an external, hostile onslaught remains at the forefront of their agenda today.
They are terrified that the modern world is dragging Egyptians back to jahalliya, the age of ignorance before the coming of Islam, and made that clear in their complaint today. "These are destructive tools meant to undermine the family as an important institution," they complained of the UN proposal. "They would subvert the entire society, and drag it to pre-Islamic ignorance."
I agree with the MB on this one.
Blind squirrels find a nut occasionally......
I see nothing in the (worthless) UN’s proposal that is not already the law of the land here. As such it would have no negative impact here and certainly no positive impact either. If it destroys or undermines islam, I’m all for it.
On another note, we were a subcontractor to Boeing once, and the local Boeing QA rep was une femme égyptienne d'un certain âge, who had long stringy hair and and lots of gold braclets and rings and necklaces and she favored colorful folded silky clothing. I used to say she was a crystal ball short of fortune teller act.
We worked pretty closely together, and I could tell she was sweet on me, but she didn't like to show it. Somehow during some long boring testing which we were both compelled to witness, during a meandering and absolutely pointless conversation, she asserted to me that she was rich. Whether truthfully or not, I cannot tell, but I took it as an empty boast. I asked her to marry me. (Now it was out in the open! I knew she had a crush on me.) She said she could not because she was Muslim and I was Christian. I asked her why she assumed that. Besides if Omar Sharif could convert, why not me? Anyway, my German American wife most likely would have performed surgery on me that would have made the entire idea moot, had I mentioned it to her.
Now, I had this particular Egyptian woman eating out of my hand, but that's how you have to treat the your customer's QA rep. If some Muslim fool had ever tried to push ol' Esméralda around, she would have bit his fool head off.
Frankly, UN is less evil than all islam.
And here's a working link to the story... link