April 12, 2007
Amazing Expressions of Religious Tolerance, part 3209
The Pakistani Tourism Minister was part of a charity event in France where she was photographed receiving a hug. Predictibly, the radical clerics threw a nutty and issued a fatwa against her.
The fatwa demanded that Bakhtiar be sacked, given some other unspecified punishment and that her family should “force her to ask for forgiveness so that she does not repeat this un-Islamic act.”….She accused Pakistani newspapers of presenting “distorted” captions accompanying the pictures. She said she had jumped without any previous training and her French instructor had just given her a pat.
“It was just a pat because he felt so proud of me,” Bakhtiar said. “I felt very happy also because it was affectionate and very encouraging.”
The decree from the Red Mosque is the latest chapter in a Taliban-style anti-vice campaign launched by its hardline clerics in defiance of state authority in the relatively liberal Pakistani capital — despite President Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s sworn hope to promote moderate Islam.
Jack Cluth over at PRoS has a great read on this, as just another example of religious extremism and social control, zealotry masquerading as faith. While it's interesting to point and laugh at some crazy Pakistani douches, we have our own craptastic zealots here. You know, the guys who predict the world will end ... and then, when it doesn't, spend a bunch of time talking about their weight loss shake (has anyone tried it?).
Goldwater scared the fuck out of people in '64 saying that extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. I could not more vehemently disagree. In the minds of these people, they are defending and advocating for a return to an idolized and sanitized America 'of the past' that did not, in fact, ever really exist. The problem is, the American people do not completely see it as extremism yet.
When they do, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near any of these guys. When Americans turn on someone, they do it in a really mean way and anyone associating with these people will catch some of the anger intended for them.
Posted by mcblogger at April 12, 2007 08:55 AM
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