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Deep in the heart of darkest Eurasia

TorgoX on 2003-01-12T01:08:05

Dear Log,

Deep in the heart of darkest Eurasia, we witness the locals doing what they do best: arguing law.

«So why did this woman not leave a dangerous drug-addict husband who drained her money away? Because, she explained, she would have to leave her 12-year-old daughter behind with him. [...] so I asked the translator if they [the mother and her pals] thought it right and fair that this abusive father should keep the child. The translator looked at me nervously and whispered, "I don't think I can ask that."
"Why not?"
"Because it is our Islamic law, in the Koran, that after the age of nine a daughter belongs to the father."
"But ask them if it is fair in this extreme case?"

Quietly the translator asked them, and they fell silent and gazed down at the carpet. No one spoke until Fahina, the battered wife, said softly, "It is the law", with tears falling down her face.

Once the shutter of religion falls, the rest is silence.»

--"Was it worth it?"

Meanwhile...
«We are in desperate need of an Islamic Reformation that sweeps away the crazed conservatism and backwardness of the fundamentalists but, more than that, opens up the world of Islam to new ideas which are seen to be more advanced than what is currently on offer from the west.

This would necessitate a rigid separation of state and mosque; the dissolution of the clergy; the assertion by Muslim intellectuals of their right to interpret the texts that are the collective property of Islamic culture as a whole; the freedom to think freely and rationally and the freedom of imagination. Unless we move in this direction we will be doomed to reliving old battles and thinking not of a richer and humane future, but of how we can move from the present to the past.»

--Tariq Ali: "Letter to a young Muslim"

Meanwhile...
«The most common situation to come before the courts was where an unmarried girl had become pregnant. Claiming that she had been raped was not an option because it was believed that a woman had to have an orgasm to conceive, in which case the clear implication was that she had enjoyed being forced. Naming her long-term lover as the father was a risky business, because that would immediately trigger an investigation into whether or not the couple believed themselves to be officially engaged. Even if they both sang from the same hymn sheet before the court, the likely punishment was imprisonment for both.»

--Sex and the city: In Calvin's Geneva, flirting with the wrong person could land you in court.

Meanwhile...
«It wasn't so long ago that Margaret Thatcher questioned the right of gay people to exist. Exulting in her third consecutive general election victory, she told the 1987 Conservative party conference: "Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay."»

--Quite glad to be gay: Britain's homosexuals are winning the legal battle - but the cultural fight will be even harder

Eurasia is funny.

I am tempted to rework an old dictum and say that the universe (or humanity) will end not with a bang, nor with a whimper, but instead with a protracted, bitter, and expensive lawsuit in some high court.

I have high hopes for a pharmacological solution.

Eurasia

ethan on 2003-01-12T09:00:34

I doubt that any of these articles actually refer to Eurasia (which, as I understand, is the edge between Europa and Asia, countries such as Turkey, but also Jordan, Syria and the Lebanon). This sounds more like the Afghan-region, possibly some African countries.

This would necessitate a rigid separation of state and mosque; the dissolution of the clergy;

Sounds reasaonble but isn't the solution. Germany doesn't even have a rigid separation...nor does it need one. Some muslim countries on the other hand have this rigid separation (Turkey is one example).

A solution does probably not lie in actions from the government but more in the humans themselves that need to change their minds drastically. As it turns out, always those countries that keep their people isolated from other societies are problematic. The Lebanon had a dreadful civil war for almost 20 years till the different parties realized how silly that was. They pulled themselves together and subsequently Beirut is now a wonderful place to observe how a split population (~50% of protestants and muslims) can live together quite happily. You might recall that ten years ago it was a synonym for terror and madness.

It'd be interesting to see what happens with Turkey once they join the European Union (which seems probable right now). Since the 1920s they have been struggling to make their country more western-ish with respect to the political system. At least in the large cities this also had a deep impact on the people.

I have high hopes for a pharmacological solution.

Something like a Sensibility-Pill perhaps? :-) Yeah, I'd like that a lot but have rather shallow hopes as to that.

Re:Eurasia

TorgoX on 2003-01-13T04:34:15

I doubt that any of these articles actually refer to Eurasia (which, as I understand, is the edge between Europa and Asia, countries such as Turkey, but also Jordan, Syria and the Lebanon).

I meant "Eurasia" to refer to "Europe and Asia considered as forming in reality one continent" (to quote the OED).

Re:Eurasia

ziggy on 2003-01-13T14:31:04

Yep.

The region of the world that covers the edge between Asia and Europe goes by a number of different names, like Asia Minor, Anatolia and the Levant.

Re:Eurasia

jhi on 2003-01-15T22:13:55

Me three: Eurasia is definitely the name for the combination Europe + Asia, not for the in-between parts like Turkey - Russian steppe - the Ural Mts. Areawise, of course, Europe can be seen just a peninsula of Asia :-)