“If Her Eyes are Seditious . . . “
Sheik Abdullah Daoud, Saudi Cleric, Says Even Young Girls Should Be Entirely Covered
02/04/13 04:17 PM ET EST AP
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A Saudi cleric says even girls who have not yet reached puberty should be covered from head to toe, citing instances of child molestation in the ultraconservative kingdom and elsewhere.
Sheik Abdullah Daoud made the remarks on the satellite channel al-Majd. He says many viewers watching the program had probably come across instances of sexual harassment as children.
He is not affiliated with the government nor considered a senior sheik.
Judge Mohammed al-Jazlani, a senior sheik, said Monday that such talk denigrates Islam and may push non-Muslims to view Islam negatively. He urged Saudis to ignore unofficial fatwas, or edicts.
Separately, a spokesman for Saudi Arabia’s religious police said online that the force can oblige a woman to cover her face “if her eyes are seditious.” He did not elaborate.
Why is no one protecting Saudi Arabia’s child brides?
The support of the Saudi monarchy and its apologists in the west means the barbaric practice of child marriage is unchallenged
Ali al-Ahmed
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 November 2011 05.00 EST
Atgaa, 10, and her sister Reemya, 8, are about to be married to men in their 60s. Atgaa will be her husband’s fourth wife. Their wedding celebrations are scheduled for this week and will take place in the town of Fayaadah Abban in Qasim, Saudi Arabia.
The girls are getting married because their financially struggling father needs the money that their dowries will provide: young girls of this age can fetch as much as $40,000 each.
Many readers might be shocked at this news. How can it be legal? The answer is that Saudi Arabia has no minimum age for marriage, and it is perfectly legal to marry even an hour-old child.
Three Saudi ministries share the blame for allowing and facilitating child marriages. The health ministry is tasked with conducting genetic tests for couples considering marriage. Saudi law requires potential brides and grooms to provide certificates of genetic testing before marriages can officially proceed.
The justice ministry regulates the marriage process and issues licences. And the interior ministry registers families and documents the relationships between family members. It is also the most powerful government agency; it has authority over all other ministries and can direct their activities at will.
As with many pernicious practices, child marriage would not exist without tacit support and approval from the country’s leadership. Far from condemning child marriage, the Saudi monarchy itself has a long history of marrying very young girls.
Sarah, who is now a brilliant Saudi doctor, told me she was barely 12 when the late prince Sultan proposed to her after seeing her walking at a military base where she had lived with her father. Luckily, her father had the wits to claim that she was chronically ill, at which point the proposal was swiftly rescinded.
Camel festivals, held at his time of the year in Saudi Arabia, witness the practice called akheth (“taking”) in which girls aged 14 to 16 are “gifted” to the usually elderly members of the monarchy for a few days or weeks. This practice, reminiscent of the infamous droit du seigneur in medieval Europe, is maintained to this day with the monarchy’s protection.
Saudi Arabia has probably the highest number of child marriages in the Middle East and yet there has been almost no international outrage or objection directed at the practice. I have personally sent two letters to Ann Veneman, the director of United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), regarding the Saudi practice and asking her to make her views on the issue public, as she did with Yemen.
Instead, Unicef lauded Saudi efforts to protect child rights and even honoured Prince Naif, whose interior ministry is one of the departments overseeing child marriages. So no wonder the Saudi monarchy feels confident that such a practice can continue.
The US government has been similarly indifferent to the plight of child brides in the kingdom. In April 2009, I wrote to William Burns, the undersecretary of state, regarding the case of Sharooq, 8 – also from Qasim. I never heard back from him.
At a public conference, I asked a former senator, Chuck Hagel (seated next to Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former head of Saudi intelligence), if he personally or the US would accept the friendship and alliance of a family that allows child marriage. The answer was nothing short of shocking: “We cannot decide for other countries what is appropriate or not,” he said.
So far, no UN body, such as Unicef or the human rights council, has issued a single statement condemning child marriages in Saudi Arabia [see footnote]. In fact, not one country has made a statement in the human rights council on this issue, and not a single western government has asked the Saudi monarchy to stop the practice. The ugly tradition of child marriage thus continues with the help of the monarchy and its apologists in the west.
If any governments, especially in the west, are seriously concerned with this barbaric and medieval practice, they should ban the heads of Saudi justice, interior and health ministries from entering their countries. If this action were taken against government leaders facilitating crimes against children we would soon see a resolution of this issue.
Saudi Arabia must be pressured to set a minimum age for marriage and save children like Atgaa and Reemya.
• This footnote was added on 15 November 2011. Unicef would like to make clear that a statement was issued in 2009 by Ann Veneman, then its executive director, expressing deep concern about child marriage in Saudi Arabia.
The Orphanmaster by Jean Zimmerman
The Orphanmaster is another National Public Radio recommendation for people who like historical fiction, which I really do. I remember being a kid, and yawning my way through history, memorizing dates, it all seemed so irrelevant. Discovering historical fiction was like a light going on in a dark room for me – clever authors have found ways to illuminate events otherwise beyond my comprehension or worse – events I have a hard time making myself care about.
Suddenly, the times are right now and relevant when the right author handles it, and it isn’t always easy to get it right. I have a few very favorite authors – Philippa Gregory, Zoe Oldenberg, Sharon Kay Penman, Jean Plaidy, Edward Rutherford – authors who do a lot of research before they ever sit down to write a novel, and from whom you can learn a lot. They get the nature of the dialogue right, they get the customs, traditions and mind-sets right, and they get it right when a person is born ahead of his or her time in terms of the challenges they face.
I couldn’t put Orphanmaster down. It has to do with an era in American history which barely gets a paragraph in many history books, when the Dutch had a colony on what is now Manhattan Island, and trading posts up what is now the Hudson, into what is now New York. It was New Amsterdam, and many of the street names in modern day New York reflect their Dutch origins.
The Orphanmaster‘s main character is not the Orphanmaster. He is a supporting character to the main character to a girl orphaned at 15, daughter of a Dutch man and wife who were not rich, but who did all right. They had a business, they traded, Blandine learned many things before they died, leaving her an orphan. She was determined to be what would now be an “emancipated minor,” but until she turned 16, she was semi-legally under the responsibility of the Orphanmaster, who sort of kept hands off and sort of watched out for Blandine. She lives on her own and is a successful trader, in her early twenties. She is also a very clean housekeeper, and has plans to grow her trading business, and has a serious suitor she intends to marry.
Orphans start disappearing, and we discover a monster, a witiga, is on the loose. Blandine, and her new friend Drummond, are intrigued and disturbed by the disappearance of orphans, and the bloody, ritualistic mutilations of the orphans by the legendary Witiga.
It’s well written. You want to keep reading and keep reading because you want to know how it ends and how they are able to solve the problem.
It’s not one of the best books I’ve ever read for one reason – the author had the main characters talk as if they were modern people, using modern language, like ‘stuff.’ There was great openness between Blandine and her male friends. Blandine made all her own decisions, made her own arrangements and had full freedom, going where she wanted, doing what she wanted. The author explains it as part of the Dutch system, where some women had a lot of freedom, but I have a really hard time believing in a Dutch colony in the late 1600’s that any woman had the freedom Blandine had. There are parts of the novel where I am reading fast because I want to know what happens next and I get stopped up because Blandine says or does – or even THINKS – in a way that is very modern, and I just can’t buy it.
We are who we are. There are many smart women. Most women through the centuries have had to learn to maneuver in whatever societal constrictions they have been allowed. I suspect there were a lot of societal restrictions in New Amsterdam, and Blandine’s freedom to take off with only her male servant, to run off and live with a man not her husband (even though they are both escaping death sentences), to live an unescorted life . . . I just have a hard time buying it. I know how restricted women are even to day. Four hundred years ago, women were more restricted, and worse, we bought into it. We didn’t have a lot of choices.
So I like this book, and I think there is a lot of information that is true of the settlement of New Amsterdam, I loved the geography and the physical descriptions, I loved the maps included, I loved the descriptions of food and living conditions. I do not buy the heroine, not for one minute. I do not believe, in that historical context, she would have been possible.
Christ Church Antique Fair 2013
More people attending the Preview, more tickets sold, more people buying up antique linens, jewelry and silver . . . I think we’ve turned a corner on the economy. People seem to be feeling more optimistic, seem to be less concerned about buying a small luxury 🙂 I never see any pearling boxes, or Arabic calligraphy . . .
Christ Church has sponsored this Antique Fair for 56 years now; it is well-respected and well-attended by antique-loving Pensacolians. It raises a majority of the money the church uses to support charities in the communities, and all the labor is lovingly performed by the Episcopal Church Women, who toil and prepare for this event for months. It is open today (Saturday) until five, and from 11 – 3 on Sunday, February 3rd. Admission is $7.
Two New Restaurants to Open on Palafox Place, Pensacola
Woooo HOOOOO, Carleton Proctor at the PNJ just tweeted there will be two new restaurants, one Italian, opening this year on Palafox Place in downtown Pensacola:
The menu of downtown Pensacola’s restaurants is about to add another entree.
David Hambrick, owner and manager of Jaco’s Bayfront Bar & Grille, has reached an agreement with Durnford Enterprises Inc. to lease the former Distinctive Kitchens property on Palafox Place.
Hambrick said Thursday he plans to open an Italian-themed restaurant in one half of the 11,000-square-foot building, and eventually will open a second adjacent restaurant within that space at a later date.
“We’ve been talking to them (Durnford) since October when he heard the property had become available,” Hambrick said. “We’ve verbally agreed to a lease and now we’re just waiting for incorporation papers and a name for the restaurant.”
“The core menu will be modern Italian,” he said.
The deal and lease is expected to close March 1, Hambrick said.
Durnford Manager Frank Webb confirmed the agreement with Hambrick. Durnford owns the building, which has addresses of 29 and 31 Palafox Place.
First opened in 2004, Distinctive Kitchens and Culinary Arts Center closed late last summer, and the building has been unused since then.
Hambrick said he is working with Pensacola architect Brian Spencer on the interior design of the proposed restaurant.
Hambrick and business partner Paul Bruno will design the entirely rebuilt kitchen area, which eventually will serve both proposed restaurants.
Follow Carlton Proctor at twiter.com/CarltonProctorPNJ.
Kuwait’s National Day – belated Congratulations!
Oh! I had it on my calendar, and then I was so sick I didn’t look at my calendar! Kuwait’s National Day and Liberation Day passed, and I didn’t say congratulations! I am so sorry!
Wishing all my Kuwait friends, in and out of Kuwait, a prosperous, safe and eventful year, with a breakthrough in improving all the infrastructure, so Kuwait will once again be on track for fulfilling it’s true potential.
I love this photo, and I can’t figure out where it came from; it’s not mine. It reminds me how quickly we forget, and what a catastrophe can do to a national mentality. Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait was devastating, and the devastation continues, so many years later, 23 years later, an entire generation of young Kuwaitis who only hear these stories as if they were of some ancient time, but a war which changed everything, and shook the forward-looking Kuwaitis so that they now look to the past, and have little trust in the future.
On! On! Kuwait!
Kuwait Quilt
There have been some good moments in the course of this nasty cold, good enough to finish my work on a quilt for a baby who is fast making his way into this world, a Kuwaiti baby :-). This is a quilt he can crawl on, snuggle under, take to school for nap time, and then take off to college to put on his wall:
We had some wonderful moments in Kuwait, many of which, for me, were spent in the fabric souks of Kuwait with other quilters from many nations, including Kuwait. Many of those fabrics are quilted into this piece, along with my everlasting gratitude to the friends we had there who made the experience so much the richer for us.
Carmen’s Lunch Bar on Palafox in Pensacola
Yesterday, AdventureMan was on an adventure, but I knew there might be an opportunity to grab lunch with him ‘downtown’ so I suggested we try Carmen’s Lunch Bar, which has only been open four months. When I got there, it was full – inside and outside – but an ideal location opened moments later – we were in luck! I ordered a Cranberry Orange Iced Tea, just what the doctor ordered for the remnants of a bad cold still lingering, and shortly AdventureMan arrived, then another, and then two more – we couldn’t all eat together, but we found spaces for groups of two and three, oh what fun. (You can see more photos and take a look at the menu by clicking on the blue hypertext above.)
Here is how to find Carmen’s – next to the Bodacious Olive. There is seating at a large bar inside, against the window and at three or four tables outside:
In my group, we all ordered the North Carolina BBQ plate, which came with potato salad and cole slaw – all good. I loved the sauce, which had candied orange peel in it, piquant and tasty:
It’s not a large restaurant, but it has a happy buzz about it. It’s a mix, the downtown business crowd and locals dropping by for a good lunch and a good chat. They don’t rush you. The menu is concise, but offers an intriguing variety – you can’t go once, you have to go back and try those Moroccan vegetables, say, or the Chicken Tikka Masala. I’m intrigued by the Smoked Salmon Deviled Eggs.
I even found a free parking spot, away from the nasty downtown ‘improvement’ board spots where you now have to pay for parking, not far away. There are also parking places behind the Bodacious Olive, which shares space with Carmen’s.
The story behind Carmen’s is also interesting. There is a couple in Pensacola, Quint and Rishy Studer, who worked hard and made a lot of money, which they are now using to benefit Pensacola. Carmen’s resulted from a contest; over 100 people submitted business plans to have this spot, Mari Josephs won. I am guessing some of the close runner ups will be featured at the Al Fresco lot nearby where airstreams are showing up with fun names, including Jerry’s Cajun, which a lot of people have missed greatly since it closed.
If you look at the photo of the exterior tables (above) you will see another building the Studers have bought and are renovating; I can’t wait to see what this building becomes. AdventureMan asked what I would do and I told him I would make two condos on the upper level, perfect for Pensacola as long as downtown remains sleepy once the sun goes down except for Gallery Night. Other than that, just a parade now and then, otherwise, fairly quiet and great location with one of those old Spanish balconies overlooking the street. What’s not to love?
Recent Comments
intlxpatr on Yellowstone: Old Faithful to C… Michelle on Yellowstone: Old Faithful to C… Cathy on No Grown-Ups in Charge intlxpatr on Waiting for Snow intlxpatr on Waiting for Snow Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 