Audax- Suggestions for your homework.

Friday, October 10, 2008

The elections are knocking at the door. Some doors are open, others stay closed. Many are tired of “trick or treat”.
Canadians will vote on Tuesday, October the 14th. After the debates (in French and in English), Stephen Harper is leading and not only thanks to his linguistic abilities.
French speakers Gilles Duceppe or Stephan Dion, when it comes to English, are visibly struggling to be coherent. During the English debate, uncomfortable because of the language, their performance was less vivid than during the French debate.
As they were arguing, the candidates did not bring anything new. It was the same, old rhetoric, aiming mainly to discredit the adversary.
Who are the candidates in the 2008 Canadian elections? In addition to Dion and Duceppe, Elizabeth May, a newcomer.
Besides not knowing when to listen and when to speak, the Green Party’s candidate, Elizabeth May, can not represent Canada as a PM as she is politically not mature enough and I did not notice the gram of political talent during the two performances. As her French is simply deplorable (during the French debate she made elementary errors like: « Vous ne comprends pas », « Une question intéressée »,
« Vous avez peut-être souviens », « Les nations premières c’est très importante ». Imagine her having a conversation with Nicholas Sarkozy…) May has no chance in Quebec, as Dion and Duceppe have no chance in the non-French speaking provinces. On the other hand, May doesn’t have the social skills a PM requires in order to conduct or be part of an elegant debate.
She behaved more like a chicken in distress on the shore of the lake, hysterical that her chicks would drown, not knowing that “her chicks” are ducklings…
Dion and Duceppe cannot become Canada’s next PM as their English is simply ludicrous and more ridiculous would be for the Canadian PM to use an interpreter. Representing an English speaking country, the PM is expected to be perfectly fluent in English.
What would you think if the British or Australian PM would be struggling when speaking English?
Who else is on the list of the candidates?
Jack Layton and the actual PM, Stephen Harper. Both anglophones, they were capable of learning French, reaching a good command of it and they are the only two candidates who are truly bilingual.
Personally, I say no to Layton. Why? I smell too many fundamentalist Muslims financially back his campaign. The sweet and sour soup à la Layton doesn’t look appetizing.
In conclusion, the only one remaining on my list is Harper.

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

This Saudi cleric (a "doctor in religion” perhaps?), came with this juvenile idea: veiled women should not be given the slit for two eyes anymore, but a niqab with a hole for only… one eye. Is his intention to create a new sect, the sect of the cyclops? No, of course not. The reason behind this silly story is very simple. We’ll get there a bit later.
Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women are not allowed to drive. As activist Wajeha Huwaider is now publicly campaigning for a change to the law, we might witness a truly weird reality: one-eyed women driving cars.
Besides totally disregarding these women’s freedom, Muhammad al-Habadan is also eager to endanger their health, as using one eye may lead to serious sight malfunctions. Moreover, who knows, maybe one eye might grow bigger than the other one and through evolution, move eventually slightly to the centre of the face, while what once was a second eye might lose its function and simply vanish. It sounds like a cheap, sci-fi scenario, but who cares, as we will not see this?
What a pity that the sheikh himself will not survive to see, with … both his eyes, the world of the one-eyed women.
The sheikh is sly. The truth lies in Futurama. He seems to be fixated on Leela, the one-eyed captain of the Planet Express Ship from Futurama, the American sitcom created by Matt Groening. Thus, under the pretext of the irritating makeup, the sheikh desperately wants to see… a cyclop. He wants this today and now, not in the distant future, to ease and conceal his surreptitious adoration of Leela.
Questions:
1. If women will be given a niqab with a hole for only one eye, where should the hole be situated: on the left or on the right side? As an “eye job” for a middle option is not possible at the moment.
2. What makes this cleric believe that if women are allowed to look at the world with only one eye, they won’t use kohl and mascara anymore?
3. Why not just put a barrel around their heads and give women a periscope? Thus, no one will see them.
4. If the periscope is excruciatingly too advanced technology for the oil owners, women could simply be put in a sack, like those used for rice, flour or potatoes. Thus, a new profession could be created in Saudi Arabia, opening the market to foreign workers: wheel barrel pusher. Women could be moved around in this environmentally friendly means of transport.
5. If this scenario is also too complicated, there is another thing left: the old basket. I intentionally use “old”, as, who knows, a new basket might turn on some perverts and make them rape the women wearing new, shiny baskets on their heads. Here, a little technical problem could get in the way: how tight the basket should be woven to let the woman see, but not be seen? I am sure that the Koran could give them the answer.
6. WHY NOT JUST BAN THE SALE AND USE OF THE BLOODY EYE MAKEUP?!
(This could be a divine revelation for Muhammad al-Habadan.)

Image source for Leela: http://www.fox.com/futurama/bios/leela.htm

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Covered women are not something out of the ordinary anymore in the western world. You can see them everywhere, sometimes in the least expected places, like cosmetics departments looking for hair dye, make up or simply in a women’s garments department, admiring some not quite orthodox lingerie.
You can see them on the beach, at festivals, you name it, perhaps on a mission given by their imam.

I might say that these covered women want to prove us, maybe a bit too hard, that they feel integrated in this society. Plus, I might deduce that our world pleases them more than their world. Here, covered or not, a woman can walk hand in hand with her partner, a serious misconduct punishable in an Islamic country, governed by Sharia. They can sit at the same table at a restaurant and enjoy their meal together, as a couple.
The debate over the wearing of the hijab, niqab or burka or other drapes in our world has not ended and it is not likely to end too soon.
Opinions are divided between those who defend the drapes, considering that they do not interfere with the values of a secular society and those who are against these garments as they are perceived as segregationist and insulting to western women and their history of fight for equal rights with men.
Those who wear a hijab in Canada also defend the headdress as they declare that wearing it is their free decision.
Other emancipated Muslim women, especially Iranian, cannot conceive wearing any of these garments, as they are seen reminders of a constrictive society they have willingly left behind the day they have decided to emigrate.
As the debate goes on, so do we and I would like to discuss the use of high heels by more and more Muslim women who wear hijab. High heels tend to replace the traditional, flat, man like hideous slippers.
High heels and hijab? It is, indeed, contradictory. As Muslim scholars say that the true Muslim woman is modest in clothing as she is in all other respects, trying to be as invisible as possible (by the way, how is this goal reached in our world where covered women are anything but “invisible’, as they do not blend in the context, as they do in a Muslim country?).
Make up, sometimes as heavy as the eyelids and eyelashes can carry, high heels, tight jeans… what is next? Perhaps, hijabbed women… smoking? Modesty and invisibility with heavy loads of mascara and high heels is a difficult to achieve goal.
As they defend the hijab as a fundamental element of their spirituality, I am thinking that they should also respect the rest of the requirements of their religion, thus, they shouldn’t hold hands with their partners for instance.
As I see it, those who wear the hijab here make a statement of provocation and not one of conviction.
You want to wear the hijab? Very well, then respect the rest of the interdictions.
So, you who cover your “precious” hair (by the way, your hair should be aerated for hygiene purposes) and expose the rest of your shapes, don’t you dare to consider yourself more virtuous than western women.
Don’t you dare to talk about modesty and don’t you or your husband dare to criticize western women.
You wear a hijab, high heels and make up?
N.B.
In our world, prostitutes assume what they do and never try to hide what they are. They deserve my respect more than a hypocrite hijab on high heels.