Local Coverage
Kawkab Jalil and Milad Siri are two Iraqi women who feel the same way about the traditional hijab; they?d rather go without. A Washington Post article highlights Jalil, who has shed the veil since Saddam?s fall. A Rueters article focuses on Siri, who has never felt pressured into covering up ? until now, due to the post-Saddam upsurge in fundamentalism.
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The end of wars seem to always suck for ladies of leisure - they shaved their heads in the village in southern France where my wife's family is from.
"For women, the streets of Baghdad are a more dangerous place, and an upsurge in religious fervor means they must stick to Islamic dress if they want to be left alone"
Upsurge in religious fervor!? Holy shit! Talk about your unintended consequences. Kinda makes the whole war seem counter productive. Still, nobody could have possibly guessed invading and decimating an Arab country would produce such results before we bombed 'em.
It's probable that Siri is purely a victim of Islamic fundanmentalists. It's possible that she was a prostitute or at minimum a "lap dancer" for the Baathist regime and irrational revenge seekers are reacting in the disgusting way that has been seen throughout history in different ways - the humilation of those who slept with the enemy...shaved heads here, whipping there. In both cases the perpetrators are evil bastards but the "motivation" of those abusing the victim should not be determined soley on the words of the victim.
And now the American occupation force has imposed restrictions on speech!
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0619/p01s01-woiq.html
More fundamentalism and foreign-imposed control of the press! What a victory for democracy.
Well of course, silly - speach should be free, so long as we approve of it, or at least doesn't make it harder to impose our will and dictates on people.
Well, Iraq is definately becoming like it seems ever so people want America to be exactly like. This we shall call "victory". Yay.
Did you read the Reuters article? She used to be a belly dancer for Uday Hussein at private parties. I suspect that she wouldn't want to be recognized anyway.
It is, of course, still a complicated story. The speech restrictions only apply to active incitement to violence, which is illegal essentially everywhere.
So Iraq is presently as free as France, not a bad start. (France has just blocked publication of a book showing that the country is institutionally corrupt - because it might influence a trial about corrupt oil executives)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/06/19/wjoly19.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/06/19/ixworld.html
I predict that men who killed and brutalized for Saddam's regime will be incorporated back into mainstream society, but women who wiggled their ass will be pariahs for the rest of their lives.
So a former entertainer for a murderous regime is being hassled... quagmire! All is lost! Please keep in mind that this is Reuters, the folks who couldn't bring themselves to employ the inflammatory term "terrorist" after 9/11.
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