Those that insist on enforcing women’s dress codes which, in the most conservative examples, force women to go about in what could be viewed as ‘sacks’ with eye holes cut in them are not, in my view, protecting the honour of women. Rather they are dishonouring themselves by demonstrating that they don’t have the strength of character, sincerity of spirit or personal will to control their own basest instincts. The emotional (EQ) and spiritual (SQ) quotients of intelligence seem to be lacking in many. IQ is a ‘fluke’ and is not enough, the other two quotients are essential in large amounts to overcome personal stupidity or is it that they suffer from plain old ‘dumbness’ borne of a cultural indoctrination that looks to the past and pleads for the return of the ‘dark ages’!

Australian government leaders have issued assurances that a ban on Islamic headscarves in schools, proposed by some politicians, will not be introduced. This will no doubt come as a relief to people who were concerned that the rights and freedoms…

This is so transparently facile as to be ludicrous.

The removal of western influence from the Middle East, as some western anti-imperialists and of course radical Islam requests, would be extremely unlikely to result in any progressive force for the emancipation of women — or gays and ‘infidels’ for that matter — under Islam.

Human rights under radical Islam is much better elucidated by Hitchens, Rushdie, Paul Berman, Mehdi Mozaffari, even Naipul and others than by me. However, this is a classic fascism and deserves to be opposed vigorously — irrespective of the origins.

That much of the Left fail to do so is an intellectual malignancy akin to kuru that I am bound to suspect is because of their willingness to eat each others’ brains.

Tehran, Iran, Sep. 06 — Women who violate Iran‚Äôs strict Islamic dress code will be flogged immediately, prosecutor‚Äôs offices in provincial centres announced on Tuesday.

In the central Iranian city of Shahin-Shahr, the prosecutor’s office posted huge notices on billboards and shop windows warning women that dress code violators will appear before an Islamic judge immediately after arrest to receive a sentence, usually 100 lashes in public. The prosecutor will be demanding maximum penalties, the notice warned.

“Individuals whose state of attire and make-up is against religious laws in public will be prosecuted without having to first wait in a queue and will be sentenced to flogging and fines”, the statement said.

“Scarves which do not cover the hair and neck”, “tight overcoats or coats that which finish above the knees and whose sleeves cover to a point higher than the wrist”, “tight trousers which do not cover the calf of the leg”, and “women‚Äôs make-up” are all forbidden, according to the statement, which added that failure to adhere to the dress code would be dealt with accordingly.

Women whose scarves do not properly cover up their hair will face between 10 days to 10 months in prison, the statement added.

This is a triumph for Islamic feminism.

Was this before or after you renounce you American citizenship and converted to Islam.?

Islamic murder of Christian tribes in the Sudan, Islamic shari’a law in Nigeria, Islamic insurgency in Russia and China, Islamic terrorism in London, New York and Madrid.

I think the common factor isn’t geography, but something else. I just can’t quite put my finger on it …

Talking of the story EP linked to - is there merit in the idea that it is not Islam as such that is the problem, but rather the geographical origin of some of its adherents? There is an argument I’ve read that it’s not coincidental that the most dedicated terrorists come from the desert states - echoing the old marauding tribesman, fiercely individual warrior caste ethic of the medieval desert kingdoms. Conversely, we do not have such a problem with Islam as practised in Asia, the argument being that these are communal cultures, economically based on collaborative farming.

Of course, the problem with this line is that it could lead to blaming a race (Arabs) rather than a religion (Islam). Dangerous waters.

However, Pakistan would seem to play against that argument, though. And Jemaah Islamiyeh is rife across the Indonesian archipelago and Malaysia.

Just wonderin’…

So if the burqa is not a symbol of Islam, or your opinion on Islam is incorrect, then your proposed burqa ban is similarly bunkum?

The real target of a ban is not the burqa but the politico-religious ideology of which it is both a symbol and a manifestation.