Keith Hudson wrote: [snip] > The burka is a total denial of one of the basic characteristics of > humankind -- the need to communicate and socialise. > > Do the Afghan (Saudi Arabian) women like to wear burkas? Of course they > don't! Brad is quite right. He expressed the situation superbly when he > wrote: "Burqas are the outward and visible sign of portable imprisonment." [snip]
If burqas are so great, why don't the males wear them too? Why don't they cover the minarets of their mosques with them? If women in Afghanistan can now leave their homes and go out in the street in their burqas without a male escort, then there has indeed been progress. Does anyone know why in the Nazi concentration camps during WWII, those who had lost all hope and were therefore going soon to die were at least sometimes called "Musselmen" (Moslems, so to speak) [see, e.g.: http://www.interlog.com/~mighty/essays/lessons4.htm] Maybe there's a clue there??? In all fairness to the Muslim religion, I once met a woman who was a diplomat assigned to the United Nations, from Syria, who was Moslem but could just as well have been a world citizen from any other "background". Also, if Burqas are so great, why do persons like Yassir Arafat, King Hussein and the great psychoanalyst Masud Khan not marry them? I know this is merely anecdotal and not a valid statistical sample.... Why are upper class Saudi women cultural "transvestites" in their own homes: taking off their chadors and putting on Western clothes? Apparently they can't get enough of a good thing! \brad mccormick -- Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16) Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) <![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/