Some People Just Can't Take Criticism

Ignore the goofy headline for the time being.

Obviously, some Muslims have a little trouble with the concept of criticism (as if we didn't already know that), even when it comes from within.

Of course, their intellectual arguments are simply outstanding, seeming to consist of statements along the lines of "ignorant clown."

What was the great offense to light off such a heated and deep debate within Saudi society? Was it a direct assault on the Wahabbi cult calling it out for the breeding ground of hatred that it is? Was it an attack on The Prophet himself? Was it expounding on the benefits of a conversion to Christianity?

No.

The offensive episode was called "Without a Mahram," the male guardian who must be the woman's father, brother, son or husband under the conservative Wahhabi Islamic philosophy applied in Saudi Arabia.

A Saudi woman needs a mahram to go to a government office or a restaurant or to go anywhere in a car. Saudi women are not allowed to drive, and if they are caught in a vehicle with a man other than a mahram or a professional driver, they can be jailed.

The episode showed the troubles suffered by the women in one family -- a mother, sister, wife and daughter -- when the only man in the house has to go away for six months.

The sister could not go to work, the wife couldn't go out shopping and the daughter was without her beloved videos because women are not allowed in video stores. When a policeman came to investigate a theft at the house, he refused to enter because there was no mahram. Al-Qasabi played the part of the cop.

So there you have it. They took a critical look at the problems faced by a significant portion of their population due to their laws. They exposed a truth of everyday life.

The actor's response?

"Those who oppose the program have a problem with people who do not think the way they do," he said in an interview. "They always believe they're right and the other is wrong, and they refuse to talk. ... They want to drag us to the Stone Age."

Now I'm sure that some Wahabbi apologist out there is going to rail about how the actor is misconstruing the criticism and is blowing this all out of proportion, but take a look at this other, unrelated incident from the same article:

For instance, the Commission for the Protection of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice -- the formal name of the religious police -- prevented one Saudi prince who owns a factory from registering the brand name of a new product because the commission didn't like its name, Explorer.

The prince, Amr Mohammed Al-Faisal, reacted caustically in the Arab News.

"The learned scholars of the commission rightly noted that the letter X in the name was a cross, and this aroused their delicate Islamic sensibilities," the prince wrote.

"I am greatly relieved that thanks to the vigilance of the commission a great tragedy was avoided," he said. "Until then I had innocently and, I must admit, naively assumed that the letter X was just that, a letter of the alphabet, not as it turns out a cunning and dastardly plot by Christians to corrupt our Muslim faith."

I'm glad that the Prince had the guts to call out the religion police on what has got to be just about the most asinine ruling I've ever seen outside of the Florida Supreme Court. I'm guessing that the letter "X" is also used in the Koran. I wonder what kind of reaction the clericops have for that? Is that part of the great Christian plot to corrupt Islam also?

I'm guessing that for as long as Wahabbi rules the peninsula, that question will never be addressed.

And social progress towards the nineteenth century will never be made.