Adam's Apple
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- Apr 25, 2004
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Islamists' Female Victims
By Diana West, Washington Times
February 9, 2007
Valentine's Day, now driven as much by Hallmark as by the shadow of the pedestal, follows from a societal ideal deriving from the chivalric code -- a signal influence on Western civilization -- which celebrated women for nobility and strength of character.
Such origins put the holiday in the middle of that clash we read about between the West and Islam. Distinctly non-Islamic (St. Valentine was a Christian martyr from pre-Islamic times), it embodies an old-fashioned salute to La Femme that helps distinguish the West from Islam. Where the West dreamed up the pedestal, Islam bought the burqa. Where the West gave liberty and justice a female face, Islam depicted womanhood as a lowly state of fearful passion. Where in the West sexual equality evolved, in Islam sexual inequality remains.
Such inequality makes it all the more astonishing that many of the most fearlessly outspoken dissidents to have emerged from the Islamic world are, in fact, women. I have five favorites, most of whom now live in the United States. Rather than simply enjoy Western freedom, however, they have each elected to bear witness, at great personal risk, to what they know. And for all their differences of experience, religion, culture and nationality, a common theme emerges: terrorism and the attendant dangers to liberal democracy come out of the founding texts and living traditions of Islam.
for full article:
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20070208-084407-3801r.htm
By Diana West, Washington Times
February 9, 2007
Valentine's Day, now driven as much by Hallmark as by the shadow of the pedestal, follows from a societal ideal deriving from the chivalric code -- a signal influence on Western civilization -- which celebrated women for nobility and strength of character.
Such origins put the holiday in the middle of that clash we read about between the West and Islam. Distinctly non-Islamic (St. Valentine was a Christian martyr from pre-Islamic times), it embodies an old-fashioned salute to La Femme that helps distinguish the West from Islam. Where the West dreamed up the pedestal, Islam bought the burqa. Where the West gave liberty and justice a female face, Islam depicted womanhood as a lowly state of fearful passion. Where in the West sexual equality evolved, in Islam sexual inequality remains.
Such inequality makes it all the more astonishing that many of the most fearlessly outspoken dissidents to have emerged from the Islamic world are, in fact, women. I have five favorites, most of whom now live in the United States. Rather than simply enjoy Western freedom, however, they have each elected to bear witness, at great personal risk, to what they know. And for all their differences of experience, religion, culture and nationality, a common theme emerges: terrorism and the attendant dangers to liberal democracy come out of the founding texts and living traditions of Islam.
for full article:
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20070208-084407-3801r.htm
