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Hotel cleans up for Saudis
Reuters
The pictures of naked women are being removed from the hotel's health spa, the hard-core porn channels switched off and all the alcohol will be removed from the mini bars before Saudi Arabia arrives.
Germany is rolling out the red carpets for the 31 foreign teams and a million overseas visitors heading its way for the World Cup but the small resort town of Bad Nauheim north of Frankfurt is busy taking away temptation for its Muslim guests.
Few places in the world are as liberal as Germany when it comes to public nudity and access to alcohol, where even fast-food restaurants sell beer with burgers and teenagers are able to buy drinks before they can drive cars.
Prostitution is legal in Germany and the government is not too prude to collect tax on it.
Yet the luxurious Hotel Dolce Bad Nauheim is doing all it can to shield the Saudi Arabia team from all those western ways when they take up 59 of its 159 rooms on May 27 for the finals. The Saudis play Spain, Ukraine and Tunisia in the opening group stage.
"We do have a photo exhibition in the pool area which shows a lot of skin and it goes without saying that it will be removed by then," Michel Prokop, the hotel's general manager, told Reuters."
"There are 20 tasteful portrait photos, but out of courtesy there will be no skin and no breasts," he added.
There are also five art nouveau paintings hanging in a theatre in the park that belongs to the hotel. The paintings by Wilhelm Kleukens feature naked boys wearing wings - and will come down.
"We're following some basic 'do's and don'ts'. The whole staff is taking cross cultural training sessions to make them aware of the differences of Germany and Saudi Arabia."
Prokop, who lived in Egypt for two years said all 123 hotel staff members have been taking eight-hour courses in sensitivity training and on top of that are learning some basic Arabic phrases such as "Hello", "Welcome" and "Have a nice day".
"Among the things they're learning is about dress codes, that skirts should not be too short," he said, using words last heard in Germany in the 1960s.
"To avoid all problems, all women staffers are going to wear trousers instead of dresses."
The Dolce is also planning to make some adjustments to the Pay-TV channels and contents of the small room refrigerators.
"We will leave the Pay-TV on in their rooms but the porn movie channels will of course be turned off," said Prokop, 47.
"All the alcohol will be removed from the mini bars and replaced with soft drinks," he added.
"They will be able to watch 35 Arabic language TV channels in their rooms so they can see all the (World Cup) games in their own language."
With the help of the local Islamic community, the hotel will set up a separate prayer room and will also remove bibles from Saudi rooms...
nosarcasm said:What is a Dhimmi, and why is that term so popular lately.
The Status of Non-Muslim Minorities Under Islamic Rule
Dhimmitude: the Islamic system of governing populations conquered by jihad wars, encompassing all of the demographic, ethnic, and religious aspects of the political system. The word "dhimmitude" as a historical concept, was coined by Bat Ye'or in 1983 to describe the legal and social conditions of Jews and Christians subjected to Islamic rule. The word "dhimmitude" comes from dhimmi, an Arabic word meaning "protected". Dhimmi was the name applied by the Arab-Muslim conquerors to indigenous non-Muslim populations who surrendered by a treaty (dhimma) to Muslim domination. Islamic conquests expanded over vast territories in Africa, Europe and Asia, for over a millennium (638-1683). The Muslim empire incorporated numerous varied peoples which had their own religion, culture, language and civilization. For centuries, these indigenous, pre-Islamic peoples constituted the great majority of the population of the Islamic lands. Although these populations differed, they were ruled by the same type of laws, based on the shari'a.
This similarity, which includes also regional variations, has created a uniform civilization developed throughout the centuries by all non-Muslim indigenous people, who were vanquished by a jihad-war and governed by shari'a law. It is this civilization which is called dhimmitude. It is characterized by the different strategies developed by each dhimmi group to survive as non-Muslim entity in their Islamized countries. Dhimmitude is not exclusively concerned with Muslim history and civilization. Rather it investigates the history of those non-Muslim peoples conquered and colonized by jihad.
Dhimmitude encompasses the relationship of Muslims and non-Muslims at the theological, social, political and economical levels. It also incorporates the relationship between the numerous ethno-religious dhimmi groups and the type of mentality that they have developed out of their particular historical condition which lasted for centuries, even in some Muslim countries, till today.
Dhimmitude is an entire integrated system, based on Islamic theology. It cannot be judged from the circumstantial position of any one community, at a given time and in a given place. Dhimmitude must be appraised according to its laws and customs, irrespectively of circumstances and political contingencies.
For books by Bat Ye'or, see www.dhimmi.org
IT IS LONG PAST time to bring the world's attention to a global scandal.
Dhimmitude is the status that Islamic law, the Sharia, mandates for non-Muslims, primarily Jews and Christians. Dhimmis, "protected people," are free to practice their religion in a Sharia regime, but are made subject to a number of humiliating regulations designed to enforce the Qur'an's command that they "feel themselves subdued" (Sura 9:29). This denial of equality of rights and dignity remains part of the Sharia, and, as such, are part of the legal superstructure that global jihadists are laboring to restore everywhere in the Islamic world, and wish ultimately to impose on the entire human race.
If dhimmis complained about their inferior status, institutionalized humiliation, or poverty, their masters voided their contract and regarded them as enemies of Islam, fair game as objects of violence. Consequently, dhimmis were generally cowed into silence and worse. It was almost unheard-of to find dhimmis speaking out against their oppressors; to do so would have been suicide. For centuries dhimmi communities in the Islamic world learned to live in peace with their Muslim overlords by acquiescing to their subservience. Some even actively identified with the dominant class, and became strenuous advocates for it.
Spearheaded by dhimmi academics and self-serving advocacy groups, that same attitude of chastened subservience has entered into Western academic study of Islam, and from there into journalism, school textbooks, and the popular discourse. One must not point out the depredations of jihad and dhimmitude; to do so would offend the multiculturalist ethos that prevails everywhere today. To do so would endanger chances for peace and rapprochement between civilizations all too ready to clash.
But in this era of global terrorism it must be said: this silence, this distortion, has become deadly. Before 9/11 it was easy to ignore and whitewash dhimmitude, but the atrocities changed the situation forever. In jihads throughout history, untold millions have died. Tens of millions have been uprooted from their homes. Tens of millions have been stripped of their cultural identity. To continue to gloss over the destruction wrought by jihad ideology and its attendant evil of dhimmitude is today to play into the hands of jihadists, who have repeatedly vowed to dhimmify the West and destroy any recalcitrant elements. While jihadist groups, even with their global diffusion, are not strong enough to realize this goal by themselves, they have a potent and destructive ally, a genuine fifth column, in the dhimmi academics and dhimmi journalists they have recruited in the West. They have succeeded in confusing millions in the West into mistaking honesty and truthfulness for bigotry, and self-defense for oppression.
Before it's too late for Western Europe and the United States, which gave birth to the traditions of freedom and equality of rights for all that shine today as lights in the entire world, this must be stopped. Therefore Dhimmi Watch seeks to bring public attention to:
* The plight of the dhimmis, an immense but almost completely ignored ongoing scandal that continues in Muslim countries today;
* The plight of women under Sharia provisions, similar to conditions imposed on dhimmis, in the denial of equal rights and dignity;
* Slavery in Islamic lands, which continues today, justified by Sharia-'s dhimmi codes;
* The integral role of jihad and dhimmitude ideology in global terrorism today;
* The license that academic and journalistic whitewashes of dhimmitude gives to radical jihadist enemies of human rights for all.
Dhimmi Watch fights to ensure that deeds done in the darkness for so long will not continue to be done. The light of world attention is anathema to the proponents of jihad and dhimmitude: we have seen in recent years that women sentenced to stoning for adultery, often victims of rape unjustly accused thanks to Sharia laws disallowing rape victims' testimony, were freed following international outcry. Dhimmi Watch will seek to provoke similar, continuous and increasing outcry wherever and whenever the Sharia's institutionalized injustices threaten dhimmis and women.
May the truth prevail.
