The Axis of Evil: Haifa (the ring leader), Nancy, Alissa
No. He wasn't fired.
Al Arabeya reports on a web site that conducted its own "surveys" of Arab men in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco and concluded that 75% of those surveyed believe the same.
It wasn't clear what percentage of those surveyed were themselves harassers and rapists.
Video clips were also blamed for the increased numbers in "spinsters" because viewers develop unrealistic expectations for what kind of woman they want for a spouse. Let's not forget that a similar reasoning blamed Haifa and her sisters for the increased incidents of divorce in the Arab world.
Other studies are underway to prove how these clips are responsible for world poverty, all Arab defeats, and global warming. So stay tuned.
Nobody seems to notice the sexy men in the video clips. It's the women who are to blame.
BTW, I posted samples of these clips. See here, here, here, and here for some examples embeded in posts.
But here's the one that started it all-- Nancy Ajram's "Akhasmak Ah":
3 comments:
The staement that rapes are "caused by" sexy videos is an outrage, of course, and serious rape awareness campaigns need doing.
The thing is, though, not to jump into defending the videos as if they were great works of art. They are inane.
Some of them sexualize children, like Haifa's "Boos el wawa." Geez, a guy said after watching that one, now when my little daughter says that phrase ("kiss the boo boo") to me, I have a moment of recoil from its association with the Haifa video.
There's something to be said for community standards of decency playing a role. (Don't all scream "Censorship" at me at once, please. The Hays Commission exists in the U.S., too, and cd labeling, and separate channels for things people don't want aired in between family shows. That's all I'm suggesting.)
A third space of sexual integrity badly needs articulation in this debate in the Arab world (and among Arabs abroad).
The part about the air-brushed womenin such media contriibuting to a changing standard of beauty and one that is not good for relations between the sexes is a reasonable point, I thought. Worth closer analysis.
-Damascene Queen
Hi Damascene Queen,
Nobody defends these clips as works of arts. Definitely not on this blog. If you read back, you will see that I've been critical of them from a feminist point of view. Artistically, they are generally boring.
But whenever I run into these stories in the Arab media, it's in the context of censorship. So I'm afraid that's a context we cannot brush aside.
In the context of the Arab world now, the bad taste these clips may foster is much less harmful than the censors. And to appeal to "community" standards in this context is quite risky. Before you can do that, you need a totally different political and cultural atmosphere: a liberal one, which we don't have. Even in a "liberal" atmosphere, community standards are very hard to define. But as I said, we are not there: we are talking about societies (or should I say governments?) where censorship and repression of political, cultural, and artistic expression is the norm. For me, fighting this problem is more of a priority, even if it meant defending Haifa's right to make whatever carppy video she wants to make. I can always satririze her work, turn off the TV, make a better vidoe, or use her work as teaching aid for my feminist leacture to my son. Censoring the clips would limit all these mode of expressions I have and will leave it to Big Daddy government or Ayatoallah to make the decision for me.
As to the point about men not wanting to marry because they are all looking for a Haifa look alike, it's not convincing. Men and women can't marry because they can't find an apartment to live in! The danger of these beauty ideals is that women will opt for the knife to get the fuller lips and bigger boobs, but that is not a good reason to censor or criminalize (as some would like to do). It's a reason to become a feminist.
Yes, a third space is needed,I agree, but it has no chance in hell of existing in the shadow of censorship.
It perhaps testifies to the degraded times we live in that defending Haifa's inane clip becomes an act of "resistance." But it's within this defense that the third space can exist.
Remember the point you made at lunch a few days ago about how "they will start with Nikabis then move on to Hijabis and god knows who else?"
I add: "they will start with Haifa and end up with you.I'm sure some of your poems don't meet the standards of a few "communities" I know of.
I agree that "community standards of decency" have to play a role in determining the limits on individual liberty. But exactly what limits should be set in the name of these standards and what rights should be defended against these very same standards is a question that has long vexed liberalism. In the US polygamy violates community standards, and most liberals would say that men don't have that right, because it violates the rights of women. But interestingly J.S. Mill strongly defended the Mormon right to polygamy in "On Liberty." And it is defended with similar liberal arguments today. For Mill the big worry in "On Liberty" is precisely that "community standards of decency" will threaten individual freedom. He sees that freedom, in contrast to the "despotism of custom," as the key to why the West has prospered while the Orient has stagnated. Here his very appealing liberalism mixes with appalling Orientalism. And before you think this is his only colonialist sin, another "liberty" he defends in "On Liberty" is the opium trade. These days most people espouse liberal values, but when asked to specify what should or should not be permitted, they give very different answers. Mill defended alcohol sale and consumption. The US outlawed it during Prohibition. In many Muslim countries I believe it is banned, though in the one Muslim country I lived in, Palestine, there was a substantial Christian community, alcohol was sold openly and anyone, Muslim or Christian, could buy it without any questions asked as far as I know. And there may be quite a bit of de facto toleration in other Muslim countries. I just don't know.
Europe bans speech denying the holocaust and in various places it is banning the hijab, arguably both very illiberal positions. On the other hand, a liberal like Chomsky is tarred and feathered for supporting the right of holocaust deniers to free speech by people who can't tell the difference between defending the right and defending the ideas themselves. And doubtless if he defended the hijab on liberal grounds, which I personally think liberals should do, he'd be tarred and feathered for supporting the oppression of women.
The real way to get to know what a person really thinks is not to listen to their liberal rhetoric, since everybody's rhetoric is liberal these days, except for the various stripes of fundamentalists who want to return us to the simplicity and exclusivity of one all-embracing faith. The real way is to get them to explain concretely what they would or would not permit and what rights they would defend against the tyrannical majority and what rights they would deny based on "community standards of decency." Then some people whose words have a nice liberal ring might turn out to be rather disturbingly illiberal.
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