Muslim beauty

The fact that an American Muslim beauty, Rima Fakih representing Michigan, has been selected as Miss America is more of concern for devout Muslims than for Americans. The rest of us are quite tolerant, as indicated by the election of a Black man as President of the USA. Certainly there are racists in the US who would oppose both a Black man as President and a Muslim woman as Miss America, but they are a tiny ineffective minority. Also, devout Christians and Jews, who might be offended by any kind of beauty competition, where women walk around in bikinis before large crowds of people, nevertheless in our form of democracy have no influence on the matter. That there is a Miss America competition every year is proof of that, as well as the public display of pornography and many racy programs on TV, which are protected under the first amendment to the US constitution, freedom of speech, that allows all opinions to be expressed.

What is most worrying to the devout and extremist Muslims is that women in their culture and religion are supposed to be inferior. They are supposed to be "owned" by their husbands and masters and supposed to do as they are told, as well as go around completely covered in a burka so that no "strange" man can look on them. In the Muslim world it is believed that it is women who are responsible for men's sexual misbehavior, and not vice versa. For a good expose of this see "Nine parts of desire: the hidden world of Islamic women" by Geraldine Brooks, and the more recent "A thousand splendid suns" by Khaled Hosseini (who wrote "The kite runner").

The question is should Islamic women be forced to wear the burka or be free to choose what they wear, including western dress. Of course, according to western views, they should have this freedom of choice, that is not available in many areas of the Muslim world. In Egypt and Turkey women still wear western dress, but as Islamism spreads it is becoming increasingly difficult for women to choose freely. Of course, there are many Muslim women who choose a veil (hijab) or a burka. Only France, as far as I know, has banned the use of face coverings in public places, including schools. In several other countries, Britain and Holland, it is forbidden for women to wear a face covering when required to be scrutinized for security purposes. Also, in Britain a private school may insist that women teachers do not wear face covering.

At least from my point of view it is good that a Lebanese Shi'ite woman is so emancipated in the US that she can show her face and body without fear. And I am very glad to see that.

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PS. The sending of this e-mail was delayed because of the current Gaza flotilla incident.