An American Expat in Southeast Asia

How Not to Dress Like a Muslim Slut

In a recent article entitled "Shoeless George Bush", Daniel Pipes didn't pull any punches and neither did Diane West in a recent Washington Post article entitled "'Dhimmification' on the march". Both justifiably expressed their exasperation at an administration that just doesn't seem to "get it". But I would put it to Mr. Pipes and Ms. West than perhaps Bush does "get it". Over the last few years Bush has been a powerful advocate and lobbyist for the "religion of peace" and as Pipes has noted, Bush has even "lectured Muslims on the true nature of their religion...[sic]". So Bush does clearly "get it". He just doesn't get what Mr. Pipes and Ms. West thought he got.

The photograph above of Ms. Frances Fragos Townsend and Karen P. Hughes wearing what Pipes euphemistically described as "makeshift hijabs" perhaps reflects best the politically correct multicultural zeitgeist that has overwhelmed our nation in the last several years. On a more sobering note though we see nothing more than an ostentatious display that clearly illustrates how cultural relativism inevitably drags moral relativism in it's wake.

If what is wrong for one society is right for another, then what is wrong for one person can become right for the next. What message does this photograph above convey to Muslim women throughout the world?

For many women in the Islamic world forced to wear the hijab, it has become a symbol of oppression and submission and in the alternative, for many of those women who have willingly donned the hijab, it has become a symbol of Islamic self-assertion or ethnic chauvinism and in many cases simply a rejection of Western cultural hegemony. Either way, the image of these two women donning makeshift hijabs only substantiates the dualistic ideology professed by Islamic fundamentalists.

It's not just the symbolism of the hijab though that has seems to have eluded these two wannabes, but the understanding that there is a proper way to wear the hijab and then there is an improper way. Wearing a hijab and then exposing your cleavage or not tying it properly completely defeats the purpose of wearing the hijab in the first place. Woman who choose to dress like this are seen as nothing more than promiscuous sluts and prostitutes. Any Muslim woman around the globe moderate and fundamentalist alike will all agree that if you are going to wear the hijab then at least have the decency to wear it properly without looking like a whore.

So once again, shall we chalk it down as cultural naiveté or simply ignorance or maybe these two women sincerely wish to adopt as their own the cultural and religious beliefs and customs they have chosen to so pathetically emulate.

And so... Ms. Frances Fragos Townsend and Ms. Karen P. Hughes, this is for you. ~ "Tips for Beginning to Wear a Hijab"

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