The Brutal Clash of Two Fundamental and Cherished Democratic Values

Saudi Arabia is an Islamic state applying Shari'a law (as is the custom for fundamentalist Muslims), and it has a shocking lack of human rights for women. Here are a few stories to give you some specifics:

2007, Saudi Arabia Human Rights
The government has tried to appear open and willing to be inspected, but they were hiding their abuses. Even so, Human Rights Watch found the law about women needing male escorts for everyday activities effectively denied them their rights to employment and education.
Sidewalks Segregated By SexSaudi Arabia's religious police are insisting that authorities of Medina, one of Islam's holiest cities, should build separate sidewalks for women, the Kuwaiti Al-Qabas newspaper said Friday. The country's Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPVPV), tasked with enforcing Shari'a law, believes men and women should not be allowed to mix on the streets of the Islam's second holiest place, where the Prophet Muhammad is buried.

Valentine's Day in Saudi Arabia
Valentine's Day is a touchy subject in Saudi Arabia. Introduced by Saudis who had lived in the West, the custom of exchanging romantic gifts became popular, but met with official disapproval. This year, the annual Valentine's Day "debate" began on Monday, February 12. The Riyadh newspaper reported in blazing red headlines that the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the Wahhabi institution better known as the religious militia or mutawwa, would systematically inspect hotels, restaurants, coffeehouses, and gift shops to prevent Muslim couples from giving each other Valentines or other presents. Such items would be confiscated, and those selling them would be subject to prosecution. The mutawwa condemned Valentine's Day as a "pagan feast."

Rape Case In Saudi Arabia
When the teenager went to the police a few months ago to report she was gang-raped by seven men, she never imagined the judge would punish her — and that she would be sentenced to more lashes than one of her alleged rapists received.

The Women Of Islam
Women's rights are compromised the Koran, sura 4:34, that says men are the "overseers" of women. The verse goes on to say that the husband of an insubordinate wife should first admonish her, then leave her to sleep alone and finally beat her. Wife beating is so prevalent in the Muslim world that social workers who assist battered women in Egypt, for example, spend much of their time trying to convince victims that their husbands' violent acts are unacceptable. Beatings are not the worst of female suffering. Each year hundreds of Muslim women die in "honor killings" — murders by husbands or male relatives of women suspected of disobedience, usually a sexual indiscretion or marriage against the family's wishes.

Horrible human rights violations occur constantly, but people in the free world are somewhat paralyzed. We seem confused and hesitant to do anything about it. Why? The reason is important. On the one hand we've got the principle of multiculturalism, which says it is right and good to respect the rights of others to express their own culture and freely practice their own religion.

On the other hand, we've got an egregious lack of women's rights, enforced by men against women's will, but as a form of practicing their own religion and culture. It's enough to cause one's circuits to smoke and sputter and ultimately melt. The end result is an inability to act in any decisive way.

Donna Hughes clarifies this issue well in part three of her speech. She draws the distinction between multiculturalism and universalism. If that distinction was understood by more people in the free world, we would be un-paralyzed. We would take clear and vigorous action to stop the horrible human rights violations in countries using Shar'a law.

What you can do right now is learn the distinction, understand it, and then teach it to everyone you know. When the distinction is well-known, the paralysis and confusion will cease to exist.

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An Easy Way to Fight the War of Ideas

HERE'S THE SIMPLE method: Sign up for the email newsletter here on Citizen Warrior (in the top right sidebar), which simply emails you whatever we post that day. And when you get a post you think is really good, forward it to someone.

You can make your counter-jihadi efforts even more effective if you write a paragraph at the beginning of the message to tell your friend why you think they'd like the article, or what you liked most about it.

If you are careful about how you share articles, you can make a difference. For example, never tell them or imply that they are wrong or their opinions are wrong. Simply express why you like it or what you think they'd like about it. Along the same lines, never imply they are ignorant.

Try to match the article to the person. Tie it in with something about them if you can. If it's an article on the Qur'an, for example, you could say, "I know you really like to read about different religions, so..."

Don't send out indiscriminate emails, and don't forward them a lot. Don't inundate others with forwarded emails they haven't asked for. But carefully select the articles you think are really good, and send them to particular people. Not a group of people. Send it to a particular person.

Set yourself a goal you can accomplish, like forwarding one article to one person per week.

Be smart about this. Don't send something you think the person will dislike. Don't send anything political to your boss, unless you know the person really well. Don't send political stuff to people you work with unless you know them really well and are pretty sure they'll like what you're sending. Don't get yourself in trouble with this.

You can (and should) bring up the subject of terrorism and Islam in conversations, and that makes a perfect opportunity to say something like this: "I read an article yesterday that was really good, and it was on this topic ... do you want me to forward it to you?" Then they have a context, and an interest, and are more likely to read the article and be influenced by it.

Helping to educate your fellow citizens can go a long way to making us more capable of protecting ourselves from jihad-oriented infiltration, and encroachments on our legal liberties.

Jihadists are anxious to get rid of web sites and blogs that educate infidels about what they're up to. Blogs like this one makes their job harder. Education of this sort is cutting off their money. It's making people more capable of preventing terrorist attacks. It is making infidels less susceptible to religious deception.

So jihadists have started an internet jihad. They plan to attack and shut down blogs and web sites that alert infidels of their plans, goals, tactics, and methods of finance.

What that says to me is we are on the right track. I've said repeatedly that the most important thing each of us can do is help to educate our fellow infidels about Islam.

One easy and effective way to do that is by forwarding emails you get from an email newsletter like ours.

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