Thursday, October 11, 2012

DAY OF THE GIRL

I haven't talked much about women's rights on this blog. I suppose this is because such issues only indirectly affect me and so I don't think about them as often as I should. But today is the international "Day of the Girl", and so I will post a report from MSNBC about a brave Pakistani girl, Malala Yousafzai, who was recently shot in the head for trying to go to school:


My only criticism of the report is calling this attempted homicide on a young ambitious girl "extremist". This is not extremist, but merely strict adherence to the tenets laid out in the Koran. As the reporter states, Christians no longer take seriously such passages in the Bible. But we should not forget the time in which they did!

Were the ancient Jews "extremist" when they followed the Law of Moses to a "T"? "Extremism" has an implication of taking things out of context or beyond their intended purpose.

What part of "stone your unruly children" is unclear? Or if your wife tries to lead you to another god you should kill her. Or if a man rapes a virgin girl, he should pay her father the damages and then marry the girl (you break it, you buy it). "If your neighbor works on the sabbath, you should kill him", is not in any way open to "interpretation". As homophobic as Rick Santorum surely is, he has never called for the death penalty for homosexuals.

Just as the Bible passages I listed above are cut and dry in their meaning, so are passages in the Koran which say Muslims should kill all those who criticize Islam, and they should kill the infidel.

To call Sharia Law extremist and then call the god of the Bible omnibenevolent is hypocritical, considering the parallels of death penalties and the subjugation of women between the Law of Moses and Sharia Law. Despite this, I welcome open criticism of Islam, even if it comes from hypocrites.

Hopefully, as Christians criticize Islam for their "extremist" tendencies, they will see their own hypocrisy and dark history and start the process of analyzing their own belief system more critically. Maybe then stories about little girls being shot in the head because they wanted to go to school will become a thing of the past. 

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