http://us.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/2 ... index.html



Seriously, how fucked up must a culture be to disallow a child to seek divorce BEFORE she hits puberty? People shouldn't be allowed to marry UNTIL they hit puberty. Jesus, she's a fucking child!

I know a lot of people say that culture is relative but, sorry, Arab culture is just beyond fucked up. Giving your kid away to pay debts, stoning women to death for walking down a street with a man who is not their husband or family member, women only count as one-half of a person and must have at least one other woman present to testify against a man who rapes her, a woman will be subject to an "honor killing" by her father if she is raped, and the list goes on and on.

How can millions of people embrace these barbaric ideologies? Only one word can describe people who think that kind of crap is OK - Savages.

Mother fucking savages.

They are just behind times. 500 years ago it wouldn't be too weird for any man to give away his 8 year old daughter to settle a debt.

Yeah, but unfortunately, a lot of those countries are going in the opposite direction.

Yep... Their culture for some reason has regressed a lot.

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One might say it is Islamabad.

Yeah, it's kinda like the belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...

What the fuck is wrong with all these people?

At least they aren't Scientologists!

I am oddly compelled to agree with Neesha.

Can someone go check hell's weather forecast for the day?

19 below with a 90% chance of snow.

If it's good enough for Muhammad it's good enough for everyone.

http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/sina/ayesha.htm

Yea, and due to that being in the book we see tons and tons of faithful American Muslims marrying 6-year-olds. Oh wait.

News flash for the apparently uninformed: one bad set of circumstances does not mean that millions (billions?) of others all think the same way.

wtf.. no way fribur


BTW, since we are on the subject... what is up with black people? One committed a crime somewhere today. Damn black people. what is wrong with those people???

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black people talk like this white people talk like this

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LOL don't act like it's just individuals. The country and laws are this way. A JUDGE made this ruling. If it wasn't right for popular belief he would be out of a job next election. Sadly he just made sure he will be staying in office for many years with this ruling.

Women can't vote.
Women can't drive.
Women have no rights.

But hey it's one individual right?

Gay people can't get married.

Asshole Americans.

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Garborg speaks truth Frib!

It's the foundation of their ethics/culture that is the problem.

Yeah, we're not some saints either. Our record of civil rights and such isn't exactly a shining example.

I once heard a few generations ago you could buy black people.

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Feel free to stop this stupid line of "humor" at any time. It wasn't funny the other 20 times you've used it in the past, nor was it funny the previous two times you attempted it in this thread.

MINORITIES!!!!!!!!!! LOl

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Yeah, honestly. 3 times in the first 18 posts is plenty.

Do you know how many different Arab subcultures there are? That's like pointing at Bush and asking what's wrong with Caucasians.

and what's the deal with airline food

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oh no the internet foreman joxur is busting my balls

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Off base Elle, he was talking about a fucked up culture not a fucked up religion.

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
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VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

Aren't the 2 intrinsically intertwined?

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As much as saying Eurpoe is fucked up for doing one currency then ranting about being insensitive to the cathilic religion.

Arab does not = Islamic.

Sure but the ones hes ranting about are the Islamic Arabs.

In Arab culture arranged marriage is a secular tradition, and typically involves a woman who can bear children. It's based on a 4000+ year old economic principle, not a religious one.

I was drawing a parallel, not making a direct comparison. Just about anything defined by culture (including religion, let's be honest here) is strange when viewed as a foreigner.

One mans theology is another man belly laugh - Robert Heinlein.

Your thread title is such bullshit Bello, I'm tired of looking at the trash really.

I'm not up on international law...however I suspect this is the case:

They are asking for a 'divorce', and that requires the 'child' be of age to fulfill and understand the marriage contract. That is why the divorce cannot be granted, the marriage isn't done.

What currently exists, while called a marriage, is NOT. It is a contract between the men (her father, her groom), and involves more than just the marriage. It usually involves money.

The court could be petitioned to nullify THAT contract...but if they did, then the father would have to return everything he was given in exchange for his permission/agreement to the marriage. He may also be required to pay penalties...if a dowry was paid, he'd lose that dowry.

So that's not what's being asked for. A divorce entitles the woman to keep specific assets, in Islamic countries...going PURELY off memory here based on a lot of reading, IIRC a woman is entitled to the return of her dowry, she is allowed to keep all marriage 'gifts' (generally this is money paid to her or her family if the groom paid for the marriage), returns 'authority' of the woman to her nearest biological male relative, and gives her a lot of other very specific rights. She loses a lot too...generally custody of the children belongs to the father (many fathers allow the mothers to keep the girls, and raise the boys to a specific age, at which time they take custody. Or if he's a dick he may simply take the children to punish her and never allow her to see them). There's clearly no custody issue here.

She has no rights to his property. There's no such thing as 'joint marital property'.

And she needs the support of her biological family, at least the closest male relative, since he then becomes responsible for her (and potentially her children).

While it's a shitty system, their families are like most families, they will take them in. Divorce is a really serious thing and not done casually. Even among wealthy 'westernized' Saudis, it's a terrible thing that can leave a woman bankrupt. Most wealthy Saudi women, IF they pursue divorce, sue in a Western country for assets (there's a good book I have by one of the bin Laden women who divorced in Switzerland I think). Sometimes they win, but more importantly they stay alive, have their freedom and often keep their children, though they may still fear for their lives and fear for their children being kidnapped back to Saudi where the courts will favor the father.

Are a lot of things fucked up about this system? Oh yes. But there's a lot of things fucked up about our system too...or so I hear people constantly complain.

In this specific instance, I think it's more an issue of 'cannot terminate the contract in this manner'. Termination by annulling it or divorce is a petition on behalf of the girl, and she's too young to make that petition. She also DOES NOT live with her spouse. She probably has no contact with him at all. When she's considered old enough (and it must be past puberty by their laws, and generally is older than that) there will then be another wedding ceremony.

She could refuse. Most do not, because it's a pretty serious thing. But she does have the right to refuse then. And at that point could petition on her own behalf.

Otherwise to break it, it takes those who made the contract: her father, and the man involved. Since at this moment in time legally the child isn't involved, and can't be.

Hope that makes some sense. It's not that shes being forced to continue with the guy or anything. It might be easier if you view this period as a 'betrothal' like in an arranged marriage, even though it is considered a marriage contract.

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Not so. The Arab country has a state sponsored religion. It does not mean that all the government nor the full population is Islamic.

Does Islam influence the government? Sure does.
Do all Islamic faiths in the world aprove of this Arab government? Nope.

The rant was about an Arab country's government and culture that allows these actions by their governement to happen. What you want to see in the story beyond the facts is your bussiness.

If I ranted about snake handlers in the mountains of west virginia then you called me racist against the cathalic church ..I'd see the same way I do now. Dumbfounded you can't see how crazy your arguement is.

Please tell me all Islamic people think what this article pointed out is right. And again make your point that this post was a slam on Islam... stupid.

Draagun arguably brought up the two most important points with regard to current Arab culture.

I'd go so far as to say that their culture(in my view, at least) is not as far along as we are in terms of social values. But... What is "wrong" with Arabs? The same thing that is wrong when we don't allow gay couples to marry. The same thing that is wrong when we invoke the death penalty(considered a barbaric act among many developed countries). The same thing that is wrong when we embark on a pre-emptive war.

It doesn't make our entire culture horrible, it just means we have yet to reach a certain point with regard to social values(which may or may not happen, but I would argue we have gotten significantly better over the years as have many countries).

Which more or less leads to the other point... It's hard to draw any kind of direct comparison when different countries and regions advance socially at different paces, which is not a fault of the people(mostly). Arab countries have continuously been at war, and not always between themselves but also as a result of empires and other nations infringing on their territories. I'd argue that when a region and a people see so little of peace, that they have a harder time developing socially. It seems like it would be hard to establish something strong when the buildings you've just put up get knocked down(both physically and figuratively) the day after.

You have a similar situation in Africa, which also comprises significant Muslim populations(I know this thread wasn't about religion per say, but I know we've had people mentioning those feelings in the past regarding Islam). Nations constantly at war with one another, genocide, very undeveloped and poor. That does not make a good breeding ground for solid, peaceful revolutions of social values. I'd imagine it would be hard to think about such things when you're simply trying to survive, especially when you're brought up and educated in a way which does not endorse it.

So, what is wrong with Arabs? Well, in light of what I said above, nothing that cannot be fixed with the same fortune that America has had in living in relative peace and security(particularly in the homeland) for a few hundred years.

They aren't some alien subspecies whose DNA has been altered to be cruel and socially corrupt. They had a significantly different set of circumstances from which their culture developed, and those circumstances were far from ideal.

Shrug, it was a throw away line. If we want to beat up on Sharia or Muslim fundamentalists there are plenty of examples. And yes Saudi Arabia does not have Sharia.

The Washington Post just had an article yesterday about the Kurds (who are generally seen as progressive) still being huge on female circumcision, ugh.

((OOC: Ahhhh memories After reading these posts on this thread it felt like SoV had just come out and Malden is in the East Commons Tunnel pimping FBSSs. Anyone know if Orc 2 is camped?))

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we've come a long way.

One of my best friends is a Palestinian exchange student from Ramallah. She's 100% arab...and 100% catholic. From birth.

Religion in Palestine is a bit of a flux. You're forced to declare on your birth certificate / passport which religion you belong to (Christian (Catholic, Orthodox), Muslim...), but you can switch easily enough, and people switch from Christianity to Islam to get easy divorces. I understand the process of switching back from Islam to Christianity is harder to do, but still done.

Agnostics and Athetists, and those who don't want to do all the Islamic bullshit in schools, declare Christianity, and so get out of memorizing the Qura'an in high school.

So there are non-muslim arabs, they aren't myths or exceptions to the rule invented for Internet arguments. One is taking physics classes with me this semester here in Montreal.

Nice comparison. Government denial of a piece of paper for tax purposes, while still being able to live together, love each other, and even raise a family. You should try and do that in an Arab country. Oh you can't you'd be dead.

Pre-emptive war would have saved 3000+ lives in NYC. But hey if we need to loose that many citizens before it's ok to go to war I understand.

Just like blacks were still able to live together, love each other, and raise a family right? Gay people seek equality, and I would imagine that getting a tax break is merely a small bonus in the face of unequal treatment in the very nation that has proclaimed for so long to promote equality(which, to our credit, we do to a very large extent.. which makes this predicament even more startling and atrocious when it happens here).

Somewhat beside the point, though. I could get you a laundry list of problems with our nation's culture(and any other nation's culture for that matter).

Pre-emptive war against whom? Afghanistan? Certainly we were at war with Al Qaeda pre-9/11, a terrorist group. We conducted strikes which I approved of. They attacked us, we striked back(arguably not hard enough). The difference with Iraq is that there was NOTHING preceeding the war for a good 5-10 years with the exception of minor skirmishes. There was no credible threat there to us; they had made no distinct, specific intention to attack us.

Could we have attacked in Afghanistan? Well, possibly, but it wasn't really justified pre-9/11. At least not a full-scale invasion. We had enough reason to send in some special ops and the like, probably, but to invade like we did after 9/11 is something else entirely. Either way, we can't go around invading people unless we know for almost certain that they're going to pull some kind of attack off on us like 9/11. There are threats all around the world against us and American interests that have a similar tone from a security standpoint as those first warnings in August 01 about Al Qaeda wanting to attack us in the US. Not all of them are credible, and almost none of them are worth invading over. The political and humanitarian ramifications of it are far too high to justify.

But hell, at least invading "pre-emptively" Afghanistan would've made a little more sense given that the group they were harboring there had actually made a credible threat against us in the last, say, 10 years.

Emphasis mine.

So yeah, some states are making even THAT impossible. Arizona, you can't adopt if you're single or gay. Even if you want to adopt the "unwanted" children who have physical or mental handicaps, or have AIDS, or...or...or...

But, yeah, sure, they can have a family if they want to have straight sex (which, for some, is about as appealing as you would find having gay sex.) Or if they have in vitro (only possible for the lesbians, though!)

So, first step - rule out gay marriage. Second step - rule out gay adoption. What's next?

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Really? Because the pre-emptive war in Iraq has cost us much more than that. 4221 and counting.

I guess it is all a matter of how you look at it.

Oh, and Gar? Americans don't get off the hook for doing the right thing because "it is worse over there". We are, or should be, the example. When South Africa beats the US on a human rights issue? Something is seriously fucked. And guess what? They legalized gay marriage in 2005.

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Wouldn't have saved lives anyway, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Osama bin Ladin is still at large.

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And how's that?

But more importantly, where or on whom exactly are we loosing the citizens?

'It's an injustice to NOT marry off 10-year-old girls,' says top Saudi cleric
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldne ... l?ITO=1490

Form your own opinions about this article.

It's coming from Daily Mail as a source? Might as well link the Enquirer.

AP:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/s ... TopStories

... and yet end up in the same place.

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Done and done. I don't think anything in that article has any impact on any of the basic points made in this thread.

The Palestinian girl I told you about says Saudi Arabia won't even recognize Palestinian passports, ie won't let them into the country without special permission. She also says it's "another world" of weirdness even she doesn't understand. So don't color all arabs with the same brush :p