corrente

Sharia. Where sharing is fundamentalist. I've always thought of Sharia as kind of like having to go through life with a little screeching Louis Sheldon (or some gawd-awful thing like that) tied around your neck. I don't think the Sharia story got that much play in the TV Cable Junk-News media. If any. Several bloggers posted about it, but I don't remember any greater SCLM mention of it. Of course, who really cares? Afterall, I, like many Americans, were pretty busy paying close attention to such grave threats to our democracy and humanity as Howard "the bottle rocket" Dean's weird trajectory through Iowas's midnight sky. Or his snub of Maureen Dowd. How dare he! There should be a televised duel. And, thanks to Insight Magazine, Gen. Wes Clarks ruthless hellborn whiskey soaked slaughter of the Branch Davidians at Waco. Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that robotic swimming pool cleaner that they unleashed on Mars and Larry King's big interview with Tom Cruise, in which Tom explained to all America how Scientology can make them fabulously wealthy investing in real estate. And then of course there was all the oooling and more oooling and even more oooling and omnipresent cacaphony of excitable clack valve TV media nooze concerning Michael Jackson. Whoever he is. And on and on. And, oh yeah, there was football too, where a bunch of Volvo driving latte chugging elitists from the Northeast Liberal Occupation Zone beat up on some pantyhose wearing sissy team from the heartland. Johnny Unitas and the Baltimore Colts, I think. It is 1968 again, ain't it?

Whatever. 4 on Sharia in Iraq. From the last week.

1 - From: Thursday, January 15, 2004
Riverbend | Baghdad Burning

Shari'a and Family Law...
On Wednesday our darling Iraqi Puppet Council decided that secular Iraqi family law would no longer be secular- it is now going to be according to Islamic Shari'a. Shari'a is Islamic law, whether from the Quran or quotes of the Prophet or interpretations of modern Islamic law by clerics and people who have dedicated their lives to studying Islam.

The news has barely been covered by Western or even Arab media and Iraqi media certainly aren't covering it. It is too much to ask of Al-Iraqiya to debate or cover a topic like this one- it would obviously conflict with the Egyptian soap operas and songs. This latest decision is going to be catastrophic for females- we're going backwards.

Don't get me wrong- pure Islamic law according to the Quran and the Prophet gives women certain unalterable, nonnegotiable rights. The problem arises when certain clerics decide to do their own interpretations of these laws (and just about *anyone* can make themselves a cleric these days). The bigger problem is that Shari'a may be drastically different from one cleric to another. There are actually fundamental differences in Shari'a between the different Islamic factions or 'methahib'. Even in the same methahib, there are dozens of different clerics who may have opposing opinions. This is going to mean more chaos than we already have to deal with. We've come to expect chaos in the streets… but chaos in the courts and judicial system too?!

2 - Healing Iraq Sharia to replace civil marriage and inheritance laws

I'm so happy about this, now I can marry and divorce in any way I like. Yay! I'm at the moment gathering family members to go to the local cleric so I can divorce my fourth wife which I don't really like anymore, and get myself an 11 year-old virgin. All the other small details will be settled within the family and with the blessings of the Sayid.

Now seriously, this GC decision has created a firestorm and is the most talked about news in Baghdad. There were Iraqi women groups demonstrations lead by Nisrin Barawari, the minister of public works, on Tuesday at Fardus square protesting against this discriminating decision.

So much for secularism. I guess my fears are now warranted especially with thousands of Shi'ites marching yesterday in Basrah shouting "Yes to Sistani" and "Death to America". Who is going to protect and enforce womens rights now? I'm pretty sure our good ole Godfather Sistani is now clapping his hands in glee. There is no way he wasn't involved in this decision.

3 - Via: Juan Cole

So, the response of the Bush administration to the September 11 attack on the United States by a group of radical Islamist extremists has been to abolish secular law for Iraqi women and impose a fundamentalist reading of Islamic law on them. Yes, it all makes perfect sense.

4 - Max Sawicky Oh You Make My Motor Run, My Sharia

This has been trampled over pretty thoroughly, but most people have missed the point. In a similar vein, we would like to remind you of the U.S. Occupation's upholding of Saddamist labor law.

The concession to Islamic supremacy over secularism is not some short-term slip out of pragmatism. It is fundamental to U.S. hegemony in the Middle East, and always has been. Theocracy is one of the U.S.-aligned Oil Cartel's weapons against secularism, nationalism, and democracy. The other one is expansionist Zionism.

Theocracy is synonymous with privatization of oil, for the sake of putting international markets (=foreign customers) first, and Arab national interests last. That's why the U.S. backed Osama and the mujaheddin against the Soviet-friendly Afghani government, why it upholds compliant monarchies, why Israel attacked the PLO before Hamas. It's why the corporatist Right inveighs against people like Saddam Hussein and before him, Nasser, and ignores equally horrendous crimes against human rights in other places.

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