Roger Sandall had an interesting piece in the January-Februrary issue of Quadrant (“… a lonely counterpoint to stultifying orthodoxies and dangerous utopias, the best of the Western cultural tradition,” according to our Prime Minister John Howard). Sandall addresses the issue of the increasing sexualisation of our culture, using the controversial comments of Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilali regarding women, raw meat, etc. to launch his piece.
He writes, in part:
Where are the sheiks of yesteryear, riding romantically over the dunes? Not in Australia. Here a burly Egyptian with an ugly turn of phrase recently set new records for ungallantry. Scantily clad Australian women, complained Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly, go around like “exposed meat” inviting rape.
Of course we all made a huge uproar. Unbelievable! Who asked his opinion anyway? The sheik calls himself a Mufti and thinks he represents Islam Down Under. But the man’s a brute who plainly hates western culture, who may have channelled funds to Hezbollah, and on top this he’s a security risk too. Go home sheik, go home!
This said, maybe he had a point all the same. It does seem nowadays that you can’t go to the newsagent to buy a paper, or the supermarket to buy a loaf of bread, without being surrounded by acres of glossy magazine erotica and exciting flesh. Not all of us would call it exposed meat, perhaps, but whatever it’s called it’s there—much of it little short of pornography.
(thanks to Dennis for the link)
9 comments ↓
You forgot the publish the letter from Peter Costello demanding the expulsion of Sandall from Australia for agreeing with Hilaly.
Oh wait. It didn’t happen.
I’m a bit unsure about a few of the points Sandall made, but overall it’s a compelling article. In particular, I found his discussion of Nabokov (Lolita) rather persuasive. It’s certainly a contentious issue.
“It is with our passions, as it is with fire and water, they are good servants but bad masters.”
- Aesop
This is similar to a piece by Miranda Devine earlier this year. The irony is that the PM, the beta male (Costello) and their boosters in the conservative press probably share Hilali’s assessment, but perhaps not his words
What is the point, Austrolabe?
Are you justifying the sheik’s statement? That bigots, chauvinists, swines are found everywhere?
You are actually associating some one like Roger Sandall, who has no place in Islam, with the rest of Ummah. The non Muslim will assume we are in same boat like people who support Roger Sandall’s views.
Sandall isn’t saying that women deserve to be raped (like the sheikh) if they dress openly but that there is a problem in our society with everything being sexualised. If you read it, he’s very critical of hilaly’s comments and says they were wrong and outrageous.
Also the major point Gess is that this is John Howard (PM of Australia) favourite magazine so it shows the hypocrisy of the government that they go crazy when a Muslim says this stuff (rightly so) but don’t react at all when a non Muslim academic says pretty much the same thing but in a much nicer gentler way.
That’s right Baybers. Obviously a lot of people think that there is too much sex in society and it’s everywhere. I don’t think most people dispute that so that is what Sandall is agreeing with NOT what Hilaly said about raw meat.
[...] Once again Peter Black rounds up the tech news so you don’t have to, including some interesting stuff on credit card fraud. Another new milblogger 11. SL: you can tell what I spent Anzac Day doing. [↩] does a great job on the ongoing defence acquisitions debacle – at least as it applies to air power, while the team at Austrolabe (the post isn’t credited) give an interesting Muslim perspective on the ’sexualised advertising and clothing’ debate. Also on matters Islamic, Pommygranate (who works in the financial services industry) has some background on sharia compliant gilts and premium bonds in the UK, while Nicholas Gruen turns his financial nous to the phenomenon of payday lending in Australia. 22. SL: Nick’s post kicked off a great comments thread, and is well worth a look. [↩] [...]
I have just begun reading “A Return to Modesty” by Wendy Shalit, and think it’s brilliant. I recommend it to everyone who is considered by the increasing sexualization within our culture and the huge effect it has on everyone.
Ironically, what the author is calling to – a return to old-fashioned modesty but accompanied with such things as women’s rights to a career and so on – is practically the same thing that Islam has been saying for the last 1400+ years.
Sandall doesn’t have a particularly good grip on history. A variety of very sexualized cultures existed way before ours. We are hearkening back to a “golden age” that never existed.
I personally can’t believe his offhand characterizations of “conventionally respectable immigrants from some traditional culture—Sri Lankan Buddhists, Colombian Catholics, Eastern Orthodox from the Ukraine” – considering the fact that I AM a bloody Eastern Orthodox from Ukraine, and I will NOT be patronized in this fashion. Has he even BEEN to Ukraine? A place where rape and molestation are hardly prosecuted by modern standards? Does he KNOW what it’s like to be molested – considering his oddly sympathetic attitude toward “the comparatively innocent behavior of desert tribesmen” some of whom like little boys?
What people like Sandall don’t get is that human nature will always have its dark underbelly. In any point in time. In any country.
Britney Spears is a red herring.
And he is mis-reading the cultural significance Lolita.
He is right to point out that critics have flirted with the notion of Lolita’s taboos as something to be overcome. But I highly doubt that anyone suggests that the actual plot of Lolita, as opposed to the writing (which is heavenly), ought to be legitimized.
Sheesh.
Leave a Comment