Despite first appearances there is much to celebrate in the Muslim world. We may not have one scientific journal with an impact factor of greater than one, Al Aqsa may be occupied, but we have something that the hated western imperial jackboot could never imagine; Turkish male belly dancers.
I can smell the body odour from here.
If like me, you think that this is more revolting than finding hair in your food, more hideous than seeing your parents naked, then you are an endangered minority. The nation that bans its female politicians from wearing the hijab, allows this repulsive display.
Article 159 of the Turkish penal code would seem to apply?
Article 159–(Amended:1961/235)
Those who publicly insult or ridicule the moral personality of Turkishness, the Republic, the Parliament, the Government, State Ministers, the military or security forces of the state, or the Judiciary will be punished with a penalty of no less than one year and no more than six years of maximum security imprisonment….
Without wishing to present myself as an expert on the topic, I must point out that belly dancing is not an authentically Muslim invention. Salahudeen’s biographer records belly dancers from Byzantium, amongst the camp followers in the Crusader army of Richard the Pussycat
26 comments ↓
Why can’t you Sunnis sort yourselves out and stop attacking everyone incluing your own Muslim brothers ? What is wrong with all of you. What has Turkish belly dancers have to do with anything?
That has to be the most bizzare thing I have ever seen.
Shia Bhai, you can’t be defending this can you?
It’s not an issue of defending this, the point is that Turkey is a secular society, so it can’t be insulting Islam. Turkey also has an Islamic party in power, AKP, and the Prime Minister is a proper Muslim, so if they are happy with this then why should we complain. As always there are Sunnis that want to stir the pot. Islam is the best religion in the world but its always the Sunnis that make the Whites use an excuse to think we are the bad guys
Shia,
you raise some interesting points
firstly, what does this fellow “Alex the belly dancer” have anything to do with anything?
secondly because Turkey has a Muslim PM, why complain, we should be happy
thirdly and most disturbingly, whenever we complain or stir the pot, it gives whitey (ie the white guy, ergo western imperialism) a shot at us which he would not otherwise have had.
My response is that whilst I find the Alex’s dancing repellent, like finding hair or sputum in my coffee, what is embarrassing is the modern secular turkey seems not to have any other uniquely modern secular output. They have had 80 years to move beyond greasy kebabs, and they have failed.
The Muslim parties have been denied power, repeatedly, only recently they have been granted limited power, but as recently as last week, they had to go back to the polls to defy the army.
The Islamic party in government in Turkey has only limited power to govern or to make law. Thus a criticism of Turkey is not ipso facto a criticism of the AK.
Your final point is illuminating. The west interferes in Muslim lands, not because we are divided but because we are impotent. This is not military impotence alone but rather social, scientific and cultural failure in front of modernity.
Like I alluded to, show me a scientific journal from any Muslim country worth reading. Meanwhile we do attract the worlds attention with this sort of stuff. Its not that this is a story from Turkey but rather that it is the only story..
Finally we will continue to be lampooned like this, or bullied or whatever else, whilst we remain poor, uneducated and scientifically backward.
Calm down everyone. Don’t you know farce and satire when you see it? That is what the clubs are selling. That and shock value. Long time ago there was a ballet troupe called the Ballet Trocodero de Monte Carlo or some such. It was an all male troupe made out in female garb. The guys were all in ballet slippers and dancing on point. Of course they were not really from Monte Carlo, they were from San Fran. I watched them on American T.V. a long time ago. After the shock and the initial guffaw it got old quick. A little too high-brow for my taste at least. I don’t know what happened to the “Trocs” this was way back when. More than likely a flash in the pan. And this male Belly Dancing bit will go away too. Other than Alex I doubt anyone takes this seriously. Well Alex, Baybers and Shia Bhai do. Guys, don’t take life so seriously you’ll never get out alive! Sometimes life is just goofy and a bit silly, sometimes there is no overarching lesson(s) to be learned-honest. Male belly dancing will go the way of the hula-hoop a bit of a shame, I understand it is good Aerobic exercise.
James this is not something new, male belly dancing has been around since the first males belly danced for the Ottomans.
Ok, I’ve put this aside until now (in the interests of good taste), but I think its time to see it
http://www.reuters.com/news/vi.....eoId=62320
So Shia Boy wants to criticise Sunnis for their prudishness and sexual hangups about male belly dancers? Well, let’s look at the Shi’a alternative.
woo hoo hot stuff Baybers!! *catcalls* haha but seriously why are male dancers seen as the decline of civilisation? for a society to produce greatness -do Chomsky and Britney Spears have to be mutually exclusive?
no they don’t, but what about a society that produces only a “britney spears” and no “chomskys”
(here I am talking about chomsky as linguist, not as activist.)
So why the ‘body odour’ jibe? Well, that’s rhetorical, really - you don’t pass up a chance to sneer at males doing things you judge to be ‘unmanly’. There really is a lot in common between rednecks and hardline Muslims.
What about a society that couldn’t even create our own George Galloway so we had to import one? That’s about as bad as it gets. A half-smart year 12 student with an introductory biology book could create a Galloway using only a plastic bag, some methane, some rubber bands and a bicycle pump.
This is how real men belly dance.
I think this James needs to keep quiet. He seems like one of those white boy apologists and starts thinking he understands the Muslims. Go back home James and listen to the Backstreet Boys. Go wash your dad’s car instead of trying to be a wooly liberal.
As for Muhammad, well you can insult the Shiites with using a fake article but the fact is that we are the only ones the West fears.
Shia, I think that you have a lot to understand about Islam, if that is what you have been taught, then its the fault of your teachers.
I get the impression from your two posts that
1. you see Islam as a brown religion, therefore “white boys” as the enemy. This is a fundamental misunderstanding. Islam is a fellowship of principle and conduct not of colour or culture.
2. You mistake fear for respect. One maybe fearful of a wild animal, but that it does not make one respect it, or wish to emulate it.
3. You tolerate any behaviour, if done by a Muslim, no matter how corrupt, because you are interested in a cultural and political “victory” for Muslims, rather than a spiritual one. So it would not matter is Muslims prayed, fasted as long as they achieved some victory which involved 10s of millions of corpses of the “whites”
Antish, there are some things things that Muslims do that would be considered “unmanly” as you put it, by most men in the west, for example
when Muslim men meet, we kiss on the cheek
we use a lot of perfume
shyness is considered an admirable trait amongst men, and boorishness is not.
Instinctively, I find this belly dancing repellent, not because it is unmanly, but because it is grotesque and embarrassing.
Baybers I don’t think you understand anything I said. There are white people that are Muslims and they are our brothers. But then there are the non-Muslim whites like this punk James, that think they should support Muslim causes without even understanding them, James is an important example. He may not like the West’s foreign policies but the way he makes his points is as if anyone that does not agree with Muslims is a Bush fanatic. Get a life James, and stop creating problems between different religions. I think James is a homosexual which is against our religion. He should not be allowed ot comment on an islamic website
On the contrary shia, I have read your comments and I understand your outlook very well.
I am not sure how you have managed to judge James so harshly.
I think you are using bluster to cover the fact that you have defamed someone who clearly does not deserve it (and that you now realise that).
Are the shia Muslim?
The level of anti-Shia comments here is quite intresting.
I have not defamed anyone Baybers, if James is so upset then he would have spoken out by now, the fact that he has not shows I am in the right. What I find amazing is that you have taken no attempt to tell others not to attack Shias. T cell already has made some harmful remarks. The reason why Islam gets a bad name is because of people like that.
Shia Bhai: You entered this thread with an attack against Sunnis, it in fact is the first comment to this article. Yet now you are complaining about anti-Shia remarks?
At the end of the day, if a person wishes to be treated with respect they need to treat others with respect.
Would the Ayatollahs support belly dancing? (Be it male or female). I believe they would not support such behavior which is why I am confused as to why you are arguing.
Baybers, thank you for the kind words. I do appreciate them.
Shia Bhai you really do need to calm down. You are going to burst a blood vessel. Look at the original item from Reuters, look at it fresh. Why is it there? First it deals with gender bending.
Go a little deeper, what is the meme here? What are the stereotypes? One is the Western image of the harem girl. This is not reality, but it has been put forth since at least the romantic period. Like it or not, this bit of nonsense has been drilled into our brains via paintings, books, and some really bad B movies. It’s an image locked into our heads from many sources. It’s a clique.
Now take a look around you at the so called post-modern world. In the pop culture irony and surprise rule. Alex is on the Web because he shatters a stereotype. He is a ironic comment on the harem girl. He is there to shock and titillate. He is part of our endless need to be “entertained.”
I may be uninformed on Islam, but I do know a bit of disposable pop culture when I see it. That is all Alex is.
He may committed to his art (maybe he should be committed elsewhere) but he is being put on display as a freak show. He is part of the “entertainment” at a disco. Call me a culture snob, but I won’t take this guy seriously until he performs at Lincoln Center or the Sydney Opera house.
It is interesting to know that once-upon-a-time dancers were male and that these dancers danced for royalty. It is just like in Elizabethan England when all the parts in Shakespeare’s plays were done by men. The world turns and things do change. It would take a brilliant director to stage Romeo & Juliet with an all male cast today. Even with that brilliant director who would risk such a production?
So while Alex might be reviving a old tradition, my guess is he never getting out of the discos. He will always be an oddity. As an oddity, he will most likely fade away, a trivia question for future generations. That was my original point. But unfortunately some people saw this as an opportunity to jump on their favorite hobby horses.
This whole story was a bit a fluff and nonsense. Baybers got it right on his original post. He introduced it in humorous way, or at least tried too. So to all, relax.
Every once in while have a good laugh at the world and most importantly yourself. Remember in other peoples’ eyes we all look quite ridiculous. And yes Shia Bhai, I include myself in that statement.
I am calm James, but I’m glad you accept you know very little about our religion. Hopefully others will see what you are all about
Shia Bhair, James isn’t a Muslim so obviously he is going to know less about Islam than us. He’s never suggested otherwise.
Furthermore, his contributions to this site have always, without any exception, been polite and worthwhile. I don’t know why you are addressing him so aggressively. He certainly doesn’t deserve it.
I don’t think his comments are worthwhile. I get the feeling all of you that like him, because he is white so somehow it gives this blog credibility. We don’t need non-Muslims just to fill quotas. If they are naturally intrested then great. Maybe your right Amir, lets see
[…] an earlier post, Baybers quipped about the inability of the Muslim world to produce a single scientific journal of […]
Shia Bhai, it is quite obvious that the only comments that are worthwhile to you are your own.
I will just point out that Amir could very easily hit delete button when I post something on this blog. While this would make you very happy, he has decided to give it a miss.
I seriously doubt that Amir cares that I’m white, black or pink with purple polka-dots. I have no idea what “race” or color he might be. To me it is not germane in the least. I only know him from his writings. Does his color mean that much to you? What if Baybers was a lily-white plumber from Alice Springs? does that mean his opinions are worthless?
Islam became a great world religion because it was inclusive, not exclusive. It was tolerant of internal dissent (for the most part) and tolerant of other “people of the book.” Islam flowered because it was willing to look at ideas from other cultures and build upon them. So even though Islam never accepted ancient Greek Polytheism it did accept and build on ancient Greek mathematics. Good thing that too, could you imagine trying to balance your checking account in roman numerals?
Call me foolish, but I do believe that talking to people who are much different from me is a good thing.
Final note, again what is with the all the hostility? ad hominem attacks on Sunnies, then ad hominem attacks on others, accusations of secret agendas etc. This began as such fun but boy, did it spiral down the drain fast.
By the way, here is my “agenda” for the next few minutes:
http://video.google.com/videop.....pr=goog-sl
oh and this one too.
http://video.google.com/videop.....6323959688
Warning absolutely nothing of ANY significance to ANYBODY period!-Enjoy!
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