Islam dominates our news these days. Or, more accurately, a militant, violent death cult trading under a general Islamic name dominates our news.

From San Bernadino and Orlando in America, to Paris, Nice, Brussels and a week of German bloodshed in Europe, to the ‘forgotten’ attacks…Zliten, Libya, Sharaban, Iraq, El-Adde, Somalia, Deir ez Zor, Syria, Charsadda, Pakistan, Damascus, Syria, Mosul, Iraq, Dikwa, Nigeria, Ankara, Turkey, and on and on and on…as well as the Russian Metrojet crash a year ago, there are hundreds of incidents that involve the sub-human filth that trades under the name Da’esh.

This organisation hates the name Da’esh, so that’s what we’ll call them.

Let’s look at the words of former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, ‘Daesh hates being called by this name, and anything they don’t like has an instinctive appeal to me’.

Me too.

While the European attacks dominate the news in Europe (and north America), what we’ve got to remember is that more Muslims than Christians have been murdered by Daesh. The ongoing refugee crisis in Europe is, I’d imagine, providing opportunity for Daesh murderers and pond life to sneak in under a false refugee crisis, and while Europe’s far-right parties are speaking of a cancer entering Europe, the reality is that many are fleeing death, the exact same flight that you or I might take were such medieval barbarity to be visited on our doors. It’s irksome to read of idiots like Donald Trump generalising in such a moronic manner you feel he’s climbed down to Daesh’s level.

We’ve also read of Muslims attacking (verbally at least) naturists in Germany.  I wrote about this in the ‘Sluts and Terrorists‘ posting recently.

Here’s the thing about respect. It’s a two way street. We will respect Muslim customs but you’re in Europe, so you will respect our cultures and lifestyles too. It’s not for you to impose your cultural framework on something we -Europe, north America, the Antipodes- have built since the time of the Enlightenment.

By all means have Ramadam and other cultural festivals, but be sure to respect our cultures and lifestyles, including naturism.

When researching items for SLN2, I often come across websites that aren’t entirely wholesome. Porn, in other words, pretending to be ‘naturist’. Something of a meme in these is ‘the Arab as whore’. Not new. There is a long history of checking the Arab woman (or black woman for that matter) as a ‘whore’, and in European colonial times there was a history of photographing these ‘naked savages’ the entire length of Africa, from Algiers to Cape Town.

The ‘civilised’, ‘Christian’, ‘developed’ West has much to feel guilty about in this respect.

Of course, a familiar human trait is to demonise or dehumanise ‘the enemy’, and so a trope of internet porn will be the casting of the Arab/Muslim woman as a ‘whore’ in some respects.

 

Put her (and it’s the internet, she may not even be Muslim, or from a Muslim country, we don’t really know) in her hijab and sexualise her. There are many more disturbing rape/torture type photos out there than this mild ‘glamour’ photo.

If Muslim men (and it is men, largely, who are imposing their will on women across the Islamic world to a large degree) want to cover their women up to hide their beauty, for purposes of modesty, you can be sure she will be stripped by the west to demean her.

While ‘back in the editor’s chair’ while Trine was on holiday, I came across a remarkable piece by Abigail that was unpublished, and for some reason it appears that it was overlooked by Trine, and I’ve persuaded her to publish it in the next couple of days.

What you think you know about Muslim/Arab women isn’t even scratching the surface, as Abigail found in a lengthy piece about Muslim women, interviewing some who play Second Life. It may well alter your perceptions of what you think being a Muslim woman is all about. It may challenge your perceptions about Muslim ladies and their attitudes to sex and nudity. And yes, there will be a nude/semi-nude/even naturist angle to some of it.

Ella.