Sheikh This Out
I read this article today:
Now, we've all read a thousand or so articles just like this one in the past few years, but today I thought, "Why?"
Why are we always reading articles about the silly things Muslim Clerics say?
I mean, surely Muslim Clerics have always been there saying this and that. Cripes, they talk sometimes as if they pre-date Sister Time, herself. So why do I find myself in a constant state of irritation having just read the latest opinions by a Muslim Cleric on how women should have to live their lives? I know, I know - 9/11 happened. But so what? Why does the fact that 9/11 happened mean that every Muslim Cleric who has some Koranical view of how women should have to live their lives - get to have his crazy backward views delivered to me here in Ottawa?
It's not as if this isn't practically a daily thing, either. So, okay. Enough already. We know what Muslim Clerics think. Why do I have to re-read their thoughts every Gawddamned Day.
Still, it's crossed my mind that even the Muslim Clerics are a little surprised at all the media attention they are garnering. Afterall, I'm sure they used to say much more backward things than they're even saying now. It's just that no one knew or cared that they were saying them.
No one Non-Muslim, anyway. And probably a goodly number of Muslims living in North America, too. Or right under their noses, even. When was the last time we heard from "the average... Mohammed"? Never? Because I talk to the odd Muslim right here in Ottawa and, so far, I've only heard back, "So... that'll be $7.50..."
I'll cut to the chase. I think we're hearing from these Muslim Clerics because it's in the interests of the media to keep this whole War on Terror party going and there's nothing better'n a Muslim Cleric to get everybody up dancing. What better way to keep people engaged than to report the outrageously sexist and mind-blowingly anti-democratic utterances of guys wearing black hats? Eh? I ask you? BLACK HATS!! Doesn't your blood boil just a bit every time you read the latest "veiled threat" made by a Muslim Cleric wearing a BLACK HAT?! Doesn't it make you think, "Gawd. The War on Terrorers are right. These guys do hate our freedoms. Look at all those BLACK HATS!!"
And I guess they do. Hate our freedoms. Although, certainly not the freedom to access our media every frickin' day to say the same gawddamned thing they said the day before. I mean, I can't even get a letter to the editor published - me, a fifth generation Canadian (white, too - although... a white WOMAN... on the left...) - and these guys, cripes, these guys can say anything and get a whole page of ink and several issues of follow-up outrage.
Oh yes, the chase. Well, here it is. I think if we heard as much from Christian Fundamentalist Clerics and Orthodox Jewish Clerics and Wiccan Clerics - our blood would boil right over and it would be hard to focus on the real enemy - the Muslim Clerics. And the War on Terror would spiral right out of control back onto US. (Isn't it weird how US is just U.S. without periods? You've got to wonder if the Four Fodders did that on porpoise.)
So I wonder. Say the media closed its doors to Muslim Clerics. Would the Islamic Fundamentalist menace just disappear? You know, like, if a tree falls in the forest, and there's no one there to hear it - does it make a sound?
'Cause like I say - I wonder.
Anyway, I'm not reading any more Muslim Cleric utterances. I know the drill. But there is a Christian Evangelical leading the free world and a Christian Evangelical picking up after him so I'll take that extra mind space and worry more about their utterances. They're just more relevant to me, I guess. And you, too, I expect.
Even if you're a Muslim Cleric.
