Sheik Mustapha’s declaration that our “womenfolk are the epitome of immorality” (KN July 2nd) reminds me of an exchange between British Professor Richard Dawkins and a religious fundamentalist in Gaza.

In a documentary examining various religions (the programme is called “The root of all Evil” and is available online at Google video) Dr. Dawkins interviews Joseph Cohen, a secular Jew who moved from Brooklyn NY, converted to Islam and changed his name to Yousef Al Katab. The professor felt that with Al Katab he might be able to get a more balanced view of religious faith. Boy, was he wrong!

“Do you want Islam to take over the rest of the world?” Dr. Dawkins asked as the interview drew to a close.

“Of course I want it to,” Al Katab declared, adding, “and it will.”

“My advice,” he continued, “is to clean up your show at home, take your forces off our lands, correct yourselves, fix your society, aw right? – fix your women. . .”

Professor Dawkins interrupted him: “Fix your women? That’s not my business. That’s the women’s business! They’re not ‘my’ women.”

But Al Katab would have none of it. “No”, he interjected. “It is your business. When you take the women and dress them like whores on the street. . .”

“I don’t dress women,” Dawkins protested. “They dress themselves.”

“But you allow it as a norm,” Al Katab insisted. “To let the women go on the street dressed like this. What’s going with your society?”

What we have here is a clash of world views; that of modern concepts of freedom and equality versus stifling, archaic and oppressive rules trying to pass itself off as a higher morality.

I had asked Mr. Mustapha why everyone in our plural society must adhere to his religious rules and why are women being accused of immorality simply because they do not live up to some man’s sanctimonious expectations. The answer is in that documentary. In fact, everyone interested in how the forces of unreason are working on many fronts to control our society should take a look at the programme.
JUSTIN de FREITAS