Thursday, July 06, 2006
Watching the World Cup Under Sharia
It can be so easy to sit here in this country where we don't even have to think about our basic freedoms--NSA wiretaps aside--and forget that life isn't like this for everybody. On Tuesday I became agitated when technical difficulties caused me to miss the first half of teh Germany-Italy World Cup match. I fumed as I stormed off to watch the game in a Hood River coffee shop, self-righteously declaring that whoever designed entertainment systems to have 14 different remote controls should be pilloried on national television, provided anyone can get their TV's to show a picture. I was annoyed, I was upset, and I felt violated.
Meanwhile in Somalia, a businessman and a teenage girl were shot for watching that same match.
Could any event put my snippy little hissy-fit into sharper relief? I was actually angry that I didn't get to watch the whole thing, while half a world away human beings were being slaughtered in the street by thugs operating under the banner of piety. All for the crime of watching television.
I should hasten to add, however, that Islam, even its more radical variants, is not so extreme as this everywhere you go. Take this exchange in a recent interview with the new Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya:
So while the undeniably militant Hamas leadership, which governs under the banner of Islam, happily watches soccer on television, ordinary Somalis are massacred for daring to do so, because television itself is banned under their brand of the very same faith.
http://www.forret.com/tools/trackback.asp?title=Watching the World Cup Under Sharia&blog_name=Decline and Fall&url=http://www.declineandfall.net/2006/07/watching-world-cup-under-sharia.html
Meanwhile in Somalia, a businessman and a teenage girl were shot for watching that same match.
The hard-line Muslim fighters, who have banned watching television, opened fire after a crowd of teenagers defied their orders to leave a hall where a businessman was showing Tuesday's Germany-Italy match on satellite television, according to Shabelle Radio, an independent local station.
Could any event put my snippy little hissy-fit into sharper relief? I was actually angry that I didn't get to watch the whole thing, while half a world away human beings were being slaughtered in the street by thugs operating under the banner of piety. All for the crime of watching television.
I should hasten to add, however, that Islam, even its more radical variants, is not so extreme as this everywhere you go. Take this exchange in a recent interview with the new Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya:
Haniya: Now I have a question. In addition to being prime minister, I am also the Minister of Youth and Sports. I used to play football myself. What do I have to do to receive an invitation from (German) Chancellor Angela Merkel to attend
the World Cup games?
SPIEGEL: For that to happen, you would also have to
recognize Israel's right to exist and renounce violence.
Haniya: Then I'd rather watch the World Cup on television.
So while the undeniably militant Hamas leadership, which governs under the banner of Islam, happily watches soccer on television, ordinary Somalis are massacred for daring to do so, because television itself is banned under their brand of the very same faith.
