Moderation in everything but religion

Printer-friendly versionSend to friendPDF versionEver hear of hot pursuit? Like the Sheriff of Travis County chasing a bad guy across the county line to make an arrest in Jefferson County? Like the American Army pursuing Pancho Villa deeper and deeper into Mexico in 1916? Like an American fighter pilot chasing a Russian Mig across the Yalu in 1952 or ’53? Like a Neanderthal pursuing a prospective mate into another tribe’s cave and dragging her out by the hair?

It was like the last one. County Sheriffs don’t always get their man and the American Army and American fighter pilots have never been 100 percent successful but the Mutaween, Saudi Arabia’s caveman Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice always gets their woman, and a particularly fleet-footed member of Allah’s patrol proved it the other day. He spotted two perps in a car—a man perp and a woman perp—and they were perpetrating. He swooped down on them like a hawk on a chicken coop but while he was arresting the male perp the female perp decided to make a break for it. And away she went with the Mutaween flatfoot in hot pursuit. The Yalu was too far off, Mexico was in the next hemisphere and there were no caves or county lines in easy reach but there was a woman’s Professional Training Center only a huff and a puff away. So in she went. That ought to hold the flatfoot—men weren’t allowed in the center. But alas—it was not to be! It wasn’t Barney Fife hotfooting it after the Muslima ingénue, it was Bull Connor—or to keep the allegory intact, Ally Oop or Fred Flintstone.

To make a long story short, the Mutaween followed the perp into the Training Center, grabbed her by the hair, and while a number of women looked on in horror, dragged her out into the street.

“You have the right to remain silent, Ma’m.”

The outraged owner of the Center has filed a complaint against the Commission. And the Commission—well, they have filed a complaint against the Center.

It was a sign of moderation, right? The perp wasn’t beaten and the Center wasn’t torched of closed down. Cooler heads had prevailed. Saudi Arabia is in the hands of reformers. A new age is dawning. Well, not so as one would notice.

Prince Khalid al-Faisal bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud is Governor of Makkah Province in western Saudi Arabia. He is a leading ‘reformer.’ He has been on a speaking tour promoting moderate Islam. “Moderation is the way of life of a progressive Arab Muslim society in this country,” he told the students and faculty at King Abdulaziz University. “(It) firmly and confidently says “no” to extremism and westernization and “yes” to moderation in thinking, politics, economics and culture.

Moderation?

March 9, 2009: A 75-year-old woman was sentenced to receive 40 lashes for hosting two unrelated men in her home. A few days previously, Halemah Mozaffer, a female writer was at the Riyadh International Book Fair for a book signing. The Mutaween was also there—the printed word could be as dangerous to a true believer’s virtue as a suicide bomber’s belt and just as explosive.

It wasn’t long before the Mutaween had detained two male novelists who had approached Halemah for an autograph. Ms Mozaffar was read the riot act. She was accused of immorality for not having her face covered and for signing books given her by men. By men! Reinforcements were called in and a human wall was formed to prevent her from signing more books—two Mutaween, fives security guards and six soldiers. Eliot Ness didn’t use that many Untouchables when he raided one of Capone’s breweries.

Was this exercise a “no” to extremism or a “no” to westernization?

Dr. Abu Razaiz, a professor of Psychiatry at Umm al-Qra University in Mecca, was sentenced to 180 lashes for having coffee with a female student. Those in the know say he was framed for irking the Commission.

Last year in Riyadh, a 37-year-old American businesswoman was jailed for sitting in a Starbucks coffee shop with a male colleague. She was strip-searched and forced to sign a false confession. Was that a “yes” or a “no” to moderation in economics?

The Promoters of Virtue have banned walking pets in public because young men—forgetful of the 72 virgins awaiting them in Allah’s paradise—were using Fido and Snuggles to lure women into the streets.

It is the ability to interfere in the most trivial affairs of both men and women that gives the Mutaween it’s power and makes it so feared. Hitler’s Gestapo would have envied them. The Mutaween can raid private homes in search of alcohol and illegal sexual activities; they can arrest men and women unrelated by blood or marriage for meeting in public places. If there is any need for moderation in Saudi Arabia it is in the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

Khalid al-Faisal may be a nice man, generous to a fault, kind to animals and maybe even to Jews, but he ought to get out more. When he says “no” to extremism he means Osama bin Laden and when he says “no” to westernization he means “no” to a lot of things—to John Wayne and Rooster Cogburn, to Britney Spears and Rosie O’Donnell, to frat parties and church socials, to the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, to a mixed touch-football game in Polisher’s field and to what goes on in American a hundred billion times every day.

But he is in favor of moderation—he says “yes” to moderation in thinking, politics, economics and culture. But hasn’t he left something out? Isn’t there something missing in all the moderation? Thinking? Politics? Economics? Culture?

Why, yes! He forgot to mention religion! How could that be? Certainly a religion of peace and tolerance couldn’t be against moderation. Somebody should ask him the big question—about moderation in religion, and then head for the nearest cave; no one in Saudi Arabia has ever made it to the county line.