Valentines Day. If you are with someone you love, it is an opportunity to shower that person with attention and affection befitting the Queen of Egypt (especially you men, if you know what’s good for you). If you are not involved with someone romantically, it’s either a day you’d just as soon forget or possibly (if you’ve got it like that) an opportunity to meet someone whom is just as lonely as you.
Whatever the day means to you and yours particularly, February is the month dedicated to celebration of love (and black history)). Historically, expressions of love consisted of cards or notes exchanged between lovers. These days many women regard Valentines Day as important if not more so than Christmas or their birthday (which in the minds of many women, should be regarded as a national holiday).
However, not all women in the world see Valentines Day as a positive event. For example, according to Agence France-Presse , “An Islamic separatist women's group, known for its fierce opposition to Western-style romance, vowed to prevent couples celebrating Valentine's Day in revolt-hit Indian Kashmir.
"We will not allow anyone to observe Valentine's Day as it does nothing but spread immorality among youth," said Aasiya Andrabi, firebrand leader of the separatist Dukhtaran-e-Millat or Daughters of Faith.
The group, which supports a 16-year-old separatist insurgency against New Delhi's rule in Indian Kashmir, is also engaged in a crusade to stamp out immorality in the Muslim-majority region.
Valentine's Day, which is celebrated February 14, is "against our culture and Islamic teachings," Andrabi said in a statement reported by Current News, a local news agency.
Once again we see the mighty Islam threatened by innocuous inanimate objects and symbols of very human emotions. It seems that every time we turn around, there’s another story out there about someone from the Islamic faith complaining that fairly normal behavior distracts too much from worshiping in the Muslim faith.
One has to wonder how that religion lasted as long as it has when the natural tendency for any human being is to flout convention and seek out the least common denominator.
As an aside, just to prove my point, not long after coalition forces ousted Baghdad from Baathist rule, men in Iraq sought out porn, in droves at the local Internet cafes. Now one could make the argument that they were just overcome by devilish Western immorality but I highly doubt we had much to do with it.
This is not the first time I’ve heard of Islamic states attempting to morally police their civilian populations. The BBC reported two years ago that, “Iran's morality police have made several raids in Tehran, in an apparent crackdown on women who flout the strict Islamic dress code.
Witnesses said dozens of young women were held in the raids on shopping centres and shops in the capital.
Police also confiscated several items of clothing deemed to be too revealing.
After winning parliamentary elections in February, hardliners warned they would not tolerate what they described as social corruption.”
We hear all the time about how we’re living in an Orwellian society, mostly based on how corporations manipulate the mainstream media into producing stories meant to shape the minds of an unread public. All things are possible but it seems to me that as far as Orwellian societies go, the Muslim world has us beaten hands down.
In Orwell’s “1984” the citizens of Oceania, spoke a dumbed down version of English called Newspeak meant to stave off behaviorally unacceptable or unappealing actions of their tightly controlled public. The main characters sexual life, was entirely regulated by two Newspeak words, sexcrime (sexual immorality) and goodsex (chastity).
Sexcrime spoke to all sexual misdeeds as the government perceived them such as fornication, adultery, homosexuality, and other so-called perversions, and, in addition, normal intercourse practiced for its own sake. In this quasi-fascist apocalyptic future, these acts of amour were all punishable by death.
Now “1984” was a fictional story about where the Western world seemed to be headed back in 1948. However, the more I look at what Orwell was saying about the future of society, the more his predictions seemed to be describing modern fundamentalist Islam, morality police and all.
It seems ridiculous to me that any country would spend resources to try and control peoples private behavior but then I’m just a Satanic Western infidel, so what do I know?
This does bring me to what I believe is an interesting point. The powers that be in the Muslim world are trying to rid their sphere of all Western cultural influences while desperately hanging on to Western technology and of course, Western money. Going back to the lovely ladies of Kashmir, they seem to be regarding Valentines Day as a Trojan horse of sorts, smuggling in to their pristine culture and bevy of depravity and lucidness. But, is Valentines Day just an Anglo thing or has it been adopted by all parts of the world and reframed to meet their cultural mores?
According to Thanhniennews.com, even our old Communist enemy, the Vietnamese have gotten into the spirit of love and romance.
Seeking the best gift for Valentine’s Day on February 14 has become a chance for Vietnamese youngsters to express their heartfelt feelings towards their significant other.
Since early February many souvenir gift shops in Ho Chi Minh City have been crowded with young shoppers seeking that perfect Valentines Day gift.
Personally, I say go with something thoughtfully engraved. Nothing makes a girls heart melt like a gift that was meant for HER and HER only. At least that was what my fiancé told me as we were walking through the mall during the pre-Valentines Day sales.
That’s hardly the issue here. While some radical Kashmiri women are looking to suck the fun out of yet another widely acceptable cultural phenomenon, I believe this latest episode between the East and West is a small part of a larger issue. Aside from nuclear annihilation and all of that, there is certainly more at stake in the War on Terror than I think people realize. The question boils down to whether or you want to live in the world we enjoy now or one where tokens of love and affection are sin against man.
Happy Valentines Day!
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