Fall Fashion in Baghdad

It seems that women are donning the veil in the new Free Iraq.

Why?

One reason for this is increased reports of women being kidnapped and raped. Khitam Hekmet, 20, works in a fashion store in Al-Mansur and wears western clothes, but her family have urged her to dress in an Islamic fashion to not draw attention to herself.

So women who wear Western clothes are "asking for it?"

The rise in religious feeling has also added to the pressure women feel to cover up. In June, the BBC reported radical clerics had demanded women wear the veil, and that one Iraqi UN staff member had received a letter at home saying she would be killed unless she started covering her hair. There have been no recent reports of this, but many religious leaders have recently become leaders of political parties and believe the veil is integral to a woman’s morality.

Guess so.

“The veil is an Islamic law, Mohammad makes this clear to all women and girls,” said Said Al-Hawadi, leader of the Supreme Council for the Liberation of Iraq.

Al-Hawadi said he does not believe in enforcing the veil but warns of dire consequences for any Muslim woman foolhardy enough to shake it off.

“It is her problem if she refuses to wear it - in Islam the woman who doesn’t cover up is going to hell,” he said.

How about this: how about if YOU go to hell. No wonder your culture missed the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. You were all too busy putting your heads up your asses.

The veil has also become an important political statement for Al-Hawadi since the fall of the ex-regime.

“The abiya is a resistance against the occupation, it is your personal jihad,” he said.

No it's not. It's a way to control society under your own strangling rules. Don't pretend that nobility or 'struggle' has anything to do with it.

If a woman in Iraq wants to wear the abaya (full black robes) or hajib (head scarf), let her. But a country can't pretend at freedom if one-half of its citizens feel compelled, or are forced by law, to wear a certain type of clothing. The veil is a symbol of female inferiority and its opposite, male superiority; which means that Iraq is riding the rails to an Islamist state - like Iran or Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

I wonder, then, if the Muslim culture is capable of a Renaissance or Enlightenment? Since their religion is also civic law, that means their laws haven't changed since the Quran was written - in about the year 630.

Dark Ages, indeed. And no light in sight.