Soft on Boris

I watched Four Corners on Boris Johnson last night, and thought it was pretty soft on him.  There was lots of generic talk about criticisms and scandals both personal and professional, and how he is a polarising figure; but next to no details on his career, and the inaccuracies in the Brexit campaign he effectively headed.    So it was rather disappointing - more like some lightweight commercial current affairs take on the matter, such as you might see on 60 Minutes. 

And gee, Alexander Downer carries big bags under his eyes now.   Aged 67, I see.  Bad genes, or does too much time on the champagne diplomat circuit cause that?

An alternative gay rights history

Not exactly a topic I spend much time thinking about, but a review at the TLS notes a book which argues that, at least for the US:

“Gay commerce”, writes David K. Johnson, “was not a byproduct of the gay movement but a catalyst to it”. This is the somewhat heretical thesis of Buying Gay: How physique entrepreneurs sparked a movement....

Johnson makes the case that, in the 1950s and 60s, erotic gay magazines (many of which began life thinly disguised as bodybuilding manuals), pen pal clubs and directory guides (to gay bars and businesses) played a crucial role in the formation of a nascent political movement for legal equality and social reform. These outlets created the conditions for the eventual decriminalization of homosexuality, which began on the state level in 1961 and culminated in 2003 with the Supreme Court ruling Lawrence vs Texas, which overturned same-sex sodomy laws across the land.

I think I have read this before - how bodybuilding in the mid 20th century had a very large gay following.  I suspect that this might have changed by the time of (say) Arnie - when championship bodybuilding looked (as it still does to my eye) distinctly weird, and too grotesque to have much of a gay vibe about it.   Perhaps steroid boosted muscles de-gayified the hobby? 

Anyway, the article goes on to note that underground gay business was quite big business:

Bob Mizer did indeed have dreams, but he was also intent on making them reality. A frequent spectator at body-building competitions (where much, if not most, of the audience was discreetly composed of gay men), he started a photography business in 1945, the Athletic Model Guild (AMG), with a casting call placed in the back of a weightlifting magazine ostensibly aimed at heterosexual men. The response – from both potential models and, later, consumers of his beefcake photographs – was immense. Imitators and innovators, unleashed by capitalism’s animal spirits, soon followed Mizer’s lead to vast financial success.....

From its founding in 1955, the Grecian Guild – which, in addition to publishing a magazine, organized gatherings in an early form of gay community-building – appealed to ancient traditions of same-sex desire, as did the homophonic Adonis Male Club, a pen-pal service set up in 1959, which allowed men and women to come out to an empathetic stranger, share experiences and advice, and arrange dates. As homosexuality remained illegal, such outfits relied on coded language (“artistic”, “musical” and “temperamental” being euphemisms of choice).

 I won't extract all of the the parts explaining the aggro action taken against these businesses, except to note this description of one of the key players:  

... US Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield (a cross between J. Edgar Hoover and Mary Whitehouse) described the Adonis Male Club as “one of the most vicious, filthy, and widespread operations” in the country.

All interesting in its own way.  A right wing gay character like "look at me" MP Tim Wilson would lap up this pro-capitalism take on gay rights.   Someone else can tweet it to his attention.  

Mass hysteria noted

Hey, there's a great long read (with plenty of photos) at the BBC site:   The mystery of screaming schoolgirls in Malaysia.

Apparently, Malaysia has a long history of episodes of mass hysteria - interestingly, going back to before the recent-ish period of increased conservative Islamic influence on the country:

Incidents in Malaysia were particularly prevalent among factory workers during the 1960s. Today it largely affects children in schools and dormitories.

Robert Bartholomew spent decades researching the phenomenon in Malaysia. He calls the South East Asian country "the mass hysteria capital of the world".

"It is a deeply religious and spiritual country where many people, especially those from rural and conservative states, believe in the powers of traditional folklore and the supernatural."

But the issue of hysteria remains a sensitive one. In Malaysia, cases have involved adolescent girls from the Malay Muslim ethnic majority more than any other group.

"There's no denying that mass hysteria is an overwhelmingly female phenomenon," says Mr Bartholomew. "It's the one constant in the [academic] literature."

The girls (as it usually is) see it as a supernatural phenomena - seeing a ghost or feeling possessed of an evil spirit.   Scary (and pre-Islamic) ghost folklore plays its role:

Malaysia's fascination with ghosts dates back centuries and is deep-rooted in shamanic tradition and South East Asian folk mythology.

Children grow up hearing stories about dead infants called toyol - invoked by shamans using black magic - and other terrifying vampiric ghosts like the pontianak and penanggalan, vengeful powerful female spirits that feed on the living.

Trees and burial sites are common settings for these eerie tales. These locations stoke fears that feed into superstitious beliefs.

Unfortunately, as the article indicates, conservative Islam is perhaps not the most helpful religion ina society beset by strong supernatural beliefs:

He abides by the teachings of the Koran, Islam's holy book, and also believes in the power of Jinn - spirits in Middle Eastern and Islamic cosmology that "appear in a variety of shapes and forms".

"We share our world with these unseen beings," Zaki Ya says. "They are good or bad and can be defeated by faith."

 Anyway, I was also a bit amused to see in the article this photo:

It is explained:

A more controversial approach comes from a team of Islamic academics in Pahang, the largest state in peninsular Malaysia.

Priced at a hefty 8,750 Malaysian ringgit (£1,700; $2,100), the "anti-hysteria kit" they offer consists of items including formic acid, ammonia inhalants, pepper spray and bamboo "pincers".

 All of this reminds me:   Jason, does your family coming from this part of the world help explain your somewhat hysterical right wing content lately?  I'll be recommending you buy one of these kits if you keep tweeting with apparent approval Right wing numbnuts. 

A not so late movie review

Saw The Invitation this weekend - the 2015 movie which I had wanted to watch for a while but my son resisted during our usual Saturday evening argument over what to view on Netflix.   (I was pumping for the Chinese save the planet movie The Wandering Earth, which has belatedly turned up on Australian Netflix, but for some reason I can't fathom he is against it.)

Anyway, The Invitation is a very fine, dread filled movie experience:  well acted, well made in a one house setting that makes me wonder why Australian movies in one place look cheap to me, but American movies that do the same do not.  Also turned out it was kind of topical, given some of the discussion around Tarantino's latest plot.

It is of the "dinner party from hell" genre, but one that plays on the question of what is really going on quite well, inserting just enough doubts at key points in a pretty clever script.

Recommended.   It did make me feel pretty sick with dread for much of the way, though.   (Reminded me a bit of 10 Cloverfield Lane in that sense.) 

Update:  out of curiosity, I just checked what this movie made when it had a cinema release.  A paltry $232,000 in the US apparently (and maybe got no international release?) - pretty unbelievable, given its quality and generally good reviews.  I don't know where I had heard about it - I thought maybe it on At the Movies, but that show wound up before it was released.   Maybe on the Radio National review show?

Where is the common sense middle on the video game debate?

Once again I find myself getting annoyed with the problems of both sides of an argument - this time on the matter of video games and connection with real life violence.

On the conservative American Right:  of course the claim about the connection of violent video games to shootings is not an argument put in good faith - it is (along with general bleating about mental health) primarily a diversionary excuse for not doing anything very serious about gun control.

On the Left (and libertarian) side:  the point about the low international rates of violence despite the popularity of violent games everywhere is overly simplistic - isn't that obvious?  If people who might be triggered to live out a gaming fantasy in real life are prevented doing so by the sensible gun restricting laws of most countries, that tells us nothing reliable about the possible connection between games and shooting in the USA.   Do those game defenders think that those who worry about a connection are making an argument so unsubtle that it along the lines of "violent games make players want to kill in any manner possible - knives, bombs, cars - any way"?  

Part of the problem here is probably the whole question of "causation" in this context.  I have had my say on the dubious relevance of psychological studies on the effect of video games before - see my posts "Useless Violence Studies" and  "Video Violence and Empathy" - I think they stand up well.

I get the impression that studies on video violence are in a similar position as was research on marijuana use and mental illness about 40 years ago - when there was a great deal of expert doubt that there could be any connection, versus the more common sense reasoning of parents who hadn't seen a psychotic episode in their child until they were smoking cannabis.   Finally, the expert opinion swung around to "well, yeah, it can cause serious problems particularly with young smokers in a real, causative sense - although it's still tangled up with pre-existing susceptibility to mental illness as well."

The problem is that video violence is even harder to study than cannabis, given that it's not as if there are plenty of mass murders to study, and identifying those who are having thoughts of mass murder before they commit it is never going to be easy.

There is also the question of the degree to which one contemplates interference with an entertainment business just because it may implant a bad idea in the mind of some viewer.   This guy, in the Conversation, makes this point - there have moral panics over movie violence which seem quaint today.   But as I have argued before, there is something about the repetitive nature, and the involvement in directing the action, of video games which common sense ought to suggest may have different and more worrying effects than watching a movie on screen violence.    Although of course, I have great concerns about the morally numbing effect of movie violence as well.

It would, in my opinion, be a healthier society if violence in games and movies was decreased from its current excesses.  I am annoyed that there are few mainstream cultural commentators who put that line forward - I am stuck with pointing to a string of recent Popes who haven't liked violence in video games.   On this matter, as with many other social issues (as long at they are not to do with sex and reproduction!) the Catholic Church does maintain pretty sensible views. 

While on the topic of free speech

This Will Wilkinson take seems spot on:

And this comment about how American got there sound right too:

Dear Reader/s

Due to Graeme Bird's insistence on polluting my comments section with complete and utter conspiracy nonsense (as I have said before, just like Alex Jones, but with the added offensiveness of anti-Semitism), I have put the comments onto moderation.    [I have tried deleting his comments, but he just re-posts them over and over again in a game that is tiresome and pretty childish on his part.]

Some may argue that I shouldn't worry - people know he's a nut and will just ignore his rambling theories, even finding them funny sometimes - but really, I don't want to host a forum that spreads such offensive, fact free material.   I have spent years criticising Catallaxy (and Sinclair Davidson in particular) for hosting offensive religious bigotry (about Islam in its case; a religion not above criticism here, of course) and sexist, homophobic, racist and defamatory content in comments in the name of free speech, so it's not as if I can continue hosting  it here without being inconsistent.  

I've never done it before, and I'm not even sure how it works yet. 

He's been told to just revive his dead blog is he wants to rabbit on as he does, but it seems he prefers annoying others instead.

I will see how this goes. 

PS:  can someone try to comment so I see how I get to moderate it?

Bret Stephens gets it right

A lot of Lefties were annoyed with the New York Times taking on Bret Stephens as a regular contributor, but we should all be praising his column today which scorches Conservatives' "whataboutism" in relation to the Dayton shooting (agreeing with my point made earlier today in the context of the same exercise by Andy Ngo), and attacking Trump for his role.   Some highlights:

Connor Betts, the alleged Dayton shooter, had left-wing political views, believed in socialism, supported Elizabeth Warren’s candidacy, and regularly inveighed on Twitter against various personages on the right (including, it turns out, me). This has some conservatives fuming that liberal media is conveniently ignoring the progressive ideology of one shooter while obsessing over the far-right ideology of another — Patrick Crusius, who posted an anti-immigrant manifesto shortly before police say he murdered 22 people at a Walmart in El Paso.

Sorry, but the comparison doesn’t wash. It’s idiotic.

The Dayton victims did not fit any political or ethnic profile: They were black and white, male and female, an immigrant from Eritrea and Betts’s own sister. Crusius’s victims, overwhelmingly Hispanic, did: They were the objects of his expressly stated political rage.

What happened in Ohio was a mass shooting in the mold of the Las Vegas massacre: victims at random, motives unknown. What happened in Texas was racist terrorism in the mold of Oslo, Charleston, Pittsburgh, Christchurch and Poway.

The former attack vaguely implicates the “dark psychic force” that Marianne Williamson spoke of in last week’s Democratic debates. The latter directly implicates the immigrant-bashing xenophobic right led by Donald Trump.

This needs to be said not because it isn’t obvious, but because too many conservatives have tried to deny the obvious. It’s not about ideology, they say: It’s a mental-health issue. But that’s precisely the kind of evasive reasoning many of those conservatives mocked in 2016, when the mental state and sexual orientation of Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen was raised by some media voices to suggest that his attack had not really been an act of Islamist terrorism. 

Alternatively, conservatives have cited the decline of civil society, the effects of the de-institutionalization of the mentally ill, the paucity of prayer and the ubiquity of violent video games — in sum, the breakdown of “the culture” — as explanations for mass shootings. This is the right-wing equivalent of the left’s idea that poverty and climate change are at the root of terrorism: causes so general that they explain everything, hence nothing. Why not also blame Friedrich Nietzsche and the death of God?

Get real: The right’s attempt to downplay the specifically ideological context of the El Paso massacre is a transparently self-serving effort to absolve the president of moral responsibility for his demagogic rhetoric. This, too, shouldn’t wash. The president is guilty, in a broad sense, of a form of incitement.

As for his reaction to Trump's use of "infestation" when decrying illegal immigration:

In today’s America, the dissemination of the idea, via the bully pulpit of the presidency, that we are not merely being strained or challenged by illegal immigrants, but invaded and infested, predicated the slaughter in El Paso.

It’s worth noting that the Walmart massacre is, as far as I know, the first large scale anti-Hispanic terrorist attack in the United States in living memory. On current trend, it will surely not be the last or the worst. The language of infestation inevitably suggests the “solution” of extermination. As for the cliché that sensible people are supposed to take Trump seriously but not literally, it looks like Patrick Crusius didn’t get that memo.

The main task for Democrats over the next 15 months won’t be to convince America that they need yet another health care re-invention, or that the economy is a mess, or that the system is rigged, or that the right response to Trump’s immigration demagoguery is an open border. It’s that the president is a disgrace to his office, an insult to our dignity, a threat to our Union, and a danger to our safety.

Quite right.

So far from normal as to be virtually inexplicable

Of the many photos of bizarrely inappropriate smiling and thumbs up from Trump and his equally strange wife during the hospital visits this week, this one just takes the cake:

How can we be sure that those two are not aliens wearing human skin suits, as in Men in Black?   It strikes me as just about the only plausible explanation.

As for the reaction on Twitter, Mediaite explains it well:

Twitter Recoils at White House Photo Op of Trump and First Lady Smiling With Baby Orphaned in El Paso Massacre: ‘Act Like a Human Being’

 The baby was brought back to the hospital for this photo op at White House request.

Killed for the avocado trade??

In The Guardian's report of a gruesome scene in a Mexican city:

The merciless dogfight between Mexican drug cartels has produced its latest macabre spectacle with the discovery of 19 mutilated corpses – nine of them hung semi-naked from a bridge – in a city to the west of the capital.

it goes on to note that the cartels fight is not just over drugs, but more importantly, over avocados (!):

Falko Ernst, an International Crisis Group researcher who studies Mexico’s cartels, said this week’s slaughter was clearly intended to intimidate rival criminal groups, the families of their members, as well as Mexican authorities.

Ernst said the bloodbath was partly about the struggle for control of Uruapan’s local drug trade. But a more important motivation was the fight for the region’s billion-dollar avocado industry. “The big magnet here is avocados,” he said.
 

What a sad, strange country - which I would like to visit if only it didn't have such appalling problems.

Fear of invading cultural supremacy

William Saletan writes at Slate that he has read three of the recent white supremacist killers' "manifestos" and finds that all of them actually indicate fear of the cultural supremacy of the "invaders" that they go on to kill.  

Which is kind of odd - it's a bit like self hatred of their own group leads to rationalisations for attacking the other.    Interesting, as Saletan usually is.   Here are his last paragraphs:

These reflections on the assets of immigrant communities—spiritual strength, cultural strength, economic and educational ambition—have led some white nationalists to recalculate their propaganda. Breivik, for instance, rejected “supremacist arguments” and portrayed white Europeans instead as an oppressed native tribe, like “Aborigines in Australia and Native Americans in the US.” “Rhetoric related to ‘indigenous rights’ is an untapped goldmine,” he wrote. “Playing the victim card is the most potent strategy of our times.” He concluded with this message: “Preserving your tribe, cultural and demographical, is a basic human right and has nothing to do with ‘white supremacy.’ ” 

Tarrant offered a similar pitch, based on the idea of “diversity.” His massacre of Muslims, he argued, “was not an attack on diversity, but an attack in the name of diversity.” How? According to his manifesto, the goal was “to ensure diverse peoples remain diverse, separate, unique, undiluted.” “A rainbow is only beautiful due to its variety of colours,” he wrote. “Mix the colours together and you destroy them all.” 

What’s happening among these extremists, in short, is a shift from white supremacy to white nationalism. That’s no consolation to the hundreds of people they’ve killed or wounded, or to the millions they’ve terrified. But it does undercut a core premise of their ideology. Even racist mass murderers are being forced to admit, in their own manifestos, that whites are losing their economic and cultural dominance based on merit. The dogma of white supremacy is collapsing.

Quality editing

I get the feeling that quality control at Quillette is not much of a thing, as long as the politics are "right":  it looks like an essay that immediately sounded fake to many readers has been pulled after a short appearance on the site.   Tweets about it here.

Quillette's Andy Ngo, meanwhile, has been busy tweeting support for the the proposition that the Dayton killer is the "first antifa mass killer".   (The guy had apparently even turned up at an antifa rally - in support of them - with his rifle.)

The problem for Ngo and his New York Post ilk is that the actual target of the killings has no connection with antifa rhetoric:   I haven't noticed them spending time whipping up criticism of people who go out to an entertainment district on a Saturday night.  (And it would also seem, given his sibling was one killed, that he may have had family issues that led to the spree.)

There's no doubt that young male killers with emotional and social issues can follow either side of politics:  the problem comes when you can see a clear connection between the targets of the killings and the political rhetoric they endorse and follow.   

Is that too much for Andy to grasp?      

He has no idea

Have you seen the nauseating video the White House put out of Trump's hospital visit to Dayton, Ohio?  See it at this Tweet, which puts it context:

It is genuinely bizarre - a pure PR exercise by Trump that looks exactly like a campaign commercial.

(And a sign that celebrity culture has completely corrupted the way people think they should act around anyone famous - regardless of how appropriate it really is that smiley, happy images should be appearing around a tragic event.)

The comments reactions on Twitter are good. For example:

Now for something really important - more thoughts on fast food

I'm sick of being appalled at Fox News and its terrible, terrible propaganda pandering to the Trump base (and Trump himself).   That Tucker Carlson clip where he says "white nationalism?  it's a problem about as real as Russian interference" just makes me sick for its reality denial. 

So instead of dwelling on that, let's deal with a burning issue closer to home:   what's going on at Dominos pizza?

*  I am deeply suspicious that the Dom Pizza Checker - the alleged scanner that is supposed to check the quality of each pizza - does anything useful (or perhaps, anything at all?)  Maybe it's there to take a pic of each pizza so as to help the shop owner defend any claim of contamination?    Has any employee spilled the beans as to its true point and utility yet? 

*  We noticed recently that the regular pizza size has become smaller - and now there is a large size that is below the ridiculous "New York Pizza" size.  The New York Pizzas are a pathetic range in their toppings, by the way.

*  Something was different about the taste of the pizza last night.   A sourer taste that was not inedible, but different.  I think it was in the taste of the tomato sauce, but I might be wrong.   Was it a temporary aberration, or have they change their sauce supplier?  (I wouldn't be surprised if its from some far flung corner of the world as a cost savings measure.)

My main point is - why does fast food keep changing so much?   They seem to never get to a point where things can stay more or less the same for more than 12 months.   The same with McDonalds - they used to have much more stable menu with just one special menu item that might come and go in a month.   Now (although I really don't go there much anymore), it just seems that the entire menu is in a state of constant flux.  

I don't really understand this - I get the benefit of having some menu variation (the burger or pizza of the month, for example) to keep customers coming back to try something new, but surely too much variation starts to annoy customers, like me?

I get the feeling that the fast food industry has succumbed to something equivalent to the managerial wankerism of the 1980s, where "experts" with MBAs thought the most important thing was for organisations to spent a month of meetings on drafting a mission statement.  Are there fast food business consultants having a similar rein over the fast food industry at the moment?

How they do politics in Uganda

A Ugandan court on Tuesday charged pop star turned leading opposition figure Bobi Wine with "annoying" President Yoweri Museveni, his lawyer told AFP.

Here is a link.

Signs of a lobby group having passed through Canberra recently?

What's behind the sudden talk of small, modular nuclear power for Australia?   Angus Taylor on Radio National Breakfast one morning, talking them up; then Ziggy Switkowski the next - both speculating that this type of nuclear could be a good way to go.  See this article at the ABC website about it.

Given that the concept of this type of nuclear power being deployed has been around for a long time now, yet still appears to be no where near actually being sold as a commercial product, there is something more than a bit suspicious about why it is on the minds of Coalition politicians suddenly.   I would guess some lobbying from some industry group from the US?

John Quiggin explained back in 2014 why this nuclear option was dubious at best - and re-reading that post, it seems little has happened to change his assessment.  Indeed, JQ has posted recently that it is really an "entire exercise...founded in fantasy".

I used to think there was promise in small, modular nuclear - but the fact that it has languished in development suggests that it just doesn't add up.   (One thing I have always had my doubts about was the oft repeated idea that they could just be buried on site - which might be a good containment idea as far as the atmosphere is concerned if one blows up, but isn't such a great idea for the water table.)

If making small nuclear work would take a lot of government directed research and investment, then it now appears to me it may well be more beneficial to put the effort into new, large scale storage instead.   There are some ideas there which seem to warrant support.

No, not deplorable at all [sarc]

I don't remember seeing this video during the Trump campaign, but someone recently put it up on a  Reddit thread in light of the discussion of racism after the recent mass shootings.   It gives a good idea of the kind of stuff that goes on in a Trump rally audience:



I think it would be an extremely useful thing if this type of video was put up with respect to his recent rallies.  People need to know what his base really thinks.

Where is the spending?

Last Saturday I had a couple of hours to spare and went for a walk around Fortitude Valley, the inner city area which has had a lot of urban development in the last 10 to 20 years.  It was a beautiful Brisbane late winter's day for being outside.

I went down to the Emporium shopping and restaurant area, which is surrounded by new to new-ish apartments, a pretty upmarket hotel, and used to be very popular for mid range restaurants:  

 

 This is what one of the large, outdoor eating areas look like now:

It also used to have an upmarket deli (many years ago, when it first opened.)  That has been replaced by a Chemists Warehouse.

The place still has one upmarket restaurant (an Italian one which we ate at last year - it was OK, but I didn't think particularly good value for money).   But the other eating places left are decidedly more downmarket - a Guzman & Gomez, a Grill'd hamburger joint (and a second burger joint), as well as (I think) a teppanyaki place that is somehow still surviving.

I then walked further down the road to a shopping centre that contains a Harvey Norman and a furniture store.  They were extremely quiet in terms of the number of shoppers.

This area has had huge development in the last 20 years - Teneriffe is a very nice, riverside suburb within walking distance of these shopping and eating areas, too, that has had many large highrise apartments blocks opening continuously in recent years - but it seems that the increase in residential living in this part of Brisbane just has not been enough to sustain the commercial centres opening within it.

And don't get me started on the nearby Chinatown mall - it was attempted to be revived by a re-design about 10 years ago too, and it is nearly completely dead.  A mere handful of restaurants left now, it seems.

This obvious lack of spending in an area of town that used to looked to be doing well only a few years ago seems a very bad sign to me as to what is going on economically in Australia.

It certainly gives a sense that discretionary spending is way, way down, and that funds that have invested in commercial retail developments must be doing much, much worse than they ever expected only 5 years ago.

I do not think there is much confidence in most aspects of the economy.

Update:  I forgot to mention, across the road from Emporium there was a yum cha restaurant that opened a couple of years ago in a pretty new building.  It was large, seemed busy on the couple of times we ate there, and had parking beneath the building.   I liked it.   It has closed, and the landlord is trying to lease it again as a retail/display space - not even as restaurant or food outlet.   (What must have been a pretty extensive kitchen has been completely removed - I could see inside the building.)  

The de facto police state the Right desires

Trump adviser Sean Hannity is being rightly ridiculed for his solution to mass shootings in the US:

I'd like to see the perimeter of every school in America surrounded, secured by retired police -- which you are -- retired Secret Service -- which you are -- military, and I want guys to donate 15 hours. I think we could cover every school, every hour, every day.

Add a metal detector, and I think we're going to have safer schools. Have one armed guard on every floor of every school, all over every mall, the perimeter, and inside every hall of every mall. Now, that gives us an instant response opportunity that we normally wouldn't have.

 I can't see Trump buying it.  I get the impression that Trump is a purely politically opportunistic pro-gun figure - he doesn't have any private history of enthusiasm for gun ownership or hunting, does he?  Certainly not for using one on the battlefield!   And he did support the bump stock ban.  

But his need for approval means he won't cross guns rights activists too far.

Cultural issues

On Gulf News:

Dubai: Sometimes words fail to express human compassion towards a mother who has lost her child. Saudi Arabia's Minister of Islamic Affairs Sheikh Abdul Latif Al Asheikh, was seen on video embracing and kissing the forehead of a woman, who was grieving the loss of her son. He was killed in the New Zealand Christchurch mosque shooting.

The footage, which is currently circulating on social media, shows the Saudi minister trying to calm the woman pilgrim crying in Makkah.....

Sheikh Abdul Latif said on Sunday that bringing the Christchurch pilgrims over to Makkah, was part of the Kingdoms efforts to “confront and defeat terrorism.”

Generally the laws of Islam prevent females and males from embracing, if they are not direct family members, especially when they are performing Haj. Many took to Twitter to criticize Sheikh Abdul Latif for coming into contact with the woman.

Twitter user @AlodidanSalwa tweeted that the Minister owes the public an apology for his behaviour.

“The minister owes an apology to the public for his behavior, even if it was spontaneous and in the moment. What is considered haram is forbidden. He embraced a non-muharam woman. We are waiting for his apology.”

"Is this the Minister of Islamic Affairs of the Unification State?! How has he legalised something for himself that is prohibited in Islam. To hug a woman, when she is someone who should not be hugged by him?" tweeted @1s2s3n4h

While another user, @Jawahir61 tweeted “You can express your feelings without the use of arms to hug.”

"It is not permissible to even look at a women, let alone touch her. God counted on you, God showed us the correct way," tweeted @ar_coffee1.

Others praised and supported Sheikh Abdul Latif for being kind and warm to a crying grieving woman.

What an over prescriptive religious/cultural tradition, based on antiquated ideas about the meaning of physical contact.