FISBEP is at it again, this time in Germany.
Many thanks to JLH for translating this article from Die Welt:
Now I’m an Islamophobic Agitator. Thanks!
by Birgit Kelle
Facebook blocked me, because my opinion of a Barbie doll apparently does not conform with its community standards. I accept that, if it means a free life for all women.
Before yesterday, I had been honored with titles such as “anti-feminist,” “rightist,” ‘homophobe,” and “racist” or “Catholiban”[1], and also combinations such as “homophobic rightist” and recently — worst of all — “arch-conservative Catholic.” Can you see the sacrificial bonfire already burning in the background? As of yesterday, I know better — I am now an Islamophobic agitator. Thanks!
In this country, it doesn’t take much to acquire such names. Thus far, Facebook has blocked me for 7 days, because my opinion about a new doll by Mattel apparently does not conform to the community standards of the social media platform. It’s too bad that I did not go into ecstasies of enthusiasm over a new Barbie doll in hijab, which is intended to open a completely new market for the international toymaker, and in the process bring the friendly face of obligatory veiling and oppression of women in Islamic countries worldwide into the rooms of little girls.
Criticism of Headscarf Barbie is apparently too much for the virtue guardians of Islam. A seven days’ ban on Facebook. Twitter is apparently more in favor of freedom of opinion.
It’s also not good that this Barbie is designed on the model of a female athlete. The suppression of women is no athletics field and no playground, but, for millions of women all over the world, bitterly and deadly serious.
And so the question comes to me — will there now be a Barbie house, where dear Ken can have his Barbie whipped or stoned, if she wants to take off the handsome hijab? Facebook informed me that this sentence and the entire post were erased, and I was being suspended for seven days. Understand: I was, after all, attacking the people of a religious community — that’s a no-no. The gentlemen of Islam do have a right to free practice of religion and their traditions.
One person’s Sunday church service is another person’s stoning. We are, after all, in favor of diversity. It’s only an article of clothing. And you can get it in bright colors, so that it is pleasing to women. So now it’s possible not only to beautify the language of oppression, but also its clothing. And isn’t it wonderful when little girls practice style consciousness in the doll house, tying the bits of cloth together properly?
So Weinstein and Company Can Look Around
Maybe I should have taken my lead from my colleague at the Zeit, who unerringly recognized that the new Hijab Barbie had “emancipated herself” with this new look. At last, no more miniskirt or bikini, but demurely covered. Fabulous, this emancipation. The words “emancipated” and “veiled” would only occur to me in one sentence under threat of torture. If you want to try that out, you should take to heart the recent post in Huffington Post. The author lectures exhaustively on why female Muslims are the true feminists.
They are respectful of their bodies and will not submit to the dictates of the West, which has made the surface of the body an object of display and lust. The burka as the key to emancipation. So those old guys Weinstein, Brüderle[2] and company can take a look — we deny them the sight of our beautiful bodies.
I had barely lifted my head off the table where it had dropped from shock, when another — female — colleague of the Zeit entered the picture. In the middle of the overheated #MeToo debate, some of my fellow females are blowing out the cyber synapses.
On the grounds of emancipation, she, too, recommended that women eschew make-up, sprucing up their looks, showing off their beauty. Freedom through ugliness. Freedom through clothes that no longer emphasize the body, let alone the figure.
This is similar to the female Greens in Berlin, who monitor public displays and remove every poster with women in bikinis, to protect the dignity of women. Back to baggy, unprepossessing clothing, not to reveal the woman’s charms, but to cover them. Give up public nudity. Pierre Vogel[3] could not have formulated it better.
With astonishing speed, feminists (!) are rushing to be supporters of radical Islamic ideas. Those same women who would have a respiratory paroxysm and intuit a sexist attack, a suppression of their intellect and the whole patriarchal structure, if a man were to pay them a compliment, are the ones who trivialize the headscarf or even the hijab as a stylistic article of clothing.
Anyone who points out that this headscarf is a political symbol, the wearing of which manifests the inferiority of women and the inequality of men and woman is considered — and not just on Facebook — a rabble-rouser, racist and Islamophobe. So I have transgressed Facebook‘s community standards by condemning headscarves for children’s rooms. Happy to do it. I’d do it again. Because, in the community standards of this country — we call it the constitution — there are things like equality of men and women. Freedom of religion is there, as well as permission to be free of religion. And recorded there too are the freedom of the press and the freedom of expression.
Rabbit Punch for Courageous Women
Today, by the way, is the “Day of Imprisoned Writers.” It is intended to remind us of authors all over the world who suffer severe repression because of their writings. I would like to commemorate here the women writers and bloggers worldwide, and the women activists in Muslim countries, some of whom are in mortal danger as they write to advance the freedom of women. Who fight for de-veiling, for the right to remove their headscarves in public for the first time without fear of imprisonment.
Veiled Barbies are not a sign of tolerance, but a rabbit punch for the courageous women all over the world who need and deserve our support. I am happy to accept seven days without Facebook, if it signals a free life for women everywhere.
Birgit Kelle filed suit against her Facebook ban. The ban was accordingly lifted after 24 hours.
Wow! My attorney, Joachim Steinhoefel, knows his stuff. The seven-day ban was lifted after 24 hours. Thanks to all those who supported me and were outraged at a kind of censorship from Facebook, which we should not accept.
Notes:
| 1. | Extremist Catholic. | |
| 2. | FDP lead candidate interviewed by female Stern reporter, who reported some of his overly familiar remarks. | |
| 3. | Notorious Muslim hate preacher, a native German convert. |
When will the Taharrush Ken doll be issued? With a “southern” appearance & shariah compliant beard, automatically programmed to deflower any “uncovered meat” non-hijabbed Barbie who strays too close?
Your harsh words may trigger somebody … and they may be considered a hate speech for sure. Or a general insult on the Cult.
The problem is … in merely three lines you subsumed the Cult with a wit and hyperbole: yours should be the Saturday Night Live to come 🙂
Good point The World is a Harsh Mistress..Would it not be haram to exclude a 9 year old Aisha doll replete with vaginal scars and bruises from moham -mad’s incursions?
Yes..The Moon..alologies..
apologies..rather..
Ken al Ameriki..Harem and slave al Barbies sold seperately..
separately..rather..
In regaards to the Ken slave dolls (might as well throw in Aisha too)..A virgin check button..Anybody at Mattel in sales can contact me at 666-6666..at 6:66 am or pm..
The day when people walk around in public without clothes is the day there is no dress code imposed.
So her argument is not on a dress code ( religious or otherwise), it is about a muslim dress code, and for the reason that she finds the muslim religion oppressive towards women, outside of its dress code. Hence advancing the muslim dress code, and therefore religion, is unwelcome.
That is fair play, in own cultural setting.
Muslim countries will find similar reasons to reject western representation. If we consider islam a political ideology, well it is not a large stretch to see western ideology being a form of religion also… religion and politics have a tendency to co-opt each other in certain ways. Our religion we consider kinder, but our policy is not always friendly… an outsider will not differentiate between the two, as Christians still vote in destructive government.
The short of it is each to their own. If the author is protecting western culture that is one thing, but if there is to be a transcendental quest where she engages the beliefs and practices of muslim countries , well that is not really for us to meddle with as a nation, though each is free to hold their opinion with regard. Maybe rejecting the muslim female dress code in the west until mistreatment of women is no longer advocated in the muslim world is a good place to start for that, but can you properly draw the connection between the two – dress code and mistreatment ? Not as easy as we would like to imagine, just as having to wear at least underwear in public in the west ( no, I don’t suggest less is better!!!) cannot be tied to say state violence. Though the author picks up on the gender theme, there is no reason to confine the argument of the debate to it, unless she is discriminating ( which is ok also as long as aknowledged and kept in own context, i.e. her own agenda as reply to what she sees as discrimination against members of her own sex by a religion).
I think you miss the point, which is – by what right does FB censor a post about hijab Barbie?
We wear clothing in the west mainly because it keeps us warm, and people with inadequate clothing tend to perish under certain conditions.
But also in the west, a person can remove all their clothing without fear of a death penalty imposed by a patriarchal society;, husbands, fathers or brothers laying down the law. But the west also expects all people male, female, old or young to follow certain conventions and only undress in designated places.
Go to the beach at Khobar and see the little boys splashing in the water in bathing briefs whilst their sisters sit in their burkas/abayahs watching.
And what is more, if my daughter, a non-Muslim had been there, she too would not be allowed to wear a swimsuit and splash around, she too would be forced to wear the approved religious clothing, FORCED on pain of death!. Here in Israel we have ‘religious’ beaches too, but we also have ‘nudist’ beaches.
Choice is everything! and a hijab Barbie is like having a convict Ken.
Which brings to mind..Does that hijab Barbie have a virgin check button? Does she come with a hijab Barbie lighter to burn her little koran if she doesn’t want to be mooslim anymore..Is there a Christian or Jewish or Hindu or Cherokee Iroquois Erie Blackfoot Sioux Creek Huron Mississauga Chigago French Canadian Mohawk Barbie? Didn’t think so..
How about taking it all the way, Burka Barbie? And Taliban Ken? Taliban Ken comes complete with a kalishnikov, and a whip, to beat Burka Barbie when she misbehaves.
I think you are on to something here. The marketing opportunities for accessories are almost endless. Accessory Toyota technical trucks with machine guns, for example, or how about 20 Taliban Ken and Barbie children. You could dress the male children up as Bacha Boys and make them dance for Taliban Ken, and sell off the female children in arranged marriages when they turn 6 to Taliban Ken’s first cousin. You are no longer selling just sterile old western Barbie and Ken, but you can now sell an entire village.
Why does anybody need to have a Facetrash account? If they throw you out of a shop, would you sue to get in or find another shop? Publish your story so reasonable people will close their accounts, too. There is life without Facetrash.
That’s very well said! How I miss the pre-Facebrick world! Unfortunately, however, Fb is now an integral part of the human story and an invaluable tool for reaching the masses… who NEED to see the truth about the oppressive, dehumanizing “religion” of Islam.
“…an invaluable tool for research…” Sort of like the trash heaps outside Mumbai, or any other great metropolis. One man’s garbage is another mans…garbage.
Agree.
Is not allowed to leave to box without al-Ken… Stoning stones not inlcuded… Comes with lifelike bruises…
Islam sunna package: Get up to four for the price of one (plus Sexslave Barbie 4 free)!
“The day when people walk around in public without clothes is the day there is no dress code imposed.” In English, in which the author ostentatiously displays his fluency and verbosity, those two “the day…” clauses are transposed, to the effect of neutering his entire grossly exaggerated but Dramatically Presented opening statement. He then proceeds to draw several vague but firmly-phrased inferences upon that meaningless introduction and, further, bases his entire murky expression of opinion on his self-contradictory initial claim.
The overall result, to me, is a sense of having waded through a murky mass of [bogus material], only to return to my starting point with a stench clinging to my person.
One might reasonably conclude that the author’s religion is “wholly [effluvia]!”
P.S. If someone is truly unable to deal with people walking nude on the streets, then that person needs education in freedom and human rights.
There are plenty of people whom I have no desire to see prancing around in the nude on the street. Being that I currently reside in one of the coldest states in the country, the likelihood remains remote even if such were allowed. A quick trip through your local Walmart should make you realize why allowing public nudity would be a very bad idea indeed.
I can’t say that I was particularly shocked by the reactions of the feminists, they are, after all leftists first and foremost, basically anti family, because family represents a rival authority structure to the all encompassing State. Islam, would tend to appeal to them, since it is a totalitarian political system, and they care about women about the same way that the old USSR cared about workers, useful for propaganda purposes, but otherwise to be oppressed or exploited.
This is barely (excuse the expression) on topic, but some people may enjoy it.
A woman calls Hamleys (famous London toystore) to ask what new Barbie Dolls they have, which her granddaughter might like.
“Well, we’ve Air Hostess Barbie; she comes with a uniform and a fixed grin, for £15. There’s Bridal Barbie, with a dress, veil and train, bouquet, bridesmaids and pages, for £40. There’s also Divorced Barbie for £500”.
“£500? That’s extortionate!”
“Well, she does come with Ken’s house, Ken’s car, Ken’s boat…”
Thank you, Mark It’s nice to laugh once in a while nowadays. And I think I’ve met the Air Hostess Barbie.