Phillip Mayfield Quotes
If a community decides this is how you're going to dress and these are the punishments, who are we to say different?
There are fundamentalist Muslim nations and subunits throughout the world, which make it a criminal offense for a women to exercise what, in the West and according to the UN International Charter of Human rights, are her legitimate rights. The punishments in some of these communities are very brutal and barbaric. Under Canadian law and policy a person who is in fear for their safety and/or life because they are exercising a fundamental right are eligible for political asylum and immigration status in Canada. Mayfield and a few other conservative Canadian legislators do not see the issue of women’s required dress as being in the same category of freedom of speech, criticism of the government, or the practice of one’s chosen religion. The same people generally favor more restrictions on immigration anyway, and they would not give Canadian asylum to women so aggrieved. Those legislators seem all to be men. The women in Parliament and the majority of the men do not agree, have maintained the right of women to seek asylum for these reasons.
Phillip Mayfield, Canadian Member of Parliament (Conservative), Response when asked why he believed that the torture and imprisonment of women for not wearing a veil should not be grounds for granting asylum in Canada, The Globe and Mail, March 24, 1995
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This was another historical reality that shocked traditionalists. There was nothing in the Koran or Islamic scripture requiring women to wear veils and burkas. Many Muslims and non-Muslims, to this day, do not realize that.
Most prisons of that age not only incarcerated the prisoners but also beat and tortured them and kept them in unsanitary and unsafe facilities. Pedro I was an incredibly modern man regarding prison reform and was years ahead of his time even by European standards.
There is relatively little freedom of speech in Egypt and most Islamic countries where the traditional Sharia laws prohibiting blasphemy and the tradition of not publicly embarrassing the Caliph or the Sultan, combine to protect the modern Islamic state from criticism. Turkey, Tunisia and a few other Islamic states are exceptions. Under this Egyptian law anyone could be jailed for bringing “shame” to national and Islamic values. On September 6, 1981, the Egyptian Director of Public Health, Dr. Nawal El Saadawi was actually arrested and jailed for three months for saying that women were ill treated in Egypt and the rest of the Arab world. See {586710} for the kinds of statements for which Egypt would jail leading citizens.
There are large areas of life and society in which all Arabs—especially in Saudi Arabia are expected to behave, believe, and think in certain ways. The modern Islamic religion governs behavior of all kinds and is very prescriptive. Everyone is expected to take it literally and behave accordingly. Individualism and even creativity except in prescribed areas is even regarded as sinful. Islam was not always such, and ironically when Christianity was in its Dark Ages and was even worse for the individual than Arab Islam today, the Muslims celebrated intellectual creativity and exploration of all ideas including those of the West. However, in the 12th century there was a “closing”—a narrowing of allowable Islamic thinking, and since then, Islamic people have had great difficulty with change or modernity. Not all Muslim nations are equally rigid but the Arabs are at the extreme among Islamic counties.
He is often referred to as The Reformer as he was a modernist. In particular, the told his people that there was no religious obligation is Islam for wearing a veil or a burka. These are just customs. Yet most Muslims still believe that veils and burkas were required by God. The only Koranic statement on the subject simply says that women should dress modestly. Despite his efforts, veils and burkas are still required by most Afghani families and most people think the requirement is religious.
Erdogan, though a very successful politician, was not a very sophisticated or well educated man. He appealed to the poorer, more Islamic, poorly educated, rural population, and while this statement, among others, made him a laughing stock and disgrace to more sophisticated Turks and to most of the industrialized world. While many people tend to believe that modern TC programming weakens traditional morals and norms, the thought that TV could induce nymphomania, is itself laughable. And to argue that girls should not laugh in public is extreme, even for most Muslims of the world.
