Fulla: A cool kinda gal for a kinda hot Middle East!
So Barbie's been given the go-by! Middle Easterners now favour the more decent and certainly far less raunchy gal called Fulla! Fulla's the coverup gal for the little girls of the Islamic world. Playing with Fulla will catch 'em while they're still young. It's much easier to indoctrinate the young than it is the old. It's also much easier to make girls grow up to know their place in society that way. Fulla will always be dressed traditionally. She will wear the abayah, or sometimes when she is feeling more daring, just the headscarf! She will never reveal an arm or a leg; so definitely no sunbathing for her! At the moment, she even comes with her own pink prayer rug. Pink!
Fulla is to be honest and loving and caring, and she is to respect her father and her mother. Wow! Doesn't that sound rather more Christian to you?
Anyway, they want to start making good little submissive Muslimahs while they're still young enough to be malleable. It's much easier to knock them into shape when they're very young than to end up with a child that has been used to playing with the raunchy Barbie, and then try and teach her that Barbie characterizes the wicked ways of the West. After all: No good Muslimah would want to end up looking like her, and nor would she like to behave like her either. Isn't Barbie the cheap little tart with a boyfriend called Ken?
By the way: There are no plans for Fulla to have a boyfriend!
Read all about it, and take a look at the raunchy Fulla HERE.
©Mark Alexander
9 comments:
JudahQ:
I really think you should have one! Indeed, I really think you should adopt one! In doing this, you could save her soul! You could liberate her. You could give her a good life.
Wouldn't it be great if more Westerners felt like you do? They could dress the poor little wretch in a more enlightened way! Who knows? She might then be able to slough off her inferiority complex and compete with the raunchy little Miss Barbie!
JudahQ:
Do Muslim women think they are better than Western women? Or do they secretly envy them?
This is a very interesting question, if a little complicated to answer in a few sentences. This is my take on it...
For many years, the years prior to the 1979 Revolution in Iran - the year that the Ayatollah Khomeini reawakened Islamic pride - women, especially city-dwellers and educated ones, used to emulate Western women. Also in matters of dress. Western women were seen to be more advanced. Scarcely a veil was to be seen on the streets of Cairo, they say.
1979 was a turning point it seems. Khomeini gave Muslims back their pride in being Muslim, and started turning the inferiority complex into a superiority complex.
We've all hear about the person who has an inferiority complex which manifests itself as a superiority complex, haven't we? Well, I think that Muslimahs have this kind of attitude to this problem. That's why we see so many Muslimahs today taking to the veil, I believe.
Coupled with this, their newly-found oil wealth has stiffened their resolve to politicize the world in their own image. They can see that many gains can be made for them because they have found that the West isn't quite as sure of itself as they at first thought. They see the West in disarray and caving in right, left, and centre.
So, in short, I think that deep down, they envy the freedom of Western women, but they see that the West has become increasingly decadent. And we can't argue against that, because it is true.
When I compare the semi-clad, pierced, even tattoed specimens walking the streets, and compare those women with the women of my childhood, there is no comparison. Women in those days were decent, modest and respectable. Many fewer women today fall into this category.
Women, in the quest for equality, have abandoned their traditional rôle as housewife and mother and care-giver for the family, and have gone out into the world of work to compete with men in the marketplace. They have lost much of their femininity as a result. I believe that Muslimahs do not envy that, and feel superior in this regard. For one thing I have to say in their favour: Muslimahs are often far more feminine than their Western counterparts.
So the short answer to your question is that they have mixed feelings about this matter.
I always remember a student of mine telling me this: What's so liberated about Western women? Western women have to go out to work to make ends meet; our women are kept by their husbands, and the richer ones have servants to help them at home, too. Who, he said, is the more liberated?
You might not agree with his assessment, of course; but I thought his comments were quite revealing.
Pre-9/11, I asked one of my adult ESL students, a Saudi fellow, to explain a bit to me about the place of women in his society. I'm paraphrasing his response: "Oh, our women are quite liberated. At the beach, they can wear jeans under their clothes."
Back then, I didn't know enough about Islam to question him further, but his response has stuck in my mind.
Good post, Mark! Sometimes one has to look at the lighter side, huh?
Thanks, AOW. I enjoyed writing it. It made me laugh a lot. JudahQ's comment made me laugh a lot, too! In fact, I was in stitches when I read it. (Please excuse the pun.)
Yes, I think it does help to see the lighter side sometimes. Islam can be a very heavy and depressing subject. Humourless, in fact.
The story of Fulla tickled me. Can you believe the lengths these people will go to to keep out Western influences?
Indeed, humorless. Do Muslims think about anything else but praying five times a day and killing as many infidels as possible. I wonder what the politicians have been smoking who allege that Islam is a religion of "love and peace." I have never seen nor do I know from the record of history nor have I heard any Muslim say that Islam is a religion of "love and peace." The only ones saying this are pandering Western politicians. If anyone knows anything to the contrary, please share it with me.
JudahQ:
Do Muslim women think they are better than Western women? Or do they secretly envy them?
Did you agree, or disagree, with my answer to your question? What are your thoughts on the matter? Or anybody else's for that matter?
Careful judahq: showing Fulla in anything but a Burka might offend a muslim somewhere and before you know it... A big fat Fatwa with your name on it.
This Fulla is full of something all right...
JudahQ:
That leads me to question if Muslim women are able to make true comparisons followed by genuine judgements (even in secret) given the indoctrination of Islam. Instead, their perceptions may just be prescribed for them - that they are inferior to their men but superior to the infidel by virtue of their faith.
I do wonder if they ever have any secret longings for something else, another way of life... but maybe that is far too forbidden altogether.
I think that you underestimate their knowledge and understanding of the West! They may well live in a closed world; but totally closed it cannot be, since many travel to the West on vacation.
I have seen with my own eyes how these people behave in planes leaving for London from Saudi Arabia: As soon as they leave Saudi air space, they disappear to the toilets/lavatories/bathrooms (call them what you will). They go 'fully clothed' in their abayahs. They emerge made up (complete with eye shadow, lipstick, and blusher), minus their abayahs! Just as any Western woman would be, though perhaps a little bit brasher and more glamorous.
When they fly back to Saudi, it all happens in reverse: When the pilot announces that Saudi air space has been entered, they all disappear to the bathrooms to make themselves Islam-compliant! They re-emerge from the bathrooms as women totally subdued, totally covered up, totally Islamic!
They know how the other half live; but, due to the male-dominated world they inhabit, they have to toe the line.
It's all very sad really. I believe that 'petticoat power' is called for here. They are the ones that could change the status quo, but it is they who show little courage to take their dominant males on. They are the ones who refuse to challenge the system.
I suppose it is difficult for Muslim women to stand up to their oppressive husbands as Islam encourages the barbaric practice of beating wives who "get out of line." Should anyone doubt this, consult the Holy Qur'an, Surah IV, 34 (Translation by A. Yusuf Ali).
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