I don't pretend to know much about the middle east, or the religion of Islam, or even what a Persian Rug feels like. Without a proper understanding, it can be easy at times to look down at other cultures for their lack of progressiveness. Two articles reinforcing that feeling:

Over at TCS Daily, Watching Khartoum documents the failures of a recent Arab Summit: Arab summits are typically repositories of failure. The latest one in Khartoum, Sudan this week was no exception....

In their pronouncements, or lack thereof, on all of the most important regional issues -- an Arab role in Iraq, Iranian power, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Darfur -- Arab leaders exposed the profound bankruptcy of the state system in which they navigate. In seeking consensus, they reinforce stalemate; in defending their comrades in Syria and Sudan, they abet criminals; in offering nothing new on the Palestinian and Iraqi conflicts, they encourage others to do so while overlooking their interests.

Elsewhere, a commentary on Muslim culture: Muslims & Sexuality: It is ironic that both Muslim men and women are under the mistaken impression that Western society is oversexualized compared to them, when in fact, it is practically impossible to be more obsessed with sexual matters than they are in Muslim communities.

Consider for a moment a culture that would prefer to let young girls die in a burning building than to risk having them run out of said building not clothed in properly modest dress; and tell me that such a society is less preoccupied with matters of sex than we are in the West.

Tags: linky, politics