I found this video on you tube…as it is shown…when I was searching about Syria. Anyway…I don’t know should we laugh or cry when no one knows where Syria is…which I believe is taking a huge part these days in media …since the assassination of prime Minster rafiq al-hariri …and the Iranian nuclear thing…is this ignorance from the west or should we wait for America to launch a war “Allah la y2der” so that everybody knows that such a country exist …!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBHyvUK7hkI&mode=related&search=
I must say that I really admire Asma abdol-hamid courage for standing in front of these obstacles and refusing to take off her hijab…..if women are not allowed to wear hijab in parliament , then I guess Jews should also not allowed to wear the kippah or yarmulka !!
COPENHAGEN – With a headscarf elegantly draped over her hair, Asmaa Abdol-Hamid, a Palestinian-born Dane, has sparked a heated debate in Denmark by declaring that she would wear her veil in parliament if elected in 2009.
A member of the ex-communist Unity List, Abdol-Hamid has a good chance of becoming what could be the first veiled Muslim in Europe to be voted into parliament. The 25-year-old social worker and former television host from the Danish city of Odense is known for her commitment to politics and equal rights, as well as her headscarf and her refusal to shake hands with men.
But the prospect of a woman in parliament wearing the traditional headscarf, or hijab, has further disrupted sensibilities in Denmark, a country still shaken by last year’s Mohammed cartoons row that swelled from a domestic Danish affair into a worldwide crisis pitting Muslim values against Western ideals.
Muslims make up 3.5 percent of Denmark’s population of 5.4 million.
A recent poll showed 48 percent of Danes believe Muslim women have the right to wear a headscarf in parliament but the same number are opposed to the idea, with 4 percent undecided.
A spokesman for the far-right Danish People’s Party (DPP), Soeren Krarup, was among the first to react to Abdol-Hamid’s pledge, calling her headscarf a “totalitarian symbol” similar to “the Nazi swastika.”
And a DPP member of the European Parliament, Mogens Camre, said Abdol-Hamid “needed psychiatric treatment.”
But harsh words have not deterred Abdol-Hamid, who moved to Denmark at the age of five with her Palestinian parents. She has rejected her critics’ view that she is an oppressed woman and defends her “right to be different.”
She was recently designated by her party as a candidate for the Copenhagen constituency ahead of the February 2009 general election, and polls show she is well-placed to win a seat in the national assembly.
Although other Muslim women have won seats in European parliaments - in Belgium and Bulgaria - none have worn the veil.
In secular Turkey, which straddles the Western and Muslim worlds and hopes to one day become a member of the European Union, parliament was thrown into an uproar in 1999 when a member of a now-defunct Islamist party showed up wearing her headscarf to take her parliamentary oath.
She was prevented from doing so as lawmakers protested loudly, and shortly thereafter she left Turkey.
Abdol-Hamid is confident that things will turn out better for her; she is used to breaking new ground.
A poised young woman with a broad smile, she made Danish headlines last year when she became the first television host in Denmark to wear a Muslim headscarf.
But the head of the Danish People’s Party, Pia Kjaersgaard, whose anti-immigrant party has grown into a political force to be reckoned with, is not convinced by Abdol-Hamid’s self-assurance.
Kjaersgaard said she “feels pity” for a woman who “tries to make everyone believe that the veil gives her freedom,” adding that the headscarf is “often imposed on very young, innocent girls by authoritarian men.”
Abdol-Hamid insisted that is not the case for her.
“I am free with this piece of material on my head. It is a choice that I consider to be right. And I prefer to greet men by placing my hand on my heart. But I would never insist that others do it,” she said.
For her, winning a seat in parliament is “a way for a Danish Muslim woman to show what she is capable of, and to fight for her ideas such as the struggle for equality between men and women.”
She said she believed firmly in “the separation of religion and politics,” and has said that she would not ask for a prayer room in parliament if elected.
While criticism of her has been harsh, she does have backers.
Several Danish imams have called on Muslims to vote for Abdol-Hamid but most of her support comes from ethnic Danes on the left-wing.
Elsebeth Gerner Nielsen, a member of the opposition Radical Party and a former culture minister who was scandalized by far-right attacks, recently greeted journalists and press photographers wearing a headscarf.
She insisted on Danes’ “right to be different” and stressed the importance of freedom of expression and the need to counterbalance the “nationalist and closed-minded” far-right which “demonizes Muslims who wear headscarves.”
“What is important is not what we have on our heads but the opinions we express,” she said.
Gerner Nielsen has, however, been criticized by a former party colleague, Naser Khader, a moderate Muslim who accuses her of “playing into the hands of Islamists” - a point of view shared by Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen
Blair announced that he’ll be buggering off this summer. Good riddance I hear you say…ah yes, but hold yer horses a minute, who’s going to stop Bush from bombing media stations? Especially a certain Aljazeera in Qatar, a country allied to the U.S.
No one? not even Gordon brown? A shame really, I liked Aljazeera, especially all the Jerry Springer stlye fights and verbal abuse in the debates programmes.
Oh well, it seems to be another case of “you never miss it till it’s gone away”. Bye bye Mr. Blair, we’ll miss how you steadfastly supported the U.S while it bombed people and invaded countries. Who can forget all the good times we had together? Iraq, Guantanamo, AbuGhreb, the C.I.A abductions and tortures….oh those were the times, we had so much fun. And now forever shall they be assigned to history, as part of your legacy to the world. A legacy of a shriveled pathetic man, who pursued his religious ideology with Machavelian zeal, to the point of murder and destruction, disregarding the wishes of his own people, and readily sacrificing their sons in a pointless war. Your average run of the mill despot I’d say, but chillingly reminiscent of his own sworn enemy, AlQaeda.
“Blair” ponder that word carefully…..say it again slowly, relishing all the sylables…. Bbbb-Laaaayy-rrrr …. what does it remind you of? don’t know? clueless? Here’s an interesting fun experiment you can try, turn on your tape recorder, and record the previous Bbbb-Laaaayy-rrrr. Now play it back to your grandma, or favourite relative, which ever happens to be closer, ask them what they think that sound is…..
9 out of 10 times the answer will be: ” sounds like a sick dog vomiting a turd it’s just eaten”…(the other 1 time your chosen relative would have been too deaf to hear it, repeat experiment and change relative).
Footnotes:
Don’t bomb us please, Aljazeera staff say
Maybe I wouldn’t be so upset if Segolene Royal wasn’t so hot……. then again when I think of the other candidate, I can see that I’m upset for all the right reasons!
I’m upset because someone who calls the frustrated, unemployed children of immigrants “scum”, and orders their beating and arrest without addressing any of their issues, is hardly worthy of leading the nation which brought Liberty, Equality and Fraternity to the world….then again, when you consider just how much “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” the French brought to their former African colonies, suddenly it becomes fitting that a fascist prick such as Sarkozy should lead the French, keeping in tradition with the long line of countless mad despots that France has had throughout the centuries… louises, Napoleons et all….
So it seems the French are gearing up for another round of native bashing, albeit this time right at home on French soil. Sarkozy is calling on immigrants in France to be “more French” to integrate into French society. Now what in Gods name can that mean? Most of these unfortunate immigrants were born in France, and lived there their entire life. Perhaps it means that they have to wear berets, eat more frogs with their baguettes, and sip Château Margaux while munching on a slice of Camembert on the porch of their cottage located in a quiet rural spot in the countryside? I actually think that most immigrant youth would love to grow up to be wine sipping middle class poofs like their “true French” counterparts, if only someone would give them a job, help them out of their poverty and stop treating them “like scum”.
Congratulations Mr. Sarkozy, yet again the score in Europe, as was before in the States and Australia, is: common sense -nill, bigoted gits- 1…
Cho Seung-hui AKA Lara Croft!
32 dead in Virginia and the world is in uproar. It makes front page headline news in all the international media for 5 days. heads of state and foreign ministers send condolences, candlelight vigils, mass rallies, cries for change, harrowing eye witness accounts, video footage, reports , documentaries, analysis……all of the world’s press descends on Virginia Tech….
100 people a day are massacred in Iraq… hardly anyone notices….just another by-topic to include somewhere in the news broadcast…. just this week 178 people were blown to bits in car bombs in Iraq… where are the candle lit vigils for those people? where are the outpouring of grief? where are the letters of condolences from heads of state? where are all the voices calling for change and something to be done?
Ofcourse, the massacre in Virginia and the massacres in Iraq have one thing in common, they were both caused by a crazed, deranged individual…….in one case it’s a student, in the other it’s a president!
The real irony is that apart from the obligatory increase in flags that Americans resort to when they’ve “been had”, there’s almost no serious steps being taken to insure that a “mini-Iraq” doesn’t happen again in the states. Americans are still wondering how it could have happened….! as if it doesn’t happen every other month! the only real talk of taking action, is directed at stopping deranged nuts before they start going Rambo, just another f****d up misfit from the Americana/holywood/media/mtv pop culture delusion where everyone is supposed to be white, good looking, rich and successful. Those who fail to fit into this distorted category and aren’t pretty enough or rich enough view themselves as worthless or find themselves being outcasts ….which leads to head cases like Mr.Cho Seung.
As if the fact that 200 million guns amongst the populace wasn’t a valid reason……nah, it’s the fault of a crazed lunatic….he did it, not the guns…..can you then please explain to me how that very same crazed lunatic could have killed 32 people if he was armed only with a kitchen knife?
Watching these events unfold in the states is more than pathetic, it’s quite sickening. what valid reason can there be for American people to be the most heavily armed population in all of human history? What argument for gun ownership can possibly out weight the consequences for it? the countless massacres and gun related deaths?
Not content with keeping their violent murder culture to themselves, Americans are now exporting violence wholesale to the world….Iraq is currently the unlucky recipient, but it’s coming soon to a country near you…..
Wake up people, Virgina x3 is happening everyday in Baghdad……
i found this quite intresting to know!!
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA – A study released Thursday indicates that more women than men go online in the United States, defying the perception of the Internet as a male-dominated realm.
Approximately 97.2 million women use the Internet in the United States, compared to 90.9 million men, according to research by eMarketer.
“There are absolutely more things women do online than men do,” said eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson, author of the “Women Online” report.
“Women are the supreme communicators and the Internet makes it easier for them to communicate and socialize.”
For example, Williamson added, women and girls make up the majority of the users on popular social-networking Web site MySpace while only 45 percent of the audience at video-sharing Web site YouTube.
“Social networking, in general, is very big with women,” Williamson said. “Particularly young women interested in meeting people and talking with friends. It fits very well with the lifestyle.”
Seventy-eight percent of male US Internet users will watch video online this year while 66 percent of the female users will, according to eMarketer.
Reasons given for the difference in video-viewing proclivities included men adopting new technologies faster than women and having greater access to high-capacity broadband Internet connections needed to handle data-rich video streams.
When women watch online video, they are most interested in news, weather, music, and movie clips, according to eMarketer.
Women are less likely than males to visit video Web sites and not drawn to “silly videos” such as those abounding on Google-owned YouTube, Williamson said.
Women are inclined to use the Internet to accomplish tasks instead of as a diversion, according to the eMarketer report.
“Females, especially adult women, are more likely to use the Internet to get things done, rather than to have fun,” the eMarketer report states. “Many adult women, busy juggling work with their relationships and child-caring responsibilities, don’t have time to surf the Web for video.”
More women are expected to take up viewing video online in coming years as broadband connections become ubiquitous and television shows that they like are made available on the Internet, according to eMarketer.
“Early data indicate that female teens are as enthusiastic as male teens about online video,” Williamson said. “The networks are well-positioned to drive greater female online video usage by offering more programming that appeals to females, particularly adults.”
When women play online they prefer “casual games,” such as computer versions of board, card, or word games, over battle games with proven appeal to the opposite gender, according to eMarketer.
The eMarketer study estimates that 66.2 percent of female US residents three years of age or older will use the Internet this year as opposed to 64.2 percent of male residents in the same age range.
Women outnumber men by approximately 5 million in the United States, according to 2005 census figures.
“Even within the populations of men and women you see more women than men using the Internet,” Williamson said.
A very good speech by British journalist Yvonne Ridley about Islamophobia….
check out the video response….its good
for more information about Yvonne…check out her website…
A very nice Animated drawing speaking about the beginning of Islam, it is quite long but worth watching
So the fact that the blessed amongst us, who were brought up on a healthy diet of metal and hard music didn’t come accidental nor was it coincidental. It was a case of psychological predetermination. The melancholy and/or numerous outbursts of fits and anger accompanied by underground, anti-mainstream, anti-social, anti-establishment cords, riffs and lyrics had its purpose and reason all along. Now the reason is being uncovered before my “burning eyes” and our will to listen, headbang and mosh makes sense after all. it wasn’t diabolically juvenile. It was a symptom of all the hidden talents and supression of gifted tendencies. Like the X-men, these tendencies, thanks to metal and hard-core, were tamed when they could have easily mutated into “Suicidal Tendencies”. I can now turn to my future “Offspring”s or children (of Bodom) and reveal to them the great news that they mustn’t be alarmed if they find themselves alienated musically from the rest of society, as they are probably decedents of a long line of metal heads.
enjoy ….
A study has revealed that death metal and thrash bands such as Slayer and Slipknot produce the music of choice for today’s brightest youngsters.
A survey which was carried out among students at the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth, a cohort drawn from the top 5 per cent of the nation’s youngsters, drew praise for metal’s “visceral brutality” with more than a third rating it among their favourite styles. Researchers admitted they were surprised to find that “intelligent” genres traditionally associated with the precociously bright, such as classical and jazz, were the least popular.
What they discovered instead was that youngsters liked to let off steam to hardcore sounds, particularly if it had an emotionally charged or overtly political message behind it. One respondent said: “You can’t really jump your anger into the floor and listen to music at the same time with other types of music.”
Stuart Cadwallader of the University of Warwick, which conducted the survey, said heavy metal was found to provide a form of “catharsis”, particularly for those with low self-esteem.
They found the aggressive music a useful conduit for their frustrations and anger, according to the findings revealed at the British Psychological Society conference in York yesterday.
Mr Cadwallader said this intellectual elite often found themselves facing situations and issues not encountered by less able students.
“Perhaps the pressure associated with being gifted and talented can be temporarily forgotten with the aid of music,” he said.
While other musical forms such as rock, pop and R&B were rated as the most popular, students said they felt particularly attracted to the “thrashiness” of heavy metal.
Answering questions in an online survey, one student said Systems of a Down’s anti-war track, “Bring Your Own Bombs” particularly appealed. Another track, “Aenima” by Tool, was praised for its subject matter - “the stupidity of the celebrity culture”.
Another praised “the visceral brutality offered by metal bands like Slipknot and Machine Head.” The student added: “The cathartic release offered by heavy music played loud, either by my hi-fi or myself on guitar, is a wonderful thing when it’s needed.”
However, many of the students disagreed over what constituted a heavy metal fan andargued that they liked to pick and choose from different styles according tothe way they were feeling.
One student concluded: “As with most music, it depends heavily on the person’s mood at the time. So while there probably is your ‘average metalhead fan’, there will also be a lot of other fans who just feel ‘metalheady’ every so often. Which I guess goes some way to justify my playlists being named ‘emotions’.”
School of rock
System Of A Down Los Angeles-based four-piece whose politically-charged output has much to do with the fact they are descended from Armenian genocide victims.
Machinehead Boasting albums entitled Burn My Eyes and Hellsalive, the Oakland-based nu-metallers were banned by MTV for lyrical insensitivity after the Waco siege.
Slipknot Once compared to a “threshing machine devouring a military drum corps” this Des Moines nine-piece achieved notoriety with their first album, Mate.Feed.Kill.Repeat.
Slayer Recently celebrated 25 years of exploring the delights of satanism and serial killers.
Finntroll Finnish folk-death metal band that sings in Swedish and draws on Norse legend.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2377708.ece
