Sharia Alert from the Caucasus: "Chechen leader: Head scarves for women," by Musa Sadulayev for Associated Press (thanks to Morgaan Sinclair):
GROZNY, Russia (AP) -- The president of Chechnya has called for all women to cover their heads with scarves, the latest in a series of his unofficial orders toughening social customs for women in the violence-wracked, mainly Muslim Russian region.The recommendation by President Ramzan Kadyrov during a TV address last week was not a legally binding order or legislation passed by the regional parliament.
However, several government institutions in the capital of Grozny, including the main government-owned publishing house, posted signs earlier this week forbidding women without head scarves from entering, and guards were enforcing the rule.
Human rights activists reported that at least two universities had also barred women without covered heads from attending classes.
"Legally speaking, you can't demand that women wear head scarves, but in Chechnya, under many governments, authorities have tried to adhere to national traditions," said Dzhambulat Saidumov, a 25-year-old Grozny lawyer. "I support observing folk traditions, but I oppose forcing people to (observe) them if they don't want to."
In his televised comments, Kadyrov gave no explanation for his recommendation, except to say that Chechens should do more to respect their national traditions.
The Kremlin has pinned its hopes for a lasting peace in the North Caucasus region on the gruff-talking, rough-mannered Kadyrov, whose father, Akhmad, also held Moscow's hopes until he was assassinated in a bombing in 2004.
Since being sworn in as president in April, the younger Kadyrov has continued leading a reconstruction boom in Grozny that began when he was prime minister. Once a moonscape of rubble and shattered buildings, much of it now has newly painted buildings, street lanterns, paved roads and parks.
He made several, sometimes quixotic public statements about women's behavior in the region and openly advocated adherence to Islamic customs. He has said Chechnya does not need Islamic law, but also said he favors polygamy - illegal in Russia - because there are more women than men in the region, and he disapproved of Chechen girls who wear Western, instead of Chechen, dresses to their weddings.
[...]
During Chechnya's brief period of de-facto independence in the 1990s, the region's government implemented Islamic law as a concession to the growing influence of Muslim fundamentalists in the republic.
And that influence has not waned.
Could be they're expecting a hard winter?
Time to form a Sha'aria stock index, perhaps with Hermès at the top of the list.
Well Putin, what do you have to say about this?
It seems to me that one part of human nature involved in this sort of story is when a person feels that they have little or no control that they resort to what seems to me to be picky inconsequential issues. Sort of like the old men who would be upset if children stray on to their lawns. Since even a president can have those feelings of being manipulated by forces greater than themselves the condition seems to me to be universal. In the military prickly adherence to rules to enforce discipline is an institutional manifastation of the process. The women subjected to this might then become harridans in their own household spheres. It can become a vicious circle of accusations and strict adherence to forms if not checked by a more easy going less prideful (honor) and self assured and confident way of thinking.
Which makes me relate it to an idea that I have had about how many western leaders are seemingingly oblivious to the nature of Islam as how it relates to traditional western culture. This idea is not fully formed yet but it is based on the fact that Eastern nations long have had a difference among their rulers and their ruled. Roman patriots warned of the way in which eastern ideas of kings might subvert their republic, the Roman ideal was Cincinattus, the eastern ideal was the emperor hailed as a God and beyond questioning, the western judeo christian ideal has abraham questioning Gods judgement on sodam and gomorra, the eastern religious tradition has abhorrence that man could question God.
When it comes to power and those who seek it, the more the better seems to be the formula, while traditional republics check the power of one man wether by counsels or a seperate sphere of power in religion, in eastern nations there has been little of that check.
SO, possibly some of our leaders might look longingly to make our western civilization a little more like the eastern, as Constantine moved the capitol from rome to the bosporus, said to be annoyed by satirists and the familiarity of the people felt as disrespect.
It may be why every time bombs go off that those leaders seem to want to run to their imams and declare Islam a religion of peace.
Greetings:
Maybe Speaker of the House Nancy (Naseem) Pelosi can send over some of her extras. I think she has gotten the foreign policy thing out of her system.
One good thing coming out of this: all those female Turkish university students who claim that they cannot attend university there because their headscarves are banned can now go to Chechnya where their headscarves are obligatory.
Much ado about basically nothing -- or what should be of no significance. But there's the crux: the headscarf is highly significant despite what we read that it's a personal choice, just an indication of a modest choice in clothing, etc. Ataturk (for all his faults) had it right on the matter of the headscarf: No,it isn't (just a pieceof clothing). It has taken on a symbolism out of all proportion to the fact that it is just a piece of fabric.
When we hear that guards are banning women with uncovered heads from entering certain government buildings, how can we then not associate the headscarf with oppression?
So, in Chechnya the headscarf has acquired strong associations with oppression while in Canada, the parents of hijab wearing young girls banned from team sports see it a symbol of freedom.
We're left to puzzle over this conundrum: in the West the headscarf symbolizes the wearer's personal freedom, and in Chechnya it symbolizes her lack of freedom.