"Courting": Minus 500 points. Half as bad as murder.
As for the general premise, Hugh Fitzgerald thought of it first. But now you can play at home, too:
"Game leaves nothing to chance for cute extremists," by Nury Vittachi for The Standard, October 14:
Been harassed by hardline religious police? Been arrested for holding hands with your own spouse? I have. Now our children can share these exciting experiences with a board game inspired by Sharia law.
Just take home a copy of Good Game, a genuine board game introduced to me by reader Isman Suryaman from Indonesia. After a few rounds, your kids will be cute little Asian extremists.
Open the box and you'll find a board and counters, just like Monopoly. But instead of landing on squares named after properties, children land on circles representing good deeds or bad ones.
The language of the game is Bahasa Indonesian, so you may first land on olahraga ("sport") and win 10 points. But it's even better if you land on menjaga kebersihan ("cleanliness") and net 20 points. Smart children quickly learn to avoid sport and take long baths to amass points faster.
As the kids go around the board, there are certain spaces which tell them to pick up cards from the middle, like the "Chance" cards in Monopoly.
If any child picks up a card which says Kafir! ("Heathen!") they immediately lose their faith and go straight to hell, without having to die first. The last player in the game wins, so the heathen cards encourage children to pray that friends and family members go to hell soon.
But watch out, kids: there are some other very bad cards in the Chance pile. The worst is membunuh orang ("You murder some guy"). Kill a man and you get a score of minus 1,000. That significantly lowers your place on the scoreboard.
But the next card one of the kids picks up has a picture of a boy and girl sitting shyly next to each other on a bench with pink love hearts hovering over them. This looks like a positive card, but it isn't - oh no-no-no-no-no. The game makers reckon pecaran ("courting") is an extremely grave sin. At minus 500 points per occasion, this card teaches children that experiencing two momentary crushes is equivalent to committing one murder.
But keep going and they may get a menikah card, which means "marriage." This card also shows a boy and girl sitting next to each other on a bench, but without any love hearts. This teaches children that it is crucial that they do not love the person they marry.
They get 250 points for each marriage, so boys soon learn that if they wed people they don't love four times, they can kill someone with no penalty.
I like this game. It is refreshingly different from other board games, and I think I can honestly say espouses a unique set of values.
Okay, so it has a really naff name - I mean, "Good Game," what were they thinking? But it is a nice change from Monopoly. Play that and you spend all your time trying to be a nasty landlord who bankrupts everyone else. What kind of values does that teach?
No, it's better to give growing, impressionable boys some important life lessons. Stay in the bath, avoid love, have a succession of women and then kill people who are mean to you.
You know it makes sense.
Pictures of the game can be seen at www.vittachi.com
Okay, that's it. I can't let this happen. I'm getting to work at once on "Halal or Haram." Yes, it is going to be "taken to the next level" -- the level from dream to reality, from conception to execution, from...well, you get the idea.
If, in that fabulous unreal ether out there, there is sojmeone who will tune in, someone who perhaps finally fed up with Wall Street has cashed out, and is looking for something to back that is not only a Sure Thing (no high executive pay at this startiest of start-ups) but is sure, in Tom Lehrer's famous phrase, to Do Well By Doing Good, and wants just for the hell of it to back me in my venture -- the board-game that aims to familiarize Infidels world-wise with the Shari'a's rules on What Is Prohibited and What Is Commanded, though it will of course remain a board-game of, by, and for Infidels, then that astute, charming, altogether wonderful early investor (or investorette) should kindly contact me c/o Robert, and this will be, like Rick with Capitaine Renaud, the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
I recently lost a good bit of money in the financial debacle so I can't invest in your project, but it would be an excellent way to educate people who don't pay attention and must be cajoled into learning with gimmicks or enticements.
This islamic game is repulsive, par for the course. Muslims are pathetic, miserable souls who seem to exist for the sole purpose of spawning more pathetic, miserable souls destined to live austere, unproductive lives while inflicting their desolation on everyone around them.
When a religion forbids loving one's spouse and condones murdering one's children and grandchildren, it should not be tolerated in a civilized society. Islam should be illegal here and in every Western country.
Hugh doesn't need one very rich backer, if he gets 200 or 2000 smaller backers all prepared to put something into the pot. 200 people donating $100 each for 'Halal or Haram?' could add up.
Maybe Bosch Fawstin or Kurt Westergaard could be enticed into doing the graphics.
Hey, you could do a version of 'Trivial Pursuit', too. Lots of fun facts and figures about the worldwide jihad since 638 AD.
Another 'Trivial Pursuit' could focus on all those dirty secrets in the 'Qur'an-Sira-Hadith'.
And the Dhimmitude Snakes and Ladders.
gosh - muslim kids have all the fun!
There are more pix here
http://the-fool-found-a.blogspot.com/2008/06/good-game-brings-players-straight-to.html
Can't wait to play 'Haram", or the ultimate "Trivial Pursuit", you wouldn't even have to change the name of that game.
So if the girl in the Pacarin card was hearing a hajib, would that mean only -250?
Hugh, I think I could scrape up $100 for your game. You might have more lenders, but think of all the ideas you could come up with by having 1000 or so minds working together on this.
Cheers!
I wonder what the Islamic version of "Spin the Bottle" would look like?
Asian again eh? Must be those Indians or Burmese again..
Notice how the article manages to avoid the words 'muslim' and 'islam'
If I knew nothing about the "Pecaran" card, with it's Anime-style adoring little girl and cutely bashful boy, I might assume that it was an Asian Valentine's Day card.
It is very telling that, while the "courting" card is wreathed with pink hearts, the "Nikah" (marriage) card is formal and cold, noticably lacking in love--no pink hearts here. It teaches children that an affectionless marriage is virtuous, and gains the player 250 points, while a sweet crush--even between little children--will lose you twice as many points.
That cold-blooded murder counts as only twice the sin of puppy-love--well, that speaks volumes about Islamic "values".
infidel Hindu is correct - obviously a Hindu or Buddhist would obsess over being a kafir, or marrying 4 times.
I think I prefer the Trivia like game to the Monopoly like game. Or maybe a snakes & ladders like game, with blowing yourself up landing in Islamic paradise, getting captured sending you back several squares and/or missing a few turns - you get the idea.
Once this matures, maybe have a reality show similar to the 'bachelorette' where several Infidels compete on who could be most Islamic (without actually converting to Islam) in order to make a Muslimah his tilth. Happy hunting!