"Sexual apprehensions" - I'll say!

Submitted by Denis Goli (United Kingdom), May 26, 2004 at 11:15

We don't need to delve into the Muslim psyche to understand Muslims' reactions to the Abu Ghraib pictures. How would Daniel Pipes react if the detainees were American? The pictures are sickening, and some would have thought that was reason enough for Muslims to be upset. Muslims might expect an apology from a defender of the US's intentions in Iraq, or at very least a question or two about the US military's own attitudes to sexuality. Why is it that soldiers can take pleasure in degrading their prisoners and taking pictures of themselves while doing so? This comes as a shock less to the Arab street - whose cynicism has in this case apparently been proved right - than to those of us who believed the US could replace Saddam with something better.

If the soldiers' "erotic ways" include sado-masochism, no wonder "Fear of Western erotic ways ends up constraining Muslim peoples"! I think I would feel pretty constrained by the Abu Ghraib treatment, to say the least. Perhaps it would be best to take a look in the mirror and see that the Abu Ghraib torture is revolting in itself to any human being, and not to Muslims qua Muslims as opposed to Westerners.

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