Muslim Poem stirs up yet more controversy

I've seen this headline over the last few days and have been purposely ignoring it. I've just not been in the mood for one more whiny, Muslim seethe session. You know me, grown women who willingly submit to the hijab really annoy me. And don't EVEN get me started on the niqab.

Note to all you Lady Curtain Munchers out there: You might be nice people, but your insistence on remaining second class citizens in a he-man woman hater's club is holding the rest of us back.

Quit marrying your first cousins! And for God's sake, quit playing that polygamy game!

But onto the poem:

My veil is not a kerchief

It's my skin

My modesty, my dignity, my respect.
And if you, old-stock immigrant

You have neither faith nor law

And you spent your youth drunk

And went from one male to the next

That's not the case for me.

So touching!

NOT!

It was written by a man!

The poem was published three weeks ago in an Arab-language Montreal newspaper. In it, a Muslim woman lauds the wearing of the hijab, and suggests those who fear her are godless people who've led lives of debauchery. Its author is a man, a young Lebanese Montrealer.

He was part of a Muslim delegation that went to Herouxville (ed.note: the greatest town in Canada) on Sunday to plead for mutual respect and an end to stereotypes. (another delegation ala the Motoon delegation of Shit disturbing Mullahs that caused all that ruckus about the Jyllands-Posten cartoons.)

Posted in French - the language in which it was written - on the Internet, in blogs and discussion groups, the poem is being called an outrage, the work of hypocritical fanatics. But the 22-year-old poet stands by his words, defending them as merely a made-up cry of pain by what could be any devout Muslim woman hurt by anti-Islamic prejudice in Quebec.

"She's criticizing anyone who tries to bring her down, who tells her, 'Your veil is bad for our society,' " said Haydar Moussa, who came here from Lebanon when he was 8 and speaks for the Association of Young Lebanese Muslims.

"She's saying: 'You made mistakes and I never said anything. So why criticize me for something that is very personal?' " Moussa told The Gazette.

Dinah's putting her Shrinking Cap on here - interesting that he compares wearing the veil to a "mistake"... hmmm?