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August 31, 2006

Miss World: The Trouble With Muslims And Beauty Queens

The annual Miss World event has always been a charade, with lisping crowned beauties telling announcers that they would wish to use their title to improve the world and put an end to global poverty, before rushing off to advertise some soap product.

There were interesting moments, such as the UK Grand Finale in 1970 when frumpy feminists threw bags of flour at compere Bob Hope and called him a "sexist prick" and other sobriquets, but it was only since the Millennium that the annual pageant became really interesting. For that we have to thank our peace-loving Muslim friends.

Perhaps it was always inevitable that Miss World and Muslims were going to clash. The Miss World pageant had been initiated in 1951 by entrepreneur Eric Morley, chairman of the company Mecca, which owned ballrooms and bingo establishments throughout Britain. Muslims had already tried (and failed) to legally stop him using the name of his company.

In November 2002, fanatical Muslims in Nigeria used the event as an excuse to do a rerun of the rioting of 2000 where the introduction of sharia law had led to the deaths of thousands in Kaduna State in an orgy of sectarian bloodletting. In 2002, the Miss World pageant was due to have started in Nigeria in November, but as this coincided with Ramadan, the event was officially moved to the following month.

When journalist Isioma Daniel published an article in the newspaper This Day on Saturday November 16, all hell broke loose. The article suggested that the sexually incontinent "prophet" of Islam would have loved such a contest. She wrote: "What would Muhammed think? In all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from among them."

As a result, on November 20 in Kaduna town, the regional offices of This Day were smashed up, and on the following day Muslims decided to indulge in their favourite hobby, slaughtering Christians and committing mayhem.

Many Christians were hacked to death by machete in their own homes, leading to recriminations the following day. The bloodshed had been incited by the local mosques. The violence spread to Abuja, the federal capital, and was initiated by Muslims at the Abuja mosque (above left). Three apologies by the Lagos-based paper This Day were ignored, as was a threat from the Nigerian government to punish those who had engaged in "irresponsible journalism". After three days of bloodshed and atavistic violence more than 250 were dead in Kaduna alone. Several churches had been totally destroyed in the town (pictured below right). The majority of the dead were non-Muslims, murdered by followers of the "religion of peace".

90 potential contestants for the Miss World pageant were already in Nigeria for the event when the rioting took place, but it was announced as the violence escalated that the event would be transferred to London. The usual procedure is for the contest to be held in the country where the previous winner hailed from, and in 2001, Nigerian Agbani Darego had been crowned Miss World.

Before the "offending" article had been written, there was already controversy about the Nigerian staging of the event. Contestants from Costa Rica, Denmark, Switzerland, South Africa and Panama had refused to take part, as the newly-implemented Sharia courts in Nigeria had sentenced unmarried women to be stoned to death for getting pregnant.

This year, the contest will be held in Warsaw, Poland, and already the controversial noises from Muslims have begun. We reported last year that four Muslim hopefuls from Britain were taking part in the national event to select a candidate for the Grand Finale.

And as has become a tradition, an old Muslm fart decided to condemn the event. In this case, the old fart was Hashim Sulaiman, of the Liverpool Islamic Institute, who had his anger (and maybe something else) pointed at Iraqi born Sarah Mendly, a 23-year old biochemistry graduate. He said: "There is no way a Muslim girl should be playing any part in this competition, because it is unlawful. The ladies in that contest are always very scantily dressed and the only part of the body that should be on display are the face, the hands and the feet."

""I would like this girl to withdraw from the contest immediately. I do not know what she was thinking in entering in the first place and I do not know what her parents were thinking when they allowed her to do so."

Though tipped to win, Miss Mendly was beaten by the equally stunning Hammasa Kohistani (pictured), who arrived in the UK from her native Uzbekistan when she was 9. She is intelligent, with good academic grades and is able to speak six languages, including Farsi, Russian and French. But being a beauty does not prevent her from making stupid comments.

Today, the BBC reports that the outgoing Miss England has launched a scathing attack on Blair. She has blamed the Prime Minister and his government for creating a "negative image" of Muslims since last years' Muslim terrorist attacks on 7 July, which killed 52 people travelling on London Transport.

She says: "Tony Blair addressed Muslims in particular, telling them that they need to sort out the problem within. That was a huge stereotype of the Islamic community. Even the more moderate Muslims have been stereotyped negatively and feel they have to take actions to prove themselves."

But so they should. Silence is acquiescence when members of one's faith commit terrorist attacks. And Muslims whose leaders sanction terrorism abroad have only themselves to blame for the near universal distrust which is shown to them at home. Miss England is living proof that no matter how academically intelligent a person is, there is always room to be a social idiot.

A spokesman for the Department of Communities and Local Government said: "There can never be an excuse for extremism and we totally reject any claim that we are not committed to working in partnership to tackle it."

And in the southern hemisphere, one old Muslim fart (pictured) has already started to condemn Muslims partaking in beauty contestants in Australia. The Australian Daily Telegraph reported in its print edition of August 29 that the salafist preacher Sheikh Mohammed Omran has been sounding off against a 16 year old girl. Ayten Ahmed, a Melbourne girl of Turkish origin, is condemned for deciding to take part in the Miss Teen Australia pageant.

Roger Coombs speaks of how the Sheikh, described as a "hairy oil painting" and as a "ratbag cleric", has said that for Ms Ahmed to partake in such a ceremony it was "a slur on Islam".

Coombs writes: "...back to the core of the issue, which is that, in Omran's radically Muslim world view, Islam is somehow offended by the idea of this woman in a beauty contest. Why, precisely? Which embodiment of Islam is offended and how? Does Allah care? If so, how do we know. Where is it written?"

The Melbourne-based Sheikh, who notoriously called Osama bin Laden "a good man" and said this year that 9/11 was the work of the US government, is criticised by Australia's Muslim contestant in the Miss World Contest, according to the Sydney Daily Telegraph.

Responding to the mad Mullah's comment that "The teachings of the Prophet and the Holy Koran do not encourage a girl to go out and uncover her modesty in public," 20-year old university student Sabrina Houssami from Sydney (pictured) has stood her ground, saying: "I try to treat people well and I don't see why wearing a swimsuit in a contest which raises so much money for charity would be against the rules."

So far, she has raised $1.2 million for charity, and she says this is proof enough that she is upholding one of the "five pillars of Islam".

And last month, the fanatical and violent members of the Front Pembela Islam (Islamic Defenders Front) in Indonesia tried to have their Miss Indonesia, Nadine Chandrawinata, prosecuted for indecency, after she wore a bikini.

The Grand Finale of the 56th contest is being held on September 30.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at August 31, 2006 6:56 PM

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Posted by: Celsius at September 1, 2006 4:07 PM

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