My favorite story in the news this week is about the Australian Muslim cleric named Al-Hilali who got in trouble for explaining his reasoning for why women should wear head scarves. His translated quote goes something like this: “If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside … and the cats come to eat it … whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat’s?”
Like you, I am highly offended by this comment. He compared men to CATS! Now don’t get me wrong – I love cats. But they do clean themselves with their tongues, eat bugs, and have the IQs of squirrels. No offense to squirrels. And these cats are apparently rapists too. As you know, rapist cats are the very worst kinds of cats – even worse than the hairless ones.
I suppose I should consider the fact that the cleric’s analogy is nothing more than a colorful restatement of a common Muslim religious view. But that’s no excuse for comparing me to a cat that can’t resist meat. I’m a vegetarian, ferrchrissake! I’ve been resisting meat for years! I call for that cleric’s resignation.
But the best part of this story is the cleric’s defense that he was just quoting an “ancient scholar.” Apparently that strategy worked out pretty well for the Pope, so he thought he’d give it a go. People understand that sort of thing. Here’s an example of how you can use this method at home:
You: “Your mother smells of horse crap and sailors…”
Other Guy: “You take that back!”
You: “…said the ancient scholar.”
Other Guy: “Oh, sorry. I thought it was you saying it.”
I’m also told that some women took offense to being compared to a piece of meat. That’s not as bad as being compared to a squirrel-brained, self-licking rapist, but whatever. That’s why I think the U.N. should have a special division devoted to correcting defective analogies. In this case I would recommend replacing that cat/meat analogy with something less offensive but equally illustrative of the point. Something like this:
“If you leave a rare and beautiful diamond outside, and a handsome and well-educated man puts it in his pocket with the intention of later finding its true owner, but he is hit by a truck, is it the diamond’s fault or the nice man’s fault or the truck driver’s fault?”
Maybe then we could get past Al-Hilali’s bad analogy and get back to wondering why a cleric is arguing that men have no free will.