Beit Shemesh Flash Mob
Imagine what would happen to these girls and women, most of whom are identifiable in the video (and no doubt from countless other recordings), under an Israeli government dominated by the ultra-Orthodox who have so much power and influence there already, and who are, in their attitude to women, barely distinguishable from the Taliban.
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13 comments:
Inspirational.
Moved to tears.
A Wow moment for sure.
Then, as we discussed this, along with the report of re-education for not crying hard enough - we wondered: what if a square-full of North Koreans, on the "CRY" command, threw up their arms and shouted "YAY!".
WV 'unmacho' would not apply.
War dances are common in many cultures, and if that's not a political point I'm sure I don't know what is.
I don't know how much you know about the very real threat to women's freedoms in Israel, but you can be sure that if the ultra-Orthodox (already an increasingly powerful and politically protected group) had their way, women wouldn't be allowed -- by law -- to dress like that, to be out in the street without their husbands, or to perform in this exuberant way.
Maybe it might also be considered that there's no reason why women should follow patriarchal and/or masculinist traditions in the way they go about making their opinions known.
Hmm, will the keyboard warriors who cynically used womens'rights (something they ignore or downright denigrate in their own countries) to justify war on Afghanistan and Iraq, call for a similar invasion of Israel for the same reason?
*Crickets chirping*
Seems something makes it OK to oppress in Saudi Arabia and Israel!
"I've never seen men dancing in order to make a political point.
It's hard to see that as well designed protest."
Just a guess, but it seems to me that the effort-level put into actual dancing (rehearsing, learning choreography, etc) serves as a sort of force-multiplier for underlining the seriousness of intent of the protesters. That is, it conveys a greater level of firmness and commitment and moral strength than merely standing around for a while with a placard and shouting one of those factory-preset "Hey, hey, Ho ho" slogan thingies.
It's a bit like the way that a well-written angry Letter to the Editor used to be viewed by the papers: not very many people take the trouble to write them, so a clear-eyed editor (or politico, etc) would view each letter as probably representing at least several hundred people with the same point of view, who didn't make the effort to write in.
Of course, according to my own logic the extra effort involved in constructing giant idiotic protest puppet-heads ought to count as a force multiplier too, but I rarely see them taken seriously. So maybe there's a flaw in my reasoning after all! ;-)
wv: impod
Hmm, so many possibilities. The iPod achieves sentience, peut-etre?
Yep, so exponentially different- healthier- to the sight of bescarfed, seemingly cowed ultra wives trailing six feet behind the Man, dragging a dozen kids in tow like a conscripted Antechinas, that viewers have seen on teev docos.
Suspect when it comes to attitudes towards women, Taliban and ultra-Orthodox Jewish views are pretty much interchangeable.
I'm better informed now, Kerryn, so I would withdraw my comment if I could.
Among other sources, this Israeli report from NYT was most interesting - and frightening.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/the-israeli-tv-report-on-gender-segregation-that-sparked-protest/?scp=3&sq=beit%20shemesh&st=cse
Frances, if ever you make a comment and then think better of it, all you have to do is click on the little rubbish-bin icon at the bottom of the comment on the left-hand side. You can decide whether you want to do that or not. The other thing that occurred to me only after I'd answered your comment was that you might not be familiar with the idea of the 'flash mob' -- if not, Google will help.
I think this is a wonderful way of showing that women want and demand public space without being rude or nasty about it.
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