Jordan’s Islamists Tuesday called on the ministry of education to ban coed student trips, charging immoral acts were being committed.
The Islamic Action Front, the main opposition group in parliament, said its secretary-general, Hamza Mansour, sent a letter to the minister of education demanding an investigation into the trips "during which university students have been committing immoral acts in defiance of Islamic norms and traditions." He said students were getting drunk and dancing in provocative ways that "have no place in our society."
Source: [The Washington Times]
Doesn’t this opposition group have anything else to worry about besides whether coed trips are immoral or not? I mean, really … of all the issues and challenges in Jordan the IAF decides to concentrate on school trips! What a total waste of time and energy!
Laura,
Only time will tell you whether this is a continuation of , talk, talk, talk, or not. See facts on the ground, and that what really matters.
Interesting news about King Abdullah II and Jordan’s future.
http://tinyurl.com/c7jp5
Hi, it is Shuaib, fashion graphic designer from Dubai. I find this blog via searching ‘blogs from Gulf’. You have nice blog and have a nice day.
I don’t get people who don’t mind their fucking own business. Let’s ASSUME that students go & drink & do whatever. It’s their choice! nobody forced them to do that. If you dirnk or don’t drink, this is up to you. If you pray or don’t pray that;s your choice. But going and telling people what to do or not to do is not your right!
Argh I’m so angry
Students don’t need trips to commit ‘immoral acts’, they can do that anytime they want. Besides, where is the evidence of such actions? Seems to me like it’s just an excuse to gain more political control. *sigh*
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Okay, I totally have an opinion to this subject. One thing I noticed about many arab men, is that they check out women in the most obvious way. Why one might ask? Well, in our culture, we are so stuck on this issue that girls and boys should not be able to hang out with each other, go to movies with each other, and just be friends. So maybe, just maybe, on these trips some flirting is going on. and you know what, that’s healthy, very healthy. if you keep boys and girls seperated from each other all the time, when they get to a certain age, nature will kick in and well, who knows what will happen at that point. you always want what you cant have. and if you keep them seperated, they are gonna want each other more and more, if you get what i am saying.
It’s nobody’s right to interefere in other people’s picnics!!!!
if soem are against mixing, i am against SEPARATION!
if they wanna force their opinion, i have the right to force mine and prevent un-mixed trips because it potentiates suppression and forming strange ideas about the other sex!
I agree with sc that some mixing is actually healthy… I mean the problems arises when students dont know how and what to expect when meeting someone from the other sex… if they are used to it, and they deal with it naturally, then these “immoral” acts would not take place… beside natasha is right… don’t thay have anything else to worry about… I mean tragedies are filling Jordan… why dont they take care of those…ifft.
Religious fanatics of every strip and culture all think that immoral = illegal and ‘they’ define immorality. Its hardly any more surprising to find this kind of idiocy in Jordan than to find a judge here in the US telling someone that they can’t teach their own child their non-traditional religious beliefs because it might ‘confuse the child later in life’. Confuse them how, by making them realize how much full of BS fundimentalists are? lol This is almost 100% certain to be overturned here, but in the ME where instead of 37% of people thinking its OK for priests to influence law, its probably more like 80%+ (giving the benefit of the doubt). Why people can’t comprehend that organized religion, which has the capacity by size and organization to become political, is historically more destructive than constructive I just don’t understand.
Though, some of us do. Those of us that choose actual understanding of the world and its people over ignorance and having someone else ‘tell’ them how everyone else in the world should be seen, never mind the denial of reality that comes from defining anything that takes away the church or mosques power as a ‘sin’ or immoral. After all, if oeople are allowed to do things that the find out are not going to doom them in some fashion or destroy their lives, they might stop listening to the mullah. This logic has driven some crazies in the US to insane stuff like banning any colors other than black and white. Only thankfully for their own groups, but still… What standard of immorality makes wearing green evil? What if you accidentally get a #@#% grass stain, do you have to burn the clothes and do repentence? Its irrational, *but* it makes everyone dress and think alike, leaves them ignorant of aspects of the world that ‘could’ allow them to be individuals and ultimately leaves all the power over them in the hands of people obsessed with the belief that because ‘they’ are tempted to do a thing, in spite of their religious resolve, everyone else must be doomed from birth without them around to provide guidance.
Its odd how many priest and people I have talked to that think I am godly, but would condemn me in an instant if they knew I thought they where all, well meaning, but ultimately delusional, fools. lol Not to mention that I have no plans to rush to the nearest court and scream about them allowing coed field trips on the grounds they might *shudder!* use that time to read the Bible or Quran. 😉
“Immoral” is a very loose term, who decides what is moral or not? Is smoking moral? Is the very act of a boy talking to a girl moral (I don’t think Abu Zan6 will like that!)?
If something ILLEGAL is being done, now that’s a different story. So if you want to prevent an activity that you deem immoral, then either go through the process of making it illegal by law, or get out of other peoples business!!
I remember when the i5waan briefly joined the government c. 1990, what bothered them most was that there were coed high-schools in Jordan and they wanted to segregate them! Ya 3ami don’t send your kids to these schools if you’re scared they’ll be eaten by the other gender!
As for the supposed “bad influence” of mixing, I transferred from a boys school to a mixed school, and I was shocked at how polite boys could get when all of the sudden there are girls around: we were not supposed to fight because girls don’t like that, you stop telling an explicit joke if a girl walks into the room because it’s 3eib, you watch what you say because you might hurt someone’s feelings! and on and on… All these weird rules that I never knew existed when I was in an all boys school 🙂