Cross-posted over at the Corner:
Even if you are going to watch nothing else over the Internet today, make sure you check out a clip of actress Veena Malik taking on some snake of a mullah on Pakistani television. You can find it here on the (London) Spectator’s website.
Here’s what the Spectator’s Nick Cohen has to say:
If we are going to avoid a clash of civilisations, we are going to need many more like the Pakistani actress Veena Malik. Watch her take on a mullah, who is trying to accuse her of immoral behaviour. This is no small accusation in Pakistan where Islamist death squads and their collaborators in the state intelligence service, operate at will. The talk show setting of the attempt at trial by media is commonplace too. The murder of Salman Taseer followed days of hacks whipping up “Muslim rage” against him.
Instead of being frightened, Malik turns on her accuser and the journalist, who helped set her up, and lets them have it.
Brave, beautiful and utterly magnificent.
And, I’d add, very moving.
My only dissent would be over Mr. Cohen’s implication that it is still possibile to ‘avoid’ a clash of civilizations. It’s too late for that. The main questions now concern the form that this contest is taking, and, of course, how it will unfold. So long as there continue to be people in traditionally Muslim countries with the courage to speak out against bullying clerics and the rising tide of retrograde and brutal religious intolerance there are, I think, still some grounds for some hope.
Just watch the video.
I think that if hot women like that are being oppressed in foreign countries we need to liberate them and bring them to the U.S. where they can find American husbands.
The poor things, they need our help!
Gorgeous and gutsy. I truly hope she has a trustworthy bodyguard or bodyguards who won’t set her up for a hit.
She needs to be in a place where men (read: me) are free to gaze upon her in “my condition”.
Looks like Pakistan has some untapped natural resources/talent they could export, just like Brazil. Put Obama on a plane over there post haste!
My sympathy is with the girl, but, as is usual, the mullah probably has the better of the argument once you accept the premises of their shared faith. Again and again, the question is raised, “Can you be secular and Muslim?”, and the answer is a pretty consistent “NO.”