A Very Dangerous Religious Law
This story on the BBC’s web site, just shows that religious zealots are alive and well and living in Indonesia.
They want women to sit on a motorcycle side-saddle. What about women, who want to actually drive the bike?
Incidentally, I know several women, who’ve been on the back of motor-bikes side-saddle, as it was seen occasionally in the 1960s.
I think we’d all agree it’s not a sensible idea, but then in India and I suspect Indonesia, you see lots of people riding motor-bikes in unusual and to us dangerous ways.
The interesting last word is these paragraphs from the article.
The regulation has been met with criticism from well-known Muslim activists like Ulil Abshar Abdalla, who is based in the capital, Jakarta.
“How to ride a motorbike is not regulated in Sharia. There is no mention of it in the Koran or Hadiths,” he said on his Twitter account, referring to the second most sacred text in Islam after the Koran.
You could also ask, how crash helmets fit in with Muslim and other religious views. I think for instance in the UK, that male Sikhs who adhere to their religious views, also follow the crash helmet law or don’t ride motor-bikes. Or at least, I haven’t seen a Sikh in a turban riding a motor-bike in years. Perhaps, they wear a patka underneath like some Sikh sportsmen do.
A Sikh On Guard At The Palace
This story, of a Sikh in the Scots Guards, who wears a turban instead of a bearskin is reported in the Daily Mail. I think what is extraordinary about this story is not the story itself, but the comments from readers. Not one is anything but approving and supportive. Something that doesn’t seem to fit the stereotype given to the average reader of that newspaper.
One could also argue that these days, his headgear may be the more ethical.
Sikhs
Everybody knows that Monty Panesar, the England spin-bowler is a Sikh. He has a beard, wears a turban and adheres to the rules of his religion. But England played two Sikhs in the last Test Match in Cardiff, as Ravi Bopara is also a Sikh.
I first came aware of Sikhs, when as a child I was watching the Commonwealth Games of 1958 on the television. Milka Singh, running for India, won the gold in the four hundred metres. I can’t remember him in the Olympics in Rome, where he ran barefoot with his hair streaming behind him and became the darling of the crowd and favourite for the gold. He came fourth in a photo-finish. Now he is most remembered as the father of the very capable Indian golfer, Jeev Milka Singh.
I am not a religious person, but I do admire what Sikhs stand for. Unusually, their religion doesn’t have an afterlife. Perhaps this is why they work so hard for success, as it only matters what you do on this earth!
But the principles of the religion are very much what I stand for; women are equal, there is no priestly class, anyone can join, regardless of race or gender etc. Only when it comes to God, do we disagree, but then if you live your life well and for the benefit of others, who cares?
But there is one Sikh tale I want to get to the bottom of.
Jimmy Langley, was an officer in the Guards, who lost an arm at Dunkirk and then evaded the Germans before returning to the UK through Spain and Portugal. He later organised the escape routes for hundreds of airmen, who were shot down in occupied Europe. These tales were then documented by the BBC, in the series Secret Army, for which he was an adviser.
I met him about twenty years ago, on a ferry from Harwich to the Hook, when he was promoting his autobiography about his wartime exploits. He kindly signed a copy and we chatted for a few minutes.
A couple of years later, I bought another of his books called MI9: Escape and Evasion, 1939-1945, which he had co-authored with M. R. D. Foot.
In that book, one short sentence says that the first “Home Run” by British forces from Germany was by two Sikh sergeants in the Pioneer Corps.
That must have been some tale.
The Anonymous Widower 