freeinfidel

If your image of a religious policeman is of a humourless, loveless killjoy, then you’re probably spot-on. Saudi Arabia’s religious police - the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice - has outlawed red roses, and pretty much everything else red, in the run-up to Valentine’s day.

The Commission’s officials patrol the streets, hassling improperly veiled women, berating anyone who doesn’t conform to their strict ideas about Islamic propriety. Recently, two people - an unrelated man and woman - were arrested for having coffee together (they were later released after international condemnation - but how many more instances does the world’s press not discover?). And these God Cops are notorious for their aggression: in at least one case, a man was beaten to death. This is what happens when a totalitarian regime imposes its narrow-minded concepts on the public.

Now they’re worried about un-Islamic passions being inflamed by Valentine’s Day celebrations. It doesn’t occur to them, apparently, that the passions have to be there in the first place, wound up to dangerous intensity, perhaps, by the smitten couple having to hide their affections from Saudi’s religious gestapo.

Red is known to increase blood pressure, which is why it’s the traditional colour of boudoirs. Red roses are now an international symbol of love, but love is evidently too alien and dangerous a concept to be tolerated by the Commission. All red items are being forced from the shops. Roses have become an illegal currency, being delivered in the dead of night. Only a culture oppressed by the suffocating self-righteousness of religion could put red roses on the same level as crack cocaine.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.