Wednesday, April 24, 2013

I Get Why Jews Is A Dirty Word, But Why Are Nightgowns?

Al-Monitor reports on academic censorship at a Gaza University:

“I was completely bereft when he pulled me by my hand and embraced me. … I felt warmth emanating from his chest.” This sentence in a short story titled “Love in War” was enough for Gaza's Al-Aqsa University to launch an investigation into faculty member Dr. Khoder Mahjez.

I could understand an Islamic "University" having problem with some light sexual comments. However it gets worse:

In an interview over the phone with Al-Monitor, Mahjez said that the obscene words — which he was accused of using by the investigation commission during the interrogation attended by the dean of the Faculty of Arts and a legal advisor — were present in a story he had used as an example in his book, which carries the same name as the course. He added that there had been objections to the use of certain words — such as "women," "sons of a bitch" and "Jews" — as opposed to using terms with ideological connotations that are preferable to the university, such as sons of "monkeys" and "pigs."
Ok, so we can't use the words "women" or "Jews" either. Could we get even sillier? oh, we can. This is how a University representative defended the University:

He added that he was ready to disclose the student’s complaint to the press. He repeated that Mahjez had used what he described as “obscene” expressions during his lecture, such as, "He cracked her bones when he embraced her," and other terms such as "nightgowns."

Nightgowns! What could be worse?



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