Blue Star Chronicles

As I have been surfing the web I happened to run across two stories back to back.

The first has to do with the Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana. It seems that Spain’s Labour and Social Affairs Minister has outlawed their latest ads. These ads depict simulated rape.

Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana has branded Spain as being ‘behind the times’ for demanding it withdraw a controversial advertising campaign, a newspaper reported on Friday.

Dolce & Gabbana plans to pull the advertisement, which shows a man holding a woman to the ground by her wrists while a group of men look on, following complaints from consumers’ groups. “We will only withdraw this photo from the Spanish market. They’re a bit behind the times,” La Vanguardia newspaper quoted the Milan-based fashion house as saying.

Dolce & Gabbana had a similar problem in their British market last month.

The fracas follows criticism from Britain’s advertising watchdog last month about another Dolce & Gabbana campaign showing models brandishing knives.

The British Advertising Standards Authority upheld more than 150 complaints from people concerned that the pictures glorified and condoned violent crime. In that case, the company said the ads were heavily stylised and mimicked early 19th century art.

I guess neither he British nor the Spanish have any appreciation for art.

The other story I ran across has to do with ‘honor killings’ of muslim women accused of having sex.

The two women, aged 18 and 20, were first cousins and unmarried, Magsi said.

He said they were allegedly snatched from their home about 150 miles south of Karachi, the provincial capital, and taken to a field where they were hacked to death. Police were looking for two other villagers suspected of involvement.

Magsi said it was an “honor killing,” an ancient custom in which those accused of committing adultery or violating other sexual mores are killed by relatives. Most of the victims are women.

Honor killings in muslim culture are not uncommon.

The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, citing government figures, said in a report last year that about 1,000 women die annually in honor killings.

Domestic and international human right groups say most attackers escape punishment because of legal loopholes.

You might be wondering what these two articles have in common.

Regarding the first story. If you don’t like that type of advertising you are ‘behind the times’, you don’t understand real artistic expression, you are hopelessly ignorant.

Regarding the second story. Anyone indoctrinated in the Western way of thinking is quietly horrified that ‘those people’ do that sort of thing. The key word here being ‘quietly’. If you openly verbalize disgust and disapproval of ‘honor killings’ you are a bigot, intolerant of ‘their’ culture and again, hopelessly ignorant.

If you are a progressive, accepting these two stories, on opposite ends of a spectrum, is not a paradox. It’s being open-minded and tolerant of differing opinions. It’s being progressive.

On second thought, these stories are not so different after all. In both cases, there is a complete lack of respect for women. Maybe that’s the common thread.