ISIS: the Vice Squad has arrived to Mosul!

by Enrico Galoppini

There have appeared the vice squad of ISIS in Mosul, which among other restrictions in which it specializes, has come up with putting a veil on the female mannequins [1].

In a nutshell, the ISIS has suggested the mannequins to “conform to the precepts of the Koran”, in line with the way of interpreting Islam by the modernist-fundamentalists complementary to that of their alleged secularist opponents.

For all these people, in fact, “the precepts of the Koran” can mean whatever. Obviously whatever goes in the sense of exaltation (or condemnation) of obsessive puritanism and literalism, the index of horrible ignorance. For this reason there are in fact those, Muslims, who hate certain triangular pancakes because they remind “the Trinity”, or carefully avoids eating croissant because it would originate from one teasing the besieged Vienna, that after resisting the Ottoman attack celebrated the victory with this candy shaped in crescent moon.

Yet, since the evil never consists exclusively of one side (or, at least, even the evil contains some aspiration to do something good), it must be said that the concern from which sprouts some farcical and self-righteous measure like this one, in principle is not completely wrong.

By this we mean that a mannequin (and especially one that reproduces the features of a woman) actually should not exist, unless we would like to talk about a vague outline of the human form (one can also omit the head, and we do not intend to sneer at “headhunters”! the serious tailors use a type of headless silhouettes).

The art of the mannequins nowadays has reached such a level that it can actually arouse lascivious thoughts, while it would be a sacred right of all of us to be able to walk the streets without this constant stress with images of women which are also found in the classical murals that jeopardize the safety of male motorists. Because the hypermarkets and major downtown streets of our cities have the windows illuminated in any hour, and sometimes it seems that some real beautiful girls are posing there.

Moreover, the clothing of these mannequins, their poses and their hairstyles serve as models for many women, so that then they go to dress up in the same manner on the edge of pornography.

At any rate, returning to the measure taken in Mosul by the ISIS’ “Vice Squad” (and given that we do not believe that in Mosul there are so many mannequins able to provoke certain fantasies…), if they were the least consistent with their puritanism, they would remove totally all mannequins, avoiding veiling their faces.

Anyway, it sustains the following fact: that a mannequin is a model for women, and in that context it must adapt to that model promoted by the advocates of this so-called “Islamic State”.

It would be more substantial to question the lawfulness of the human form portrayal, and then they should cover both the female and male mannequins, as well as any statue or painting or miniature representing a human being, any photo or video with human beings, including those of the so-called “caliph” and his henchmen. But imagine if these guys want to deprive themselves of the pleasure of posting on YouTube the scenes of their slaughters!

The fixation on the veiling of the female mannequin stells a lot about the bigotry and mock “traditionalism” of the organization with such a “pagan” name which has taken the control over the parts of Syria and Iraq. It appears that its members intend to relentlessly applying so farcical, and at the same time, absurd and manic mode every Islamic rule, to tell the world “here what Islamis!”, prompting instead hatred, contempt, laughter, horror and general disgust.

But their exaggerated and ridiculous puritanism is a mirror of the extreme Western exaltation, often vulgar, of the female sexuality in all that concerns advertising and commercial promotion (shop mannequins included).

Therefore, what should excite in us hilarity and confusion is, above all, the superficiality of these “fundamentalists”. On the understanding that the underlying problem of hypersexualization of our society does exist with all its devastating consequences for the human being’s inner foundations.

FOOTNOTES

[1] http://www.dagospia.com/mediagallery/Dago_fotogallery-125203/572668.htm