"A cheap holiday in other people’s misery"

An excellent article by Julie Burchill on the habit of Western women travel writers to eulogise over holidays in Muslim countries despite the appalling restriction on the lives on native women. Here's the ending (do go and read the rest):

"I can’t list all the ways in which the lives of these women are ruined, but the obscenity of “honour” killings and the epidemic of forced marriages to old strangers will do well enough. “Honour”, “pride” and “shame” are words which are flung about a great deal in Arab/Islamic culture, and as these women are such great fans of the whole rotten spectacle, I would sum up by saying: “Shame on you, ladies, for showing so little pride in your own hard-won Western freedoms and grovelling to such a shameful, woman-hating, life-denying excuse for a culture.”

I blame Turkish Delight adverts myself."