The Iranian athlete Mehrdad Karam Zadeh won a medal in the Paralympics, however when he got to the ceremony he snubbed the Duchess of Cambridge and refused to shake her hand for what he called “cultural reasons”.
This is a good chance for everyone to examine the culture that will not let her members shake hands with a girl. A culture that locks its members in a tightly sealed pre constructed set of rules so that they will be guaranteed to be sexually oppressed by the age they reach sexual maturity.
The same culture encourages the oppression of females, the treatment as second class and as being less worthy then the men around them. It is a wonder that this culture even lets athletes go and compete in the name of fairness and sportsmanship, of a truly international human spirit, since it is not about stretching human abilities to the maximum but about the striving towards global religious domination.
When we think of most Muslim young men around the world it seems to shake hands with a woman such as England’s Kate would be the least of their troubles, it might actually help to have a feminine touch to “this culture”.
These cultural differences should be respected. This article was very biased. It was important to respect the Duchess of Cambridge who Iranian athlete to bow down to it.
I strongly disagree. First, I believe that this is a religious difference and not a cultural one. I also think that the reason that the athlete was there to begin with had to do with western culture values and ideas, mainly of the spirit of humanity being the same and the celebration of human achievement – this includes women as well.
This competition was held in London, and the athletes who participated were invited by the UK government and once they accepted the invitation that knew that they would need to respect the modern, equality inspiring Western values. With that said it is no less important to note that we also do not believe that any “royalty” deserves any special treatment, it is not because the woman was the “duchess” of anywhere that we feel she has to be respect – but becuase she is a human being, equal to any man, and with her freedom of rights and responsibility.