Russian Church: Ditch beer for books in nightclubs
Russian revelers can now swap vodka and dancing for tea and reading at new “spiritual nightclubs” being set up by Orthodox Church, media said quoting a top religious official. In the latest suggestion by the increasingly powerful Church, youths will be able to “have the opportunity for serious dialogue, reading, unhurried conversation so they can have a cup of tea,” said Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin.
“A nightclub does not have to be a place where debauchery, boozing and drug addiction reign,” said Chaplin, who added that the Church-inspired clubs will stay open till 5 a.m. like most of Russia’s drinking holes.
Endorsed by Russia’s leaders as the country’s main faith, the Orthodox Church has grown increasingly powerful since the collapse of the officially atheist Soviet Union in 1991.
Its efforts to influence education and secular life have drawn criticism from rights groups and members of minority faiths. Russia’s 20 million Muslims make up a seventh of the country’s population. Chaplin outraged feminists earlier this year when he said women should dress more modestly and refrain from walking down the street “painted like a clown.”
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Malaysia canes women for having sex out of wedlock
Malaysian authorities have caned three women under Islamic laws for the first time in the Southeast Asian country, Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has said. The sentences were carried out on February 9 after a religious court found them guilty of having sex out of wedlock. Two of the women were whipped six times.
Hishammuddin’s comments signal that the mostly Muslim country is now prepared to flog Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, a mother of two, for drinking beer, despite the international criticism that the case has garnered.
Malaysia has a dual-track legal system with Islamic criminal and family laws, which are applicable to Muslims, running alongside civil laws.
What do you think about a state caning women?
Monks take back seat in Trappist beer success story
It came as a surprise to discover that monks were no longer involved in the beer-making at Trappist brewer Westmalle during a visit to research for a feature of Trappist beers. With the exception of small-scale Westvleteren that is pretty much the case at all seven Trappist breweries in Belgium and the Netherlands. It is largely the result of demographics – the average age of monks at many monasteries in western Europe is up in the 50s, 60s or 70s, hardly an age to be pushing around barrels. The modern brewery is also very much automated, requiring fewer people on the factory floor, but a number of trouble-shooting experts – a monastery has no guarantee of having an brewing engineer in its flock. Monks at Koningshoeven Abbey in the Netherlands do still prepare gift packages of its La Trappe beer. It helps that their average age is just below 60. “We are a bit lucky,” admitted brewing chief Gijs Swinkels. So what makes a Trappist beer different from any other brew? It’s not the taste, the colour or even the strength – from 5 percent Achels to the 11.3 percent alcohol of the Rochefort 10. The answer is threefold and applies to other Trappist products such as cheese, biscuits and chocolate: 1. It must be made within the walls of a Trappist monastery; 2. It must be controlled by monks; and 3. The profits must be used for upkeep of the monastery and its community and for its charitable projects. Sure enough monks do take key decisions on investment, production size and the limited level of marketing. However, the very ageing that has forced monks to cease day-to-day tasks raises questions about the future of the beers — the pinnacle of brewing to some beer connoisseurs, but just a means to an end for the monks. Trappist monks accept that some communities may die out, while others emerge. Will some of the Trappist beers die out too?
Please don’t think I am nit picking, just adding a bit of local color to your story.
I think all trappist beer is double digit, here in Achel the 5% beer is only sold in our cafe” on the grounds and is on tap, not bottled, there is a blond and a dark, same streingth. There is one employee, one volunteer (myself) and the rest is done by the brothers. We are small, 1000 Litre and the brewery is run by Br. Jules who is also the baker. He is seven days a week on the brewery floor, (hands on). See “Bier magazine” with Br. Jules on the cover.
http://www.bier-magazine.nl/index.php?pa ge=database&lowestSub=1&filesub=1&filenr =16&file=Archief
Once a month we bottle the .75L bottles and until last year it was all by hand, now we have a capping machine. It takes five of us to do it and we pass hand over hand one bottle every three seconds and just manage to finish between the noon and vespers. The oldest in this process is Br. Joris at 82 and he fills the crates.
Sadly your “back seat “story is almost 100% correct.
from AxisMundi Jerusalem:
Palestinian Non-Alcoholic Beer
The fifth annual Palestinian Oktoberfest was held on October 3rd and 4th, at the mainly Christian town of Taybeh, West Bank. Located several kilometers north of Ramallah, Taybeh, is home to the first and only Palestinian beer - Taybeh Beer. Established in 1995, Taybeh Beer can also be found abroad, being sold and distributed in Germany, the United Kingdom and even Japan.
The two-day beer festival celebrates the town's now famed beverage and markets other local Palestinian products such as olive oil, honey, and embroidery to international visitors, as an effort to boost the Palestinian economy.
This year's Oktoberfest boasted a diverse program featuring Brazilian and Greek bands and traditional Japanese dancers. Organizers expected more than 10,000 visitors, a new record.
But what truly marks this Oktoberfest is that this year's is the first to serve Taybeh beer's new non-alcoholic line: Taybeh Halal, launched this year.
To beer enthusiasts and/or beer purists, serving the non-alcoholic kind at an Oktoberfest may sound sacrilegious. At an Oktoberfest in the West Bank where Muslims form the majority, however, having Taybeh Halal could address a wider clientele for those banned by religion from drinking alcohol.
Nadim Canaan Khoury, the Christian owner of the Taybeh Brewery, began preparing for the alcohol-free beer immediately after Hamas Islamists' landslide win in the January 2006 parliamentary election. He changed the trademark gold bottle labels to green, the colour of Islam, for the non-alcoholic version. Khoury has not officially been approached by Hamas, but according to a Hamas official Taybeh Halal is just not enough.
In a heated debate on the BBC Arabic TV channel, aired on the opening night of the Taybeh Oktoberfest, a Hamas legislator Mushir al-Masri called Palestinian Authority Economy Minister Bassem Khoury's government "alcoholic". Masri argued that brewing was illegal in the Palestinian territories, though that is not an interpretation widely understood outside of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Minister Khoury retaliated and spoke of economic benefits that Taybeh Beer, as an important export, offers Palestinians.
Why beer doesn’t mix well with mainly Muslim Malaysia
Beer, which as an alcoholic beverage is forbidden in Islam to its believers, has long had it easy in mainly Muslim Malaysia. The country’s population of 27 million is made up of about 55 percent Malay Muslims and mainly Chinese and Indian ethnic minorities who practice a variety of faiths including Buddhism, Christianity, and Hinduism. The personal right of the non-Muslims to drink alcoholic beverages is legally recognised, a sign of tolerance despite the special status of Islam under Article 11 of the Malaysian constitution. So beer is not difficult to find in convenience stores, supermarkets and entertainment outlets.
But this easygoing attitude towards beer has hit the rocks of late amid what some suspect has been a growing religiosity of the country’s Muslims. Last month, 32-year old Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarnor very nearly became the first woman to be caned in Malaysia for drinking alcohol under rarely enforced Islamic criminal laws. Caught drinking beer in a hotel lobby in the eastern state of Pahang by religious enforcement officers, she was sentenced to six strokes of the cane and a fine. This was possible because Malaysia practices a dual-track legal system. Muslims are subject to Islamic family and criminal laws that run alongside national civil laws.
A Malaysian Islamic appeals court judge ordered a review of Kartika’s sentence, but a public debate is still raging. Opinions are divided even among Islamic scholars with some questioning what the exact punishment for the offence, which isn’t specified in the Quran, should be. Others are in full support and believe that Kartika’s sentence was mild.
This was not the first time beer has run foul of Malaysia’s Muslims. The opposition Islamist party grabbed headlines last month when it insisted on full implementation of an alcohol ban for Muslims in the country’s most developed state of Selangor ,which it governs. The call by the Pan Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) did not amuse its die-hard secular partner, the mainly ethnic Chinese Democratic Action Party. A war of words erupted between the two parties.
Anger towards beer has in fact been known to have turned literally explosive. In 2000, a cult group known as Al Maunah raided a military armoury, then mounted grenade attacks against a Hindu temple and a Carlsberg brewery.
Beer has been a major target, but not the only subject drawing the wrath of some Muslims in the country. The Islamist PAS last month protested against a planned concert by the band Michael Learns To Rock, believing it an insult to allow the act to perform during the fasting month of Ramadan.
The government has also employed regulations to similar effect, namely in the recent ban against Muslims from attending a concert by U.S. hip hop band The Black Eyed Peas. The government later did a U-turn on the restriction.
The way I see it , is that Malaysians are facing the problem of a government staying beyond their welcome.The BN Government position is a Catch-22, on the one side they may genuinely want to have democracy applied fully but on the other hand ( because of the baggage), most of them if there was respect for the Rule Of Law-many will be prosecuted, jailed and all the millions they have in the UBS accounts inter alia will be taken away.The BN governmnet ( UMNO) like Hamas, PLO and other dangerous organizations take the wrong road to stir support.They use reliogion and race as a means to unify Malays who are fed up with UMNO.To keep them in order ( Malays), the government encourages Mulsim fundementalism with a view to put Malay/Mulsims in fear of God,to threaten the Non-Mulsims-especially Chrostians-they wont throw a Cross in the State Depertment Building-but will make a mockery of the Hindu religion.All this to keep themselves in power.All this nonesense will trigger I believe one day some major Muslim Fundementalist to take over the Country and encourage to do the same.While the WHOLE WORLD recognizes that the main problems the world faces besides climate change is Muslim Fundementalism, the Malaysian government plays a dangeroyus game-the World ought to watch very closely UMNO and its leaders-they arealso anti-sematic and racists! The UMNO government is playing with fire when they encoutrage Mulsims to hate Christians and Non-Muslims including Hindus! Sad state of affairs but…plausible?? Who knows -can we run the risk with Indonesia doing the same thanks to Malaysia!
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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