EGN NEWS DESK
The Damascus med-school dropout has additionally had considerably of a sartorial makeover lately, swapping the Osama bin Laden-look for a neatly trimmed beard and inexperienced fatigues à la Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, or company blazers and chinos. “An individual of their twenties could have a distinct character than somebody of their thirties or forties, and definitely somebody of their fifties. This is human nature,” he assured CNN on the eve of Assad’s fall.
But withholding his hand suggests one thing about the place precisely Shar’a is likely to be on the spectrum of radical political Islam, in addition to the bounds of his latest modernization. It can also point out the restrictions he has to look at with a view to maintain his Islamist fighters on board.
Baerbock, for her half, has sought to make gentle of the incident, telling broadcasters: “As I traveled right here, it was clear to me that there would clearly be no abnormal handshakes.”
But reporting on political Islam through the years, observing how radical Islamists (or jihadists) work together with girls when claiming to have grow to be extra average has been considerably of a litmus check for this columnist. And a refusal to interact, to look a girl squarely within the eyes or shake their hand tends to be ominous with regards to inclusivity.
Aside from indicating how actually average they’ve grow to be, a handshake — or lack thereof — speaks volumes about how pragmatic a pacesetter is ready to be.
Of course, many conservative Muslims imagine unrelated women and men ought to by no means contact, and but exceptions have been made. For instance, when conducting diplomacy, a handshake — the fashionable normal greeting for world politicians and businessmen — is one thing conventional Saudi and Emirati rulers have been able to entertain. In 1987, Saudi’s King Fahd had no issues shaking then-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s hand, understanding that the gesture conveys belief, or at the least a readiness to interact.
