Hypocrisy is rampant

He writes: “If you are in a foreign country you live by the laws of the land and that goes for oil executives.”

He also states: “Let’s get this right; Karl Andree is in a strict Muslim country whose rules forbid alcohol in any shape or form.”

Wealthy Saudi Arabian princes, among others, frequently and secretly cross the Saudi borders to visit brothels and public bars, partying, while prancing about in white robes back home!

There are other stories of hypocrisy too.

For instance, of a British ambassador, (quoted in the Times Literary Supplement) who, in the company of royal princes and cabinet ministers, was drinking whisky one night.

He learned later that during the evening the Saudi prince with whom he had earlier shared a whisky would the following morning be sentencing a Saudi man to a lashing and then prison for drinking alcohol!

These same hypocrites preach to the ignorant, uneducated masses of the Third World to do this and that in the name of Islam which they fail to practice themselves.

There is no country in the entire Muslim world where there is no alcoholic drink available, and where some Muslim is not transgressing the Islamic prohibition against booze.

It is estimated that a good one fifth of Muslim countries tend only to go through the motions of Islam.

The same writer even vouches from personal experience that even during the holy month of Ramadan one year, both the brothels and the wine shops remained open in another so-called Muslim country: Algeria.

Strict Muslim countries, John Crook?

Not so different from us in the West, are they?

While the rich Saudis go abroad or drink their smuggled whisky at home, the poor Saudis produce their own wine from dates, palms and sugar cane.

One could argue that Karl Andree was merely following Saudi tradition minus the hypocrisy!

JEFF ADAMS Bloomsbury Swindon