On Sunday, we featured this video from Press TV, accompanied by an article by Max Fisher, "Why Do Thousands of Women Want to Be Ninjas?". Fisher evaluated:
Watching the video above, if you look past the tiger-striped costumes and over-the-top production, you can glimpse the self-empowerment of these women in a society that seeks to rob them of power, and perhaps begin to understand why ninjutsu, and athletics in general, have become so popular with Iranian women.
Women's self-empowerment? That's so politically correct and mundane. Where is the threat, the ninja menace?
Over to Britain's Daily Mail which, without the necessity of any investigation or indeed knowledge, yells, "Meet Iran's Female Ninja Assassins: 3,000 Women Training to Defend the Muslim state".
With hundreds of women brandishing deadly weapons while performing back flips and gravity-defying stunts, these incredible images look like a scene out of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
But this is not the latest martial art film but in fact footage of female pupils practicing their moves at a tiny Ninjutsu club in Iran where the specialist form of martial art has become increasingly popular.
as Israel steps up pressure on Iran, over fears the country is building nuclear weapons, these lethal ninjas could be called upon to represent their country if relations descend into military conflict.
Iran has a mandatory Army conscription for men aged 18, but it is limited to 18 months service, so these kunoichi could prove very useful.
Actually, there is nothing in the article to back up "Assassins" or "Women Fighting Israelis" --- instead, the Daily Mail, without any sense of contradiction, quotes the instructor: "The most important lesson in ninjutsu is respect and humility. [The women] learn to respect themselves --- first to respect their existence and then the art that they are mastering. Calmness is the most important lesson they learn."
But never mind --- there sure are a lot of Scary Ninja Photographs....
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