Cempaka Culture and Tourism: Muslim Beauty Pageant in Jakarta Challenges Miss World

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it), Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse), Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“… The Shift in Human Nature

You're starting to see integrity change. Awareness recalibrates integrity, and the Human Being who would sit there and take advantage of another Human Being in an old energy would never do it in a new energy. The reason? It will become intuitive, so this is a shift in Human Nature as well, for in the past you have assumed that people take advantage of people first and integrity comes later. That's just ordinary Human nature.

In the past, Human nature expressed within governments worked like this: If you were stronger than the other one, you simply conquered them. If you were strong, it was an invitation to conquer. If you were weak, it was an invitation to be conquered. No one even thought about it. It was the way of things. The bigger you could have your armies, the better they would do when you sent them out to conquer. That's not how you think today. Did you notice?

Any country that thinks this way today will not survive, for humanity has discovered that the world goes far better by putting things together instead of tearing them apart. The new energy puts the weak and strong together in ways that make sense and that have integrity. Take a look at what happened to some of the businesses in this great land (USA). Up to 30 years ago, when you started realizing some of them didn't have integrity, you eliminated them. What happened to the tobacco companies when you realized they were knowingly addicting your children? Today, they still sell their products to less-aware countries, but that will also change.

What did you do a few years ago when you realized that your bankers were actually selling you homes that they knew you couldn't pay for later? They were walking away, smiling greedily, not thinking about the heartbreak that was to follow when a life's dream would be lost. Dear American, you are in a recession. However, this is like when you prune a tree and cut back the branches. When the tree grows back, you've got control and the branches will grow bigger and stronger than they were before, without the greed factor. Then, if you don't like the way it grows back, you'll prune it again! I tell you this because awareness is now in control of big money. It's right before your eyes, what you're doing. But fear often rules. …”

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Muslim Beauty Pageant in Jakarta Challenges Miss World

Jakarta Globe – AFP, September 18, 2013

Contestants of the Muslimah World pageant take part in a rehearsal for
the grand final of the contest in Jakarta on Sept. 18, 2013. (AFP Photo/
Adek Berry)

The finale of a beauty pageant exclusively for Muslim women will take place in the Indonesian capital on Wednesday, in a riposte to the Miss World contest in Bali that has drawn fierce opposition from Islamic radicals.

Twenty contestants will show off the latest Islamic fashion trends in the Muslimah World pageant and will also take part in other activities, such as reciting the Koran, aimed at demonstrating their piety.

“We’re just trying to show the world that Islam is beautiful,” said Obabiyi Aishah Ajibola, a 21-year-old contestant from Nigeria, one of six countries represented at the pageant.

“We are free and the hijab [Muslim headscarf] is our pride.”

The contestants – who can only enter the competition if they wear a headscarf – have undergone three days of “spiritual training” in the run-up to the final in Jakarta, waking up before dawn to pray together and sharpen their Koranic reading skills.

Organizers say they want to show Muslim women there is an alternative to the idea of beauty put forward by the British-run Miss World pageant, and also want to show that opposition to the pageant can be expressed non-violently.

Organizer Eka Shanti, who founded the pageant three years ago after losing her job as TV news anchor for refusing to remove her headscarf, bills the contest as “Islam’s answer to Miss World”.

“This year we deliberately held our event just before the Miss World final to show that there are alternative role models for Muslim women,” she told AFP.

It is a starkly different approach to the groups of Islamic radicals who have taken to the streets in recent weeks to protest Miss World, denouncing the contest as “pornography” and burning effigies of the organizers.

Despite a pledge by organizers to drop the famous bikini round for the pageant in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, radical anger was not appeased and the protest movement snowballed.

The government finally bowed to the mounting pressure and ordered the whole three-week pageant be moved to Hindu-majority Bali, where it opened on Sept. 8.

Later rounds and the final, on Sept. 28, had originally been scheduled to be held in and around Jakarta, where there is considerable hardline influence.

While beauty is very much at the heart of Muslimah World – contestants’ height and weight is shown on the pageant’s website and it is sponsored by a halal make-up brand – the contestants’ piety is also a big factor.

More than 500 contestants competed in online rounds to get to the final in Indonesia, one of which involved the contenders comparing stories of how they came to wear the headscarf.

On Wednesday night, contestants will retell these stories and answer questions from judges at the final in a Jakarta shopping mall, and the 20 finalists will be whittled down to four before a winner is crowned.

“What I will be looking for is strength of personality – someone with a vision for the future, who gives back to their community and shows that beauty is not just about bodies,” said Jameyah Sheriff, an education expert from Malaysia who is on the judging panel.

Shanti said the contest was first held in 2011 and was then only open to Indonesians but it proved so popular that it was opened up to international entrants.

Agence France-Presse