Women’s rights are the very center of the War on Terror. In fact I would argue Islamofascism at its core is more than anything else an expression of rage against women and that Islam itself is not much better on that score. That is why to me Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one of the great positive figures of our time, a modern Joan of Arc who surpasses the original Joan in a moral sense and is at least her equal in pure guts.
I have blogged on several occasions on my irritation (to put it mildly) with my Hollywood community for having ignored Ms. Ali and her now assassinated film collaborator Theo Van Gogh. This seemingly willful ignorance is one source of my alienation from what passes for “liberalism” in our society.
Ms. Ali’s article in this morning’s Wall Street Journal is another example of her courage. Wide-ranging in her coverage, the author takes us from Canada to Iraq.
It seems strange to associate the context of Canada with that of Iraq, but a closer look at the arguments used to reassure the demonstrating women in both countries reveals the similar ordeals that Muslim women in both countries must go through to secure their rights. It shows how their legitimate and serious worries are trivialized, and how vulnerable and alone they are. It shows how the Free World led by the U.S. went to war in Iraq, allegedly to bring liberty to Iraqis, and is compromising the basic rights of women in order to meet a random date. It shows how the theory of multiculturalism in Western liberal democracies is working against women in ethnic and religious minorities with misogynist practices. It shows the tenacity of many imams, mullahs and self-made Muslim radicals to subjugate women in the name of God. Most of all, it shows how many of those who consider themselves liberal or left-wing see their energy levels rise when it comes to Bush-bashing, but lose their voice when women’s rights are threatened by religious obscurantism.
Those who think this war is not worth fighting chose to ignore the fate of hundreds of millions of Muslim women. Shame on them.
Do not miss reading the whole article which contains some disturbing anqalysis of the formalized oppression of women in the new Iraqi constitution.
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56 Comments
1. JasonP:She’s right on! The left’s preference for multi-culturalism sells out women’s rights. I’ll add that the leftist’s pressure for our withdrawal from Iraq may lead to compromises on women’s rights. The left doesn’t only undermine our President but betrays the hopes and promises to the women of Iraq. No doubt, the left will blame Bush for that failure as they try to undermine his authority and resolve.
On my blog, I link to and talk about a video interview of an Iraqi who speaks out against the Arabs who support the terrorists that on a daily basis kill his fellow countrymen. He’s so good I call him the Arab Zell Miller. Watch the faces of the other Arabs.
Aug 16, 2005 - 8:36 am 2. cathyf:I would make a somewhat different argument. I would argue that there is some subset of men who derive sexual pleasure from the degredation of women. Just like there is also some subset of adults who derive pleasure from having sex with children. (And a teeny tiny bunch who, Hannibal-Lector-like, derive sexual pleasure from cannibalism. And any one of a number of other sexual perversions of greater or lesser occurence.) They are all perverts, and there is obvious attraction to a community that tells them that they have a right to act out their perversions.
Look at the number of cults founded on either misogyny or child molestation (or both) and tell me I’m wrong…
cathy
Aug 16, 2005 - 8:39 am 3. rastajenk:Maybe she should go to Crawford and try to talk some sense into that other woman. Maybe Ms Sheehan is just pliable enough to buy the women’s rights portion of the argument and be used against the very coalition of lib groups that are trying to prop up her saintliness.
Aug 16, 2005 - 8:40 am 4. Joshua:“I have blogged on several occasions on my irritation (to put it mildly) with my Hollywood community for having ignored Ms. Ali and her now assassinated film collaborator Theo Van Gogh.”
In Van Gogh’s case could that possibly be because he was such a vicious Jew-hater?
Van Gogh the Jew-hater
“Van Gogh also wrote many anti-Semitic articles. In an article in the Amsterdam university magazine Folia in the beginning of the eighties he had Jewish writer Leon de Winter perform the “Treblinka love game” with “a piece of barbed wire” around his “dick”. He also fantasized about “copulating yellow stars in the gas chamber”. In this way he reproduced the anti-Semite myth of the perverse sexual drives, which supposedly completely dominate the Jewish existence. According to Van Gogh, even in the gas chambers this drive got the better of them. He also wrote that Jewish historian Evelien Gans had “wet dreams” about having sex with Mengele. In the anti-Semitic tradition Jews always sought contact with the devil, in this case with the unscrupulous concentration camp doctor.
Van Gogh liked to wrap his anti-Semitism in “humor”. For instance, he had Jewish TV talk show host Sonja Barend say outside a camp barrack: “And tomorrow a healthy awakening”. (Which is what she always said at the end of her shows.) He also proposed to make a happy family movie “about a small girl, who, during half of the war, keeps calling the Gestapo: come and get me, come and get me, my dairy is ready!… and they do not come.” He also ‘joked’: “What smells of caramel here. Today they are only burning Jews with diabetes”. (Diabetes is called “sugar disease” in Dutch.) Van Gogh argued that Jews abuse their black past, and wanted to end their” whining” about the Shoah. With this kind of “jokes” he wanted to banalize the concentration camps. But by doing so he cooperated in denying the misery of Auschwitz.”
http://www.gebladerte.nl/30097v01.htm
Such comments would be truly horrifying in any event, but that they came out of the mouth of a citizen of a nation that openly collaborated in the murder of over 100,000 Jews (citizens and others) makes them that much worse.
While I condemn his murder unreservedly, I shed no tears for this truly ugly human being.
(In a post on another thread, I argued that because the Europeans have not faced up to their responsibilty for the Holocaust, anti-Semitism is so rife on that continent. Holland is an excellent example of this. This is a country that has lived a lie since the end of World War II. Far from being a protector of Jews, no nation did more to assist the Nazis in the implementation of the Holocaust. Thus, Anne Frank was betrayed by the Dutch, arrested by Dutch policemen, and was initially placed together with her sister in the Dutch-run concentration camp, Westerbork. Small wonder then that footballs crowds shout “Hamas! Hamas! All Jews to the gas” weekly, or promote “spoofs” of Auschwitz (”Housewitz”), or allow vicious anti-Semites like Van Gogh to freely peddle his anti-Semitic filth.)
Aug 16, 2005 - 8:56 am 5. Dymphna:Cathyf is on to something re the perversions in cults…it is an old, old theme of the Arabs, though.
There is simply no way the Shi’ite govt is going to allow for anything in Iraq other than Sharia Law. In that respect, it’s not a safe place for women or children.
The University of Toronto is now teaching Sharia Law. It would be funny if it weren’t so grotesque and Orwellian.
Canada Shoots Itself in the Foot. Again.
I plan a post on the Iraqi constitution but so far have procrastinated since it’s so depressing.
Ali Hirsi is amazingly admirable. I think she survived because she had a good strong dad, and when she got to the Netherlands, she found a woman to be her mentor and with great focus and initiative, used her escape to make a difference. I’d love to see the biography they’ll do some day. She’s a complex, intelligent woman under great pressure. The women’s movement in the Netherlands disses her all the time.
Aug 16, 2005 - 9:28 am 6. cathyf:But shouldn’t that have been enough to make him a Hollywood darling? I’d have to say that they ignored him despite his Jew-hate rather than because of it.
Having seen the film, I wondered at first if maybe Hollywood was as embarassed as I was by the film’s puerile cheap-grace theology — “Allah luuuuves me so much of course he wouldn’t hurt my feelings by suggesting that it’s wrong for me to have sex with my boyfriend.” But then I smacked myself upside the head — Hollywood bothered by puerile theology? What was I thinking?
So, yeah, I gotta say I find Hollywood’s attitudes strange.
cathy
Aug 16, 2005 - 9:39 am 7. flenser:I don’t think the world is actually full of people who obsess about Jews. But those people who do are certainly very vocal and very obsessive.
Back to the real topic. A war to end Islamic state sponsered terrorism is a little vague, but has some limits. I have to disagree with the notion that the war is about womens rights around the globe. Many practices of Arab culture strike me as bizarre and abhorrent. It does not follow that we can or should try to remake their societies into what we find acceptable. Nothing is more likely to cause further conflict.
Aug 16, 2005 - 9:43 am 8. ambisinistral:No, ther Left isn’t silent on Van Gogh because of any statements he made ridiculing the Jewish religion. Why would that bother them? The Left, having thrown in its lot with the Palestinians, is increasingly lurching into overt antisemitism itself.
The Left’s abandonment of woman, apostates and minority religious communities in the Middle East is appalling. I’m not religious, so I shouldn’t speak of souls, but we sure have reduced the value of an individual soul to nothing. We’ll trade hundreds of them for an hour or two of peace. Hollyqwood? While lecturing us mere mortals they’ve bred their spines to jelly.
My old compatriots have embraced political abstraction to the point where they can’t see what is before their eyes. The suffering is there, plain to see, and they can’t wrap their minds around the notion that intolerance cannot be tolerated in a civil society.
We’re yielding a bit at a time, and each inch yielded is going to have to be purchased back with blood. What fools our Great Grandchildren are going to think we were.
Aug 16, 2005 - 9:52 am 9. TedM:As usual, I tend to agree with flenser. My take on the womens situation is that when people come to our country they must adopt our ways. That doesnt mean that a muslim woman here has to change her religion. It does mean that she has rights here which override any religous customs from her old country. Her husband or brother or other males cannot force her into anything which she, as an American resident, doesn’t agree to.
Ambiministral: I also can’t argue with what you say. I feel guilty thinking about what my grandchildren will have to live with when they are grandparents.
Aug 16, 2005 - 10:00 am 10. Kyda Sylvester:I never have understood how one could claim to be a feminist and a multi-culturalist in the same breath.
When I met the Fadhil brothers, I asked them what would be done to secure constitutional equal rights for women in Iraq. Their answer was less than reassuring. I say do away with arbitrary dates and let them have the time needed to get it right while recognizing that all the time in the world does not guarentee that they will get it right. But then, we knew going in that self-determination could well lead to an Iraq we didn’t much care for, didn’t we.
Our only option at this time, it seems, is to continue to speak out as Ms. Ali is doing. I have left comments addressing this issue at several Iraqi blogs this morning. I won’t hold my breath waiting for Kim Grandy or Nancy Keenan to join, much less lead, the fray. They’re far too busy trashing John Roberts.
Aug 16, 2005 - 10:09 am 11. Silicon valley Jim:Somewhat OT: Mark Steyn, in an exceptionally well-written article even by his standards, gives yet another reason to support the GWOT.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/08/16/do1602.xml
Aug 16, 2005 - 10:12 am 12. Steven Mitchell:The worship of the Great God Tolerance (as opposed to the cultivation of the small “c” civic and mannerly virtue of an attitude of tolerance) always leads the worshipper into excuses for extreme intolerance. Once you throw out any meaningful basis on what to tolerate and what to not tolerate, it becomes simply an excuse to follow your inclinations. Whatever you tolerate, others should tolerate. Whatever you don’t tolerate, others should hate. Thus hating Bush becomes a “sign of tolerance.” Bin Laden isn’t bothering you personally but Bush is? Then Bush must be the next Hitler clone.
Like a lot of small virtues, tolerance simply can’t bear the load that modern society tries to pile on it.
Aug 16, 2005 - 10:30 am 13. Knucklehead:SvJ,
Thank you much for the link. I’ve been remiss in my Steyn reading and that article only heightens my sense of loss.
Aug 16, 2005 - 10:50 am 14. JasonP:“But then, we knew going in that self-determination could well lead to an Iraq we didn’t much care for, didn’t we.” – Kyda
I never had any illusions when I gave my support. It’s a chance we had to take. Cultural change is a slow process whether we initiate it or it comes from internal forces:
I think we’re giving them damn good advice but we can’t do it all. Let’s hope they do enough on the first round to be able to advance further in the future.
Aug 16, 2005 - 11:13 am 15. Ron Wrght:Empower the American people in the GWOT!
Roger and All,
I, too, wonder where the women’s rights groups are re the treatment of women by the tyrannical Islamofascist regimes. Saudi Arabia and Iran would be in a dead heat for first on the list. You’d think they would be up in arms demanding action by the world’s leaders, the LL, and the great defender of human rights, the UN.
Are the women’s groups so LLL that can’t speak out on behalf of their tortured and subjugated sisters? The last I heard they were miffed and demonstrating about the Augusta Country Club, the home of the Masters Tournament, that won’t allow women members. If so, they are bigger hypocrites to the cause of the equality of women than the House of Saud is to the Wahhabi brand of Islamofascism.
See my previous post here re the abhorrent treatment of women by the Mad Mullahs of Iran under the guise of some religious transgression. Mind you, who makes and interprets the rules?
RLS Link
The Blogos now has the power to blow the “turd” clogging the “crapper,” the MSM, that is blocking/filtering the free flow of objective information to the American people.
See my comment at Winds of Change on Dan Darling’s post re Able Danger. I noted how the Blogos made the connection between the sex offender Joseph Edward Duncan III and the 1997 kidnapping and murder of Anthony Martinez from Beaumont, CA. This was not a stroke of genius by the Bureau but the dedicated efforts of bloggers at no cost to the government. [Ed note: So Cal between San Bernardino and Palm Springs].
[a href="http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/007342.php#c2">WOC Link
In the WOC piece, I linked to a comment I posted here re Roger's piece on the new blogger Captain V:
Empower the American people in the GWOT.
Roger and all,
Captain V. is on the right track but doesn't go far enough. To win this war we must bring online the American people and our vast private sector resources to fill the gap where our government can't or won't defend this country.
[...]
RLS Link
Aug 16, 2005 - 11:41 am 16. Ron Wrght:Sorry the WOC above is broken. Try this:
WOC Link
Aug 16, 2005 - 11:44 am 17. madawaskan:Boy let’s give credit where credit is due. I don’t watch much television anymore but for some lucky reason I caught Morley Safer’s interview with Hirsi Ali on CBS. Absolutely stunning. What she has accomplished with her life in the Netherlands is truly amazing. I think she worked some hellish job to put herself through college, and is now a representative in their government.
Morley Safer -was incredible-I’m sorry. He interviewed a Moslem man that basically was saying that she had no right to talk about the Koran in the manner that she does and Morley really put the screws to him. It was something to see.
On top of it all she is coming out with yet another movie. She will not let them win by backing down.
Here is a link CBS has with free video of some of the interview-
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/11/60minutes/main679609.shtml
As for my old country Canada-it isn’t just Moslem women and their plight getting ignored. They turn a blind eye to the honor killings of young girls in Canada by their Shikh fathers.
In fact can’t even find the link anymore for that but it happened in British Columbia and I think the last name was Atwal. CBC white washed it by calling it a “cultural divide”. Refused to even mention their race or religion.
Also their was the Air India judgement by The Crown that let the masterminds of that bombing off scot free to walk around with swords because their freedom of religion cannot be infringed. That judgement was absolutely nuts and unfortunately longterm Canada and the US -by virtue of being adjacent- will have to pay for it. Canada essentially put out the welcome mat for terrorists, turns a blind eye to chauvinism in the name of religion {as long as it doesn’t happen to real Canadians}- all so they can have a warm cozy feeling about how superior to Americans they really are and how extremely tolerant they can be.
It’s getting to the point that they’ll tolerate anyone but Americans-especially those that are too “realist” and actually want to protect themselves from the “misunderstood”…
Canada’s motto should be-
Have You Hugged Your Potential Terrorist Today?
Aug 16, 2005 - 11:56 am 18. madawaskan:I’ve read the comments here-
To get corny this is why I love President George W. Bush.
The guy I feel will go down in history as a Global Lincoln for w-o-m-e-n. This is something the Left for all their tolerance simply cannot tolerate.
How many times does the President have to say that a regime that oppresses nearly half of its citzenry is not likely to be a peaceful country within or to its neighbors? That the environment of that kind of oppression should and deserves not to properly derive legitimacy when it refuses to provide the basic need of protection and HUMAN rights to over half of its population.
I don’t know how but the President simply gets it. Short term given the relative nature of history he has put a lot on the line but it will pay off huge dividends longterm and he will- in the fair viewing of history- go down as one of the greatest of all Presidents.
This guy loves strong women and he surrounds himself with them and more importantly he listens to them.
Barbara Bush, Condi Rice, Torie Clarke, Mary Matalin, Karen Hughes and ya this will kill the Left but- Laura.
Then there is his cabinet appointments with Elaine Cho-Labor, The new Secretary of Education-Margaret Spellings, Department of the Interior Gale Norton, and the Secretary of State-of course-Condi Rice-the former National Security advisor.
That’s breaking the glass ceiling like the Democrats only dreamed of doing.
Aug 16, 2005 - 12:15 pm 19. Kyda Sylvester:In another Hitchens piece today, he asks:
No, Christopher, there’s also Gitmo.
Aug 16, 2005 - 12:16 pm 20. PJ:The Morley Safer interviews were quite good. When the Muslim asked indignantly if “this is what freedom means, freedom to be insulted,” Safer said well, yes!
Hey, I guess even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Aug 16, 2005 - 1:02 pm 21. Terrye:Well I think Islam is in need fo a reformation but I also think people posting here about the Iraqi Constitution and sharia law may be jumping the gun somewhat.
I heard the American ambassador to Iraq speak about his and I did not get the impression that Iraqi is going to be governed by some 7th century form of sharia.
I know I could be wrong about this, but maybe we should wait until we really know what we are talking about before we make judgments.
There is supposed to be a process to allow for amendaments to the constitution and if this is acctually the case it could also be that more liberalization will come later.
Or we could get Saddam out of jail and give the place back to him.
We might want to leave the bulldozers because he will need them for the mass graves.
Aug 16, 2005 - 1:41 pm 22. Cap'n Billy:This book, written, I believe, in 1993, contains this quote, which explains a lot about our enemies:
The underlying problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.
Aug 16, 2005 - 1:50 pm 23. flenser:It is Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.
With the exception of WASP America, I have not encountered any culture which is not convinced of its own superiority, and which does not seek to expand its power relative to other cultures. Islam goes about this in an exceptionaly bloodthirsty and barbaric way, which is what caused the current war.
Aug 16, 2005 - 2:02 pm 24. Ann:Of course this weekend Howard Dean said the same thing as Ali on “Face the Nation”: that the new Iraqi constitution will put women in a worse legal position than under Saddam, and that the US isn’t doing enough to ensure women’s rights in the new Iraq.
He got blasted for it.
Sometimes even your political opponents can speak the truth. Shocking, I know.
Aug 16, 2005 - 2:20 pm 25. cathyf:The point was about the obsession with the inferiority of their power dude. Being convinced of the superiority of your culture and trying to spread it about is, as you point out, a fairly universal trait. It’s the inferiority complex that’s more uniquely dangerous. And on-topic — since the author is basically claiming that it’s the guys who are obsessed that their penises are too small who beat their women. Which is not the same explanation that I gave at all — but no reason that we aren’t both right and that some of the jihadis are perverts and some have inferiority complexes and some both.
cathy
Aug 16, 2005 - 2:47 pm 26. Terrye:Ann:
He should have been blasted, it was an asssanine comment.
Stalin and Hitler and Mao were secualr leaders also, but I don’t think anyone was better off with them.
Aug 16, 2005 - 3:02 pm 27. Oyster:At the risk of sounding bitter, I think the left is holding out hope that women’s rights will be curbed so they can say, “See?”
And Terrye’s right about jumping the gun. I’ve had to say that to a few people over the last 24 hours. Until we know for sure, we need to withold a little of our energy for those things we’re sure about.
Aug 16, 2005 - 3:55 pm 28. DP111:It is satisfying to see, that many bloggers are beginning to realise that the subjugation of muslim women is a violation of human rights on a grand scale. Islam regards women as mere chattels. Women are thus no better then slaves. I really would like to see the anti-slavery league take up this issue.
It is truly courageuous of Hirsi Ali to fight this war on her own. What is not so flattering is that, it was her, who had to do it. It should never have fallen to her, a muslim woman to fight this war, particularly in the West. The responsibility was in the hands of our political elite, Western media and us all, the Free. It was our responsibility and duty. Instead, after each terrorist outrage, 9/11, Bali, Beslan, Madrid, London, the political elite sang the praises of islam. Confusion all round.
There is also the matter of apostates of islam. Unlike the issue of enslaved muslim women, this issue is very much hidden. The fact that it is hidden by the victims themselves, should give us pause for thought, for it signifies the greater evil. How has it come about, that we in the West, have allowed death sentences on muslim apostates to be ignored?
madawaskan:
Pres Bush’s actions are now going to legitimise sharia in Iraq. Women in Iraq who were comparitivrely free, are soon going to be under the lash of Iranian style sharia. I would hardly call that a beneficial effect.
Pres Bush and his advisors persist in the belief that democracy is the universal way for humanity. But democracy is just the icing on the cake of an already liberal and tolerant culture. In Iraq and the muslim world in general, there is no tolerance of minorities or equality of women. It is expressly forbidden in the koran. If one accepts the oft stated view of muslims, that the koran is the literal word of allah, then one is forced to accept that a liberal and tolerant democracy is irreconcilable with islam. One can have one but not both simultaneously.
In societies where the koran is supreme, a democratic process will inevitably legitimise an authoritarian islamic state.
It is very depressing to state all this. Our first task though, should be to ensure that the intolerant social and public aspects of islam are not given any support whatsoever; in fact they should be expressly made illegal. If that is not done, then the muslims who came to the West seeking freedom, would be doubly injured.
Aug 16, 2005 - 4:22 pm 29. mrp:Roger -
That is why to me Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one of the great positive figures of our time
She is certainly brave and quite outspoken. Whether she has a positive impact remains to be seen.
… a modern Joan of Arc who surpasses the original Joan in a moral sense and is at least her equal in pure guts.
Sorry, Roger. She’s not in the same league as La Pulcette. Particularly in the moral sense.
Aug 16, 2005 - 4:25 pm 30. Terrye:Oyster:
I agree with Winston Churchill. As long as there is Islam there will be slavery, because that religion declares a woman must “belong” to someone. I am not a racist and Islam is not a race. However, I can think of few good things this religion has brought either to the people who practice the faith or the rest of us who share the planet with them.
Having said that, it is not my decision to make for the people of Iraq.
I have heard that Sharia will not be the primary basis for law in Iraq. I have seen rough drafts that seem to include some very secular and rational statments.
But as important as this step is, it is just as important that the Constitution allows for reform and debate and change in a peaceful coherent political process. It is important that the document be voted on by the larger population and the issues involved debated in a political arena.
People can say that women will be worse off. But puhleaze…Saddam had rapists on the payroll. I know of no other dictator in the world [at least alive today] that openly used rape as a form of political repression.
Besides we don’t really know as of yet what the truth is. I know I heard the ambassador say that the US had invested blood and treasure and felt that Iraq could not move forward if half its population was held back. hint hint.
wait and see and keep in mind, this might take some time.
The lefties can kiss my butt, if they can name one time they said or did anything to free one female from the midieval shackles of Islam I don’t recall it. Palestine still practices honor killing, so far as I know no self respecting liberal has made one public comment in condemnation of the vile practice.
Aug 16, 2005 - 4:26 pm 31. Terrye:palestine was meant to be palestinians.
Aug 16, 2005 - 4:26 pm 32. mrp:Make that Joan of Arc – La Pucelle.
Aug 16, 2005 - 4:35 pm 33. TedM:written, I believe, in 1993, contains this quote, which explains a lot about our enemies:
The underlying problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.
Posted by: Cap’n Billy at August 16, 2005 01:50 PM
The book Cap’n Billy cites is Clash of Civilizations by Sam Huntington. It is a must read for everyone.He puts the events of the past few years into the context of broad tides of history. And he did write this in 1993. This isnt 20/20 hindsight.
His latest book, Who Are We is also one which should be read by all Rogersimonites. He traces the development of the American character and how we have absorbed immigrants for 200 years and how they have become Americans. And how this process is changing. Another pessimistic view.
Aug 16, 2005 - 4:37 pm 34. Terrye:DP:
You do not know if that is true or not.
So should we outlaw Islam? Put some strong arm man in control who will put a few hundred thousand Shia in mass graves? Force them to do what we want?
My grandmother was born in 1903. She was a married woman before women could vote in federal elections in this country.
I was born in 1951 in Oklahoma. There were counties in that state where you could not buy a beer.
There were states that limited the right of women to own and control property.
When I was a senior in highschool in 1969 I did not take chemistry because the small school I went to did not have the funds to expand the chem lab and so all the girls were just denied access to the class. saved money and we were all going to grow up and have babies anyway so what did we care.
From what I have read the constititution will allow freedom of religion. It could be that people will adapt and maybe not.
But it really pisses me off to hear people passing judgments on things without the facts.
Aug 16, 2005 - 4:38 pm 35. richard mcenroe:Jayson P, Kyda — “The left’s preference for multi-culturalism sells out women’s rights.” Hell, the left’s preference for women’s rights sold out women. Both NOW and the Hollywood Women’s Political Caucus knew that Clinton and Packwood were serial molesters (at least) but did nothing about it because they were saying the right things. They deliberately put real women in real jeopardy for their political ambitions.
Aug 16, 2005 - 4:57 pm 36. DP111:Terrye
I never wrote that islam should be outlawed. What I did write was that some of the social aspects of islam, particularly those that impinge in the public domain, should be expressly made illegal. I use the word ‘expressly’, as those aspects of islam, subjugation of women and the dire straits of apostates, are generally understood to be illegal in the West. Yet they are ignored, and that is why the requirement for ‘expressly’.
Your example goes back to 1903, and it is perfectly legitimate to do so, if one were considering the situation in islamic cuntries. But we are not. We are talking about the situation in 2005, and right here in the citadel of Freedom. Are you suggesting that we go back to the Middle Ages just because we have a significant number of muslims in the West?
You heard right, the constitution does allow freedom of religion, it is simply an extension of freedom to choose. What it does not allow is the restriction of freedom of choice. Apostates or would be apostates of islam, do not have that choice in the West.
By not standing stoutly for principles that are at the core of our civilisation, we make it even harder for persons such Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Ali Sena, and others, who would like to to follow their example. We should increase the freedom for muslims in the West, not restrict it by well mneaning, but in the end futile gestures, of catering to very specific requirements of islamic practices that require public subsidy and tolerance.
Aug 16, 2005 - 5:03 pm 37. JasonP:richard mcenroe, right you are. I didn’t go far enough.
Aug 16, 2005 - 5:28 pm 38. Terrye:DP:
No, I said that my grandmother was born in 1903. Suffrage for women came sometime later, in 1921 I believe. And 1920 in a country that signed a Declaration of Independence and a constitution in the late 18th century. not exactly overnight.
I also said let’s wait to see what is in the final draft before we pass judgment and what means are available to people for political recourse. Perhaps instead of attacking Bush for believing in democracy the next step should be a womens rights movement akin to the civil rights movement launched in this country not so very long ago.
The Iraqi people need a stable government that allows for growth and change. As I said I don’t have a great deal of love for Islam. I can not help it. But somethings have to work themselves out.
I think Hirsi Ali is very brave and perhaps she is right in her analysis. She has grown to hate Islam, and I read she considers herself an atheist. But, this is her culture, not mine. If women want to change it, then I believe they should.
Aug 16, 2005 - 5:36 pm 39. Terrye:BTW, we never passed the Equal Rights Amendment in this country. Which means it does not state expressly state in our constitution that women have equal rights with men.
Aug 16, 2005 - 5:39 pm 40. richard mcenroe:Terrye — And remember, the first men in this country who gave the vote to women were a bunch of unilateral cowboys(literally) in Wyoming. So if they can get this constitution drafted during the Bush admin, they’ve got a shot.
Aug 16, 2005 - 9:50 pm 41. foreign devil:Tip O’Neill used to say “all politics is local”. The fate of those Muslim women is ours. If we don’t get this right in Iraq and women in the Muslim world don’t get their freedom, we will all go down in the anger and resentment of Islam’s sons. Right from the moment the sons are born in Islam, the women dote on and influence their boys in hopes the sons will remember their mothers favorably when they are older and under the influence of the males in the household. So the women bind their sons to them and fill their heads with resentments in an attempt to prejudice the boys in their favor as they grow older. When the boy becomes a young man and associates with other young men, he is already biased against his own brothers and cousins. That’s where the division of loyalties represented by the old adage ‘I and my tribe against the world, I and my family against the tribe, I and my brother against the family’ comes from. This complex pattern of relationships is amply described in the book by Leon Uris ‘The Haj’. Ayaan Hirsi Ali understands this complex society which oppresses Muslim women further and urges the West to be strong in standing against this evil. If we don’t help to free these Muslim women, the whole society will die and take us with it in the flames. We must not fail in Iraq and that’s what’s so worrisome about recent developments. I pray they maintain the separation of church and state. Please G*d! Hear my prayer. Without that…we’ve got no chance of ever freeing Muslim women from their chains and saving ourselves in the process!
Aug 17, 2005 - 12:08 am 42. DP111:An article plus some fascinating and informative comments here.
Arabian nightmare for 13 girls as grooms flee
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/007696.php#comments
This should be read by all. The treatment of women by muslims, whether Arabs or not, is really quite despicable.
Terrye posted :But, this is her culture, not mine. If women want to change it, then I believe they should.
On the contrary, Hirsi Ali’s fight is our fight, as she lives in the West. If she was still back in Somalia, it might be a different matter, but her being in the West makes it our fight, for if we leave it just to her and to apoistates such as Ali Sena, we become complicit in the subjugation of muslim women, and the warrants for the exceution of apostates in the West.
Aug 17, 2005 - 3:18 am 43. Terrye:DP:
I remember shortly before the invasion an old lady was beheaded in Iraq for pissing off Saddam.
That was womens rights in Saddam’s Iraq. Don’t piss him off and he might let you live. I doubt if Hirsi Ali would have lased long.
Now he is gone.
I am not saying that Hirsi Ali’s fight is not my concern. I am saying that there needs to be more women out marching for womens rights in that country. I heard of such a march the other day. Me banging away on my key board pissing and moaning about a constitution that may or may not be what I think it could be is not going to change their lives half as much as they themselves can.
That is my point.
The US went into Afghanistan and liberated that country. We got rid of the backasswards Taliban and their public abuse of women.
Notice how many owmn are still wearing the burkha?
Aug 17, 2005 - 4:20 am 44. Terrye:owmn is women. preview is for the faint of heart.
Aug 17, 2005 - 4:21 am 45. Terrye:richard:
This is true and the first states that allowed woment to sit on the state legislatures were overwhelmingly red states. States like Kansas and Nebraska were much more open to womens rights and women voting in county elections.
Of course that might be becasue there were a lot of widows on the frontier.
not an easy life.
Aug 17, 2005 - 4:25 am 46. Terrye:And just for the record if not for this administration the idea that the rights of women in Islam were a problem to pondered would not even be a subject for discussion.
The very thought that American women are more responsible for the rights of Muslim women than Muslim are would not be a topic of discussion.
As I said I have big problems with Islam, but sometimes you have to take things a step at a time.
Aug 17, 2005 - 4:30 am 47. ambisinistral:DP111,
I’ve advocated the same thing in this forum — that laws specifically targetting aspects of Islam incompatable with America Constitutional values be passed. There is a precedent in American Law for doing that. Google Mormon and Supreme Court and you’ll see that such a tactic was used to force the mormon Church to drop polygamy in the 19th Century.
I think an explicit law against any organization that advocates the death penalty of apostacy, coupled with seizure of assets as part of the sanction, would be quite useful. Arguing against the law (ie; for their right to kill people) would be a public relations nightmare for Moslems, and the ablility to tie up the assets of Mosques that violated the law would be most useful.
I’ve long held that we need to stop screwing arounds and confront the American Moslem community directly over aspects of their religion that we find intolerable.
Aug 17, 2005 - 6:15 am 48. Peter Verkooijen:Joshua, please believe me, Theo van Gogh was definately not ‘a vicious Jew-hater’!
Van Gogh was a polemist who often used “sick jokes” to shock his readers. In the Netherlands there is a lot of hypocrisy about WWII.
As you probably know more Jews were killed in the Netherlands than anywhere else in Europe, but after the war everybody pretended they had been in the resistance, especially the socialist establishment.
An extreme example of this hypocrisy is documentary film maker Louis van Gasteren who build his entire career on WWII and was a hero to the Dutch sixties left.
In recent years the truth has come out that during the war Van Gasteren actually killed a Jewish roommate for his money and used his political connections after the war to clear his record and get ‘resistance hero’ status. In the months before his death Theo van Gogh has written a lot about this weird scandal.
Leon de Winter and Sonja Barend are both typical holier than thou socialist hypocrites. Van Gogh wrote the articles you refer to years ago, in the early nineties. He never used those mock anti-semitic slurs since.
Aug 17, 2005 - 7:30 am 49. Peter Verkooijen:Joshua, another thing I have to add to help you understand the Dutch context; the Dutch communist party and later socialist splinters virtually monopolized WWII. The Anne Frank house for example is run by extreme leftists and last year had an exhitibion promoting the palestinian cause.
Aug 17, 2005 - 7:33 am 50. Peter Verkooijen:To sum it up, Theo van Gogh was a good man all around! But his response to the holier than thou crowd was to make himself look bad, an overweight smoker who went around offending people. It was all part of his persona. At the core was a moral giant with a great heart.
Aug 17, 2005 - 7:39 am 51. DP111:There are severe problems in trying to bring the ‘light of a liberal and tolerant society’ to Muslim nations. Being muslim majority, it is well nigh impossible, as in their eyes, the koran trumps secular law.
First we have to take care of the subjugation of muslim women here, right here, at home in the West, before venturing forth to the outside word. If one takes care of the situation at home, and muslim women and apostates have freedom of choice, then these same individuals serve as powerful example to muslim nations.
ambisinistral:
I could not agree with you more.
Some laws we have in the West are so much a part of the fabric of the West, that we take them for granted – as if there were no such laws. In some instances there are’nt. The example is Britain. There is no written constitution in the UK, yet freedom of expression as a right, is taken for granted. It is part of the common law and practice of this nation. These same practices were taken to the New World, where they were codified in law.
Your post reads well.
Aug 17, 2005 - 8:33 am 52. Kevin P:Roger;
Dean’s comment that women were better off under saddam is why he is a moron. Women in Iraq were treated the same as men in Iraq, as private property of the ruling party who could be raped, tortured and abused when the tyrants were feeling in the mood. They were equal to men as far as having no real rights, they were equal to men in the fact that Saddam could do to them anything that he wanted.
Iraqs transition to Democracy will not be perfect. And when the constitution comes out it will have aspects that we deplore. And it will be OK to critique those shortcomings. But the Iraqi people will have the chance for change through the ballot box. The only chance for change before the overthrow of Saddam was through violence and Saddam had proven that a internal revolt of the Iraqi people was never going to happen and his boys were going to continue his reign. After the first Gulf War we tried the “let the Iraqi people do it themselves” method and Saddam crushed the revolt and the Iraqi’s never tried it again because they knew that the U.N. would sit and watch as whole towns were destroyed. Saddam knew there would be no internal revolt because he crushed them so completly that the population was as docile as a trained poodle. Any potential revolt leader knew that all his family and the all of his relatives would be killed and tortured in the most inhumane manner that it was better to accept the rule of Saddam. Saddam was not strong enough to defeat the military of the U.S. but he had his own people under his thumb and they could not get out from under him.
Kevin Peters
Aug 17, 2005 - 11:09 am 53. Don Miguel:“With the exception of WASP America, I have not encountered any culture which is not convinced of its own superiority, and which does not seek to expand its power relative to other cultures.”
You might want to do a little research on Sweden. They are basic giving away the store (i.e. their culture) for free to multiculturalism.
Aug 17, 2005 - 3:21 pm 54. Katherine:ìI know of no other dictator in the world [at least alive today] that openly used rape as a form of political repression.î
Terrye,
I think that when the NorKs finally go belly up we will find out that our little Kimchie was one of the most vicious mass murderers and torturers in human history. He will make Pol-Pot, Stalin, and Saddam look benevolent.
Aug 17, 2005 - 7:49 pm 55. flenser:Speaking of cultural differences, check out the post “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus”, on Don Miguel’s blog. Very funny stuff.
I’m pretty sure it reflects cultural differences rather than male/female ones. I’ve seen lots of female blog commenters who are more in line with Gary than Rebecca.
Aug 18, 2005 - 5:10 am 56. flenser:PJ writes;
The Morley Safer interviews were quite good. When the Muslim asked indignantly if “this is what freedom means, freedom to be insulted,” Safer said well, yes!
In fairness to the Muslim, this is a brand new definition of freedom. “Fighting words” were not aways considered free speech, and the men who founded America were very prickly about matters of honor.
Aug 18, 2005 - 5:26 am