Month: February 2006

She’s always been wiser than me. Her response to the movie was not to see the gay versus straight issue at all – but to see rather the plight of stunted maleness, of emotionally shut-down masculinity, gay and straight, that is a form of fear and a lack of courage. Her emailed stream of consciousness:

"Went to see Brokeback with Grace last night: moving, sad, enlightening and encouraging for us married hetros. My first words to Grace at the end of the film, ‘Well at least we now know they are as uncommunicative with each other in love as the straight guys are with us girls.’ She laughed! Enlightening in that all that male aggression is taken out on each other, the references to their fathers and how distant they were from them, the very sweet, sad mum at the end smuggling the ashes out to him with the shirts, her innate understanding, the father’s too but his clear intention not to admit it, achingly sad for the wives and children but mostly gut-wrenching for the turmoil in those men, the shutdowness of such a big part of themselves that shut down so much else with it, a life half lived. I think we have moved on in some places, in some societies. The more people see it, the more, little by little, it might change."

Here’s hoping.

"A film made of any typical morning in my house would look like an old Marx Brothers comedy. I wash the dishes, rush the older children off to school, dash out in the yard to cultivate the chrysanthemums, run back in to make a phone call about a committee meeting, help the youngest child build a blockhouse, spend fifteen minutes skimming the newspapers so I can be well-informed, then scamper down to the washing machines where my thrice-weekly laundry includes enough clothes to keep a primitive village going for an entire year. By noon I’m ready for a padded cell. Very little of what I’ve done has been really necessary or important. Outside pressures lash me though the day. Yet I look upon myself as one of the more relaxed housewives in the neighborhood." – a Nebraska housewife with a Ph.D. in anthropology, in Betty Friedan’s "The Feminine Mystique.

It is quite fashionable to regard feminism as a somewhat exhausted movement. That may be, but the rescuing of many women from the constrained choices they once faced is surely one of the most important and humane changes of the last century.

The Republicans now believe that it’s government’s job to help you have a better marriage. Hey, it’s not like we don’t have $750 million to throw around.

The European Union muckety-mucks are now weighing how to curb press freedom in Europe – with criminal sanctions if necessary as a possible consequence. We’re not there yet – but there’s a worrying trend here. The lesson? If you threaten to kill people, you can get governments to respond. Turkey is proposing full-on theocratic censorship, which, in my view, should in itself bar Turkey from EU membership. One option European countries might want to pursue: all immigrants should be required to sign a declaration supporting the right of free speech, even blasphemous speech, as a condition of entering the West. Why not? Meanwhile, in London, we have the following:

"Anjem Choudhary, one of the leaders of the demonstration, refused to condemn the threat of another suicide attack in London on the scale of the July 7 bombings as a result of the perceived insult to Islam. ‘I am not in the business of condoning or condemning,’ he said. ‘The fact is that 7/7 was brought upon the people of London and Britain by the foreign policy of Tony Blair. There is no reason why there should not be more suicide bombings in London.’

Passersby stopped police officers to ask why the marchers were being allowed to carry banners threatening further suicide attacks in the city. One police officer replied: ‘Don’t worry. We are photographing them.’"

So it’s illegal in Britain to incite religious hatred; but it’s legal to threaten innocent civilians with future massacres, dictated by Allah.

Here’s a sentence about the publishing of the Danish cartoons that should bring anyone up short:

"This was a case of seeking a reason to exercise a freedom that had not been challenged."

The body of Pim Fortuyn was not challenge enough? The fatwa on Rushdie? The murder of Theo van Gogh? Maybe if the Boston Globe had covered these events with a greater sense of their importance, they would understand why Danish artists were and are living in a climate of fear. Then there’s this:

"Depicting Mohammed wearing a turban in the form of a bomb with a sputtering fuse is no less hurtful to most Muslims than Nazi caricatures of Jews or Ku Klux Klan caricatures of blacks are to those victims of intolerance."

Can someone let me know if the Globe has ever editorialized against the publication of vicious anti-Semitic images in the government-run Arab press?

"In between our last two posts I went to Drudge to see what was happening in the world. The lead story was about a ship disaster in the Red Sea. From the headline picture, it looked like a cruise ship. I therefore assumed that some people very much like the Americans I went cruising with last year were the victims. I went to the news story. A couple of sentences in, I learned that the ship was in fact a ferry, the victims all Egyptians. I lost interest at once, and stopped reading. I don’t care about Egyptians," – John Derbyshire, National Review Online.

A reader remonstrates:

"1. The State Department’s comment on the Danish cartoons was brilliant. This is a European problem and we owe Europe nothing. The comment a) gave us a small chance to look good to Muslims (even if the comment was admittedly bullshit) b) allowed the focus of the anger to remain on the Europeans which will only reinforce the truth that Islamic extremism is a threat to the entire West, not just the United States and c) frankly, it was a nice "fuck you" to Europe. I LOVED it. Of course, given that it was the State Department, they probably had none of these things in mind, but hey, whatever.

2. Your continued equivalence of Christian fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism on anything more than the most abstract of levels is beyond the pale, absurd, ridiculous, etc. You may be right that both of these fundamentalisms at their core share common notions and beliefs. At that level, it’s an intelligent discussion, but admittedly, not one I’m particularly interested in. However, FUNCTIONALLY, there is NO similarity. Islamacists MURDER innocent men, women, and children. "Christianists" oppose gay marriage. PLEASE stop this insane equivalence–it’s offensive, irrational, and fevered."

I couldn’t agree more on the latter point. The difference between Islamists and Christianists is that the former are using violence to achieve their ideal society and Christianists are, almost entirely, using peaceful, democratic means. That’s a huge deal. It’s also worth comparing Christian fundamentalist response to the latest Rolling Stone cover, featuring Kanye West as Jesus. Complaints, sure. But are the editors of Rolling Stone now in hiding? The thought is preposterous. The habits of Islamists and Christianists are on different planets. Nevertheless, the fundamentalist mindset is similar in both: the sense that there can be no legal neutrality between faith and unfaith; the expectation of the Apocalypse; the submission of all reason to faith; the inerrancy of certain texts or authority figures; the shared notion of blasphemy; the subordination of women; the anathematization of gays; the extreme regulation of sex and gender. The difference in methods is one of kind. The difference in mindset is one of degree.

Since the Danish cartoons were first published last September, why the uproar now? The whole event has been orchestrated by an Islamist lobby group, taking the cartoons around the country. They apparently added three especially offensive cartoons that were not in the original bunch; and refuse to identify the artists. Could the three extra ones have been faked? Gateway Pundit wants to know.

The intimidation escalates. Danish artists are now in hiding. I’m not surprised a regime like Syria’s unleashes this kind of fury. It distracts from its own decrepitude.

"When Muslims put the Prophet on a pedestal, we’re engaging in idolatry of our own. The point of monotheism is to worship one God, not one of God’s emissaries. Which is why humility requires people of faith to mock themselves – and each other – every once in a while … Clearly, I‚Äôm as impure a feminist as I am a Muslim.  The difference is, offended feminists won‚Äôt threaten to kill me. The same can‚Äôt be said for many of my fellow Muslims. What part of ‘no compulsion’ don’t they understand?" – Irshad Manji, Wall Street Journal today (subscription required).