The Dish

An insight into how many Arab men appreciate rotund women and are force-feeding them into obesity. They start at the age of eight. Money quote about one of these victims:

Ms. Ethmane says she was required to consume four liters of milk in the morning, plus couscous. She ate milk and porridge for lunch. She was awoken at midnight and given several more pints of milk, followed by a prebreakfast feeding at 6 a.m. If she threw up, she says, her mother forced her to eat the vomit. Stretch marks appeared on her body, and the skin on her upper arms and thighs tore under the pressure. If she balked at the feedings, her mother squeezed her toes between two wooden sticks until the pain was unbearable. “I would devour as much as possible,” says Ms. Ethmane. “I resembled a mattress.” …
Force-feeding is usually done by girls’ mothers or grandmothers; men play little direct role. The girls’ stomachs are sometimes vigorously massaged in order to loosen the skin and make it easier to consume even greater quantities of food. … Local officials say some women are so fat they can barely move. In [a Mauritanian] survey, 15% of the women said their skin split as a result of overeating. One-fifth of women said one of their toes or fingers were broken to make them eat.

Kudos for Daniel Pipes and the WSJ for bringing attention to this problem. Where, one wonders, are Western feminists?

EUPHEMISM WATCH: “Mitt Romney is going to have a hard time connecting with the social sonservative base of the party given his Mormon faith–just a fact of life. For what it’s worth…” – a GOP insider as reported by Rich Lowry in NRO. Lowry clarified with another less pronounced euphemism: “Yes, the point that insider I cited earlier was making was that a Mormon would have trouble connecting with the evangelical Christian base of the party.” It’s not a big deal, but it is interesting as an indicator of what the GOP now is: a sectarian base with political outreach. “Trouble connecting …?” Translation: a Mormon would not be accepted by the evangelical Christian base of the GOP because he’s a … Mormon. When your base is sectarian, it’s not surprising they have sectarian preferences. A simple question: will someone not “born again” be able to be a Republican candidate for president in the near future? The answer isn’t obvious.

I hope you remember Irshad Manji’s wonderful little book, “The Trouble With Islam.” At great personal risk, this Canadian woman has taken on Islamist intolerance. And when she reports progress and hope, it gladdens the heart. Here’s an email I received from her today:

Some of you haven’t heard from me in a while. Please forgive the silence. I’m barely keeping up now that I don’t have an assistant. But this isn’t a personal update — not exactly. It’s a note of hope. At a time when disasters from the natural to the man-made are on our minds, good news seems sparse. Key word: “seems”.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve tried to catch up on emails received through my site (www.muslim-refusenik.com). I’m happy to report that I’m hearing far more support than hostility from Muslims around the world. Even disagreement — of which there is plenty — tends to be more introspective than it was a year ago.

Now that the Arabic language edition of The Trouble with Islam is posted on my site, my inbox is teeming with messages of gratitude from Muslims in the Middle East (and, I might add, Europe). I’m hearing increasingly from Muslims in Turkey, Russia, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and South Africa.

This week, the Urdu edition is being published in Pakistan. Some self-described “progressive” Muslims have already warned me and my translator that we’re on their “killing list.” They’re also contacting Pakistan’s clergy and government officials to stop the book’s distribution. But they can’t stop me from posting the Urdu version on my site.

Meanwhile, I take strength from the many Muslims who have written to ask where they can acquire the Urdu edition. As one young Pakistani put it, “My dad wants a copy sooo bad he’s read to pee in his pants!!” (Insert your own punch line here.)

Finally, in the spirit of hope, let me share two particular emails with you. One comes from the UK; the other from France. Both are written by Muslim women — who, in my own travels, have shown themselves to be the most passionate champions of reviving ijtihad, Islam’s lost tradition of independent thinking.

May 2005 be a year in which we not only respond to human crises, but prevent a few through open debate and honest discussion.

Salaam,
Irshad

***

“Hi Irshad,

I’ve lived in England throughout my 30 years of life. During that time, I have vigorously defended my faith and my culture against the Paki-bashers that pervade English society. I have always been a devout Muslim woman, respectful to my parents and my loving husband. It was my husband who first told me about you – a traitor amongst our midst. A woman who would give succour to our enemies and fan the flames of Islamophobia.

I was lent your book about a month ago – so I could find out what we devout Muslims were up against. Know they enemy – as Sun Tzu would say. The title made me furious and almost gag and the picture of you nauseated me; a typical wanna-be-white, MTV presenter bimbo with right-on trendy liberal credentials and a terrible haircut that only a lesbian could wear.

Then I sat down to read your book. And I read. I then went to your website to find out more about you. And I read.

The ideas that you present have left me stunned. The beauty of the vision of Islam that you present before me leaves me in tears. Your words are witty and self-deprecating, but they can’t hide the huge magnitude of what you put before us. For me the past month has been a a continuous wave of epiphany and awakening.

I’m embarrassed and humbled by how prejudiced I was before I actually got a chance to read your book. I now look at your picture and marvel that someone so young and beautiful can be so wise and articulate.

I still find it difficult not to instinctively justify and defend the (often barbaric) behaviour and beliefs of Muslims against the white infidels or try to deflect the blame from Islam as it is practiced today by a few misguided souls. But I see now that by doing so, I only harm our faith – and the possibility that it might sit in harmony with the world’s other great religions.

But more importantly, as my son and daughter grow up and ask me about life, the universe, and everything – I’ll encourage them to read not only the Koran, but every other book they can get their hands on. To research and to learn for themselves and to challenge all the ideas that are put before before them. Most of all to think.

From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU!!” – N

***

Assalam alaikum, Ms. Manji:

I’m reading your wonderful and brave book for the third time now. I’m so happy to have in print something that deals with the same issues I’ve been struggling with and questioning ever since I converted to Islam. I tend to freeze up and turn incoherent when actually discussing them out loud; I find your book helps me express myself.

One of the issues that often comes up for me is the question of hijab. I live in France, and this is a charged topic. One side thinks it’s a symbol of oppression; the other side thinks that words like “symbol of oppression” signal racism and intolerance on the speaker’s part. So I get people at once telling me that I live in a free society and don’t have to wear ‘that thing’ on my head, while others tell me that people who use terms like ‘that thing’ are intolerant and hateful and will go to Hell. (umm…)

My standpoint is that I support a woman’s freedom to expose as much of herself as she likes (bravo for the law in Canada, where women can go topless!) In return, I ask that my freedom be respected to conceal as much as I would like. I wear hijab clothing because this way, no one can tell if I have belly-fat or whether my hair looks salon-perfect. (I like yours by the way! Very spunky!) And because no one knows, no one can care… It’s also nice that no one can claim I dress this way because I’m forced to by an older male relative: I’m of Anglo-Polish background, pale and freckled, and I live with my Catholic boyfriend who is supportive and CERTAINLY not demanding about what I wear!

Being a Muslim has been incredibly hard. Converts are not respected, especially white ones who believe in both freedom of religion and if desired freedom FROM religion. And questioning the perfection of the Qur’an is just not done by believing Muslim women, of course. And what’s with the worship of Arabic? I speak French and English and have always been proud of that; do I need a third, now? Does God not understand if I speak with I’m comfortable in?

I remember that in one of your responses to a nasty letter describing how Islam is the fastest growing religion in the West, you said many people come seeking the much-vaunted simplicity of Islam and never find it. I certainly haven’t found it in the community itself (no: in the MAJORITY of the community here. I have many fantastic brothers and sisters who love and support me). But despite the frustrations, I have never regretted my choice.

I’m so thrilled that you have been brave enough to write The Trouble with Islam [en francais: Musulmane mais Libre]. I was told that reading your book would weaken my faith and that I should avoid it at all costs. I find, rather, that it has strengthened my faith. It’s by using our God-given intellects and creativities that we get closer to the Divine. Thank you so much for your efforts – I hope to see more books soon!” – S

There’s hope. Thanks to heroes like Irshad. Her website is here.

Here’s a remarkable piece of reasoning:

I think the effort to turn this into an anti-Bush political issue is a serious mistake, and the most likely outcome will be, in essence, the ratification of torture (with today’s hype becoming tomorrow’s reality) and a political defeat for the Democrats. And the highly politicized way in which the issue is raised is likely to ensure that there’s no useful discussion of exactly how, in terms of incarceration, etc., we should treat potentially very dangerous people who do not fall readily within the laws of war.

Run that by me again. The point is not “an anti-Bush political issue.” It’s about whether the United States condones torture of prisoners (many of whom have turned out to be innocent) in its care. Since president Bush shifted U.S. policy to one which allows what any sane person would call torture, any criticism of the policy, by its very nature, has to be “anti-Bush.” And when the president responds to his egregious error – which has undermined the war – by rewarding those who helped him make it, like Gonzales and Bybee, are we all supposed to roll over? Is all legitimate criticism of the administration now reducible to this kind of inane partisanship? Glenn’s deeper point is that if you ask for torture to be stopped, the majority of Americans will respond by saying: ramp it up. But that amounts to complete capitulation to something no civilized person should tolerate, and no grown-up military officer would approve. Glenn cannot pretend to be anti-torture, while eschewing any serious attempts to stop it through the political process.If you won’t stand up to the Bush administration on torture, is there anything you won’t acquiesce to? And it’s not “hype.” Read the reports.

SONTAG WAS OUT: Here’s an interesting quote that helps illuminate things:

She says she has been in love seven times in her life, which seems quite a lot. “No, hang on,” she says. “Actually, it’s nine. Five women, four men.” She will talk about her bisexuality quite openly now. It’s simple, she says. “As I’ve become less attractive to men, so I’ve found myself more with women. It’s what happens. Ask any woman my age. More women come on to you than men. And women are fantastic. Around 40, women blossom. Women are a work-in-progress. Men burn out.” She doesn’t have a lover now, she lives alone. The rumours about her and the photographer Annie Leibovitz are, she says, without foundation. They are close friends.” Maybe it sounds foolish, she says. “Maybe everyone will think I have an aberrant life, or a low sex drive. Maybe I am consigning myself to the asexual here. But speaking candidly, and only for myself, there are so many things in my life now that are more important to me than my sexuality. My relationship with my son, David. My writing. Even my moral passions seem to me to be far more defining than my erotic life. People can conclude from this what they want.”

Why be so queasy after her death when she was not when she was alive?

Just read the website billed as a “completely neutral information platform.” They even spoof the threatened murder of Dutch deputy, Hirsi Ali.

“Today, it is clear that these operations have fostered greater animosity toward the United States, undermined our intelligence gathering efforts and added to the risks facing our troops serving around the world,” – General Shalikashvili and a dozen other high-ranking retired military officers, objecting to the nomination of a man who enabled and justified the use of torture as attorney-general of the United States. Today, we find that not only did Gonzales pen the memo that gave the president legal carte blanche to waive the Geneva Conventions, but that he also requested the infamous Bybee memo that all but defined torture out of existence. Those Democrats who are jittery about using the hearings to illuminate what Gonzales helped bring about should get over the jitters. If the opponents of Gonzales are smart, they’ll focus more on the torture at Guantanamo Bay and around the globe than on Abu Ghraib. The evidence shows that this was decidedly not an isolated matter; and, whatever the intentions of the president, defense secretary, attorney general and assistant attorney-general, their decisions clearly made such horrors possible. I know no one is ever responsible in the Bush administration for any mistakes, and I still think Bush should get the benefit of the doubt in picking his cabinet. But that doesn’t mean these hearings shouldn’t be used to highlight what is still going on. I have a feeling Gonzales may face a much tougher time than we now expect.

“I think the resistance is bigger than the US military in Iraq. I think the resistance is more than 200,000 people,” – General Muhammad Abdullah Shahwani, director of Iraq’s new intelligence services. I don’t think I’ve read a more depressing statement than that in long time. We may not have lost the war in Iraq yet, but there’s little doubt that we are currently losing it. Solutions? Juan Cole has an interesting post on why partitioning Iraq would not solve our problems. I’m trying hard to be optimistic about Iraq but the relentless murder and mayhem propagated by the enemy is difficult to ignore. The difficult truth is that these fanatics can strike almost at will, even in the heart of the capital. They have infiltrated the Iraqi forces, when they aren’t murdering them. A few months ago, I blogged my worries that the Green Zone was no longer secure. Those worries now seem, to use Gonzales’ description of parts of the Geneva Conventions, “quaint.” But do we postpone the elections? Almost certainly not. Do we watch as lines of voters are gunned down at voting places? Massive American presence around ballot boxes would be counter-productive. Infiltrated and terrified Iraqi security forces will be largely helpless. Is there some way through? Could the insurgents over-play their hand and help galvanize the electoral process? Will we somehow see the actual act of democracy achieve a change in public consciousness so that progress can be made? These are the hopes we have got to cling to. What else can we do?

Here’s Daniel Okrent’s defense of why the New York Times omitted the fact that Susan Sontag was a lesbian:

Spurred by challenges and queries from several readers, I looked into the charge that The Times had willfully suppressed information about Susan Sontag’s relationship with Annie Leibovitz. My inquiry indicates that the subject was in fact discussed before publication of the Sontag obituary, but that The Times could find no authoritative source who could confirm any details of a relationship. According to obituaries editor Chuck Strum, “It might have been helpful if The Times could have found a way to acknowledge the existence of a widespread impression that Susan Sontag and Annie Leibovitz were more than just casual friends. But absent any clarifying statements from either party over the years, and no such corroboration from people close to her, we felt it was impossible to write anything conclusive about their relationship and remain fair to both of them.” Ms. Leibovitz would not discuss the subject with The Times, and Ms. Sontag’s son, David Rieff, declined to confirm any details about the relationship. Some might say that such safely accurate phrases as “Ms. Sontag had a long relationship with Annie Leibovitz” would have sufficed, but I think anything like that would not only bear the unpleasant aroma of euphemism, but would also seem leering or coy. Additionally, irrespective of the details of this particular situation, it’s fair to ask whether intimate information about the private lives of people who wish to keep those lives private is fair game for newspapers. I would personally hope not.

The closet remains intact. Privacy? Sontag informed the world about her cancers and even an abortion. And her relationships with several women were not state secrets. Recall also that Sontag’s career took off with her rightly celebrated essay on camp, an essay that she would had a hard time writing without intimate familiarity with gay life and culture. The golden rule here is to ask what the NYT would have done if Sontag had lived with a man for a couple of decades on and off, and had written essays on various aspects of sex, love and heterosexuality. Do you think they would have never mentioned her actual love life? Or if she had had serious relationships with a variety of male artists and thinkers, some of whom had influenced her work. Would this be regarded as an invasion of her privacy? The question answers itself. (More discussion here.)

“Andrew, I know from reading your site that you are intelligent, but you really put your foot in it with your comment. You must not have your brain fully engaged after your vacation. Your quote of the day from LCDR Whitsitt misses the point completely.
EVERYONE in the military would rather be saving lives than taking them. More important, most military personnel don’t see any difference between the mission in Iraq and the mission in tsunami-stricken south Asia. The goal is to help people who have been ravaged by forces beyond their control to get back on their feet and join the community of nations so they won’t continue to be a burden (or danger) to us.
Relief work is hard and dangerous and unpleasant. No one enjoys the stench of rotting corpses, whether its in Fallajuh or Banda Aceh. Military personnel will be exposed to any diseases that break out. Working in the tropics with only rudimentary living conditions (as those assigned onshore to the cleanup and reconstruction will face for months) is no picnic. Flying supplies off of ships to remote locations over miles of ocean and jungle will not be accident-free.
LCDR Whitsitt’s point is, he’d rather risk his life helping the Indonesians than fighting in a place where some of the very people he’s risking his life for are indifferent at best, and gunning for him at worst. However, like virtually every other person in the military, he’ll do his best to accomplish the mission assigned to him by the nation’s leaders… in Baghdad or Banda Aceh.
I, for one, am extremely proud of the US and the US military and the job they are doing in south Asia… and the job they are doing in southwest Asia. You should be, too. What other country could bring relief to the suffering on the scale that we can? What other country would even try?” – more feedback on the Letters Page. My point is not that bringing relief to stricken people is somehow less worthy than fighting wars. My point is that the military is primarily about fighting and winning wars – not disaster relief.

TAX REFORM FIRST: My case for Bush punting social security reform in favor of tax simplification. (You need to subscribe to TNR online to read it.)

MARIJUANA AND HIV: Here’s an interesting new study that suggests that marijuana can greatly help people stick to nausa-inducing anti-HIV drug regimens. Sticking to the regimens is critical for preventing viral resistance and progression of AIDS. But the feds would rather people with HIV accelerate their deaths than give any sort of approval to pot.

I’m not the only one to notice how the big media has essentially lied by omission about Susan Sontag’s life. An op-ed in today’s L.A. Times notes the following:

An unauthorized biography written by Carl Rollyson and Lisa Paddock and published by W.W. Norton in 2000, reports that Sontag was, for seven years, the companion of the great American playwright Maria Irene Fornes (in Sontag’s introduction to the collected works of Fornes, she writes about them living together). She also had a relationship with the renowned choreographer Lucinda Childs. And, most recently, Sontag lived, on and off, with Leibovitz.

Even Hitchens mentions only her ex-husband. Privacy? From a woman who detailed every aspect of her own illnesses? From someone whose best work is redolent with homosexual themes? But, of course, Sontag understood that her lesbianism might limit her appeal in a homophobic culture – even on the extreme left, where she comfortably lived for decades. That was her prerogative. But that’s no reason for the media to perpetuate untruths after her death. And it’s certainly reason to review her own record in confronting injustice. Just as she once defended the persecution of gay people in Castro’s Cuba, she ducked one of the burning civil rights struggles of her time at home. But she was on the left. So no one criticized.

Here’s a sign that the Republican leadership on the Hill know that hubris is a real danger. DeLay is ruthless. But he’s not dumb. The Republicans know that their public support is tenuous; that their increased numbers were primarily a function of gerrymandering. Bending ethics rules for their own purposes was never going to fly. As one of them noted, “Constituents reacted. We’re blessed with a leadership that listens.” The listening will have to continue. Or else.

GONZALES AND TORTURE: In my opinion, no one who has enabled and sanctioned the potential and actual use of torture should become attorney general of the United States. But I’m not the president; and he doesn’t see it that way. And the people who re-elected him had plenty of opportunity to avail themselves of the fact that this administration has quietly enabled torture of inmates in American custody, and that Gonzales played a critical role in making the legal case for such previously outlawed practices. The Bush administration’s use of torture – to the point of death in at least five cases and possibly 23 more – was one reason I found it impossible to support the president’s re-election. But this is a democracy. And my candidate lost. Gonzales isn’t being nominated to the Supreme Court; he’s being nominated to become the president’s chief law enforcer; and, in general, the president deserves the benefit of the doubt on his own picks. Should the Democrats make a stink? Of course they should. The hearings are an opportunity to raise awareness of what this administration has done in dozens of hell-hole prisons around the globe – some of which we will never even know about. The Gonzales argument that the president has the right to circumvent all anti-torture laws because, as commander-in-chief, there should be no limits on his conduct of the war is an argument worth airing. So let’s air it. Let the president and his attorney general defend it. In public.