If you can’t say something nice, shut up
Minette Marin on New Labour and Geert Wilders and Fitna.
Admittedly the film does not try to distinguish between Islamist terrorists and ordinary law-abiding Muslims, or to show how Muslims have lived together peacefully with others all over the world for centuries. So Fitna is extremely unbalanced and, in that sense, misleading. However, what the film does show are precisely the things, I believe, that deeply worry a lot of non-Muslims. Again and again we are told that Islam is a religion of peace and equality; how does that tally with some of what the Koran says?
Badly.
What makes such anxieties really toxic is the feeling that they are suppressed and ignored by our government. Critics of Islam, however reasonable, know they are likely to fall foul of the many new Labour laws against freedom of expression, in particular against incitement to religious hatred, which was enacted under Muslim pressure.
Precisely. Critics of Islam, however reasonable, also know they are likely to fall foul of people who have, as Kenan Malik says, internalized this idea that criticism of Islam is 1) taboo and 2) in and of itself ‘defamation.’ As I mentioned, the copy editor for Does God Hate Women? flagged up ‘possible defamation’ in eight places. What I didn’t spell out (but you probably guessed) is that all the items cited were simply criticism, with arguments and evidence, of a kind that is utterly taken for granted in ordinary public discourse. They were not in any normal sense ‘defamation’ – it’s just that they were not flattering. The copy editor seems to have made exactly the leap that some protectors of religion would like everyone to make, and equated frank criticism of religious ideas and practices with ‘defamation.’ The copy editor seems to have drawn the conclusion that frank criticism of Islam (as I noted, there were no such queries about other religions, which got their share of criticism) is somehow illegitimate.
The fact that this even comes up is, it seems to me, a very bad sign. Even if nothing comes of it, even if everyone concerned decides ‘no problem,’ there’s still something dreadfully thought-stifling in this queasy anxious nit-picking readiness to make criticism and defamation the same thing.
(It’s also, of course, a very funny joke that this readiness, this internalized censorship, is precisely part of the subject of the book. It is very funny that the copy editor read the book and nevertheless proceeded to enact the very kind of befuddled censoriousness that is under discussion. ‘Defamation,’ indeed! Give me a break!
As you well know, it’s a mixture of fear and political correctness, the political correctness rationalizing the fear at this point. We can all have a jolly laugh at Bible belt rednecks: that is politically correct and unless you’re drinking beer with them, the rednecks are unlikely to take violence measures against you. The rednecks don’t even read books so they’ll never know what you wrote about them: ha, ha, ha. Now, it is politically incorrect to mock or excessively criticize oppressed people; and third world people are by definition oppressed. Most Muslims are from the third world, hence oppressed, and therefore, it would be politically incorrect to criticize them. Let’s not bother about the fact that some Gulf states have higher per capita incomes than most Bible belt rednecks. There’s another axiom at work: no white racist, rednecks being racist, can be considered an oppressed person. Marx would not agree here, but Marx actually was more preoccupied with exploitation (which can be measured, according to Marx at least) than with oppression, which cannot be measured. Now, let’s add the fear factor: unlike the rednecks (except when drinking beer with them), unlike the Pope, unlike the Hassidim, these characters cut throats, place bombs in metros, crash airplanes with passengers inside into tall buildings. So prudence, given ethical certification by political correctness, dictates that one not criticize Islam.
As I tried to point out in another thread, at least some UN Rapporteurs seem to be able to make the distinctions that you make, Ophelia, between defamation and criticism.
Unfortunately, many people in the West seem unable to make that distinction, and that is very worrying, because, before long, this kind of implicit censorship will become the norm, and then the opportunities to criticise will become even more infrequent, and eventually impossible.
I have to say that when I watched Fitna, when it was first put up on YouTube, I did not think it so scandalously unfair as people suggest. As Marin says, it does not distinguish between Islamist terrorist and law-abiding Muslim, but it does make it quite clear that the Qu’ran does not condemn the actions of the terrorists, and that is perhaps the most concerning thing. For law-abiding citizens can be aroused by holy books to do acts of quite inscrutable inhumanity. There is abundant evidence in practically every religious tradition for that. And so holy books themselves are concerning, and we should be concerned.
Wilders is probably something of a racist, though it’s hard to say. Was Theo van Gogh? Apparently, he was known to speak disdainfully and abusively of Muslims. And Ayan Hirsi Ali, who worked with him on this film? Well, she is anti-Islam, and many would say she is abusively anti-Islam too. But does that mean that her life should be in danger? How are we to make distinctions here?
Marin is convinced that Wilders’ silliness would have been on show had he come to Britain. Is she so sure? Perhaps calling the Qu’ran fascist is silly, but is there not some truth in it?
Well it’s not all that difficult to make distinctions. ‘Muslim’ isn’t a race; Ayaan Hirsi Ali is Somalian so she can’t very well be a racist in the usual sense; of course the fact that Hirsi Ali is critical of Islam does not mean anyone should murder her or threaten to murder her. There, that’s how we are to make distinctions here.
Touché! Well, yes, I know. Racist, religionist! It’s hard to make the distinctions here though. You see, Jewish is not a race either, and yet there were antisemites, and racist anti-Jewish ideologies. And the UN has started using the words ‘Chritianophobe’ and ‘Islamophobe’, though I had never heard of Christianophobia before. I live a sheltered life! (Is that just to balance the books? Christianophobe-Islamophobe? Wouldn’t want Islam standing out there all by itself!)
I’m not Dutch, so I don’t know Wilders except for his occasional appearances on the international stage, because someone has deprecated or indicted him at home. But, I guess my question still is: Is Fitna as absurd as some people say? Are the equivalences drawn there so ridiculous? After reading Edmund Standings’ critical analysis of the Qu’ran, and having read the book myself, I have to say no. It’s not as simple as Minette Marin makes it out to be. It’s not just that “some of its teachings, taken literally, are unacceptable in this country is merely to report a fact.” There is no other way to take them, but literally. And they are nowhere near parallel to Leviticus of Exodus, which can be written off as historical fantasies. (See Thompson, “How Writers Create a Past.”) This is a more serious problem than that.
The UN talks about Christianophobia? I didn’t know that either! I thought that was just people like Mad Mel.
Fitna…not as absurd as some people say, but not great, either. It does have a whiff of Goebbels to it – there are some shots of faceless hordes (of ‘Muslims’) that make me acutely uncomfortable. Maryam Namazie hates it, so that tells me something.
But no, it’s not simple. It is possible for people to be nominal or liberal Muslims, Muslims who genuinely ignore or reject the bad bits of the Koran (and keep the camel-accounting and the fruit) – but as we’ve noted a few times, that possibility is never stable. That’s true of Christianity too of course.
No, I find very little reassuring in all this. The smug giggling of the people at Steven Poole’s blog is enough to make one bang the head on the desk…as mirax said of similar dreck from Robert Fox. The smug gigglers are everywhere…
I merely quote Salman Rusdie, for the record:
I am reading a book by Bernard Lewis (What Went Wrong?. It doesnt convince me that anything is going right.) The book is is filled with the worst non-sequiturs, and special pleading, full of the praise of Islam, and its benign treatment of slavery, and then on the very next page lamenting the cruel treatment of slaves in Morocco (still a problem I believe).
I’d just like to see a significant number stand up and say ‘not in my name’. I haven’t seen it, and it seems less and less likely to happen. It must, you know, or the picture that Wilders paints, unhappy as it may be, becomes more and more plausible, and arouses fears that will hard to be suppressed. It may not be compliciity, but it they want to talk to the wider society, they have to stand up more boldly thant this.It grieves me to think so about a people, many of whom may not share the idiocy of the religion, but do not dare to speak out against its leaders.
I am trying to see how these things are to be responded to in a pluralistic modern society, and the only way I can see is if we ‘harden up’.
That is, refuse to report terrorism or its analogues in suppressing speech except in terms of violent crime against society; launch retaliation that stings against the sources of oppression; use decisive enforcement to protect Muslim (and indeed all) women; and condemn and sanction any institution worldwide, such as Al Jazeera, which enables the violence by talking of it or its perpetrators with respect.
Most of all, we need to refuse to be victims; to make heroes of people like the families of the Twin Towers and 7/7 victims, Aya Hirsan Ali and Wafa Sultan and Theo van Gogh and Saman Rushdie, and at the same time humiliate their attackers so badly and with worldwide reach so that the recruitment of the opportunistic enforcers and assassins melts away.
Its humiliation that should be the weapon of choice. It should start with the apologists in the west, and it should reach into the home of the furthest mullah in the most benighted part of the world.
If anyone wants to hear what Geert Wilders has to say, rather than what is said about him, go to
http://tinyurl.com/cj9koo
and click “Listen to the latest edition”
This was a change to the advertised programme on BBC Radio 4, Sunday 15 February, 9 p.m. (half-an-hour)
It looks as if it is a repeat of a programme broadcast previous, in August last year [?]
Michael Buerk interviews people who have made life-altering decisions. Dutch politician Geert Wilders discusses his decision to make a provocative anti-Islamic film.
I thought Wilders’ film was dreadful as you were never told whether the preaching guys were what you would hear every week in an ordinary mosque, or were fringe nutters. You didn’t even see what country they were preaching in – they were just these disembodied preaching heads. You could make a similar film about Christianity using Ian Paisley and crazed American evangelists (with shots of mayhem in Northern Ireland and bombed abortion clinics) and missing out Desmond Tutu and Martin Luther King.
‘…humiliate their attackers so badly and with worldwide reach…’
What would that entail?
KB Player,
Agreed. Saw it when it first made the rounds. About as intellectually honest as ‘Expelled’.
>You could make a similar film about Christianity using Ian Paisley and crazed American evangelists (with shots of mayhem in Northern Ireland and bombed abortion clinics) and missing out Desmond Tutu and Martin Luther King.< It goes without saying that I’m no admirer of Ian Paisley, but he was adamantly against the violence of the “Loyalists”. As for the rest, the secret videos of ranting speakers in mosques in Britain go way beyond anything I’ve heard from even the most extreme Christian evangelists in the UK (most of whom prefer dancing in the aisles and possibly exorcism). The quotes from the Qur’an (see Edmund Standing’s “A Critical Examination of the Qur’an”: http://tinyurl.com/cpuz5z) go way beyond anything I’ve heard from Christian evangelicals in the UK, but are unfortunately preached as sacrosanct to some potentially militant Muslims in certain mosques.
I don’t agree by any means with everything Wilders says or advocates, but on the other hand let’s not pretend that “they’re all the same anyway”.
Also, I tried hard to think of the Muslim Tutu or King…and couldn’t do it. Are there any such? Hugely influential admired clerics who preach forgiveness and universal solidarity?
Thanks to Allen for the link to the Wilders interview. He sounded so wholesome, didn’t he, although Mr. Buerk tried very hard to get him to say something over the top?
I think the proof of Wilders’ concerns lies in the degree to which censorship has already been internalised. If a small minority of Muslims in a Western democracy (or a group of Western democracies) can reduce the critical voice to one or two people who then look extreme because of their concern – cf. OB’s whiff of Goebbels – what would a larger number do?
I still recall Ayan Hirsi Ali’s call to put a stop to Muslim immigration until we know what the consequences for democratic polities will be of significant numbers of people who give their allegiance to a totalitarian ideology. It seems to me a very wise proposal. Is it really so shocking, after all?
Well yes. That’s the problem. There’s no good answer to this question (or this problem). It is morally very dubious to ban particular (non-criminal) groups, as such. There’s no getting around that.
Ayan Hirsi Ali calling for an end to Muslim immigration after she benefited from it herself to live a freer life seems strange to me. It’s like the typical first Jew (I’m Jewish, so I make Jewish jokes) to join the gentile golf club, who then calls on his new pals to ban all other Jewish members, since, unlike him, they don’t got good manners, wear flashy clothes and cheat at golf. It happens all the time.
Well, to be fair, it’s not very much like that, because some Muslims in Europe want to silence Hirsi Ali; some want her killed. It’s not quite the same thing as manners and clothes. It’s also different because some Muslim men treat women like dirt; Hirsi Ali got close up experience of that when she worked as a translator in Leiden.
To tell the truth I think that comparison trivializes Hirsi Ali’s concerns, which really are not trivial. They’re not about golf.
Fair enough, but what freed Hirsi Ali was to going to Europe and now to the U.S. Limiting Muslim immigration would make it impossible for other Muslim women, gays and doubters to enjoy the same freedom as she does, because they cannot enjoy that freedom in traditional Islamic society. Now, it’s true that honor killings, etc., still go on in the U.K. and other European countries, but there are many more possibilities of police protection or of just escaping than in
a traditional Muslim country. It’s true that among Muslim immigrants there is a percentage of potential terrorists, but there is also a percentage of potential feminists, potential Rushdies, potential skeptics and people who for purely materialistic reasons want to assimilate to Western culture. What strikes me as strange is that Hirsi Ali wants to close the door to others who seek freedom in the West just as she did.
By the way, I assume that Eric is correct when he affirms that Hirsi Ali calls for a stop to Muslim immigration, as he does above. I have not read the primary sources myself.
Yes, of course, but I already said I don’t agree with that idea; but I thought the stuff about clothes and golf was a cheap shot. But sure, of course it’s strange, as she knows perfectly well.
>I still recall Ayan Hirsi Ali’s call to put a stop to Muslim immigration until we know what the consequences for democratic polities will be of significant numbers of people who give their allegiance to a totalitarian ideology. It seems to me a very wise proposal. Is it really so shocking, after all?< Leaving aside the political (and ethical!) difficulties of such blanket proposals, and the international and internal reactions if such a policy was inaugurated, there is nothing the British government can do about the right of British nationals to bring back spouses from abroad. An appreciable proportion of Muslim immigration arises from young Muslims (mostly girls) being taken to South Asia for arranged or, in some cases, forced, marriages.
Eric, the West has been “engaged in this dangerous social experiment” for quite a long time. And many of the claims you’re making about the dangers of Islamic ideology were made about Catholic immigrants, and for much the same reasons: they are loyal to an ideology that is not merely religious but also political, they are subject to the Vatican in all things, they abuse and subjugate their women, they are violent and prone to acts of terrorism. Granted, Islamic terrorism is on a larger scale than individual Catholic terrorism…but then Muslims are more likely to live under conditions that tend to provoke terrorism than Catholics ever were (using “provoke” in the non-moral sense of “prompt,” not arguing that there was “provocation” in the sense of justification). And I’d argue that the Catholic church, working through its believers, has done far more damage to free societies over the years than Islam.
America survived the influx of violent, misogynistic religious maniacs from Irish and Italians; I have no doubt the same will happen with Muslims in America.
I am less sure about Muslims in Britain, and even less about Muslims in the Middle East.
Good point Jenavir. Of course, I have said the same kinds of things about recent catholic attempts to direct the political agenda in Britain and the US. Where bishops and cardinals threaten to excommunicate recalcitrant catholic politicians who refuse to hoe to the Vatican line, they are out of order, and they constitute a very real danger to public order and good government. So, I do appreciate the point that you make, and I think it is vital, when catholics stand for government in the present context, that they be asked to declare how they will vote on issues upon which the Vatican has spoken in very uncompromising ways, and how their commitments will lead them to act if elected.
As a society composed largely of immigrants, America tends to assimilate immigrants. I’m not sure, with the kinds multicultural ideas that are around, this is as true as it once was. I don’t know. In much of Europe, which, after all, has land routes to the Middle East and Asia, this is not so clearly going to happen, and there are dangers for democratic polities here. Means of minimizing the dangers need to be in place, or the Britain and France of the future may be seriously divided and violent societies, or much less free.
Probably the best place to start would be to make it less possible for Muslims in Europe to be able to enforce the continued (traditional) subordination of women. This may have to be done forcibly, by prohibiting certain kinds of dress for women in public places, making it easier for women to apply for divorce, and preventing forced marriage. That would at least make it more possible for women to contribute to the evolution of Muslim belief and practice in ways that are consistent with the secular democratic freedoms that should be accessible to everyone in democratic societies.
Eric,
‘… prohibiting certain kinds of dress for women in public places…’ is an odd way of securing ‘the secular democratic freedoms that should be accessible to everyone in democratic societies.’
I take it you are refering to full face covering rather than a simple headscarf, and while I can find nothing positive to say about face-covering I don’t see I have the right to tell a woman what she can wear. We already set aside certain areas where the veil is not permitted (schools, hospitals) for practical reasons. But outlawing a garment? And, yes, I do realise that very often these garments are worn under compulsion, but an opposing compulsion is no answer.
‘…making it easier for women to apply for divorce, and preventing forced marriage.’
Certainly, and campaigns to do just that are active and usually led by muslim women – many of whom choose to wear a head-covering of one sort or another.
Yes…you are doing a bit of reinventing the wheel again here, Eric. There’s a huge amount of material at B&W about for instance preventing forced marriage, it’s a little odd to suggest it here as if no one had thought of it before.
OB, I never suggested, and would not suggest, that it hadn’t been thought of before. I just thought it was relevant in relation to what Jenavir had said. So, not reinventing the wheel. Just using it.
As for outlawing garments. I don’t know what the rules in Turkey are, but there are rules, and they were thought to be necessary in order to secularise the society. I don’t know why such rules should not be applicable in other countries as well, nor why they should not be, in some cases, necessary.
‘ I don’t know what the rules in Turkey are…’
Nor do I. What has that got to do with anything?
‘I don’t know why such rules should not be applicable in other countries as well,…’
Don’t you?
It has a lot to do with the the possibility of secularising Muslim societies. Ataturk thought that some pretty stringent rules were necessary in order to enable secularisation to happen. I suspect the same thing will have to be done in order for Muslims to fit into secular British society or any other secular system. That was my point. So, no I don’t.
Come on, Eric – you can’t think of any reason at all why such rules could be a problem?
I share Don’s skepticism.
Ah, well, I didn’t say that I couldn’t think of any reason why such rules might be a problem, but I can’t think of any problem that should make the rules unthinkable. What I said, to quote myself, was: “I don’t know why such rules should not be applicable in other countries as well, nor why they should not be, in some cases, necessary.”
Ruling against religious clothing in some situations in France caused a problem, but that doesn’t mean that the rules should not have been applied, nor did it show that the rules were not necessary.
Where religious dress is used as a means of oppressing women, or to make assimilation to secular political norm possible – and I think this is happening in many western countries – perhaps rules are necessary in order to prevent such oppression, or to help move towards the acceptance of secular political traditions.
Perhaps there are other ways, but I’m not sure that, problem or not, it might not be, in some cases, that such rules might still be considered desirable. But I never said that I couldn’t think of any reason why such rules might be a problem. That’s easy enough to do.
But saying ‘I don’t know why such rules should not be applicable in other countries as well’ amounts to saying you can’t think of any reason, especially if you affirm it when questioned. Or at least, when questioned, you could have put it less broadly.
Ironically, I’m working on qualifying various statements in DGHW right now.
But it’s also true that I generally do qualify broad statements myself – I don’t like statements that claim more than it is reasonable to claim. There are all sorts of policies that might be desirable in some ways but undesirable in others, and it drives me a little nuts when people think they have to endorse things completely instead of saying something more detailed and more interesting and less dogmatic.
Frankly, saying ‘I don’t know why such rules should not be applicable in other countries as well’ is almost a provocation when it seems so obvious why there would be problems.
Maybe this is a hangover from your clerical days? :- )
Learn to qualify your claims a little!
For what it’s worth – I would love to see the hijab and all its cousins disappear – and if I were dictator of the universe I would make it happen – and I think it’s reasonable and desirable to keep them out of schools (and some other places too) – but until I am the dictator of the universe, I don’t quite think I have the right to impose my will that drastically on other people in all settings. Schools, yes, streets, not so much.
Yes, could be a hangover from my clerical days! :-)
However, it could also be a hangover from watching women walk around in burquas, a few steps behind their husband. It was not uncommon during my childhood.
You don’t have to be a dictator to limit the remit of religions in society. You don’t have to be a dictator to free oppressed women.
A day or so ago I heard you saying that you wouldn’t negotiate, and now you are qualifying statements is DGHW? Maybe that’s proof the ‘he’ does! :-)
A year or so ago my daughter sat in a doctor’s hot waiting room. The temperature was 30 degrees Celcius outside, and the room was not air-conditioned. There was a couple sitting there waiting too. She was dressed in heavy black cloth from head to toe, with heavy black ‘work boots’ (as my daughter described them) and a little grill to look through and breathe through. The man was dressed in jeans and a polo shirt. Was she oppressed or not? I think she was, and I think that that kind of oppression might be worth a law or two.
Would it cause a problem? Yes it would. Would the outcry be worth it? Yes, I think it would. Then, perhaps, we could get back to dealing with things that really matter.
But maybe it’s just that old habits die hard!
Eric,
I agree with you on general principle, but if your desired aim is to empower moslem women then telling them what they may or may not wear is a bad starting point.
The hijab per se is no more preventative of integration than is the sikh turban or the yarmulke. Many fully independant women choose to wear them – it’s just a head-scarf. I have colleagues who wear it, my optician wears one, it isn’t up to me to tell them they are wrong or oppressed. The niqab and burkha are more problematic, I’d agree. But even then, unless there are sound practical reasons then I don’t want the state passing sumptuary laws (or even reverse sumptuary laws, if that makes sense).
In practical terms, what did you have in mind? A law requiring women to have their hair visible in public? Or only moslem women? We already have morons who rip off veils in the street, we don’t need laws which reinforce that.
The ideal is secularisation, but if secularists start by laying down rules about what you can or can’t wear, how convincing will be their claim to be ‘liberating’ the people they are compelling?
We don’t live in Ataturk’s Turkey, nor are we entitled to tell someone what they may or may not believe. If someone believes in Islam and believes that it requires modest dress and that the hair be covered then we have two choices. Accept it as their choice and move on, or disagree and debate. As long as no harm is entailed, compulsion is not an option.
At the risk of being sentimental, Aesop’s sun/wind/coat fable springs to mind.
Well, you know, Don, I’m a pretty simple guy in some ways, and when I see people who are obviously disadvantaged in some way, I think things should be changed.
Years ago I was a parish priest in Bermuda, in a small country church. When I first went there you could draw a line across the church. All the black people sat behind that line. So I said, one day, that there was no reason for that line. People could sit where they wished. And so they did.
And then a rich white woman demanded to see me – not at home she said, let’s meet at the church. And so we sat on one of the graveyard vaults and talked about the culture of Bermuda. Slavery, she said, wasn’t really slavery, she told me, not in Bermuda. Black people liked their owners, and owners were kind to their slaves. I listened quietly.
And then she told me that black people didn’t mind sitting at the back of the church. They sat that way, she told me, because white people didn’t like to receive communion after black people.
Well, I didn’t buy that story, because as soon as I told people about the line, black people stopped sitting behind it, and I don’t buy yours. Sure, some women wear the hijab as a fashion statement, or because they like the chance to dress demurely, and don’t want the unwelcome stares of men.
Fair enough, I understand that, and some of them probably feel that way. I don’t think women should be forced to dress provocatively. Some of them probably don’t find any problem with the heavy black burqua either, with their husbands dressed in the best of fashions, and open to the gaze of other women. I’m sure that’s true. Religion does funny things to people.
And I don’t want to be someone who grabs women’s veils in protest and dashes away. But I understand it. I understand that this culture that suppresses women is a threat to them, and it’s a standing condemnation of their own culture, where women have more freedom, and are not hidden behind screens for the sake of their men. Perhaps it is a wanton culture, and their women are strumpets, as someone tried to say with a bomb outside a nightclub.
And perhaps sumptuary laws are really not negotiable, and they would cause more trouble than they are worth. But I’m not at all sure that this would be a sumptuary law. It might in fact be a liberating one, and I can understand why people might think so. Perhaps we’ll never know, because no one wants to stir up trouble, where there seems to be none. (Seems, I say.)
But I recall the imam in Australia who said that less discretely apparelled women were like meat on display, and some Muslim boys took advantage of it too, and gang raped a few white girls, just to show them that they were no better than raw meat. And it occurs to me that there may be no trouble now, but there’s trouble in the making, where one group of men is allowed to keep their women in states little better than slavery.
We may not be entitled to tell people what to believe, but we are entitled to make sure that no one lives in slavery to another. We oppose forced marriage, but we don’t seem to mind what force is applied after marriage. I’m not sure that the respect that is given to Islam in so many jurisidctions does not entitle such slavery, and, to me, at least, this is an affront to human dignity and to the freedom that I value. Nor am I confident that no harm is being done.
Well, I didn’t buy that story, because as soon as I told people about the line, black people stopped sitting behind it, and I don’t buy yours.
On any other site…
I’ll get back to you.
Eric: I and everyone who posts here (I think) agree with you that a woman having to wear a burqua is something we should denounce and criticize, but can we pass a law against it in a democratic society?
I don’t know Amos. I’m not sure that everyone agrees with me. And I’m not sure we can regulate this in a democratic society. But, if we thought that people were being enslaved, we’d respond fast enough. Is this enslavement? I don’t know. I tend to think so, but I may be wrong. And we may be unable to legislate against it. But I deprecate it.
Eric, we all deprecate it, but that’s not the same thing as passing laws against it, and it’s also not the same thing as not knowing why such rules should not be passed.
Well, yes, that’s true. We all deprecate it. But I would go one further. I think it is intolerable that people can important, into democratic polities, the kind of oppression of women that exists in theocracies in the Middle East, and there should be some way, in law, to prevent this obscene incoherence in our commitment to freedom and justice. It is, in my view, a standing indictment of the failure of democratic polities to insist on their commitment to freedom. It shows an unhealthy weakness, and I suspect we will pay dearly for it.