The banality of inappropriateness
I’m just echoing Norm here, but what the hell.
Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani is due to be stoned to death on a bogus charge of “adultery.” She’s already had 99 lashes, but the authorities in Iran have decided to be thorough about it.
“She’s innocent, she’s been there for five years for doing nothing”, [her son] Sajad said. He described the imminent execution as barbaric. “Imagining her, bound inside a deep hole in the ground, stoned to death, has been a nightmare for me and my sister for all these years.”
Yes. Naturally. And there is something hideously, deeply, intolerably wrong with people who can not only contemplate doing that, but actually do it. Who consider it not a nightmare but Justice. It’s so ugly it turns me sick every time I contemplate it. Burying a woman in the ground up to her neck, pinning her with only her head sticking out, then throwing stones at it, small stones, so that the disgusting terrifying shaming filthy process will take longer.
Five years ago when Sakineh was flogged , Sajad was 17 and present in the punishment room. “They lashed her just in front my eyes, this has been carved in my mind since then.”
Torture the woman and her children – for, at most, sex outside marriage.
The US State Department does not entirely approve.
“We have grave concerns that the punishment does not fit the alleged crime, ” Assistant Secretary of State P.J. Crowley said Thursday. “For a modern society such as Iran, we think this raises significant human rights concerns.”
Calling Iran’s judicial system “disproportionate” in its treatment of women, Crowley said, “From the United States’ standpoint, we don’t think putting women to death for adultery is an appropriate punishment.”
I hate to say it, but I think they could use a bit of Bush-speak for subjects like this. I realize they have sane reasons for avoiding Bush-speak, but I wish they could say torturing a woman to death for putative adultery is something more than inappropriate.
The secretary of State is being very generous with his words. No fear of him mincing them. Sounds like he is afraid of upsetting the status quo.
What? The State Department approaching human rights with a light touch?
I don’t believe it.
I wouldn’t denigrate it by calling it “Bush Speak.” :-) What you’re calling for is good old-fashioned plain speaking, with words and expressions proportionate to the object of discussion. Such as “shocking,” “depraved,” “horrific,” “barbaric,” and “absolutely unacceptable.”
The entire modern world seems to be infected with a disease that bleaches passion and significance out of public discourse. Administrators are forever concerned when they should be stunned,they’re disappointed when they should be outraged. I don’t think this is merely an aesthetic concern; this kind of anodyne language really does serve to obscure real horrors. It de-fangs morally perverse situations, making them appear not as terrible as they really are. Bodies such as the State Department should be using strong, candid, no-holds-barred language. In this case, tone matters, and the tone needs to ratched up to 11.
Should be “ratcheted,” of course.
I was just watching (and listening to) Hitchens on the race between civilisation and religion. It’s going to be a close run thing. This shows why, because very few people are prepared to come out and say bluntly to the religious — YOU …. ARE …. WRONG. This is a religious thing, not only a question of diplomatic restraint. And unless we’re prepared to say to religion, loud and clear, that they are wrong, then we will lose this race. I’d say the odds are lengthening all the time, as more and more people temporise with religion and play the accommodation game. This is an outrageous example. A woman is going to be murdered, slowly and painfully, by a braying crowd of male animals — one dare not call them men — for something that people do with (relative) impunity in a free society, and all the State Department can say is that this is perhaps an inappropriate punishment! Oh, hell, we’ve lost the race, if this is the best that the “leader of the free world” can do! American freedom used to mean something; now it dare not speak its name, and all because of the fear of religion.
Absolutely, Eric, absolutely. This story (the original one, about the upcoming torture-murder) actually made me cry with anger and frustration – I just don’t know to wrap my head around such a flaccid response from the US. Is there any horror at all anymore that can provoke an appropriate response? If not this, then for Christ’s sake, what?
This is such a deeply depressing story. Who or what can put pressure on Iran to stop this barbarity going ahead? I don’t suppose Amnesty International carries any sway?
Disagree that (govermental) dissing of the religion would be a good move. Instead they (that is, the us gov) should condemn the stoning as unislamic and incompatible with a religion of peace and submission. I would really really like to see the mullahs answering that one…
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Then you’re disagreeing with a strawman, because no one suggested that. This really isn’t that hard – were you reading some different blog post? And no, there’s no need to condemn the stoning as unislamic. It’s enough to condemn it as disgusting, barbaric, and cruel. There’s no need to appeal to religion in order to do so, and such an appeal only helps retrench the idea that societies ought to be making policy decisions about things like torture based on religious ideas.
(/sarcasm on)
But Ophelia, by bringing attention to this, you’re imposing your own imperialist notions of “justice” on Iranians, as well as making Iran look barbaric and uncivilized. How dare you feed into imperialist warmongering!!!
(/sarcasm off)
I had to put “sarcasm” tags because I see comments like that ALL THE TIME whenever some new atrocity from Iran’s theocracy is reported. It’s really stomach-turning to see “leftists” defending the Iranian mullocracy — I mean, not wanting to see Iran bombed does NOT mean you have to DEFEND the loons in power there…
Another thing that bothers me is that, for all this kind of rant, any kind of concrete action or even support for the poor woman or other victim in question is quite conspicuously missing. So Westerners are supposed to shut up about things like this so Iranians and/or Muslims don’t look bad and because apparently nobody else has a right to express disapproval of what Iran’s government does to its people…then what? What are those Iranians at the mullah’s mercy supposed to do? Die silently so that leftists can feel better about supporting the “anti-imperialist” mullahs without inconvenient concerns about human rights getting in the way?
What’s so modern about Iran? Just because they dabble in nuclear technology doesn’t make them modern.
Well, josh, following a comment simultaneously bewailing the limpness of the state department, arguing that this is a sign of american freedom fearing to speak its name, and suggesting that ‘we’ should ‘say religion loud and clear’ i don’t think it’s that much of a straw man. (Though there’s oughts and oughts of course)
But my point was more that we’ve had all the diplomatic bs about islam being a religion of peace etc from our own pols – as tho they swallow it. It would be i think interesting if they explicitly focused on that: if they did not merely say ‘we think it is wrong’ (which in any xase can be dismissed as ‘we as americans cannot understand your culture’) but said ‘you have taught us that islam is a faith of peace; how then can this act of horror be islamic?’
Is stoning unIslamic? I don’t think so. Not even Tariq Ramada will condemn it. He thinks there should be a pause in stonings while the Muslim scholars discuss it. But I think we know the answer to that one. No, I disagree with you Outeast. I think it’s time for governments to condemn religious punishments when these are contrary to human rights. These punishments are barbaric, savage, cruel and any other adjective you can think of along that line. They are not acceptable, just a FGM is not acceptable, and if religions demand these horrible things, so much the worse for religion. Not enough people told Hitler and this thugs that their ideology was subhuman. Not enough people are telling Muslim traditionalists that traditional Islam — the Islam that beheads and stones people, the Islam that sells little girls to old men, the Islam that whips people, the Islam that sequesters women and refuses them schooling and dignity — is unacceptable and contrary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Not enough people are holding these savages to account. And a tepid, ‘we think this is inappropriate’, is not enough.
Same goes for Roman Catholicism. We have to begin saying these things out loud, and that includes governments. No one who would excommunicate a woman for saving a child’s life, or who would excommunicate a nun because she saved a woman’s life, should be welcome in a country as a state visitor, and governments should say so. Why should the pope get to come into Britain and be accorded the welcome of a nation, when he hides criminals, disputes with the civil authorities in Belgium and claims the priority of canon law, remains silent when outrages are carried out in his name? This is simply idiotic. And the longer we continue this, the longer these outrages will continue. We need, as nations which have at least fought for freedom, and stood for freedom, no matter how inadequately, to be willing to stand up for freedom.
And, yes, this was a tirade. What else can you do when faced with inhumanity that will go forward no matter what we say? These wretches take pride in their oppression of women. It is as Allah commands, and as Mohammed required. It makes one physically sick to think of the horrors that people are willing to commit in the name of their gods. And then they say that atheists are strident! It beggars belief.
Outeast – ah, you were referring to Eric’s comment, so I can see why you wrote what you did (though I disagree with you).
And I think this would be disastrous. First of all, the US Gov’t cannot put itself in the position of telling other nations what their religion is “really” about. More importantly, can’t you see that it’s the deference to religion that’s the ultimate problem? These people are advocating torture because they say Islam condones it. No, simply “reinterpreting” the religion to get a different outcome is not the solution. What’s required is a strong, unequivocal statement on universal human rights that cannot be taken away in the name of religion. That’s the entire secularist project.
It frustrates the hell out of me that people who make the argument you do can’t see that, and propose to perpetuate the problem.
I think Outeast was being ironic more than really arguing for that idea. Or perhaps doing both.
#14: Amen, Eric (so to speak)… we need a lot more of such well-reasoned and thoughtful “tirades”! Far too many nations soft-pedal human rights, whether out of guilt for their own transgressions or anger at having their own misdeeds commented upon, out of pragmatism (“we must keep up good relations with our good pals the Saudis”) or all of the above, and it’s a disgrace.
A bit of good thick moral language, using words like “barbaric”, seems quite, um, appropriate. “Inappropriate” is when you wear a green tie with your blue suit.
And btw, who cares about whether or not she’s “guilty” of this “crime”? I get tired of this stuff. Whether she’s “guilty” or not, it’s shocking, barbaric, and evil to respond by killing her.
Quite. That’s what I meant by referring to torture “for, at most, sex outside marriage.” Even if she did have sex outside marriage, that’s not by any sane standard a crime at all; not something for the state to punish at all; let alone in the beyond-belief disgusting barbaric sadistic way at issue here. “Inappropriate” to kill a woman that way. Gee, ya think?
A state with more firepower than the Terminator’s wettest dream isn’t going to be alarmed by some unhappy clerics. And, besides, if it’s so anxious to be on the Mullah’s good side why the heck did it invade the country sitting alongside? That’s like razing a partition wall and asking the bewildered neighbour if he’d kindly turn his music down just a notch.The statement, to me, is not just “flaccid“: it’s disinterested. They’re quite happy to stomp over the most vital human rights. They’re unbothered when their <a href=”http://bensix.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/tough-measures-in-iraq/”>friends</a> and <a href=”http://www.registan.net/index.php/2010/04/20/guest-post-the-darkest-side-of-kabul%E2%80%99s-restaurant-raids/comment-page-1/”>partners</a> do the noxious same. When it’s not to their advantage I suspect they just don’t care.
It’s hideously loaded, isn’t it. “Even he did stop beating his wife…“
#20 BenSix:
Totally agree about disregarding human rights — as long as the US government (among others) keeps kissing the ass of its “good friend” Saudi Arabia (again, among others), one can be pretty sure that human rights do NOT rank that highly in its hierarchy of concerns…alas.
Thank you, OB. You got it. Somehow having news of ah inappropriate punishments like this running at the same time as the ‘so did mohammed’ campaign has done something twisted to my sense of humour.
And since we were playing ‘wouldn’t it be nice’ anyway (wishing for pols to actually express true moral outrage at religion!) i was whimsically imagining the disingenuous turdlings who make nice about islam as being so civilized actually acting as though they really believed it (no, stoning is not unislamic; but by the same token, islam is not a civilized religion of peace. It doesn’t stop the rhetoric though does it?).
Sorry to have rubbed people up the wrong way though. Irony is not risk free on the internet.
Effectively, Assistant Secretary of State P.J. Crowley has proclaimed a US policy of appeasement on this issue.
Historically, appeasement has never worked, and has always egged tyrants on. The internal furore in Iran over last election results indicates that if the Obama administration took a strong and non-appeasing line on religious murder, it would be speaking for the majority of Iranians, and on their behalf.
Sorry Outeast, missed the irony…., but was not rubbed the wrong way. The problem is, I guess, that what you said was perfectly reasonable. I simply disagreed. The biggest problem with irony is that it’s not always clear that that is what it is. Having said that, it’s only fair to say that, of course, you’re right. If the position of the American government is that Islam is a religion of peace, then it should demand an explanation when any action of Islamic governments is a declension from that ideal. In any event, ‘we think this is inappropriate’ is ridiculously understated. And, of course, as Russell says, the question of whether the woman is ‘guilty’ or not is irrelevant. Sick bastards.
In response to BenSix’s:
But we are alarmed by ‘some unhappy clerics’. If we’re not, why the Presidents sychophantic speech in Cairo last year? Why is not something more said about the barbarity of Saudi Arabia and its antediluvian laws and penalties? Why, suddenly, does it seem alright to ‘negotiate’ with the Taliban — which can only result in the return of the people of Afghanistan to the brutality of Islamic government, and the women of Afghanistan to the twilight existence of being the wards of men? (Negotiating with the Taliban is negotiating with people who throw acid in the faces of little girls who want to go to school. Why isn’t something more powerfully to the point said about the OIC’s statement of Islamic Human Rights?) There is evidence aplenty that we are very alarmed by unhappy clerics, whether Christian or Muslim, and we are ready to appease them too. Let’s not forget the official position of the American government regarding the pope’s liability. Only the Supremes were ready to have him called to account. What America is discovering is that all the firepower in the world is worth diddly-squat when it comes to winning the hearts and minds of people. This is not about firepower. It’s about freedom and human rights as opposed to theocracy; and on that front Islam seems to be outgunning its opponents.
Eric –
All of your examples can be explained by self-interest rather than fear. Why, for example, don’t they challenge the Saudis? Well, because they’re more concerned with Abdullah’s oil than his forced amputating. Why might they deal with the Taliban? Same reason they did with Tho: the war may have lost its appeal. Human rights aren’t worth the bother to these great, callous machines. Arrest the Pope? What’s in it for them? Just some pissed-off Catholics and another vacant cell to find. If it’s not to their advantage I suspect they’re quite insouciant. Hell, they’re not too fussed about their own atrocities; what makes you think they care for others?
Well, BenSix, you may be right, but are not self-interest and fear correlative? I do not do something from self-interest because I fear that my interest will be harmed.
As for their insouciance regarding their own atrocities… well, if you must have a war against something as abstract as terrorism, all the while trying to convince everyone that religion has nothing to do with it, there are going to be multiple atrocities. How can you avoid this, when it is impossible to tell friend from foe or purpose from diversion?
It is said that General McChrystal gave medals for restraint. Good for him, but what was his goal? No one really knows. And since the ‘enemy’ is composed of irregular, non-uniformed fighters, when do you use restraint and when not? Of course there will be atrocities. That’s what’s so completely benighted about the campaign in Afghanistan. No one seems to know what victory would look like. And, of course — something worth repeating — we are being told again and again that this has nothing to do with religion, when religion is forcing more and more women out of public life and into portable tents, destroying schools, and attacking little girls.
There is no way to win a war that does not have any idea what things should look like when it’s all over. It’s not just about winning battles and showing restraint. Have we not learned that fighting irregulars without clear objectives (occupying territory and governing it) will lead us deeper and deeper into moral quicksand from which there is no escape? War is a blunt weapon. It cannot be used to without grave risk. But what makes me think they care for others is that it can be a blunter weapon than the one that is being used. What makes me think they are afraid is that they are not challenging the very things that they care about.
I suspect there are diplomatic conventions constraining the language used by government officials in describing actions taken by other governments, with the strongest reserved for international actions. Actions taken by a national government against its own people typically are not addressed as forcefully; as I recall, Mitterand was the only Western leader who spoke bluntly about Tiananmen Square.
But our State Department should be ashamed of having referred to “appropriate punishment”. For adultery? Appropriate punishment for adultery is a second husband!
Eric –
Well, yes. But if that’s all it comes to – jockeying for resource/security gains – why are you so worried about “the race between civilisation and religion“? If fanatics pose a threat to their self-interest they’ll be reduced to a fine mince before you can say “Christopher Hitchens”.
To some extent you can’t – nothing’s perfect. On the other hand, we’re talking about unaccountable special forces massacring kids and then having their asses covered. Doesn’t sound like “avoid[ance]” is a vital priority. The rest of your comments on the war – “there is no way to win…” – I’m in full agreement with but we’re straying from the point. You’ve not given any reason to imagine that the U.S. state’s that bothered about human rights. Yes, they could be more savage but, then, so could the Basij: I’m not claiming they’re vicious for the sake of it; naked ruthlessness wouldn’t snare too many “hearts and minds”! But, still, where has it taken – or where can it take – a moral stand? Opposition to torture? Nope. Holding villains to justice? No. Fostering liberalism? Hah! It’s hardly unique in callousness; indeed, it’d be damn surprising if it wasn’t. Individuals struggle to muster up compassion; military superpowers would find it harder still.
Of course, it’s true that there are diplomatic conventions, but this reluctance to condemn religious outrages, at the same time that governments of Muslim majority states are defiantly claiming refuge from criticism of religion, and quite openly criticising Western governments for their failure to limit free speech, goes beyond any reasonable understanding of what such conventions may be. It is one thing to preserve conventions, when everyone else is being careful to preserve them, but when such care is widely ignored, there is perhaps good reason for ignorpublic statements or carry out brutality in the name of religion, that public criticism should not mention the religious ing convention in order to make a few things clear. It is simply absurd to believe, when governments make motivations that underlie them. The State Department criticism may, in diplomatic language, be a stern warning, but it is not likely that people as bombastic as Ahmadinejad will perceive the (diplomatic) steel behind the velvet glove.
Well, BenSix, you are doubtless right. American (and NATO) priorities in Afghanistan have become skewed over time. In fact, it’s difficult to see how they could not have become skewed in this situation. However, ultimately, the US and other democractic states have most to gain from the spread of democracy. That is in their greatest interest. And it is perhaps fear of arousing religious passions to an even greater pitch — thereby making this aim less likely to be achieved — that demands such diplomatic caution. But the complexities of the NATO campaign in Afghanistan, as you point out, is really a digression. If there are atrocities — and there almost certainly will be — they should be brought into the open and punished. That’s the only way that the good name of democratic forces can be preserved, and if it cannot be preserved, and we need to hide behind euphemisms, then we shouldn’t be there. (I would just add one thing, parenthetically. Material and security interests of states have always been one of the reasons for wars, and will continue to be. People will still die for oil, just as at one time they died for slaves, cotton and molasses.)
Outeast – I’m sorry for jumping on you so quickly. It wasn’t clear to me whether you were actually arguing for that, or being ironic.
Sorry to pontificate but I am deeply angry and am temporarily abusing this forum to express why I am so outraged.
What bothers me most about the State Department’s response is that it is both a personal betrayal and a lie – or, if not an outright lie, an accommodationist and appeasing position (lacking clear and concise condemnation of those who think themselves justified to kill in the name of some perverse god) placed willingly on the alter of religious tolerance to be sacrificed for etiquette.
You cannot justifiably do that and maintain political authority.
The fact of the matter is that by focusing on the question of appropriateness of the punishment, the State Department is tacitly accepting that some kind of punishment is warranted. The basis of that punishment is not the secular law of protecting people’s rights and freedoms upon which the Great Democracy has been built but an archaic and brutal religious law about implementing misogynistic vengeance in the name of honouring god.
By making the issue one of appropriateness, the State Department (SD) is abdicating the government’s responsibility for representing its most fundamental philosophic principle: secular enlightenment values like advocating for and helping to promote the rights and freedoms of the common person governed.
Look, if the punishment for adultery was beheading or firing squad, would the SD think one was more appropriate than the other, I wonder? And I would be very interested to read or hear how that determination was made, because I think when the appropriateness argument was fully exposed, we would see that the issue of determining appropriateness was based entirely on first accepting or rejecting the role of religious law over and above the role of human rights and freedoms. What’s inappropriate is not condemning religious law.
By tolerating Iran’s religious law and merely quibbling about the appropriateness of the different possible sentences, the US government through its SD is tolerating that which is antithetical to its own justification for its derived power – not from god or some monarch or some pedophilic-tolerant cleric but from (if memory serves correctly) We The People. If that understanding, that philosophical platform that endows the justification for the exercise of legitimate political power, is conveniently put aside in the SD’s role in foreign affairs to suit diplomatic etiquette with barbarians, then we the people have been betrayed. And that’s why I am so angry at the SD for doing its bit to subvert itself, to be diverted from what it is supposed to represent, in order to appease and be polite to those who would gladly remove every right and freedom on each and every person who currently works for the State Department in order impose their religiously sanctioned will… a SD made up of people who are supposed to be exercising the political authority each of us has invested in that government.
Assistant Secretary of State P.J. Crowley needs to have his sorry ass fired over this travesty of the US response and go back to school to learn why what he said is such a betrayal to everyone concerned, not least of whom is a real woman whose life will be sacrificed on Crowley’s watch with his disgustingly tacit approval.
Thank you for your patience. You may now return to reading your regularly scheduled (and much shorter) comments.
Sorry for that header crap from Word.
What’s disgusting is not that the State Department’s response was limp, it’s that the response endorses the Iranian government’s view that what this poor woman did is actually a crime.
Previous State Department releases have used much harsher rhetoric concerning stoning in particular, Iran’s treatment of human rights generally, even as recent as 2009. The more cautionary rhetoric means something, I think, concerning the political approach to Iran. Of course, the problem is that the State Department treats human rights as a political tool more than anything, so…
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I think stoning is pretty cool. So did Muhhamed.