Terry Sanderson shared an excellent Times piece (the London one) by Lucy Bannerman on Muslim (and ex-Muslim) women fighting to be heard.

There’s a myth that Aliyah Saleem would like to debunk immediately. It is the myth of the “Muslim community leader”. If we really want to fight extremism, she argues, we should start by puncturing the idea that self-appointed male “leaders” represent a homogenous bloc of British Muslims. “Stop and ask 1,000 Muslims in the street, ‘Who’s your community leader?’ They’ll say, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’,” said Ms Saleem, 27, one of a growing number of female activists standing up against Islamism.

After four terrorist attacks in the UK in as many months, she is fed up of hearing politicians’ platitudes about “working with Muslim leaders”. There has been little talk about working with Welsh “community leaders” after the Finsbury Park attack, over which Darren Osborne, from Cardiff, has been charged.

Welsh people aren’t exotic enough for that.

“Work with people who are qualified, as opposed to people you believe to be ‘authentic’,” she said. “If you’re putting money into a programme, bring in a qualified project manager. Recruit the right talent. They [imams] are scarecrows, being propped up as if they present power and authority, when in fact they have very little influence over most British Muslims’ lives.”

Every time she sees imams condemning the latest attack, she wonders where the women are. “If half the population is missing, then how effective can [any strategy] be? Misogyny and homophobia are like two pillars supporting Islamic extremism. If you knock them down, the whole thing collapses.”

This is what I said last week when the BBC was up to its old tricks quoting the MCB again, as if they “represented” all British Muslims.

I love this part:

Ms Saleem, who is now vice-chairwoman of Faith to Faithless, a community support network for “apostates”, and describes herself as a former Muslim, recalls how a mother recently approached her for advice about a teenage daughter she feared was being radicalised.

“She said, ‘What shall I do?’ I said, don’t talk about religion at all. Find out what she enjoys to do — whether it’s sport, music, drama — and distract her with that. Because when your brain is filled with music, art, literature, ideas and culture, why would you be tempted? When I was radicalised, it was feminism that opened my eyes. I had always felt suffocated, forced to wear the hijab. But when I discovered feminist perspectives, it blew my mind. I started to challenge things. If you can challenge the notion that women must do this, women can’t do that, or else they’ll end up in a fiery pit, it forces you to challenge all the rest.

“Once you start to have a wider, scientific understanding of sexuality, you start to connect to the real world, and the fundamentalist argument starts to pale in comparison.”

Yes, exactly. It’s a big big world, full of interesting things; once you know that the thin gruel of religion becomes far less seductive.

Poisonous ideas need a breeding ground, said Amina Lone, 45, a community activist, mother of four and co-director of the think tank the Social Action and Research Foundation. A recent conference, supposedly for a cross-section of British Muslims, left her furious. Not only were there about 18 women to 180 men, she was ignored by many imams, who refused to address a woman. This was not a mosque in small town but a digital summit at Google HQ in London — “a progressive, forward-thinking event, completely let down by lack of women. It drives me insane.

“I know a school in Birmingham that has just cancelled its swimming lessons for everyone because it was getting so much kickback from Muslim parents. I’ve been at a talk at a university campus when a young man challenged me because I refused to sit in segregated seating.” Sexism in the name of Islam has been tolerated for too long, she said.

“Why are we [not defending] our secular values? Where does it stop? These are hard-won freedoms. I live in Manchester, Suffragette City — why are we letting religious rights override gender rights? It is bonkers.”

Ms Lone, a British Pakistani born in Birmingham, also derided the idea of “Muslim community leaders” who claim to represent Islam. “The people in my council estate in Manchester — these people are my community, not some male ‘leaders’ who are self-appointed and self-interested.”

Then there’s my friend Gina Khan. Remember Gina Khan’s Diary?

Gina Khan, a mother of two who had to beg Sharia courts to grant her a divorce from an abusive husband, has also had enough. “There’s a growing army of Muslim women who are standing up, but we are still being ignored. The politicians and some parts of the media are ignoring the sensible, secular Muslim women like me and going to these self-appointed male leaders, who are making a mockery of our own secular laws on equality. Why? We have given people power simply because they are Muslim, not because they deserve it.”

Ms Khan learnt to her cost the danger of not registering her Islamic marriage at a British register office. A few years later her husband was pressurised by his family to take a teenage cousin from Kashmir as a second wife. “My husband was crying in my arms the night before his wedding,” she said.

After the relationship became violent, she said it took her two years to be granted an Islamic divorce. “I put the blame on the doorsteps of the mosques. All these men, sitting on chairs, acting in judgment. I went around all the Sharia courts — I remember sitting crying in front of the imams after all the beatings and black eyes — but all they wanted was money. We [Muslim women] end up sitting in front of extremists to get a divorce. It makes me very angry.”

Ms Khan, spokeswoman for One Law For All, a campaign to end parallel legal systems, said: “Hands up who wants more religion? I don’t . . . We’re not telling [our children] how powerful this country is, we don’t shout loudly enough about how much protection our laws give us.”

If only the BBC would talk to women like these instead of the everlasting MCB. If only.

What is the US good for?

At present I would say very little. We’re good at some things, but as a country we’re turning out to be decidedly second rate.

America leads the world when it comes to access to higher education. But when it comes to health, environmental protection, and fighting discrimination, it trails many other developed countries, according to the Social Progress Imperative, a U.S.-based nonprofit.

The results of the group’s annual survey, which ranks nations based on 50 metrics, call to mind other reviews of national well-being, such as the World Happiness Report released in March, which was led by Norway, Denmark, and Iceland, or September’s Lancet study on sustainable development. In that one, Iceland, Singapore, Sweden, and the U.S. took spots 1, 2, 3, and 28—respectively.

Of course we did. No social health insurance, endemic angry racism, a low minimum wage, massive private debt, a gruesomely high poverty rate, chronic gun violence, and an overall fuckyou attitude to anyone who’s not rich white and powerful. I’m not impressed by our performance in “access to higher education,” either, when it comes with such terrible strings attached.

The Social Progress Index released this week is compiled from social and environmental data that come as close as possible to revealing how people live. “We want to measure a country’s health and wellness achieved, not how much effort is expended, nor how much the country spends on healthcare,” the report states. Scandinavia walked away with the top four of 128 slots. Denmark scored the highest. America came in at 18.

…

Of course it’s easy enough to dismiss or belittle these occasional reports, each with their unique methodologies and almost identical conclusions. Another approach, however, would be to look at them all together and conclude that they represent “mounting evidence.” In that case, Houston (and Dallas, New Orleans, Tulsa, St. Louis, Baltimore, Chicago, and New York), we have a problem.

SPI produces the report in part to help city, state, and national policymakers diagnose and (ideally) address their most pressing challenges. The group’s chief executive, Michael Green, said America “is failing to address basic human needs, equip citizens to improve their quality of life, protect the environment, and provide opportunity for everyone to make personal choices and reach their full potential.”

We give much better chances of going to prison though.

Morning Star reports:

FACEBOOK stands accused of censoring feminist content after one of London’s most popular left festivals was barred from promoting its page on the site.

The annual Matchwomen’s festival commemorates the 1888 strike by women and girls at the Bryant & May match factory. This week it tried to boost the page inviting people to attend this year’s event, which takes place on July 1 in Camden — only to be refused.

Bewildered organiser Louise Raw was told Facebook would not promote pages that contain “profanity, harassment, or references to your audience’s personal characteristics (such as gender, race, age or name)” — and the page’s repeated use of the term “women” fell foul of the condition, even though it makes clear that men and children are equally welcome to attend.

The mind reels.

NUT executive member Kiri Tunks was appalled by the social media giant’s stance.

“How can minority or oppressed groups self-organise if they are barred from naming the basis of their oppression?” she asked.

“This event is about educating people on the amazing role played by women in establishing the labour movement, and we can’t talk about that?

“Young women rose up, took on a patriarchal system and won, and now women are being written out of history.

“Would they apply the same principle to the ‘personal characteristic’ of race? Would they agree with the critics who snipe that the Black Lives Matter movement should rename itself All Lives Matter, though that fails to recognise the particular oppression black people face and therefore prevents them from challenging it?”

They asked Facebook to comment but of course it hasn’t responded.

Mother Jones reports:

In North Carolina, women can’t legally withdraw their consent in the middle of sex, even if things get violent—and attempts to change that reality at the Legislature aren’t going well.

According to a 1979 state Supreme Court ruling, State v. Way, a man isn’t guilty of rape if he continues to have intercourse with a woman who asks him to stop, so long as she agreed to the encounter at the outset.

Hmm. So once she says yes he can discard the mask of a decent human being and treat her like a prop or a slave or a captured enemy or whatever other abusive fantasy turns him on? No matter how psychotic he may turn out to be, her “yes” is permanent and binding? Because…what, when you get right down to it she’s just a thing?

North Carolina is the only state with such a law on the books, and efforts to change it have been unsuccessful, even as women have spoken out about how the law has harmed them. On Thursday, the Fayetteville Observer highlighted the story of Aaliyah Palmer, a 19-year-old who  says she initially consented when a man pulled her into a bathroom to have sex at a party, but asked him to stop five minutes later after he allegedly started yanking out her hair. “You’re hurting me,” she said. But he kept going, she says, despite multiple demands that he stop, while others at the party allegedly slipped a cellphone under the door to tape the incident.

The tape corroborates her account but the guy hasn’t been charged; she has dropped out of college because of panic attacks. Heads he wins tails she loses.

Democratic state Sen. Jeff Jackson has recently sponsored a bill to change the law, after hearing from women who were affected. SB 553 would make it illegal to have sex with someone who initially agreed but then changed her mind, but the bill is currently stuck in committee and will likely be dead for the rest of the session, Jackson told the Fayetteville Observer. “North Carolina is the only state…where no doesn’t mean no,” he said. “There’s no reason for this to be partisan.”

Meanwhile Bill Cosby is going to lecture on how to avoid being accused of sexual assault.

Via Barry Duke at The Freethinker, a story of a guy on a bus in Istanbul who told off a young woman for wearing shorts during Ramadan.

He said in a statement:

I warned the woman in shorts because it caught my attention that her clothes were too revealing and her crotch was visible; and, I was fasting [for Ramadan]. I said to her: ‘My friend, there is something called manners and morals. Getting on a public transportation like this is not proper.’

So, in response to this, the woman told me ‘not to look, then’… I told her that sometimes people cannot control their desires and told her that her way of dressing turned me on. She huffed … and began to talk to someone on her phone about me saying ‘Some man on the bus is giving me stupid advice on religion and so on’.

I heard this and I got angry; and, I told her to stop talking about me to the other person … and, I just pushed her face with the back of my hand slowly before getting out of the car …

But sadly for him there’s video. He gave her a hard backhanded slap as he walked past her.

https://youtu.be/f4siN_EFX60

He added that Saglam then got up and “attacked and cursed” him.

At that time, I thought the woman was an athlete because she attacked me with a great move and courage … The woman punched me on my left shoulder. Her punch was not very strong.

I pushed the woman just so I could prevent her from harming me. If the camera recordings are examined, it will be seen that I did not attack or batter the woman. Then, I got out of the vehicle just to not get into an argument with her. I have a complaint about her!

But again the video shows that he did attack and batter the woman.

Newsweek yesterday reported that Kizilates had been detained immediately after the incident, which took place on June 14, but he was released after he explained that he had been provoked. A warrant for his arrest was then issued after Turkish women’s activists reacted angrily to the attack.

I suppose next Kizilates will be giving lectures to young men on how not to be accused of attacking women on buses.

Obama on the Republican plans for the ACA:

The Committee to Protect Journalists increases its Washington staff by one.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has created the new position of Washington Advocacy Manager to lead efforts to advance press freedom around the world with the U.S. government and other policymakers in Washington, D.C. Michael De Dora will be the first to occupy the post.

“The United States plays an important role in promoting and protecting press freedom worldwide,” CPJ Advocacy Director Courtney Radsch said from Washington, D.C. “It is imperative that press-freedom norms are respected here and serve as a benchmark for other governments. We look forward to increasing our cooperation with partners, policymakers, and lawmakers to promote and protect a free press, in the United States and elsewhere.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists has four full-time staff based in Washington, D.C., including Radsch. The expansion of this team recognizes the role that U.S. organizations and policymakers play not only in the global struggle to protect journalists and to defend press freedom but also in enshrining these values in the United States. Michael De Dora joins CPJ from the Center for Inquiry, where he led domestic and international efforts to advance freedom of conscience and religious freedom. He managed a range of advocacy initiatives, including policy campaigns on Capitol Hill and at the United Nations and an assistance program for threatened writers, publishers, and activists. Michael has served as president of the UN NGO Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief, and is a member of the international board of directors for the Raif Badawi Foundation for Freedom.

Michael does great work. I’m proud to know him.

More from the Times on Darren Osborne.

He had family problems and was known by locals as belligerent and aggressive, with a drinking problem. He had Muslim neighbors, who described his behavior as fairly unremarkable, and his children had Muslim friends.

No one on the cul-de-sac in Cardiff, Wales, where Darren Osborne, 47, lived could readily explain what he is believed to have done: rented a van, driven it 150 miles to London and plowed into a crowd of Muslims as they finished prayers at the Finsbury Park Mosque early Monday.

Numerous residents here said that Mr. Osborne was often agitated, even disturbed, but few described him as frightening and none said he had expressed political sentiments, much less anti-Muslim or far-right ones — until last weekend, when he was kicked out of a local pub, the Hollybush, after a drunken tirade.

“My son was at the pub on Saturday night and said he got kicked out because he was scribbling all over the tables and shouting racist comments about Pakistanis and Muslims,” a resident, Ross Johnson, said Tuesday outside the pub.

So the next day he headed for Finsbury Park.

Several residents in and around Glyn Rhosyn, the street where Mr. Osborne lived in a semidetached two-story house, said he at times seemed disturbed and volatile.

Chris Peter, a car mechanic, said that he used to work with Mr. Osborne but that he had found Mr. Osborne to be “unreliable” and “erratic.”

“You just didn’t know what you’re going to get with Darren,” Mr. Peter said. “One minute he’s fine, the next he’s drunk, cursing and vile. He was a nut job.”

It’s odd that few people said he was frightening then. I find that kind of thing very frightening, because it seems to be on the edge of violence.

Mr. Peter added: “I stopped working with him because he had anger problems. One day, he came in stinking of booze and sweat and started shouting his mouth off, throwing tools. I haven’t seen him in a while, but my mate said he’s been sleeping out in the woods in a tent because his lady kicked him out the house.”

Jennifer Mears, who lived a few houses away from Mr. Osborne, said she considered him scary.

“My husband and I called him the ‘mad man,’ ” she said. “He would always zoom up and down the road in various cars that he would bring here. I think he bought and sold lots of cars, and it was annoying that he would park them all down the street.”

One resident described a time when Mr. Osborne had shouted at his family and thrown things around his garden.

“He threw a plastic swing, and it went over the fence and almost hit his neighbor,” said the resident, Laura Granger, who witnessed the episode. “When they complained about it, he swore at them and then went inside and started shouting at his children.”

She added: “We heard him scream at his wife, and he said, ‘Don’t make me get the cricket bat.’ ”

Frightening. Definitely frightening.

Damn but misogyny is casual sometimes. Ben Mathis-Lilley lets it all hang out at Slate.

Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff lost a special House election in Georgia on Tuesday to Republican Karen Handel. It’s the fourth high-profile special election Dems have lost since November. California Rep. Nancy Pelosi is the leader of the House Democrats. Should she be replaced, as some rabble-rousers are starting to suggest?

Oh yeah, obviously, because the Speaker of the House is to blame when a same-party candidate loses.

Reasons to put Nancy Pelosi on a raft in the Hudson Bay (metaphorically):

Ahhh fuck you, dude. That’s “metaphorically” the way “die in a fire” is metaphorically.

• She’s both unpopular and, for a congressional figure, relativelywell-known. (In other words, most people who have an opinion don’t like Mitch McConnell or Nancy Pelosi, but more people have an opinion on Pelosi than they do on McConnell.)

Might there be a reason for that, that’s not to do with some special Unpopularity Essence that Pelosi has and McConnell doesn’t? Might it be pervasive contemptuous knee-jerk misogyny, which this shitty piece is feeding right into?

It really comes down to the question of whether you think there’s something particularly problematic about Pelosi—maybe anyone in charge of leading congressional Democrats would become just as much of a villain as she is. On the other hand, when things aren’t working, it often helps to try a new thing instead of the old thing that hasn’t been working.

Cute.

The man who died in the Finsbury Park terror attack died of injuries from the attack, as opposed to dying of whatever had caused him to collapse on the pavement before the attack. He was Makram Ali.

Makram Ali moved to Britain from Bangladesh when he was 10. He and his wife raised four daughters and two sons. He loved strolling in parks with his two grandchildren. His family was about to take a vacation in Canada.

Mr. Ali, 51, was returning from Ramadan prayers early Monday morning when he collapsed on a street in North London; he was known to have a weak leg.

First aid arrived, and Mr. Ali was receiving medical assistance. He appeared to feel better, and said he wanted to go home. Then, a van suddenly crashed into a crowd of Muslims, including Mr. Ali, outside the Finsbury Park Mosque and the Muslim Welfare House, a community center.

Mr. Ali, who lived nearby in the borough of Haringey, died from multiple injuries, the Metropolitan Police said on Thursday, citing a postmortem examination.

Four people are still in hospital, two in critical condition.

“Our father was a quiet, gentle man,” his daughter Ruzina Akhtar said in a statement on behalf of the family on Thursday, after meeting with the Metropolitan Police commissioner, Cressida Dick. “He didn’t get involved in political or social discussion; he instead took comfort and enjoyment spending time with his wife, children and grandchildren, and he was always ready to make a funny joke when you least expected.”

The guy driving the van is not a quiet, gentle man.

Darren Osborne, 47, who lives in Cardiff, Wales, has been arrested on suspicion of committing, preparing or instigating terrorism including murder and attempted murder.

Neighbors have described Mr. Osborne as belligerent and aggressive, but have said that he did not express anti-Muslim sentiments — until this past weekend, when he was kicked out of a local pub after a drunken tirade.

From drunken tirade to terror attack in one weekend.

Max Ehrenfreund at the Post says Republicans have had good success at putting a halt to current progressive policies but not so much at reversing them. I think the 1994 Congress did a fair bit of reversing, but that may be an exception.

Throughout the modern history of Congress, lawmakers have inexorably expanded progressive social policies, and while conservatives have successfully forestalled expansions to the social safety net, they’ve had very little success in reversing them.

Right now, however, Republicans have a chance to buck that trend, as they prepare legislation aimed at repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The Senate bill released on Thursday, coupled with the House bill passed earlier this year, would be exactly the kind of cuts to the welfare state that conservatives have consistently failed to achieve.

The repeal measure, which follows weeks of unusual secrecy in its drafting, would bring down taxes, eliminate hundreds of billions of dollars in outlays on the social safety net, and curtail the federal government’s involvement in a crucial sector of the economy.

Thus leaving most people at the mercy of The Market. The Market doesn’t give a rat’s ass about people with low earnings and high medical bills. The Market shuts the door on people like that without losing an instant of sleep.