Pam Meister
During the big UN brouhaha this week, we were treated to the usual nonsense by the usual suspects – Ahmadinejad, Qaddafi, and the standard America-haters. Perhaps the one good thing that came out of it was pointed out by a friend in an e-mail:
I did enjoy [Qaddafi’s] suggestion to move the UN to Beijing or Delhi in order to save him and others jet lag! It is the one thing on which I completely agreed with him. He even justified it by the savings in cost, security and hassles the U.S. would get from it. AND he had the decency to say that they owed the U.S. a "Thank You" for hosting the UN for the last 60 years.
Nice sentiment, but we never get thanks for anything. Still, I’m all for moving the UN out of New York and out of the U.S. Let them go to France or somewhere else where they’ll fit right in. And then, I’m all for getting the U.S. out of the UN. Why do we need to continue to pay the lion’s share of the dues for an organization that never hesitates to flaunt its anti-Americanism and do everything it can to stymie us? See how long that corrupt money pit lasts without us.
But this year, we were also treated to something Extra Special: the spectacle of our own duly elected president doing something that has never – to my knowledge – been done in the history of this nation: throw us under the bus to appease the globalists. Even Bill Clinton, liberal though he is, didn’t dare do something like that. But then, Clinton isn’t as half the ideologue Obama is.
If you thought his World Apology Tour™ was revolting, this speech probably made you reach for the barf bag. And just think: we have more than three more years of such Pepto- Bismol moments ahead of us! You know, Costco, BJ’s and other warehouse stores should consider selling barf bags in bulk – they’d make a mint.
Oh, wait, I’m sorry – capitalism is bad. Isn’t that what’s being taught to children in our schools now?
But back to Obama and his UN love fest. It was chock full of what I, um, lovingly refer to as “obamanations,” including this backhanded slap at George W. Bush:
I took office at a time when many around the world had come to view America with skepticism and distrust. Part of this was due to misperceptions and misinformation about my country. Part of this was due to opposition to specific policies, and a belief that on certain critical issues, America has acted unilaterally, without regard for the interests of others. This has fed an almost reflexive anti-Americanism, which too often has served as an excuse for our collective inaction.
Nice. Bush can’t even enjoy his retirement without The One™ constantly “reminding” us how horrible he was. He continued:
Like all of you, my responsibility is to act in the interest of my nation and my people, and I will never apologize for defending those interests. But it is my deeply held belief that in the year 2009 - more than at any point in human history – the interests of nations and peoples are shared.
Cue rabid applause from the boobs at the UN. What a disgusting spectacle. And right here at home, too. It’s nice that we no longer have to travel far to hear about how awful we are. Good for the environment, too.
Why is it that everything Obama says has some sort of qualifier? “I will never apologize for defending my nation’s interests, BUT…” The “but” here could well refer to the fact that he’s authorized the State Department to hand over $400,000 to two foundations run by Qaddafi’s children. Andrew McCarthy provides the details:
$200,000 each for daughter Aisha and son Saif. Saif, you may recall, is the son who escorted the Lockerbie terrorist Abdel Baset al-Megrahi home to a hero's welcome in Libya after President Obama sternly "warned" Qaddafi that there was to be no hero's welcome.
[…]
Could somebody please tell this president that this is not just Annenberg Foundation cash he's passing out to his personal terrorist pals like Bill Ayers but American taxpayer dollars he's doling out to the terrorist tyrant behind the murder — in just that one incident — of 270 people, including 189 Americans.
How charitable of him, to share our taxpayer dollars with the children of a terror-supporting nut job! Those poor souls who were murdered over Lockerbie would understand if they could just witness the Hope and Change™ we have today. We’re all just one big, happy international family, aren’t we? Kumbaya, Joy to the World and all that rot.
And how, pray tell, is Obama defending his nation’s interests? By cutting defense spending as a way of trying to fool us that he’s trying to stop the deficit from ballooning even further? By handing Poland and the Czech Republic to Russia on a silver platter and undermining American security at the same time? By cutting Israel off at the knees? By tossing our economy down the garbage disposal and flipping the switch? And after having blathered for years about how Afghanistan is where we needed focus our efforts, that Iraq was just a distraction, now he’s “skeptical” about sending more troops there – at the urging of Gen. McChrystal – to end things there once and for all. Heaven forbid he offend MoveOn.org and their ilk. If I had to guess, I’d say that the only members of the military for whom he has any respect are the ones assigned to protect him.
I could go on, but I’m running out of those planet-polluting barf bags.
As Nile Gardiner noted over at the UK Telegraph:
Was this though Obama’s most naïve speech ever? It is a very strong candidate, but I think there is intense competition for that accolade. The president’s speeches in Cairo, Strasbourg and Prague would all vie for that title. Still, his address today will go down in history as one of the weakest major addresses by a US president on foreign policy in a generation, by a leader who seems embarrassed, even ashamed, by the power and greatness of his own country.
This was an exceedingly dull, poor speech that overwhelmingly failed to advance US interests on the world stage, or project American values and principles onto the rest of the globe. As Barack Obama will eventually discover, soft power will only get you so far when you have to confront and defeat brutal enemies that seek America’s destruction
And Steve Hayes of Fox News’ Special Report, made this observation about Obama’s UN speech:
Just think about the last sentence that we heard in the introduction there, "When you question the cause or character of my country, think about the concrete actions of the last nine months." Basically what President Obama is saying there, think about me when you think about the goodness or the greatness of the United States. I think that is an unbelievably arrogant thing to say, and, sadly, it wasn't the only thing that he said in the speech that was like that. I think the whole speech was filled with that.
Obama wants to see America reduced to mediocrity, but with one shining star: him. We can’t be better than any other nation because that’s just not nice or fair. We have too much, so we have to dial it back so that the other kids on the playground won’t feel left out. Never mind that much of what we have goes toward plenty of international aid. Will we be cutting back on that in this era of reduced expectations? And how about those date nights? Will they also be sacrificed for the good of the collective?
All that is right and good about America is about to be flushed down the toilet, with Obama as the Ty-D-Bol Man in his snazzy captain’s hat, whizzing about in his flashy motorboat, smiling and telling us that it’s “new and improved.”
“Mmm, mmm, mmm, Barack Hussein Obama. He said that we must lend a hand to make this country strong again.” That’s right, children, keep singing. It was plenty strong before, but now that the 98-pound weakling is in charge, all that’s going to change.
Change. Has a catchy ring to it, doesn’t it?
Pam Meister is the editor of FamilySecurityMatters.org.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Obama's Self-Worship
Mona Charen
Friday, September 25, 2009
President Obama's speech to the United Nations has been called naive and even "post-American." It was something else, as well: the most extravagant excursion into self-worship we have yet seen in an American leader.
Beware of politicians who claim to be "humbled by the responsibility the American people have placed upon me." It's a neon sign flashing the opposite. And sure enough, in almost the next sentence, the president allowed that "I am well aware of the expectations that accompany my presidency around the world." Really? The whole world pulses with hope and expectation because Obama is president? People in Amsterdam, Sao Paulo and Taipei have a spring in their step because an Illinois Democrat won the White House?
Well, yes, he says, but it's not "about me," rather it's a reflection of dissatisfaction with the "status quo that has allowed us to be increasingly defined by our differences and outpaced by our problems." Oh, yes, and everyone around the world was electrified by Obama's campaign slogan because these expectations "are also rooted in hope. The hope that real change is possible and the hope that America will be a leader in bringing about such change."
Obama is, we are told, the smartest man to sit in the Oval in many a year. And yet he is capable of truly flabbergasting fatuities like this: "In this hall, we come from many places, but we share a common future." You don't say? That's right up there with Warren Harding's declaration that "the future lies before us."
Obama announced that we no longer "have the luxury of indulging our differences to the exclusion of the work that we must do together. I have carried this message from London to Ankara, from Port of Spain to Moscow, from Accra to Cairo, and it is what I will speak about today." Note the personal pronoun. But what message has this evangelist carried to all these world capitals? That hope and change have been vouchsafed to the fallen world in the person of Barack Obama?
During last year's campaign, Michelle Obama and her defenders insisted that her statement "For the first time in my adult life I'm proud of my country" (for supporting her husband) was unfairly wrenched from its context. Maybe, though she said it more than once.
But Obama's indictment of the United States before the U.N. suggests identical sentiments. "I took office at a time when many around the world had come to view America with skepticism and distrust," the president said. And mostly it seems, those views were justified. America had acted "unilaterally, without regard for the interests of others." Addressing himself directly to America's critics, the president declared, "For those who question the character and cause of my nation…"
He could have mentioned the Marshall Plan, the Berlin Airlift, the billions spent on fighting AIDS in Africa, tsunami relief, the Green Revolution, defeating Nazism and Communism. Just for starters. But that's not what the president had in mind.
"…I ask you to look at the concrete actions we have taken in just nine months. On my first day in office, I prohibited without exception or equivocation the use of torture by the United States of America. I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed." The audience, composed in part of regimes that pluck out the eyeballs of political enemies and hack off the hands of suspected thieves, applauded vigorously.
There are no limits to the good that can be achieved if the world will follow Obama's leadership. "Consider the course that we're on if we fail to confront the status quo: extremists sowing terror in pockets of the world; protracted conflicts that grind on and on; genocide; mass atrocities; more nations with nuclear weapons; melting ice caps and ravaged populations; persistent poverty and pandemic disease." Yes, that's humble all right. All of those evils can be avoided by the right leadership? The hubris is staggering.
Not that the solutions Obama proposes could, even if fully implemented in every detail, prevent those catastrophes. Arguably, his solutions would invite worse. He proposes, for example, not just to fight nuclear proliferation (on which he has so far achieved nothing), but also to rid the world of nuclear weapons. By promising this, he a) ratifies the arguments of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong-il that it is somehow unjust for some nations to have nuclear weapons and others not; and b) commits the United States to suicidal unilateral disarmament. If the U.S. did give up its nuclear weapons and by some miracle the other nuclear powers did as well, world peace would not dawn. The race to acquire those weapons by lesser powers would intensify, as their relative value would increase immeasurably.
Those are the kinds of cold realities Obama might grapple with, if he weren't so distracted by his looking glass.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
45% Of Doctors Would Consider Quitting If Congress Passes Health Care Overhaul
By TERRY JONES
News Analysis by IBD | Posted Tuesday, September 15, 2009 4:30 PM PT
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=337909690110379
Two of every three practicing physicians oppose the medical overhaul plan under consideration in Washington, and hundreds of thousands would think about shutting down their practices or retiring early if it were adopted, a new IBD/TIPP Poll has found.
The poll contradicts the claims of not only the White House, but also doctors' own lobby — the powerful American Medical Association — both of which suggest the medical profession is behind the proposed overhaul.
It also calls into question whether an overhaul is even doable; 72% of the doctors polled disagree with the administration's claim that the government can cover 47 million more people with better-quality care at lower cost.
The IBD/TIPP Poll was conducted by mail the past two weeks, with 1,376 practicing physicians chosen randomly throughout the country taking part. Responses are still coming in, and doctors' positions on related topics — including the impact of an overhaul on senior care, medical school applications and drug development — will be covered later in this series.
Major findings included:
• Two-thirds, or 65%, of doctors say they oppose the proposed government expansion plan. This contradicts the administration's claims that doctors are part of an "unprecedented coalition" supporting a medical overhaul.
It also differs with findings of a poll released Monday by National Public Radio that suggests a "majority of physicians want public and private insurance options," and clashes with media reports such as Tuesday's front-page story in the Los Angeles Times with the headline "Doctors Go For Obama's Reform."
Nowhere in the Times story does it say doctors as a whole back the overhaul. It says only that the AMA — the "association representing the nation's physicians" and what "many still regard as the country's premier lobbying force" — is "lobbying and advertising to win public support for President Obama's sweeping plan."
The AMA, in fact, represents approximately 18% of physicians and has been hit with a number of defections by members opposed to the AMA's support of Democrats' proposed health care overhaul.
• Four of nine doctors, or 45%, said they "would consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement" if Congress passes the plan the Democratic majority and White House have in mind.
More than 800,000 doctors were practicing in 2006, the government says. Projecting the poll's finding onto that population, 360,000 doctors would consider quitting.
View larger image
• More than seven in 10 doctors, or 71% — the most lopsided response in the poll — answered "no" when asked if they believed "the government can cover 47 million more people and that it will cost less money and the quality of care will be better."
This response is consistent with critics who complain that the administration and congressional Democrats have yet to explain how, even with the current number of physicians and nurses, they can cover more people and lower the cost at the same time.
The only way, the critics contend, is by rationing care — giving it to some and denying it to others. That cuts against another claim by plan supporters — that care would be better.
IBD/TIPP's finding that many doctors could leave the business suggests that such rationing could be more severe than even critics believe. Rationing is one of the drawbacks associated with government plans in countries such as Canada and the U.K. Stories about growing waiting lists for badly needed care, horror stories of care gone wrong, babies born on sidewalks, and even people dying as a result of care delayed or denied are rife.
In this country, the number of doctors is already lagging population growth.
From 2003 to 2006, the number of active physicians in the U.S. grew by just 0.8% a year, adding a total of 25,700 doctors.
Recent population growth has been 1% a year. Patients, in short, are already being added faster than physicians, creating a medical bottleneck.
The great concern is that, with increased mandates, lower pay and less freedom to practice, doctors could abandon medicine in droves, as the IBD/TIPP Poll suggests. Under the proposed medical overhaul, an additional 47 million people would have to be cared for — an 18% increase in patient loads, without an equivalent increase in doctors. The actual effect could be somewhat less because a significant share of the uninsured already get care.
Even so, the government vows to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from health care spending to pay for reform, which would encourage a flight from the profession.
The U.S. today has just 2.4 physicians per 1,000 population — below the median of 3.1 for members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the official club of wealthy nations.
Adding millions of patients to physicians' caseloads would threaten to overwhelm the system. Medical gatekeepers would have to deny care to large numbers of people. That means care would have to be rationed.
"It's like giving everyone free bus passes, but there are only two buses," Dr. Ted Epperly, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, told the Associated Press.
Hope for a surge in new doctors may be misplaced. A recent study from the Association of American Medical Colleges found steadily declining enrollment in medical schools since 1980.
The study found that, just with current patient demand, the U.S. will have 159,000 fewer doctors than it needs by 2025. Unless corrected, that would make some sort of medical rationing or long waiting lists almost mandatory.
Experiments at the state level show that an overhaul isn't likely to change much.
On Monday came word from the Massachusetts Medical Society — a group representing physicians in a state that has implemented an overhaul similar to that under consideration in Washington — that doctor shortages remain a growing problem.
Its 2009 Physician Workforce Study found that:
• The primary care specialties of family medicine and internal medicine are in short supply for a fourth straight year.
• The percentage of primary care practices closed to new patients is the highest ever recorded.
• Seven of 18 specialties — dermatology, neurology, urology, vascular surgery and (for the first time) obstetrics-gynecology, in addition to family and internal medicine — are in short supply.
• Recruitment and retention of physicians remains difficult, especially at community hospitals and with primary care.
A key reason for the doctor shortages, according to the study, is a "lingering poor practice environment in the state."
In 2006, Massachusetts passed its medical overhaul — minus a public option — similar to what's being proposed on a national scale now. It hasn't worked as expected. Costs are higher, with insurance premiums rising 22% faster than in the U.S. as a whole.
"Health spending in Massachusetts is higher than the United States on average and is growing at a faster rate," according to a recent report from the Urban Institute.
Other states with government-run or mandated health insurance systems, including Maine, Tennessee and Hawaii, have been forced to cut back services and coverage.
This experience has been repeated in other countries where a form of nationalized care is common. In particular, many nationalized health systems seem to have trouble finding enough doctors to meet demand.
In Britain, a lack of practicing physicians means the country has had to import thousands of foreign doctors to care for patients in the National Health Service.
"A third of (British) primary care trusts are flying in (general practitioners) from as far away as Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Switzerland" because of a doctor shortage, a recent story in the British Daily Mail noted.
British doctors, demoralized by long hours and burdensome rules, simply refuse to see patients at nights and weekends.
Likewise, Canadian physicians who have to deal with the stringent rules and income limits imposed by that country's national health plan have emigrated in droves to other countries, including the U.S.
Tomorrow: Why most doctors oppose the government's plan — in their own words.
News Analysis by IBD | Posted Tuesday, September 15, 2009 4:30 PM PT
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=337909690110379
Two of every three practicing physicians oppose the medical overhaul plan under consideration in Washington, and hundreds of thousands would think about shutting down their practices or retiring early if it were adopted, a new IBD/TIPP Poll has found.
The poll contradicts the claims of not only the White House, but also doctors' own lobby — the powerful American Medical Association — both of which suggest the medical profession is behind the proposed overhaul.
It also calls into question whether an overhaul is even doable; 72% of the doctors polled disagree with the administration's claim that the government can cover 47 million more people with better-quality care at lower cost.
The IBD/TIPP Poll was conducted by mail the past two weeks, with 1,376 practicing physicians chosen randomly throughout the country taking part. Responses are still coming in, and doctors' positions on related topics — including the impact of an overhaul on senior care, medical school applications and drug development — will be covered later in this series.
Major findings included:
• Two-thirds, or 65%, of doctors say they oppose the proposed government expansion plan. This contradicts the administration's claims that doctors are part of an "unprecedented coalition" supporting a medical overhaul.
It also differs with findings of a poll released Monday by National Public Radio that suggests a "majority of physicians want public and private insurance options," and clashes with media reports such as Tuesday's front-page story in the Los Angeles Times with the headline "Doctors Go For Obama's Reform."
Nowhere in the Times story does it say doctors as a whole back the overhaul. It says only that the AMA — the "association representing the nation's physicians" and what "many still regard as the country's premier lobbying force" — is "lobbying and advertising to win public support for President Obama's sweeping plan."
The AMA, in fact, represents approximately 18% of physicians and has been hit with a number of defections by members opposed to the AMA's support of Democrats' proposed health care overhaul.
• Four of nine doctors, or 45%, said they "would consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement" if Congress passes the plan the Democratic majority and White House have in mind.
More than 800,000 doctors were practicing in 2006, the government says. Projecting the poll's finding onto that population, 360,000 doctors would consider quitting.
View larger image
• More than seven in 10 doctors, or 71% — the most lopsided response in the poll — answered "no" when asked if they believed "the government can cover 47 million more people and that it will cost less money and the quality of care will be better."
This response is consistent with critics who complain that the administration and congressional Democrats have yet to explain how, even with the current number of physicians and nurses, they can cover more people and lower the cost at the same time.
The only way, the critics contend, is by rationing care — giving it to some and denying it to others. That cuts against another claim by plan supporters — that care would be better.
IBD/TIPP's finding that many doctors could leave the business suggests that such rationing could be more severe than even critics believe. Rationing is one of the drawbacks associated with government plans in countries such as Canada and the U.K. Stories about growing waiting lists for badly needed care, horror stories of care gone wrong, babies born on sidewalks, and even people dying as a result of care delayed or denied are rife.
In this country, the number of doctors is already lagging population growth.
From 2003 to 2006, the number of active physicians in the U.S. grew by just 0.8% a year, adding a total of 25,700 doctors.
Recent population growth has been 1% a year. Patients, in short, are already being added faster than physicians, creating a medical bottleneck.
The great concern is that, with increased mandates, lower pay and less freedom to practice, doctors could abandon medicine in droves, as the IBD/TIPP Poll suggests. Under the proposed medical overhaul, an additional 47 million people would have to be cared for — an 18% increase in patient loads, without an equivalent increase in doctors. The actual effect could be somewhat less because a significant share of the uninsured already get care.
Even so, the government vows to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from health care spending to pay for reform, which would encourage a flight from the profession.
The U.S. today has just 2.4 physicians per 1,000 population — below the median of 3.1 for members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the official club of wealthy nations.
Adding millions of patients to physicians' caseloads would threaten to overwhelm the system. Medical gatekeepers would have to deny care to large numbers of people. That means care would have to be rationed.
"It's like giving everyone free bus passes, but there are only two buses," Dr. Ted Epperly, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, told the Associated Press.
Hope for a surge in new doctors may be misplaced. A recent study from the Association of American Medical Colleges found steadily declining enrollment in medical schools since 1980.
The study found that, just with current patient demand, the U.S. will have 159,000 fewer doctors than it needs by 2025. Unless corrected, that would make some sort of medical rationing or long waiting lists almost mandatory.
Experiments at the state level show that an overhaul isn't likely to change much.
On Monday came word from the Massachusetts Medical Society — a group representing physicians in a state that has implemented an overhaul similar to that under consideration in Washington — that doctor shortages remain a growing problem.
Its 2009 Physician Workforce Study found that:
• The primary care specialties of family medicine and internal medicine are in short supply for a fourth straight year.
• The percentage of primary care practices closed to new patients is the highest ever recorded.
• Seven of 18 specialties — dermatology, neurology, urology, vascular surgery and (for the first time) obstetrics-gynecology, in addition to family and internal medicine — are in short supply.
• Recruitment and retention of physicians remains difficult, especially at community hospitals and with primary care.
A key reason for the doctor shortages, according to the study, is a "lingering poor practice environment in the state."
In 2006, Massachusetts passed its medical overhaul — minus a public option — similar to what's being proposed on a national scale now. It hasn't worked as expected. Costs are higher, with insurance premiums rising 22% faster than in the U.S. as a whole.
"Health spending in Massachusetts is higher than the United States on average and is growing at a faster rate," according to a recent report from the Urban Institute.
Other states with government-run or mandated health insurance systems, including Maine, Tennessee and Hawaii, have been forced to cut back services and coverage.
This experience has been repeated in other countries where a form of nationalized care is common. In particular, many nationalized health systems seem to have trouble finding enough doctors to meet demand.
In Britain, a lack of practicing physicians means the country has had to import thousands of foreign doctors to care for patients in the National Health Service.
"A third of (British) primary care trusts are flying in (general practitioners) from as far away as Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Switzerland" because of a doctor shortage, a recent story in the British Daily Mail noted.
British doctors, demoralized by long hours and burdensome rules, simply refuse to see patients at nights and weekends.
Likewise, Canadian physicians who have to deal with the stringent rules and income limits imposed by that country's national health plan have emigrated in droves to other countries, including the U.S.
Tomorrow: Why most doctors oppose the government's plan — in their own words.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Hijab (The Headscarf)—Yes; The Burqa—No
By: Phyllis Chesler
Pajamas Media | Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Visit Pajamas
Banning the burqa in the West might be one way to ban Islamist fundamentalism and the barbaric subordination of girls and women in certain immigrant communities. For this reason, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and French Minister Fadela Amara have again called for this ban. Earlier today, French immigration Minister, Eric Besson, called the burqa “debased.”
I would hope that the French take their argument further. In the past, they have mainly cited security concerns: Burqa wearing women might be “racially” attacked or burqa wearers themselves might be terrorists or criminals who are planning to attack or rob civilians.
I would hope that the French also argue for such a ban on women’s rights/human rights grounds, as I have already proposed. Thus, clothing which completely covers the face and head in a way which muffles speech, hearing, and vision, which limits or prevents all human communication and identification, and which, in effect, functions like an isolation chamber is, by definition, a violation of human rights.
None of this applies to hijab, the Islamic headscarf, which has already been banned in France in school and which is the subject of protest and controversy across Europe.
With all due respect for the good intentions of the French, perhaps Western governments should not automatically or necessarily ban hijab for women; the matter is tricky and complicated for girls as we have seen, as city after city across Europe has discovered. Indeed, this is a complex and challenging matter.
Today, in Holland, in the very country that is putting the sober and very brave parliamentarian,Geert Wilders on trial for exercising his political free speech—another bright Dutch light, Trouw historian Tineke Bennema has called on “women who were born in the Netherlands to voluntarily put on a headscarf ‘out of solidarity’ with the hijab wearers.” You know, like the Danes allegedly once wore the yellow Jewish star.
Bennema: This is not the way to atone for all the Dutch Jews who were so cheerfully handed over to the Nazis.
One can argue that looking “different,” wearing clothing that represents only one religion may, indeed, arouse prejudice and fear and lead to ostracism, especially among children. Visually representing one’s religion in the public square may also interfere with one’s ability to be seen neutrally in a courtroom, (as a judge, a witness, a plaintiff), classroom, hospital, (as a nurse, doctor, or patient), office, etc. For this reason, an American judge told a priest to remove his clerical collar before testifying in a court case.
However, in order to ban hijab in an even-handed way, one would also have to ban the Catholic hijab worn by nuns, the Jewish headscarf worn by ultra-orthodox and Chasidic women, and the various Hindu and Sikh head coverings. Doing so might interfere with the separation of religion and state that many Western governments hold dear.
But there is another reason to consider not banning hijab for adults. I spent last week in Rome, at the International Conference on Violence Against Women, An Initiative of the Italian Presidency of the G 8. I am deeply grateful to the Italian government, specifically to the Italian Minister for Equal Opportunities, the Honorable (and beautiful) Maria Rosaria Carfagna for this opportunity. Here is where I spent time with a dynamic, truly amazing group of religious and secular Muslim feminists. Three wore hijab, two did not, and one wore it sometimes, but not always. Most agreed that headcovering is more of a custom than a religious commandment and that one can be a very good Muslim without it.
My point: They are all modern, eloquent, high achievers; smart, strong, strong-minded, pro-Western, pro-integration, and pro-women’s rights. They have won my heart and I view these Muslim feminists who are fifty years old or younger as the true descendents of Second Wave Western feminism. They, too, believe that women’s rights are universal, not culturally relative: They cannot understand why so many western feminists and academics are willing to sacrifice this principle. And, religious or not, they also believe in the importance of separating religion and state.
Dr. Phyllis Chesler is the well known author of classic works, including the bestseller Women and Madness (1972) The New Anti-Semitism (2003) and The Death of Feminism: What’s Next in the Struggle for Women’s Freedom (2005). She has just published a new edition of Woman's Inhumanity to Woman (2009). She is an Emerita Professor of psychology and women's studies, the co-founder of the Association for Women in Psychology (1969) and the National Women's Health Network (1976). Her website is www.phyllis-chesler.com
Pajamas Media | Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Visit Pajamas
Banning the burqa in the West might be one way to ban Islamist fundamentalism and the barbaric subordination of girls and women in certain immigrant communities. For this reason, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and French Minister Fadela Amara have again called for this ban. Earlier today, French immigration Minister, Eric Besson, called the burqa “debased.”
I would hope that the French take their argument further. In the past, they have mainly cited security concerns: Burqa wearing women might be “racially” attacked or burqa wearers themselves might be terrorists or criminals who are planning to attack or rob civilians.
I would hope that the French also argue for such a ban on women’s rights/human rights grounds, as I have already proposed. Thus, clothing which completely covers the face and head in a way which muffles speech, hearing, and vision, which limits or prevents all human communication and identification, and which, in effect, functions like an isolation chamber is, by definition, a violation of human rights.
None of this applies to hijab, the Islamic headscarf, which has already been banned in France in school and which is the subject of protest and controversy across Europe.
With all due respect for the good intentions of the French, perhaps Western governments should not automatically or necessarily ban hijab for women; the matter is tricky and complicated for girls as we have seen, as city after city across Europe has discovered. Indeed, this is a complex and challenging matter.
Today, in Holland, in the very country that is putting the sober and very brave parliamentarian,Geert Wilders on trial for exercising his political free speech—another bright Dutch light, Trouw historian Tineke Bennema has called on “women who were born in the Netherlands to voluntarily put on a headscarf ‘out of solidarity’ with the hijab wearers.” You know, like the Danes allegedly once wore the yellow Jewish star.
Bennema: This is not the way to atone for all the Dutch Jews who were so cheerfully handed over to the Nazis.
One can argue that looking “different,” wearing clothing that represents only one religion may, indeed, arouse prejudice and fear and lead to ostracism, especially among children. Visually representing one’s religion in the public square may also interfere with one’s ability to be seen neutrally in a courtroom, (as a judge, a witness, a plaintiff), classroom, hospital, (as a nurse, doctor, or patient), office, etc. For this reason, an American judge told a priest to remove his clerical collar before testifying in a court case.
However, in order to ban hijab in an even-handed way, one would also have to ban the Catholic hijab worn by nuns, the Jewish headscarf worn by ultra-orthodox and Chasidic women, and the various Hindu and Sikh head coverings. Doing so might interfere with the separation of religion and state that many Western governments hold dear.
But there is another reason to consider not banning hijab for adults. I spent last week in Rome, at the International Conference on Violence Against Women, An Initiative of the Italian Presidency of the G 8. I am deeply grateful to the Italian government, specifically to the Italian Minister for Equal Opportunities, the Honorable (and beautiful) Maria Rosaria Carfagna for this opportunity. Here is where I spent time with a dynamic, truly amazing group of religious and secular Muslim feminists. Three wore hijab, two did not, and one wore it sometimes, but not always. Most agreed that headcovering is more of a custom than a religious commandment and that one can be a very good Muslim without it.
My point: They are all modern, eloquent, high achievers; smart, strong, strong-minded, pro-Western, pro-integration, and pro-women’s rights. They have won my heart and I view these Muslim feminists who are fifty years old or younger as the true descendents of Second Wave Western feminism. They, too, believe that women’s rights are universal, not culturally relative: They cannot understand why so many western feminists and academics are willing to sacrifice this principle. And, religious or not, they also believe in the importance of separating religion and state.
Dr. Phyllis Chesler is the well known author of classic works, including the bestseller Women and Madness (1972) The New Anti-Semitism (2003) and The Death of Feminism: What’s Next in the Struggle for Women’s Freedom (2005). She has just published a new edition of Woman's Inhumanity to Woman (2009). She is an Emerita Professor of psychology and women's studies, the co-founder of the Association for Women in Psychology (1969) and the National Women's Health Network (1976). Her website is www.phyllis-chesler.com
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