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The Left’s Proxy War with Islam
The Left’s most recent bout with insanity is, at least in part, due to increasing turmoil and carnage in the Islamic world. Progressives oppose most of the Islamist agenda — the subjugation of women, execution of gays, slaughter of innocents — but their belief that Western Culture, Western Imperialism, and (worst of all!) Western Cultural Imperialism are responsible for all of the world’s ills make it impossible for them to speak out against any culture but their own. Instead, they attack such proxies as they can find in the West with an intensity that is all out of proportion to the offences they claim to perceive.
Any resistance to allowing men dressed as women to use women’s restrooms is denounced with a fervor that would be far more appropriate were it reserved for the routine execution of homosexuals in some Muslim countries. Micro-aggressions against women perceptible only to themselves are the focus of a rage that would be understandable were it directed against the execution of Muslim women for the “crime” of being raped. Their conflation of distasteful speech on college campuses with violence and rape lies in sharp contrast with their disregard for ISIS’s violent rape of thousands. Their promiscuous use of the word “genocide” in connection with cultural evolution would make sense were it in response to the wholesale slaughters of Christians, Jews, and Yazidis in the name of Allah.
Like the drunk who searches for his keys under a street light, the Left searches for injustice only in the West. And find (or invent) injustice they must, because that’s the only way they can prove to themselves and others that they care. As their ideology requires them to discount the elephants of Islamic violence and hatred, so the gnats of Western injustice they denounce become ever more microscopic in order to demonstrate just how exquisitely attuned they are to human suffering.
As the disparity grows, the more ludicrous they become and the more vehemently they shout down anyone who points out their moral nakedness.
Published in Islamist Terrorism
The efficiency you gain is helpful. Putting on Economist correctives deletes the mildly Islamist from mildly islamist Justice and Development (AK) party every time.
Seriously, isn’t it amazing that a publication can insert that cant robotically into every mention of that critically important party over any reporter or editor preference. Makes The Economist read like The Masses at times.
I’m a reader of the WSJ and whatever’s free on The Economist. The only NYT I read now is the occasional Ross Douthat SoCon opinion piece. I canceled mostly because of the “robotic” cant you speak of. I’m OK with implicit biases to a degree, but there’s a saying I’ve heard once or twice parodying the would-be NYT headline of the end of the world:
WORLD ENDING TOMORROW; WOMEN AND MINORITIES MOST EFFECTED
Saudi has a poor First Amendment and a below par Fourteenth, but they’re solid on a bunch of other rights. Far from being among the worst, they’re above average for economic freedom, according to Heritage and in the top third when it comes to freedom from corruption. Ten days from now, they’re having their first elections to include women voters.
It’s true that Saudi abrogates political speech rights, but it does so in part because it has a fairly high population of homicidal revolutionaries. The US and other countries have also abrogated protections under similar circumstances, and it has often been the best way to preserve rights in the long term. The need to scapegoat Raif to present an image of evenhandedness when prosecuting radicals is regrettable, but it seems pretty plausible to me. Raif will live, which is more than one can say for many of the victims of the civil conflict that his arrest is intended to mitigate.
I’m somewhat surprised by a claim that the limits, which are not enormously harsh, put Saudi in the top five. It is my recollection that Claire believes Assad’s administration to be the government of Syria. Is Assad more respectful of the human rights of his citizens? I imagine that Kim Jong Un has successfully competed to attain his country’s place on the list. Sudan and Congo create rivers of blood compared to which the Saudi totals appear to be mere drops. Are either of them more respectful of human rights, despite weaker property rights, a lack of due process, and such?
Venezuela’s government is murdering the political opposition with drive by shootings, which seems worse, to me, than exercising regulation over elections. Speech appears more limited than in Saudi, and it’s hard to find a field of human rights where Maduro is remotely comparable to Abdulaziz.
Perhaps you disagree; it’s possible that you’re more of a fan of Bashir’s than I’d have guessed; there are certainly good things that have happened in the country away from Darfur and efforts to murder the Christians of now South Sudan. There’s still a relatively long list of countries that seem likely to fare more poorly on your list.
Yemen’s government faces similar concerns to Saudi, but at a much more advanced stage of concern, and thus evinces less protection for its people. The Saudis and, to a lesser extent, Americans are attempting to restore the government, and one hopes that if this is achieved, the new Yemeni government will be more respectful of human rights, but it certainly is not at the moment.
Somalia is much, much better off under Mohamoud than it was under the Sharia Courts, but it is still not comparable on any metric that I am familiar with. Perhaps you might like to suggest one.
Likewise, the Burmese are better off under their new government, but it seems unlikely that they’ll rise to Saudi levels of decency any time soon, although it is true that their appalling corruption, widespread quasi-slavery, and bloody abuse of minorities is slightly offset by their successfully transitioning to an elected tyranny. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan combine Saudi’s ugly restrictions on political freedom with terrible records on the areas where the Saudis are strong.
As with Pinochet and the Shah of Iran, Saudi Arabia’s position as an ally of America’s damns her in the eyes of much of the transnational activist elite, but there is no good reason that I am aware of for conservatives to prefer America’s evil enemies to our distasteful allies. That does not mean that we should avoid pressuring the Saudis to improve; Bush was good in that regard, and there’s every reason to believe that the next administration will be better. It does mean that we should not let claims that at least Maduro cares for the poor elevate him above his dismal performance in government.
I listen to the NYT’s audible summary (its top 25 or so stories of the day). I would never believe something I didn’t already know that I read in the Economist, so I don’t bother. The NYT is biased, but generally basically competent. They’ll select stories for their political impact and they color them, but it’s generally not subtle and it’s thus more irritating than misinforming. With the Economist, the children they have doing the research are kids who got good grades at college, but whose enormous overconfidence inhibits their desire to put in a lot of work researching their stories. This means that they’re generally either reheated editorials from elsewhere (including the NYT), or reheated conversations they’ve had with a London based contact.
All that tells me is that it would be a mistake to over-weight economic freedom and freedom from corruption when discussing human rights. They’re different categories.
Let’s not exaggerate. Let’s not ridicule this, because you’re right, it is a small step in the right direction, and as conservatives, we prefer small steps in the right direction to revolutions. But we’re talking about 366 women candidates who’ve been forbidden to address voters directly, and must appoint agents to do this on their behalf. They’re not allowed to mix with men at their election headquarters, or even publish their photos in campaign material. It is true the for the first time in the kingdom’s history, women will be able to vote. And perhaps in many years the effects of this will be seen. But as of now, the ban on female drivers and the guardianship system — in which male relatives have legal control over almost every aspects of their female counterparts’ lives — seem much more relevant to an assessment of the rights of women in the Kingdom. Women can do none of the following without their male guardian’s permission: study at a university, work, travel abroad, open a bank account, file a lawsuit, and often even receive medical treatment. They cannot leave their houses without a male chaperone — not even to run errands or see a doctor. The majority of women are forced to wear an abaya – a long black cloak – and a head scarf. The face does not necessarily need to be covered, but this does not stop the religious police from harassing women for exposing too much flesh or wearing too much makeup; and it doesn’t protect Saudi women from suffering endemic Vitamin D deficiency — from lack of exposure to light — in one of the sunniest places in the world. It doesn’t change the fact that if you’ve been raped in Saudi Arabia, it is entirely plausible that you, not the rapist, will be subjected to the lash. And despite commitments made in 2013 to introduce a minimum age for marriage, Saudi Arabia continues to allow legal child rape under the guise of “marriage.” There is no legislation that addresses domestic violence or sexual harassment, and therefore no criminal sanctions for these crimes. Women cannot travel outside the outside the country, unlike men who are free to do so. Freedom House has placed in the category of “Worst of the Worst,” the others are North Korea, CAR, Uzbekistan, Kazakstan, Turkmenistan, Syria and Sudan. So top ten, by their standards, but I suspect at that level, it’s being a bit fussy to disambiguate. It is true that Saudi women aren’t starving, and that this is no trivial thing: when we talk about human rights, many have long argued that “freedom from poverty” is a human right with corresponding binding obligations; no one who has seen real poverty close at hand would dismiss this idea as foolish. But there is a difference between freedom from want and freedom to exercise the rights that make us fully human; I myself would starve to death before accepting my place in Saudi society as a woman with neither autonomy, dignity, nor even a face. I would submit that the misogyny inherent to the rigid application of the Wahhabi interpretation of Sharia is a form of human rights abuse that puts it in a unique category, like the practice of chattel slavery or the caste system: No amount of economic freedom (for men) can compensate for the enslavement of half its population. The evil is an absolute.
The WEF ranks Saudi at 130 (out of 142) in its “Global Gender Gap” report, with the following countries scoring worse:
But their criteria are a mishmash, because they’re conflating outcomes with intentions: Saudi is a wealth country, so of course health outcomes are better: fewer women die in childbirth, for example, than in Morocco. But I’ve been to Morocco — hair uncovered, explaining clearly to the authorities and to anyone who asked that I was a Jew — and would be happy to live there, or in some parts of the country, anyway: Moroccan law is not the Sharia. It has been shaped by French Civil Law and a combination of Muslim and Jewish traditions; it is corrupt; but it is not predicated on sexual apartheid: indeed, constitution guarantees gender equality, even if the system falls far from enforcing this. Unlike in Saudi, Women are not legally required to limit the amount of time spent with men they are not related to. Public buildings — including offices, banks and universities — are mixed; they are segregated in Saudi. Likewise public transportation, parks, beaches and amusement parks. Unlawful mixing will lead to criminal charges in Saudi — against both parties, but women typically face harsher punishment.
And in other part because it has a fairly high population of people who are no such thing, but who would criticize government or religious leaders. The al-Saud family represents absolute political, cultural and religious authority. All forms of political opposition and dissent are harshly suppressed and silenced, not just “homicidal revolutionary speech” The tools of this suppression include arbitrary detention without charge or trial and the staging sham trials lacking any semblance of due process. Political imprisonment is epidemic; it has spared no sector of Saudi society, including reformists, human rights activists, lawyers, political parties, religious scholars, bloggers, individual protestors, and even long-standing government supporters who merely voiced mild and partial criticism of government policy. The known political prisons in Saudi Arabia have a capacity to hold 10,000, yet reports confirm these prisons to be oversubscribed by three times; some are held at irregular detention facilities, putting estimates of the number of political prisoners above 30,000 — exceptionally high considering the population is only 27 million, of whom only about 18 million are Saudi nationals.
There are no similar circumstances: Never has the US been governed by anything like Sharia; and it took outright civil war for Lincoln to suspend Habeus Corpus.
Speaks for itself.
I didn’t say “top,” I said “top five.” Clearly Syria is below, although before the outbreak of the war, it was not,
He’s number 2.
Three and four.
Tell me, in a Rawlesian scenario such that from behind your veil of ignorance you didn’t know whether you’d be a woman (but had a roughly 50 percent chance of it), would you prefer to be born in Saudi or Venezuela?
Freedom House’s list of “Worst of the worst” puts Saudi in their top ten: (Central African Republic, Somalia, Equatorial Guinea, Sudan, Eritrea, Syria, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan). These aren’t comparative rankings; you can’t score worse than 7/7, which they all do.
Women’s rights. If you make women disappear, this may be true. But you can’t make women disappear.
Nope, he’s Number 1.
Indeed, and it’s much worse now that Saudi is bombing it indiscriminately.
Somalia’s a hellhole, but I can suggest several metrics. Individuals in government-controlled areas are generally not restricted from criticizing the government. (Different story in Somaliland and Puntland.) Authorities don’t restrict access to the internet (as opposed to Saudi), and there have been no credible reports that the government monitored private online communications without appropriate legal authority. (Mind you, Somalia’s such a hellhole that only 1.5 percent of the population has access to the internet.) Women hold 14 percent of 275 seats in parliament. The government’s 25-member cabinet has two female members. No reports of anti-Semitic acts — but then again, no Jews.
Agree.
I wasn’t suggesting preferring them; I am suggesting that our distasteful ally is exceptionally distasteful, and our alliance with them may well do more harm than good, given the rate at which they’ve been spewing out their Wahhabi filth: More than any country in the world, they’ve been the financial force behind the radicalization of Islam.
Indeed.
One hopes.
Has anyone here suggested that?
By definition, one should not over-weight them. The American conservative tradition has generally held property rights and due process to be fundamental rights, though, unlike most of those included by the tranzi human rights crowd.
No, we’re talking about the voters. The right to vote is far more fundamental than the right to stand. While female voters often have pronounced differences on policy, there is, so far as I know, no comparable difference with female politicians. Again, the conservative tradition holds up representation in government as fundamental, but that is consistently discussed in terms of ideas rather than identity.
Sure. That’s what I meant by a below part Fourteenth Amendment. It’s not nothing, but it’s also not on the same scale even as Byelorussian problems.
I’d argue that Freedom House include it because they want to be considered bipartisan and they need to criticize governments that are allies of the US and that are not seen as left wing. I find it implausible that you really believe it fussy to see a difference between, say, Uzbekistan and North Korea, although it may be that my mother’s affection for Uzbekistan colors my views.
I think Saudi women have considerably more dignity than Venezuelan women. They have higher literacy rates and, in my admittedly limited experience with both legal cultures, less harassment from men. You can disparage the importance of property rights, but they are important to autonomy, and Saudi Arabia provides a basic level of protection from the state and from crime.
It’s true that Saudi women have to cover their faces in public. Personally, I’d prefer to have a police force that opposed even rapes by favored men over disfavored than have a choice of outfit for the day. I’m happy to accept that reasonable people feel far more strongly about burkas than I do.
I guess if you think that Saudi is absolutely evil, then, sure, differences between it and North Korea do disappear, but it seems hard to believe that you do think that. Rather, I suspect you mean that it is very bad indeed. I’m not sure what features of female disempowerment are sufficient to qualify. Was the America of the Founding Fathers, with even less female electoral role, a similar property disability, a lack of sexual harassment or domestic violence laws, and such similarly evil?
I think that you’re right that Moroccan women have it better, and that the index is regrettable. I don’t think that the successful healthcare is too separate from rights, though. It is, in part, the consequence of a government that respects property rights. Venezuela was, until relatively recently, also pretty wealthy.
Indeed, the index tries to get around this problem by using the ratio as well as the outcomes; Saudi is punished in the rankings for the positive outcomes for men.
Sure; hence my position that its terrible on the First Amendment freedoms. It doesn’t kill as many of its peaceful political opponents as the Venezelans do, though, and has exigent circumstances. Its bad, but, perhaps not Venezuela bad.
I was thinking of the Palmer raids as an example of the infringement of rights leading to an expansion of rights, although I guess Japanese internment might be a better comparison on the numbers.
Theological concerns aside (in Venezuela, I’d likely be merely schismatic, but in Saudi I’d almost certainly be an unbeliever) Saudi, in a heartbeat.
Sure; this is essentially what I was complaining about above when I talked about the way that American allies are routinely abused by these organizations, while those who work on the left are routinely elevated. Read their description of America’s flaws and you’ll be reminded that every flaw is a way in which the left is not treated well enough (not enough respect for left wing protesters) while government oppression of the Tea Party is overlooked; I think that the latter is fine, but I also think the US has a robust freedom to protest.
You can avoid investigating their rapes and human trafficking. Maduro’s war on women has a different form to Abdulaziz’s, but for all their Miss World victories, Venezuela is far from a comfortable place for most female Venezuelans to live.
I’d meant Sudan, rather than Syria. You’ve been clear how you feel about Assad.
Really? I’m mildly surprised that you oppose intervention on behalf of the Western backed government.
I guess you’re right; I was thinking in broader categorical terms, but drill down and there are Somali advantages. Do you think, given Rawl’s choice, you’d opt for Somalia or Saudi?
So long as we keep moving them toward the light, I don’t feel particularly troubled by it.
They used to be pretty terrible on this. They’re quite a lot better now; there are still Saudi citizens who cause trouble, and compromise means that, eg., Turkish politics still gets less helpful treatment than would be ideal, but they’re also fighting pretty hard on the other side. While AQ was the leading brand, Saudi imams were very much the problem. Today the torch has passed to ISIS, whose theological impetus seems to have been shaped more by Saddam than by any living ruler, and the Saudis are consequently becoming a less nuanced ally from that perspective.
You cite Freedom House, which does, I believe, give Maduro a lot of slack for basically those reasons.