Is the US really ready to elect a black man president? Or is this a "we'd rather have a black MAN than a white WOMAN? or is it rich white liberal guilt?I find it very hard to believe that this country is ready for a black president. Or rather—because I don’t think color (or gender) has much to do with a person’s ability to do the job—that this country is ready to VOTE IN a black president. Especially one as erudite and intellectual as Obama obviously is. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing, nothing at all against the young, idealistic, multicultural, inspiring man who has studied the mannerisms of his predecessors and made them his own; all through Thursday night’s speech I saw shadows of Martin and Malcolm, Tutu and Mandela, even Maya Angelou and Oprah, and yet he was never more his own man than when he gave that speech.
For the first time in many years I am shocked AND surprised—and even more amazing is that it is a PLEASANT shock. Unfortunately, years of cynicism make me question both the rationale and the legitimacy of the whole thing. If it’s true that the corporatocracy runs things, then it matters not one whit whether the candidate is black, green, purple; or for that matter, whether it is a he, she or it. All that matters is that the person is a tool of the corporatocracy; being so, anyone can win. Being not, no one can win. Barack Obama does not seem to be a tool—he has worked extraordinarily hard (and somewhat successfully) to come across as honest, sincere, trustworthy. His idealistic rhetoric truly does restore hope. Yet in this fractured society, can his message really pull a majority out to vote for him.
Sadly, also, we already see harbingers of attitudes to come if Obama gets the nomination—check this out, gleaned 3rd hand from Salon but important as a reminder http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/:
By sending forth Hussein Osama out of Iowa, Democrats have unwittingly weakened their general election prospects.
Hussein's exotic mixture of radical liberalism, Kwanzaa Socialism, antipathy towards the unborn, and weakness against his jihadi brethren will all come back to destroy him against almost any Republican opponent, even the snake-grope from Hope. . . .
As defenders of this great Republic, and of the pinnacle of Western civilization that it represents, we should all come together tonight and agree on a common strategy that will keep the White House from becoming a madrassa.
Most important for me, however, is that I have come around to the belief that only Hillary Clinton is our only hope. No offense to Obama, but I don't think he can do it. Even though I ADORE John and Elizabeth Edwards, I don't even think Edwards can do it. I think Hillary is the only one with the experience combined with the MEANNESS to do what has to be done—everything is going to fall apart either just before or just after Bush leaves and we need someone who doesn't give a SHIT what people think, who knows what has to be done and will do it.
It's not going to be a time for a new vision, it's going to be a time for pulling this country back from the edge of the chasm. I don’t want someone—especially someone I like and sympathise with—stuck in the middle of a vortex of absolute chaos with no idea where to go next. Gimme the woman with 8 years on the job and her husband—best two-for-one bargain this country’s ever going to get in national politics—and set them to it, because we’re going to need all that they can give us plus as many contributions from the rest of the field as we can get!
Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts
Monday, January 7, 2008
Friday, December 28, 2007
Benazir Bhutto: Face of the Goddess
I’m shocked and deeply saddened by Joan Walsh of Salon and other commentors’ focus on Bhutto’s death as purely a political and economic catalyst and how it will affect the US and world politics.
How about the loss of a WOMAN LEADER in a world increasingly polarized between the masculine and feminine? In the Reagan/Thatcher 80s, Bhutto was to me a shining example of how a woman could be both feminine and powerful, both compassionate and effective—and perhaps more importantly, how the people of a culture widely seen as much more sexist and restrictive to women could actually vote a woman into power. It was the beginning of my recognition of women and feminism throughout the world, not just in the US; of my understanding that feminism wasn’t just about middle-class US women being able to have abortions or go to professional universities or play sports or feel safe to walk home at night, but that it also encompassed the other 95% of the world, of which more than half was women. Women in societies where they could be forced to leap upon the funeral pyre of their husbands from forced marriages. Women who could be killed for simply loving—or looking at—the wrong man. Women whose very lives—not to mention their sexual fulfillment and ability to give birth safely—were threatened by female genital mutilation. And all the hundreds of thousands of women who would never be because of female infanticide in the two most populous countries.
Being from the US and having very little exposure to politics in the rest of the world, I was ignorant of the progressive Scandinavian societies where women achieved near equity during Second Wave feminism. I only remember seeing Corazon Aquino and Benazir Bhutto and other “Third World” women coming to power—being VOTED into power—and thinking, what’s WRONG with us? Even Thatcher, although I admired her abilities (but not her politics) was the Iron Lady, the Man with Tits, the Wombless Woman. There was nothing feminine about her.
But Bhutto, ah, Bhutto made leadership seem naturally graceful and feminine and full of compassion. I did not follow her career closely, know little of the circumstances surrounding her falls from power either time—I have no doubt that there were elements of corruption and power-mongering around her governments, as there are around every modern government. I also have no doubt that the same sorts of people who love to hate Hillary Rodham Clinton and Nancy Pelosi and Helen Clark and Arundhati Roy and Wangari Maathi and all the other strong, powerful women in the world today, also hated Benazir Bhutto and did all they could to bring her down in the eyes of the world and her people. The current epidemic of misogyny didn’t spring, fully formed, from the Bush administration or fanatical Islam—it has been quietly (and not so quietly, see Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell) fomenting ever since the beginning of the Second Wave. It certainly existed where Bhutto was popular.
Speaking of fanatical Islam, however, that was another thing that Bhutto did … for me. Here was a worldly, educated, powerful woman, an excellent speaker, obviously capable of drawing crowds of support (of men as well as women) who was a Muslim. Benazir Bhutto was the face of feminist Islam; she gave credence to the stories of Fatima and other powerful Muslim women—mother and wives and daughters of Mohammed who, like the women surrounding Jesus of Nazareth, were instrumental and absolutely essential in spreading the teachings of Islam. I also suspect that, like almost all women, no matter how important or powerful, they also performed many “feminine” tasks such as care-giving and nurturing and cooking and teaching and building community—in short, the tasks that hold the society together. Tasks that our political leaders should focus on more, rather than trying to force change by economic or political (or violent) means. Of course, I don’t mean to say that Benazir Bhutto spent her time baking bread or wiping the fevered brow of her children—although she very well may have; or that those things are more important than leading the pro-democracy movement and calling for the eradication of poverty in Pakistan. But are they really less important? And even though I never saw her do them and don’t know that she ever did them, there was something about her that gave the impression that great leadership could encompass all of those elements of femininity and compassion without losing any of its power.
After September 11 and the Bali bombing, I was living in Australia. Benazir Bhutto seemed to visit frequently, appearing on many forums and political discussion shows, trying to bridge the cultural gap between frightened, suspicious “white” Australians and angry, suspicious Muslim Australians. Despite incidences of violence and racial unrest that broke out in some of the inner cities (more a result of ghettoization and economic disparity, I believe, than actual religious radicalization) Australians seemed by and large to want to believe that the two cultures could live side by side, could intermingle and create a multi-cultural society. It’s a belief that has practical as well as ideological implications for Australia; after all, the island nation’s closest neighbour is the world’s largest Muslim nation: Indonesia. Although right-of-centre (and Bush “arse-licker” as dubbed by the former leader of the opposition) Prime Minister John Howard was able to wrangle two electoral victories out of fear and xenophobia, his adamant support for the “war on terror” and particularly its implications of a “war on Islam” made many Australian uncomfortable and, I hope, had more than a little to do with Howard’s recent humiliating loss.
I digress. I mention Bhutto’s visits to Australia as she seemed at the time one of the few people able to pour oil on those troubled waters of racial and religious tension. She seemed always, to me, the ultimate in feminine grace and power, with a beauty not simply of face and form, but of compassion and wisdom as well. In short, she embodied a contemporary image of the Goddess; in doing so, she gave me hope. Now, my only hope is that her decision to return to Pakistan for the movement, despite the risks she well knew she took, will achieve what she set out to achieve—a step along her home’s road to democracy, another stone in the path to peace.
How about the loss of a WOMAN LEADER in a world increasingly polarized between the masculine and feminine? In the Reagan/Thatcher 80s, Bhutto was to me a shining example of how a woman could be both feminine and powerful, both compassionate and effective—and perhaps more importantly, how the people of a culture widely seen as much more sexist and restrictive to women could actually vote a woman into power. It was the beginning of my recognition of women and feminism throughout the world, not just in the US; of my understanding that feminism wasn’t just about middle-class US women being able to have abortions or go to professional universities or play sports or feel safe to walk home at night, but that it also encompassed the other 95% of the world, of which more than half was women. Women in societies where they could be forced to leap upon the funeral pyre of their husbands from forced marriages. Women who could be killed for simply loving—or looking at—the wrong man. Women whose very lives—not to mention their sexual fulfillment and ability to give birth safely—were threatened by female genital mutilation. And all the hundreds of thousands of women who would never be because of female infanticide in the two most populous countries.
Being from the US and having very little exposure to politics in the rest of the world, I was ignorant of the progressive Scandinavian societies where women achieved near equity during Second Wave feminism. I only remember seeing Corazon Aquino and Benazir Bhutto and other “Third World” women coming to power—being VOTED into power—and thinking, what’s WRONG with us? Even Thatcher, although I admired her abilities (but not her politics) was the Iron Lady, the Man with Tits, the Wombless Woman. There was nothing feminine about her.
But Bhutto, ah, Bhutto made leadership seem naturally graceful and feminine and full of compassion. I did not follow her career closely, know little of the circumstances surrounding her falls from power either time—I have no doubt that there were elements of corruption and power-mongering around her governments, as there are around every modern government. I also have no doubt that the same sorts of people who love to hate Hillary Rodham Clinton and Nancy Pelosi and Helen Clark and Arundhati Roy and Wangari Maathi and all the other strong, powerful women in the world today, also hated Benazir Bhutto and did all they could to bring her down in the eyes of the world and her people. The current epidemic of misogyny didn’t spring, fully formed, from the Bush administration or fanatical Islam—it has been quietly (and not so quietly, see Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell) fomenting ever since the beginning of the Second Wave. It certainly existed where Bhutto was popular.
Speaking of fanatical Islam, however, that was another thing that Bhutto did … for me. Here was a worldly, educated, powerful woman, an excellent speaker, obviously capable of drawing crowds of support (of men as well as women) who was a Muslim. Benazir Bhutto was the face of feminist Islam; she gave credence to the stories of Fatima and other powerful Muslim women—mother and wives and daughters of Mohammed who, like the women surrounding Jesus of Nazareth, were instrumental and absolutely essential in spreading the teachings of Islam. I also suspect that, like almost all women, no matter how important or powerful, they also performed many “feminine” tasks such as care-giving and nurturing and cooking and teaching and building community—in short, the tasks that hold the society together. Tasks that our political leaders should focus on more, rather than trying to force change by economic or political (or violent) means. Of course, I don’t mean to say that Benazir Bhutto spent her time baking bread or wiping the fevered brow of her children—although she very well may have; or that those things are more important than leading the pro-democracy movement and calling for the eradication of poverty in Pakistan. But are they really less important? And even though I never saw her do them and don’t know that she ever did them, there was something about her that gave the impression that great leadership could encompass all of those elements of femininity and compassion without losing any of its power.
After September 11 and the Bali bombing, I was living in Australia. Benazir Bhutto seemed to visit frequently, appearing on many forums and political discussion shows, trying to bridge the cultural gap between frightened, suspicious “white” Australians and angry, suspicious Muslim Australians. Despite incidences of violence and racial unrest that broke out in some of the inner cities (more a result of ghettoization and economic disparity, I believe, than actual religious radicalization) Australians seemed by and large to want to believe that the two cultures could live side by side, could intermingle and create a multi-cultural society. It’s a belief that has practical as well as ideological implications for Australia; after all, the island nation’s closest neighbour is the world’s largest Muslim nation: Indonesia. Although right-of-centre (and Bush “arse-licker” as dubbed by the former leader of the opposition) Prime Minister John Howard was able to wrangle two electoral victories out of fear and xenophobia, his adamant support for the “war on terror” and particularly its implications of a “war on Islam” made many Australian uncomfortable and, I hope, had more than a little to do with Howard’s recent humiliating loss.
I digress. I mention Bhutto’s visits to Australia as she seemed at the time one of the few people able to pour oil on those troubled waters of racial and religious tension. She seemed always, to me, the ultimate in feminine grace and power, with a beauty not simply of face and form, but of compassion and wisdom as well. In short, she embodied a contemporary image of the Goddess; in doing so, she gave me hope. Now, my only hope is that her decision to return to Pakistan for the movement, despite the risks she well knew she took, will achieve what she set out to achieve—a step along her home’s road to democracy, another stone in the path to peace.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Mourning the Loss of Another Great Sister
Today Benazir Bhutto finally succumbed to the assassination that has been stalking her since her return to her native Pakistan. As the first woman leader of an Islamic state, Bhutto greatly impacted both the Muslim world and the world at large. She showed that it was possible to be graceful, feminine, beautiful and yet still be an effective (and clearly threatening to dictatorship and patriarchy) leader.
Her loss is a horrendous blow to the pro-democracy movement in Pakistan; and despite US mouthings of proper outrage and shock, her election and/or the ascendancy of her party to any level of power (whether leadership or opposition) would’ve impeded US control and influence in Pakistan. So, although I would seriously doubt the Bush administration had any sort of direct hand in her murder, I’m sure there are things they could’ve done to make sure she was better protected.
As she was not. In an interview http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/11/04/bhutto/index.html Bhutto reflected on the first assassination attempt in October, when she had just returned to Pakistan. She questioned the refusal to allow her to have tinted windows in her car, to protect her anonymity; possibly more disturbing, however, were her observations that the street lights were turned off, the length of time it took for the police to file her “complaint”, and the fervid rejection of CIA and/or Scotland Yard forensic assistance in investigating the attack.
Despite the authorities’ obvious indifference to her safety, President Bhutto did not leave her country. By remaining in Pakistan to shore up the pro-democracy movement and as inspiration to her supporters, she showed a fortitude and courage no longer often seen in Western politicians. Like Aung San Suu Kyi, she remained a present, visible figure to give hope to those whose hope may have waned in the recent crackdown.
And like Aung San Suu Kyi, Wangari Maathi, Arundhati Roy, Liberia's Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez, President: Michelle Bachelet, New Zealand’s Helen Clark, and the (small but growing) handful of women leaders around the world, Benazir Bhutto gave hope to women working for equality and justice.
As a radical leftist feminist, I find the concept of the headscarf (or burka or hajib) to reflect submission to a patriarchal religious tradition onerous. One of the great leaders of the 20th century, however—and great hero to me—Benazir Bhutto wore the scarf out of respect for the ancient tradition of her people.
She did so with an honor and grace—and a humility not often seen in any major world religious or other tradition today.
In honor of her, her belief in true, grassroots democracy, her commitment to peace, her people and the people of the world, I am honored and humbled to wear a headscarf today.
May Prime Minister Bhutto’s ideals live on.
Her loss is a horrendous blow to the pro-democracy movement in Pakistan; and despite US mouthings of proper outrage and shock, her election and/or the ascendancy of her party to any level of power (whether leadership or opposition) would’ve impeded US control and influence in Pakistan. So, although I would seriously doubt the Bush administration had any sort of direct hand in her murder, I’m sure there are things they could’ve done to make sure she was better protected.
As she was not. In an interview http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/11/04/bhutto/index.html Bhutto reflected on the first assassination attempt in October, when she had just returned to Pakistan. She questioned the refusal to allow her to have tinted windows in her car, to protect her anonymity; possibly more disturbing, however, were her observations that the street lights were turned off, the length of time it took for the police to file her “complaint”, and the fervid rejection of CIA and/or Scotland Yard forensic assistance in investigating the attack.
Despite the authorities’ obvious indifference to her safety, President Bhutto did not leave her country. By remaining in Pakistan to shore up the pro-democracy movement and as inspiration to her supporters, she showed a fortitude and courage no longer often seen in Western politicians. Like Aung San Suu Kyi, she remained a present, visible figure to give hope to those whose hope may have waned in the recent crackdown.
And like Aung San Suu Kyi, Wangari Maathi, Arundhati Roy, Liberia's Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez, President: Michelle Bachelet, New Zealand’s Helen Clark, and the (small but growing) handful of women leaders around the world, Benazir Bhutto gave hope to women working for equality and justice.
As a radical leftist feminist, I find the concept of the headscarf (or burka or hajib) to reflect submission to a patriarchal religious tradition onerous. One of the great leaders of the 20th century, however—and great hero to me—Benazir Bhutto wore the scarf out of respect for the ancient tradition of her people.
She did so with an honor and grace—and a humility not often seen in any major world religious or other tradition today.
In honor of her, her belief in true, grassroots democracy, her commitment to peace, her people and the people of the world, I am honored and humbled to wear a headscarf today.
May Prime Minister Bhutto’s ideals live on.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)