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.

"Pro-life": Language of Patriarchy

As an enthusiastic reader of Salon.com, I often comment on articles and even participate in debates with other reader/commentors. In today’s issue, Glenn Greenwald compares Ron Paul’s “Pro-life” stance to that of Harry Reid and asks what hypocrisy makes Democrat supporters condemn one but tolerate the other http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/12/20/reid_paul/view/index8.html?show=all . That debate rages on and I will not go into it here.

My question, however, is one that has bothered me for many years, and neither Greenwald nor any other “liberal” or “leftist” or “Democrat” has ever addressed it, let alone answered it to my satisfaction: Why do we allow the right (and this is pretty much a religious right issue) to frame the debate by using their language? How are anti-choice supporters “pro-life”? Study after study, statistic after statistic, shows that when abortion is illegal, women die. How is that pro-life? The VAST majority of right-wingers who call themselves “pro-life” only apply the term to fetuses, but not to living, breathing conscious adults on death row; nor to victims of chronic disease who might be helped by stem-cell research; nor to victims of the war and violence that their government perpetrates on innocent civilians the world over.

This is what "pro-life"/anti-choice looks like.

The right-wing-coined “pro-life” is an emotionally-charged term designed by its very connotation to put the other side in the wrong—obviously, anyone who is not “pro-life” must be “anti-life”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Pro-choice IS pro-life—pro-quality of life; pro-healthy life; pro-safety and pre-natal care, disease-free, joy-provoking-having-a-child-because-we-WANT-to life. NO one is pro-abortion (except, I like to joke, retroactively, when certain politicians make ridiculous or dangerous decisions). As a long-standing member of the pro-choice community from a personal, political, and abortion-counselor perspective, I can state unequivocally that there are no people more aware of the gravity nor more personally touched by the issue of choice than those in that community.

My point here, however, is how language is used as an ideological whip, and how liberal (or mainstream, if you insist) analysts often seem unable to acknowledge this. Certainly Noam Chomsky’s work and the respect he receives in political theory circles can’t help but illustrate that language does, in fact, create culture. It’s no mistake that the most respected progressive political analyst in the world today is a linguist by profession. Chomsky’s ability to point out what is really meant by what is said is the key to understanding how the corporatocracy has achieved and maintained its power. Before Chomsky, there were Orwell, Woolf, Swift, even Jefferson and any number of wordsmiths who recognized and discussed at length the effect of manipulated language on the political reality and the public’s understanding of it. In order to function, members of a democratic state must have equal access to information—and the definitions of the terms used to produce that information must be agreed upon. Certain terminology must be universal. This issue is particularly pertinent in the immediate political climate, where the definition of “torture” is no longer one on which, apparently, consensus exists.

Any student of political theory who is not aware of how language—word choices, the subtle differences in connotation, the application of inappropriate terms so frequently that they become acceptable, even though the original meaning is completely distorted—is manipulated to achieve power needs to re-read Animal Farm: Some animals are more equal than others. Who can point out the inherent contradiction in that sentence? It’s similar to what an editor showed me not long ago—that something cannot be more unique. Either it’s unique or it’s not.

Same with equality. Either animals (even human animals) are equal, or they’re not. There are no gradations of equality. To say that some are more equal than others is, in the words of my Czech friend, “a nonsense”.

So the fact that Greenwald and many, many other political pundits from the left of center (itself a relative term when you compare even just western political ideologies, let alone those of other cultures)—and even some of them women—continue to use the term “pro-life” in the context originally coined by the religious right raises my hackles of suspicion. I define myself as a leftist because I believe that liberals are essentially reformers, and I don’t believe that reform is enough. I believe we need a revolution. It might not need to be violent, but we need to throw out the current system—particularly the values it espouses and forces on us—and develop a new one. It’s not enough to create a kinder, gentler neo-liberalism; that only results in, like the Victorian age, being nicer to the poor. We need to create a system that eliminates poverty, war, violence, oppression and unnecessary suffering. Not to mention one that allows the continued functioning of a healthy ecosystem here on planet Earth—a proposition that seems a no-brainer to me, but seems to be meeting with all kinds of resistance from those who have the most to lose!

Obviously, my view is that of a minority. I believe, like Arundhati Roy, that that minority is growing every day; that people, particularly in the “developing” world, are waking up to the fact that, between the oppressors and the oppressed, “we be many and they be few”. Greenwald and most widely read political pundits, however, would not define themselves as revolutionaries. And here is where my suspicions catch root: I am aware, as many are not, that to advocate a true equality of women is revolutionary. A society where women have equal access and equal power would (or does, in the few places it exists today) look very different from the society in which we live. To change the language would change the culture—and even the liberal left is still dominated by white males. Does Greenwald’s—and others’—choice to use this term, a cornerstone of patriarchy’s control over women, reveal that even “liberal” society is unwilling to challenge the dominant paradigm?