HERE'S a challenge for swimwear designers. Britain's advertising watchdog last week banned a series of television commercials featuring bikini-clad women because they were offensive to Muslims. Stand by for the burqini, a fetching one-piece ensemble made entirely of black hessian, measuring 2m in length and equipped with a small vent through which women can stick their snorkel.
Also in Britain, the Fox network has agreed to demands from the Muslim Council of Britain for talks over a BSkyB drama depicting middle class Muslims as members of a terrorist sleeper cell. Just where do television executives dream up such fantasy? Unless they were aiming for an accurate account of that September 11 hiccup, where middle class Muslims who were members of a terrorist sleeper cell murdered 3000 innocent people.
Again in Britain, a search and rescue service near the town of Preston had last week its funding slashed when authorities discovered it hadn't rescued enough ethnic minorities. It wasn't that the Bowland and Pennine Mountain Rescue Team had done nothing while minority folk lay stranded at the bottom of cliffs. In fact, it soon emerged there hadn't actually been any to rescue. But that's hardly the point.
And on Sunday, the Home Office confirmed it was considering a request, again from the Muslim Council of Britain, for this week's commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz to be made racially inclusive. Muslim leaders are threatening to boycott the event unless it acknowledges the holocaust of the Palestinian intifada.
In Britain, the cancer of political correctness seems all the more malignant, fuelled perhaps by the fabled determination of the Brits to be unfailingly polite. As a result, the country looks through Australian eyes like a multicultural worst-case scenario, where befuddled Poms tie themselves up in knots to address all sorts of ludicrous grievances and in doing so undermine the values which have made this country a beacon for democracy and free expression throughout the civilised world.
The above cases are almost comical. The biggest story of this past week involves a particularly nasty scumbag by the name of Omar Bakri Mohammed. His mere presence in Britain is offensive in itself, but his rabble-rousing conduct poses a very real (but unchallenged) threat to public safety. Bakris' case serves as a counterpoint to those who come over all weepy at the treatment of Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks, whose incarceration is held up as a shameful betrayal of Western liberal principles.
The Tottenham Ayatollah, as Bakri is known, was kicked out of Saudi Arabia in 1985 for being a member of an illegal organisation. Mystifyingly, the Brits rolled out the red carpet for a guy whose stated life aim is to see the Islamic crescent flag flying over 10 Downing Street. Not only did they let him in, the British taxpayers pay him, his wife and seven children some $750 a week in benefits, with Bakri also claiming an invalid pension of $125 a week, having injured his leg as a boy in Syria. He's even used the Koran to justify his status as a low bludger, saying that accepting welfare from Western governments was a way of weakening the infidel.
In return for this investment, the British people get regular outpourings of hate-filled bile. Bakri has called for the assassination of former prime minister John Major, praised the magnificent September 11 hijackers, and told rallies he can understand why young Muslim people would want to launch attacks in Britain. Last week, a powerful investigation by The Times established Bakri is now using an internet chatroom with some 80 British-based followers to go further. He called on young Muslims to become suicide bombers and declared Britain a Dar ul-Harb, the Arabic expression for State of War, explaining that non-Muslims had no sanctity for their own life or property. Police have subsequently launched an investigation but due to privacy considerations there has been no official public comment on an individual, as the authorities here refer to this fellow, not wanting to suggest he's actually done anything wrong.
Perversely, the terror laws which the British Government could use to act against Bakri and have used against Sheik Abu Hamzah, the almost fictitously evil radical cleric, who has two hooks for hands (which were blown off by a landmine) are under threat from, of all places, the judiciary. The courts, which represent the values which radical Islam wants to destroy, have ruled the new powers to detain terrorist suspects are unconstitutional and must be watered down.
What a crock. Bakri shows how the most accomplished fanatics can use Western liberal principles as a vehicle for their own brand of holy war, while we stand about agonising over the presumption of innocence, burden of proof, free association and unfettered public debate. The truth is that authorities will eventually spring into action to stop the likes of Bakri -- provided of course that he bombs something. Until then, it would be a betrayal of our liberal principles to do anything to a man who history may ultimately judge as a garrulous eccentric. What a lovely gamble to have to take.
Posted by: tipper ||
01/27/2005 10:05:40 AM ||
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#1
I adore Blair's articulate and muscular anti terror-nation policy, but it would be really, truly good for Britain if the Tories could get their heads out of wherever they left them, and mount a legitimate opposition.
We may be wrong. This is a possibility that Bush refuses to acknowledge. His denial appeals to a significant segment of the American public. An equally significant segment is appalled. This has left the US not only deeply divided, but also at loggerheads with much of the rest of the world, which considers our policies high-handed and arbitrary
President George W Bush's second inaugural address set forth an ambitious vision of the role of the United States in advancing the cause of freedom worldwide, fuelling worldwide speculation over the course of American foreign policy during the next four years. The ideas expressed in Bush's speech thus deserve serious consideration.
"It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture," Bush declared, "with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."
There is a bow to diplomacy in the assurance that fulfilling this mission "is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend our friends(still to be decided)> and ourselves by force of arms when necessary." Similarly, Bush recognises that outsiders cannot force liberty on people. Instead, "Freedom by its nature must be chosen and defended by citizens and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities."
Finally, there is acceptance of diversity, for "when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own. America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom and make their own way."
I agree with this goal, and have devoted the last fifteen years of my life and several billion dollars of my fortune to attaining it. Yet I find myself in sharp disagreement with the Bush administration. It is not only that there is a large gap between official words and deeds; I find that the words sometimes directly contradict the deeds in a kind of Orwellian doublespeak.
When Bush declared war on terror, he used that war to invade Iraq. When no connection with Al Qaeda could be established and no weapons of mass destruction could be found, he declared that we invaded Iraq to introduce democracy. Now the elections in Iraq are about to be converted into a civil war between a Shia-Kurd dominated government and a Sunni insurrection.
In Iraq and beyond, when Bush says that "freedom will prevail," many interpret him to mean that America will prevail. This has impugned America's motives and deprived the US of whatever moral authority the country once had to intervene in other countries' domestic affairs. If, for example, America offers support to Iranian students who are genuinely striving for greater freedom, they are now more likely to be endangered by US support, as the regime's hardliners are strengthened.
To explain what is wrong with the new Bush doctrine, I have to invoke the concept of open society. That is the concept that guides me in my efforts to foster freedom around the world. The work has been carried out through foundations operating on the ground and led by citizens who understand the limits of the possible in their countries. Occasionally, when a repressive regime expels our foundation — as happened in Belarus and Uzbekistan — we operate from the outside.
Paradoxically, the most successful open society in the world, the US, does not properly understand the first principles of an open society; indeed, its current leadership actively disavows them. The concept of open society is based on the recognition that nobody possesses the ultimate truth. To claim otherwise leads to repression. In short, we may be wrong.
That is precisely the possibility that Bush refuses to acknowledge, and his denial appeals to a significant segment of the American public. An equally significant segment is appalled. This has left the US not only deeply divided, but also at loggerheads with much of the rest of the world, which considers our policies high-handed and arbitrary.
President Bush regards his re-election as an endorsement of his policies, and feels reinforced in his distorted view of the world. The "accountability moment" has passed, he claims, and he is ready to confront tyranny throughout the world according to his own lights.
But the critical process that is at the core of an open society — which the US abandoned for eighteen months after September 11, 2001 — cannot be forsaken. That absence of self-criticism is what led America into the Iraq quagmire.
A better understanding of the concept of open society requires that promoting freedom and democracy and promoting American values and interests be distinguished. If it is freedom and democracy that are wanted, they can be fostered only by strengthening international law and international institutions.
Bush is right to assert that repressive regimes can no longer hide behind a cloak of sovereignty: what goes on inside tyrannies and failed states is of vital interest to the rest of the world. But intervention in other states' internal affairs must be legitimate. This requires clearly established rules.
As the dominant power in the world, America has a unique responsibility to provide leadership in international cooperation. America cannot do whatever it wants, as the Iraqi debacle has demonstrated; but, at the same time, nothing much can be achieved in the way of international cooperation without US leadership, or at least active participation. Only by taking these lessons to heart can progress be made towards the lofty goals that Bush announced. —
#2
I suggest Soros goes back and rereads Karl Popper on the concept of an Open Society. In summary, in an Open Society the best approximate of the truth will emerge, notwithstanding the views of any individual or group of individuals. It has nothing to do with international law and nothing to do with the motivations of individuals and nothing to do with any individual's notion of what consitutes 'progress'.
The most recent doom-and-gloom forecast by Matthew Parris of the London Times would be hilarious if it were not so hackneyed. After all, Americans long ago have learned to grin any time a British intellectual talks about the upstart's foreordained imperial collapse. And as in the case of our own intelligentsia's gloominess, it is not hard to distinguish the usual prophets' pessimistic prognostications from their thinly-disguised hopes for American decline and fall.
But this country is now in its third century and assurances that the United States is about through are getting old. In the early 20th century the rage was first Spengler and then Toynbee who warned us that our crass consumer capitalism would lead to inevitable spiritual decay. Next, the Hitlerians assured the Volk that the mongrel Americans could never set foot on German-occupied soil, so decadent were these Chicago mobsters and uncouth cowboys. Existentialism and pity for the empty man in the gray flannel suit were the rage of the 1950s, as Americans, we were told, had become depressed and given up in the face of racial inequality, rapid suburbanization, and the spread of world-wide national liberationist movements.
In the 1960s and 1970s we heard of the population bomb and all sorts of catastrophes in store for the United States and the world in general that had unwisely followed its profligate paradigm of consumption; yet despite Paul Ehrlich's strident doomsday scenario, the environment got cleaner and the people of the globe richer. And then came the historian Paul Kennedy, who, citing earlier Spanish and English implosions, "proved" that the United States had played itself out in the Cold War, ruining its economy to match the Soviet Union in a hopeless arms race—publishing his findings shortly before the Russian empire collapsed and the American economy took off (again).
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: tipper ||
01/27/2005 10:43:52 AM ||
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Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/27/2005 11:39 Comments ||
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#3
Honestly, I think we are just beginning our real ascent. If there is a parallel to us in world history it would be the Romans for their power, reach, effeciency, discipline and the Pax Romana. But unlike most predictions the parallel is not with Rome's decline but with the beginning of its ascendence.
It remains to be seen if we the heirs of Rome can maintain our ascendency for as long as they did (1000 yrs) but if they could do it, why couldn't we? It also remains to be seen whether it is possible for us to learn from what happened to Rome or if its even possible for humans to avoid it. How long will we be able to hold onto power justly? How long will we be able to stay a healthy civilization? Will we be able to step down graciously at some point without resorting to brutal repression in some futile attempt to contain new upstart forces in the world?
I think the answers to these questions will be a long time in coming because we're actually just getting started. I predict that the answers will be positive ones because we have already avoided so many of the problems that eventually brought Rome down. Imperialism is one. Its hard to think of a powerful people more averse to the idea of empire than Americans who still somehow keenly remember how much we disliked it when it was us. Americans dont want to be anywhere else than right here. We dont want our soldiers anywhere else than right here protecting our borders. I dont think many people understand the depth of our feelings about this nor how deep is our reluctance to send our soldiers away to foriegn lands.
As long as that never changes we'll stay in good shape.
#5
The fact that the American people voted the Democrats out of power is indicative of a nation on the ascendancy instead of in decline. Perhaps the intellectuals identify so thoroughly with the Democrats, that they have mentally transferred the malaise and innui following the implosion of the Democrats to the country as a whole. As usual, they have tried to extrapolate from a single point.
NYT - Reg Req'd, so I'm posting the whole piece....
Having spent the last 10 days traveling to Britain, France, Germany and Switzerland, I have one small suggestion for President Bush. I suggest that when he comes to Europe to mend fences next month he give only one speech. It should be at his first stop in Brussels and it should consist of basically three words: "Read my ears." Ho-ho, Tom, you kidder!
Let me put this as bluntly as I can: There is nothing that the Europeans want to hear from George Bush, there is nothing that they will listen to from George Bush that will change their minds about him or the Iraq war or U.S. foreign policy. Mr. Bush is more widely and deeply disliked in Europe than any U.S. president in history. Some people here must have a good thing to say about him, but I haven't met them yet. because you have a revolving circle of like-minded anti-American friends, loser. Talk about not listening to dissent
In such an environment, the only thing that Mr. Bush could do to change people's minds about him would be to travel across Europe and not say a single word - but just listen like St. Hillary. If he did that, Mr. Bush would bowl the Europeans over. He would absolutely disarm and flummox people here - and improve his own image markedly. All it would take for him would be just a few words: "Read my ears. I have come to Europe to listen, not to speak. I will give my Europe speech when I come home - after I've heard what you have to say." "I'm a simple-minded chimp and will do whatever you say"
If Mr. Bush did that none of the European pundits would be able to pick apart his speeches here and mock the contradictions between his words and deeds. None of them would comment on his delivery and what he failed to mention. Instead, all the European commentators, politicians and demonstrators would start fighting with one another over what to say to the president. It might even force the Europeans to get out of their bad habit of just saying, "George Bush," and everybody laughing or sneering as if that ends the conversation, and Europe doesn't have to declare what it stands for. rrriiiggghhhtt
Listening is also a sign of respect. It is a sign that you actually value what the other person might have to say. If you just listen to someone first, it is amazing how much they will listen to you back. Most Europeans, though, are convinced that George Bush is deaf - that he cannot listen or hear. Just proving that he is not deaf, and therefore the Europeans don't have to shout, would do wonders for Mr. Bush's standing.
What would Mr. Bush hear? Some of it is classic Eurowhining, easily dismissible. But some of it is very heartfelt, even touching. I heard it while doing interviews at the Pony Club oooooohh! , a trendy bar/beauty parlor in East Berlin. And more and more I think it explains why many Europeans dislike Mr. Bush so intensely. It's this: Europeans love to make fun of naïve American optimism, but deep down, they envy it and they want America to be that open, foreigner-embracing, carefree, goofily enthusiastic place that cynical old Europe can never be. Many young Europeans blame Mr. Bush for making America, since 9/11, into a strange new land that exports fear more than hope, and has become dark and brooding - a place whose greeting to visitors has gone from "Give me your tired, your poor" to "Give me your fingerprints." They look at Mr. Bush as someone who stole something precious from them. "Give us your money! Protect us in war while we snap at your back and undermine your security"
Tim Kreutzfeldt, the bar owner, said to me: "Bush took away our America. I mean we love America. We are very sad about America. We believe in America and American values, but not in Bush. And it makes us angry that he distorted our image of the country which is so important to us. It is not what America stands for - and this makes us angry and it should make every American angry, because America lost so much in its reputation worldwide." The Bush team, he added, is giving everyone in the world the impression that "somebody is coming to kill you."
Stefan Elfenbein, a food critic nursing a beer at our table, added: "I know many people who don't want to travel to America anymore. ... People are afraid to be hassled at the border. ... We all discuss it, when somebody goes to America [we now ask:] 'Are you sure?' We had hope that Kerry would win and would make a statement, 'America is back to what it was four years ago.' We hoped that he would be the symbol, the figure who would say, '[America] is the country that welcomes everybody again.' [But] now we have to wait four more years, hopefully for somebody to give us back the country we knew and liked."
Yes, yes, there are legitimate counters to all these points. But before anyone here will listen to Mr. Bush make those counterpoints, he will have to really listen to them first.
I'm gonna puke. This passes for intellectual opinion in the Old Gray Dowager
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 11:02:19 AM ||
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#3
Shoulda gone to Israel, Japan, Australia and India. There's still time to cancel without having to pay penalties.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
01/27/2005 11:27 Comments ||
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#4
How very anti-liberal. Didn't they always used to complain when they would speak and nobody would listen to them? They *never* assumed it was their fault, because they believed in their ideas. But now, when Bush speaks, clearly a man of belief, *and* a man who turns his beliefs into reality with considerable success, the liberals put their fingers in their ears and go "LaLaLaLaLaLa! I can't hear you!" In that way, they sound just like their anti-segregationist forbears sounded. Ironically, now, the left (and Europe) is so empty of new ideas, so decadent in their philosophy, and so exhausted in their ideals, that they have nothing new to contribute. So they demand that others listen to them as they walk around with their fingers in their ears, going "LaLaLaLaLaLa!", as if that could ever change anything. Burning with jealosy and rage, like a small boy whose sister is giving a violin recital to the grown-ups to some acclaim, they hide under the table, red-faced, crying and cursing, "Stop that! #*$*%@^&*!"
#5
Stay home and save the airfare. Tell the whiners it's Bush contribution to stop global warming.
Posted by: ed ||
01/27/2005 11:41 Comments ||
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#6
The author is missing something obvious. These people are victims of the European media which is one constant drum beat of anti-Americanism. It's is couched in the language of anti-Bush spin but it is actually anti-Americanism. The 68ers as they are called dominate the press in Europe. Their hate for the the United States palpable and they control the media and much of many European governments. The United States of America is the cause of all wrong and misery is their meme. The author is on of them too so he misses this. He can't see this for what it is. George Bush the centrist is portrayed as a extreme right winger by European media. ( For God sakes he is a practicing Methodist a very liberal denomination.) Europe needs to hate the United States of America because the EU is a failure. Their economies are moribund. Their birth rates are not sustaining their culture. Europe is dying. They have decided to focus on the United Stats of America instead of themselves and fixing the serious problems they have.
#7
We had hope that Kerry would win and would make a statement, âAmerica is back to what it was four years ago.â
-which is why he lost. There's no going back to before 9/11. Wake up assholes.
I liked how this guy went to a trendy bar/beauty salon to canvas the "average" euro's opinion - tool.
As far as W going there and not speaking, I'm actually cool w/that tactic. Heck, I don't think our Prez should have to say anything to most of these folks. Let them put their $.02 in if it floats their boat, W should just say "thanks for your input" and do what needs to be done anyhow.
#8
âAmerica is back to what it was four years ago.â
Which is where their party stands. In the dicitionary that is REGRESSIVE. Of course in their own 1984 manner, they call themselves PROGRESSIVE.
#9
I spent most life in the U.S. and I could give a shit what Europe thinks about anything. If Tom likes the Euro stand so much he should pack up and move there. If he needs help packing I will be happy to oblige. Maybe we could trade him for TGA or Bulldog?
#10
Well, we know where Tom is spending his expense account money -- in trendy bars. If had interviewed a Soho bar owner and a NY food critic, he would have gotten the exact same response.
Years ago, I respected Freidman for the work he did in Beruit. But now, he has sunk to the level of AFP and AP. Couldn't he get off his fat ass ans interview some folks who aren't part of the chattering classes? How about some factory workers? Or a family living on the edge of a Turkish neighborhood?
Freidman just used up the last of his attaboy credits with me. From now on it's all ah shits.
#11
Do an anonymous survey in Iran and you'll find quite a bit of support for George, especially amoung the under 30's which make up 60% of the popluation. Freedom is ony taken for granted when you have it. Unfortunately, Europe hasn't had to fight for it in 60 years. PS guys you wouldn't have it if we didn't fight for you. You can thank my grandfathers and great uncles at the same time you kiss my ass.
#15
Europeans love to make fun of naïve American optimism, but deep down, they envy it and they want America to be that open, foreigner-embracing, carefree, goofily enthusiastic place that cynical old Europe can never be
It's really astonishing to think that the above slop is put forward as a breakthrough insight by the NY Times' preeminent analyst of foreign affairs. It's bad enough that he tries to buttress this claim by boasting that he's spent a full ten days (!) hitting the bar/beauty shops of Europe-- no hard analysis of changes in popular opinion; no analysis of what people read, view, think; no effort to examine the effect of an even more biased and ludicrously slanted 1968er-dominated media upon popular views-- but this caricature of a stereotype doesn't even have any internal logic.
So Europeans hate the US now for hassling them at passport control at JFK? How many Europeans have endured this experience recently? A few thousand? How many patrons of Berlin's "Pony Club" have endured this? Two, three?
This is about as intelligent as arguing that Americans hate France because when they arrive at Charles de Gaulle they see black immigrants and patrols with automatic weapons and attack dogs instead of beautiful girls in short skirts and beret-clad intellectuals.
The divide is simple. We view this struggle as a war. Most Europeans think it's just another counter-terrorist police effort. They see no major difference between the islamofascists and Baader-Meinhoff or the Red Brigades and believe that Bush is imposing his own fundamentalist religious views (HISSSS!!! RELIGION--BAD!!) on the conflict, views which are in the Euros' eyes more reprehensible than Osama's views.
"Listen" my ass, Tommy Boy. We would have far more transatlantic understanding if our diplomats and traveling journos in Europe would insist, again and again, to anyone who will listen that this is war, it is a war against another version of fascism, and we will not make any excuses whatsoever for taking the fight to the fascists and defeating this scourge the only way it can be defeated: by trouncing it, with JDAMS and ballots both.
#17
There is nothing that the Europeans want to hear from George Bush, there is nothing that they will listen to from George Bush that will change their minds about him or the Iraq war or U.S. foreign policy. Mr. Bush is more widely and deeply disliked in Europe than any U.S. president in history.
#18
"I heard it while doing interviews at the Pony Club, a trendy bar/beauty parlor in East Berlin."
With that '70's porn mustache, I'd be careful about admitting to going to places like the Pony Club, Tommy Boy.
Also, Stefan Elfenbein (the Germans have food critics?) says "We had hope that Kerry would win and would make a statement, âAmerica is back to what it was four years ago.â"
I too wish America could go back four years. That way we could stop the 9/11 hijackers from murdering 6 people I knew, along with three thousand others. What a stupid Dieter! Sorry, TGA.
Posted by: Tibor ||
01/27/2005 18:23 Comments ||
Top||
#19
Sorry Tom - off by two. When Bush goes to Europe, he should say only two words - the second one is 'you'.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
HERE'S a challenge for swimwear designers. Britain's advertising watchdog last week banned a series of television commercials featuring bikini-clad women because they were offensive to Muslims. Stand by for the burqini, a fetching one-piece ensemble made entirely of black hessian, measuring 2m in length and equipped with a small vent through which women can stick their snorkel.
The most recent doom-and-gloom forecast by Matthew Parris of the London Times would be hilarious if it were not so hackneyed. After all, Americans long ago have learned to grin any time a British intellectual talks about the upstart's foreordained imperial collapse. And as in the case of our own intelligentsia's gloominess, it is not hard to distinguish the usual prophets' pessimistic prognostications from their thinly-disguised hopes for American decline and fall.
