Friday 27 August 2010
Christopher Hitchins: A Test of Tolerance
Two weeks ago, I wrote that the arguments against the construction of the Cordoba Initiative center in lower Manhattan were so stupid and demagogic as to be beneath notice. Things have only gone further south since then, with Newt Gingrich's comparison to a Nazi sign outside the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum or (take your pick from the grab bag of hysteria) a Japanese cultural center at Pearl Harbor. The first of those pseudo-analogies is wrong in every possible way, in that the Holocaust museum already contains one of the most coolly comprehensive guides to the theory and practice of the Nazi regime in existence, including special exhibits on race theory and party ideology and objective studies of the conditions that brought the party to power. As for the second, there has long been a significant Japanese-American population in Hawaii, and I can't see any reason why it should not place a cultural center anywhere on the islands that it chooses.
From the beginning, though, I pointed out that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf was no great bargain and that his Cordoba Initiative was full of euphemisms about Islamic jihad and Islamic theocracy. I mentioned his sinister belief that the United States was partially responsible for the assault on the World Trade Center and his refusal to take a position on the racist Hamas dictatorship in Gaza. The more one reads through his statements, the more alarming it gets. For example, here is Rauf's editorial on the upheaval that followed the brutal hijacking of the Iranian elections in 2009. Regarding President Obama, he advised that:
He should say his administration respects many of the guiding principles of the 1979 revolution—to establish a government that expresses the will of the people; a just government, based on the idea of Vilayet-i-faquih, that establishes the rule of law.
Coyly untranslated here (perhaps for "outreach" purposes), Vilayet-i-faquih is the special term promulgated by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to describe the idea that all of Iranian society is under the permanent stewardship (sometimes rendered as guardianship) of the mullahs. Under this dispensation, "the will of the people" is a meaningless expression, because "the people" are the wards and children of the clergy. It is the justification for a clerical supreme leader, whose rule is impervious to elections and who can pick and choose the candidates and, if it comes to that, the results. It is extremely controversial within Shiite Islam. (Grand Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq, for example, does not endorse it.) As for those numerous Iranians who are not Shiites, it reminds them yet again that they are not considered to be real citizens of the Islamic Republic.
I do not find myself reassured by the fact that Imam Rauf publicly endorses the most extreme and repressive version of Muslim theocracy. The letterhead of the statement, incidentally, describes him as the Cordoba Initiative's "Founder and Visionary." Why does that not delight me, either?
Emboldened by the crass nature of the opposition to the center, its defenders have started to talk as if it represented no problem at all and as if the question were solely one of religious tolerance. It would be nice if this were true. But tolerance is one of the first and most awkward questions raised by any examination of Islamism. We are wrong to talk as if the only subject was that of terrorism. As Western Europe has already found to its cost, local Muslim leaders have a habit, once they feel strong enough, of making demands of the most intolerant kind. Sometimes it will be calls for censorship of anything "offensive" to Islam. Sometimes it will be demands for sexual segregation in schools and swimming pools. The script is becoming a very familiar one. And those who make such demands are of course usually quite careful to avoid any association with violence. They merely hint that, if their demands are not taken seriously, there just might be a teeny smidgeon of violence from some other unnamed quarter …
As for the gorgeous mosaic of religious pluralism, it's easy enough to find mosque Web sites and DVDs that peddle the most disgusting attacks on Jews, Hindus, Christians, unbelievers, and other Muslims—to say nothing of insane diatribes about women and homosexuals. This is why the fake term Islamophobia is so dangerous: It insinuates that any reservations about Islam must ipso facto be "phobic." A phobia is an irrational fear or dislike. Islamic preaching very often manifests precisely this feature, which is why suspicion of it is by no means irrational.
From my window, I can see the beautiful minaret of the Washington, D.C., mosque on Massachusetts Avenue. It is situated at the heart of the capital city's diplomatic quarter, and it is where President Bush went immediately after 9/11 to make his gesture toward the "religion of peace." A short while ago, the wife of a new ambassador told me that she had been taking her dog for a walk when a bearded man accosted her and brusquely warned her not to take the animal so close to the sacred precincts. Muslim cabdrivers in other American cities have already refused to take passengers with "unclean" canines.
Another feature of my local mosque that I don't entirely like is the display of flags outside, purportedly showing all those nations that are already Muslim. Some of these flags are of countries like Malaysia, where Islam barely has a majority, or of Turkey, which still has a secular constitution. At the United Nations, the voting bloc of the Organization of the Islamic Conference nations is already proposing a resolution that would circumscribe any criticism of religion in general and of Islam in particular. So, before he is used by our State Department on any more goodwill missions overseas, I would like to see Imam Rauf asked a few searching questions about his support for clerical dictatorship in, just for now, Iran. Let us by all means make the "Ground Zero" debate a test of tolerance. But this will be a one-way street unless it is to be a test of Muslim tolerance as well.
Fixing A Hole In The Head
Film Review
I have to make a confession. I have a soft posterior fontanelle. When I press on that spot, my head indents noticeably — enough that you can actually see it. Furthermore, I frequently feel a sort of need to do this. And when I do it, it seems to help me feel less sleepyheaded and more focussed. If I'm feeling a bit woozy, it helps me feel less so. And, indeed, sometimes I feel as though I'd like to drill right into it — as though there is some sort of psychic G spot hungering to be stimulated and satisfied. Naturally, I've been intrigued by trepanning — the practice of intentionally drilling small holes in the skull.
Of course, trepanners don't necessarily aim for the fontanelle, although the spot is name-checked in A Hole in the Head, this wonderfully amusing award-winning 55 minute documentary on the topic. Indeed, since many of the contemporary enthusiasts for the practice do this DIY... while looking at themselves in the mirror (sort of like shaving!) — the front of the head seems to be favored.
In fact, a couple of minutes into A Hole in the Head, we are confronted with a clip from a 1970 film — Heartbeat in the Brain — that was made showing Amanda Feilding's self-trepanation. Feilding — the attractive English doyenne of contemporary trepanning and a leading figure in British '70s psychedelia — freshly trepanned, stares into a mirror, her face patched and speckled with blood, looking as happy and satisfied as Sooky Stackhouse after a long night with Bill Compton and Eric Northman. As she wipes blood from her teeth, there's the faint hint of a smile.
Fans of grisly medical shows will definitely find satisfaction in this film. The most disturbing scene, which is also toward the beginning of the film and runs for several minutes, shows an African woman's fully exposed brain matter being drilled by a witch doctor.
But shock is not the point here — or at least it's not the entire point. The film is also informative. Toward the beginning, A Hole in the Head examines the history of trepanning — including the archeological evidence for the existence of the practice in various "primitive" cultures, as well as at various points in European culture where it was variously used as a "cure" for physiological problems and for "letting the demons out" for patients suffering from mental problems.
The film primarily focuses on the contemporary trend for self-trepanation, which seems to be centered largely in Great Britain among psychedelic types. There is even a quote from Paul McCartney from a 1986 interview in Musician in which he talks about how John Lennon seriously considered fixing (to get) a hole in his head and asked McCartney to join him. The ever wily McCartney replied: "You go first" (or words to that effect.)
The operant theory here is that the process increases "blood brain volume," leaving the trepanned person smarter, happier and a little bit high... permanently. Testimonies from the people with the holes in their head are balanced out by interviews with skeptical neuroscientists, who pretty much all agree that the claims made by the advocates are absurd. (One younger neuroscientist believes that it's vaguely possible that their could be some slight enhancement from increased blood flow, but that it needs to be tested, scientifically.) The believers sound happy; the skeptics sound amused (and sane), and many who watch this documentary will likely be all of the above.
As for myself, despite my soft fontanelle, I will put my faith, for now, in the neuroscientists and not take a drill to my skull.
R.U. Sirius @'h+'
Australian of Year Patrick McGorry calls for a republic
Australian of the Year Patrick McGorry has criticised Australians for failing to seriously address the issue of a republic.
He likened the country to a 27-year-old who just won't leave home -- "a Gen Y nation".
Delivering the annual National Republican Lecture in Canberra last night, Professor McGorry said Australia needed to "emerge from its prolonged adolescence" and become a republic sooner rather than later.
Professor McGorry, who was chosen as Australian of the Year for his 25 years of service to youth mental health, said he saw parallels between his work with young people and Australia's path to full nationhood.
"Australia's adolescence has lasted more than 100 years since Federation," he said.
On the election campaign trail in north Queensland last week, Julia Gillard said she wanted Australia to become a republic when the Queen, now 84, no longer reigned, and said she planned to lead a national debate on the form the republic should take if she were re-elected prime minister.
"I would think the appropriate time for this nation to move to being a republic is when we see the monarch change," Ms Gillard said.
Asked yesterday if she would consider a referendum on a republic before the Queen died if there were a big enough public push for change, Ms Gillard responded that the issue was "not a priority".
"The Prime Minister supports a republic for Australia but it is not a priority at this time," Ms Gillard's spokesman said.
Tony Abbott, who was at the centre of the pro-monarchist cause in the 1999 referendum that rejected the notion of change, said last week he was certain Australia would never abandon the monarchy in his lifetime.
His spokeswoman said yesterday: "I've got nothing to add to his answer of last week."
But other prominent Australians, including Wayne Goss, Greg Barns and Mungo MacCallum, expressed their strong support for Professor McGorry's Republican appeal.
"While we have come far, we need to finish the journey by showing the world -- and, more importantly, ourselves -- that we proudly and independently stand on our own two feet," former Queensland premier Wayne Goss said.
But David Flint, national convener of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, said comparing Australia to an adolescent was "curious".
"We are one of the world's oldest and stable democracies, we have a Constitution which has been successful," Professor Flint said yesterday.
"Nations aren't individuals on a psychologist's couch . . . nations exist on sound institutions, and it would be foolish to change those institutions purely on the basis of a flippant psychologist's analogy."
Lanai Vasek @'The Australian'
The Power and Money behind the Tea Party
Make no mistake. The Tea Party and other right wing groups like it are not grassroots movements. They are well funded and their agenda is to keep corporations' profits high, put right wingers in power and, at the moment, unseat President Obama. Key among the corporate funders are the billionaire Koch brothers. It's basically corporate electioneering as bribery that is funding a war against Obama. The Kochs have long depended on the public’s not knowing all the details about them. They have been content to operate what David Koch has called “the largest company that you’ve never heard of.” But with the growing prominence of the Tea Party, and with increased awareness of the Kochs’ ties to the movement, the brothers may find it harder to deflect scrutiny.
@'The New Yorker'Koch Industries Reply
Thursday 26 August 2010
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