Keeping Mum
Illustration: Andrew Dyson
Here's a follow-up to the previous entry:
"The great silence by left-leaning Western feminists, and other large parts of the left, to human rights abuses carried out in the name of Islam is, to see it as its kindest, caused by an overdeveloped sense of tolerance or cultural relativism. But it is also part of the new anti-Americanism...Dislike of George Bush's foreign policy has led to an automatic support of those perceived to be his enemies. Paradoxically, this leaves the left defending people who hold beliefs that condone what the left has long fought against: misogyny, homophobia, capital punishment, suppression of freedom of speech. The recent reaffirmation by Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie has been met by virtual silence; as has the torture and murder in Iraq of a man who would be presumed to be one of the left's own—Hadi Salih, the international officer of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions. The hard left these days is soft on fascism or, at least, Islamofascism...
The problem with politely ignoring abuses of human rights because "it's their culture" is that it lets down the brave liberals and democrats and human rights defenders who are trying to change things that so badly need to change for the welfare of women and men in their own communities and in the world."
(via Watch)
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