Forgetting the Girl
January 26, 2007 10:41 AM
From the online Euromag signandsight.com, a very important essay from the great French philosopher and social analyst Pascal Bruckner, responding to Europe's shameful ostracism of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. He loses me a bit in suggesting a parallelism between the outlook of Bush and Blair, on the one hand, and the perspectives of Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash - two writers taken to task in the piece for enforcing intellectual segregation in the name of "multiculturalism." (The better criticism of Bush, at least, is precisely the opposite - i.e. that he believes some Western values are self-evidently universal, or ought to be.) But Bruckner knows his Europe, and is spot-on here:
Anyone with a mind to contend timidly that liberty is indivisible, that the life of a human being has the same value everywhere, that amputating a thief's hand or stoning an adulteress is intolerable everywhere, is duly arraigned in the name of the necessary equality of cultures. As a result, we can turn a blind eye to how others live and suffer once they've been parked in the ghetto of their particularity. Enthusing about their inviolable differentness alleviates us from having to worry about their condition. However it is one thing to recognise the convictions and rites of fellow citizens of different origins, and another to give one's blessing to hostile insular communities that throw up ramparts between themselves and the rest of society. How can we bless this difference if it excludes humanity instead of welcoming it? This is the paradox of multiculturalism: it accords the same treatment to all communities, but not to the people who form them, denying them the freedom to liberate themselves from their own traditions. Instead: recognition of the group, oppression of the individual. The past is valued over the wills of those who wish to leave custom and the family behind and - for example - love in the manner they see fit. ...Out of consideration for all the abuses they may have suffered, ethnic, sexual, religious and regional minorities are often set up as small nations, in which the most outrageous chauvinism is passed off as nothing more than the expression of legitimate self-esteem. Instead of celebrating freedom as the power to escape determinism, the repetition of the past is being encouraged, reinforcing the power of collective coercion over private individuals. Marginal groups now form a sort of ethos-police, a flag-waving micro-nationalism which certain countries of Europe unfortunately see fit to publicly support. Under the guise of celebrating diversity, veritable ethnic or confessional prisons are established, where one group of citizens is denied the advantages accorded to others. ...
The Enlightenment belongs to the entire human race, not just to a few privileged individuals in Europe or North America who have taken it upon themselves to kick it to bits like spoiled brats, to prevent others from having a go. Anglo-Saxon multiculturalism is perhaps nothing other than a legal apartheid, accompanied - as is so often the case - by the saccarine cajolery of the rich who explain to the poor that money doesn't guarantee happiness. We bear the burdens of liberty, of self-invention, of sexual equality; you have the joys of archaism, of abuse as ancestral custom, of sacred prescriptions, forced marriage, the headscarf and polygamy. The members of these minorities are put under a preservation order, protected from the fanaticism of the Enlightenment and the "calamities" of progress. Those termed "Muslims" (North Africans, Pakistanis, Africans) are prohibited from not believing, or from believing periodically, from not giving a damn about God, from creating a life for themselves far away from the Koran and the rites of the tribe.
Multiculturalism is a racism of the anti-racists: it chains people to their roots. Thus Job Cohen, mayor of Amsterdam and one of the mainstays of the Dutch state, demands that one accept "the conscious discrimination of women by certain groups of orthodox Muslims" on the basis that we need a "new glue" to "hold society together." In the name of social cohesion, we are invited to give our roaring applause for the intolerance that these groups show for our laws. The coexistence of hermetic little societies is cherished, each of which follows a different norm. If we abandon a collective criterion for discriminating between just and unjust, we sabotage the very idea of national community. A French, British or Dutch citizen will be prosecuted for beating his wife, for example. But should the crime go unpunished if it turns out that the perpetrator is a Sunni or Shiite? Should his faith give him the right to transgress the law of the land? This is the glorification in others of what we have always beaten ourselves up about: outrageous protectionism, cultural narcissism and inveterate ethnocentrism!
Read the whole thing, as they say.
[ht: aldaily.com]
Link · Europe | Journalism | Modern Islam
Day Zero for NATO
January 15, 2007 04:18 AM
Various pro-Russia forces here in Ukraine are hoping to compel a referendum on NATO membership this year, on the assumption that voters will overwhelmingly reject entry. They've already got the signatures they need to put the issue on the ballot. Luckily for president Viktor Yushchenko and others who support entry, the decision on scheduling the vote may rest in the hands of a government body that no longer exists.
Another expert quoted by Segodnya ["Today"], former parliament deputy speaker Viktor Musiyaka, pointed to a discrepancy between the constitution and the 1991 law on referenda, which obliges parliament’s presidium -- a body scrapped more than a decade ago -- rather than the president to set the date for a referendum.
The way the politics are moving here, that presidium could be back sooner than anyone expects.
First, We Came For Beckham....
January 12, 2007 11:10 AM
The next era in global American hegemony kicks off with the acquisition of the Beckham entity at $1 million a week. Hey, do you want to win or just survive?
Meanwhile, U.S. soccer continued its shockingly brutal colonization of Fulham FC in the English premiership, with MLS shipping Clint Dempsey to the club this week. If not for the club's failure to reach terms on a transfer with defender Oguchi Onyewu, Brits would be facing the prospect of a four-Yank starting lineup in their top division - and Americans, no doubt, would be facing the specter of Brit Sissies begging the International Court of Justice for relief.
Elsewhere, Portuguese star Luis Figo says his decision to accept a transfer to Saudi club Al-Ittihad was not about the money. He just likes Sharia law, maybe.
UPDATE: Eat our dust!
Bono to Canada
January 4, 2007 09:35 AM
The Third World encroaches further.
Canada police find head of stolen Ukraine statueBy Cameron French Wed Jan 3
TORONTO (Reuters) - The desire to cash in on soaring copper prices is being blamed for the theft of a bronze statue brought to Canada over 50 years ago to commemorate Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko.
Police recovered the head of the 3-meter (10-foot), two-tonne likeness this week at a metal recycling business just west of Toronto.
They are now hunting for the body, which is estimated to be worth somewhere close to C$20,000 ($17,000) in scrap metal, but has a far greater value to the 1 million strong Ukrainian diaspora in Canada. ...
"We do (see a lot of scrap metal theft)," said Halton Region police public affairs officer Peter Payne.
"But this is the first time in (the area) we've ever lost a valuable piece of metal artwork that's been reduced to scrap. It's pretty unfortunate."
Bronze is largely made up of copper alloys. Copper has approximately doubled in price over the past two years. On Wednesday the copper price in London was $5,855 a ton.
Earlier in December, a 250 kilogram (550 pound) copper statue of Greek mythological figure Atlas was stolen from in front of a metal fabricating company in north Toronto. The statue was later recovered and a man was charged.
Jesus, it's cold here in Kyiv. Confined more than usual to my apartment, I've been checking in with the journalists at the BBC. And I have an observation. If BBC producers would just instruct the reporters to end every field segment with the words, "But what does this mean for global warming?" they would be able to slip seamlessly into the next report - and maybe save a few quid on staffing the presenter desk. A modest proposal.
February 22, 2007 11:19 AM · 
A middle-aged Ukrainian woman told me last night about her experiences as a member of the Komsomol, the Communist Youth organization during the Soviet era. On Christmas and Easter, she and other members of the group were ordered to the local churches, where they were instructed to form two concentric rings around the buildings by locking arms. These rings were intended as a defense perimeter that would keep people from going to church on religious occasions. This peculiar Soviet abhorrence of religion is one reason that in Ukraine gifts are not exchanged on Christmas, but rather (last night) on New Year's Eve. In 2007, let's all of us, and especially us Americans, make a little more effort to keep in perspective our astonishing good fortune, and be grateful for what some sacrifice to preserve it. America may not be perfect, but it's the closest thing we've got.
January 1, 2007 06:51 AM ·
Kofi Annan has stepped down at the U.N. - at least a decade too late. I predict future historians will find it difficult to judge whether this ineffectual dupe was the puppet of genocidal regimes and autocrats or just their indispensable enabler. It is tough to fully enumerate the sins and consequences of this repugnant figure, but this WSJ editorial begins the grim task.
December 17, 2006 05:59 AM ·
