The "disappearance" of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford this week shows the failure of the long-running GOP experiment with sexuality.
Mark Sanford's Danielle Steele-like romance with an Argentinian woman is an interesting human story not only due to the saucy details it contains, but also because it serves as another illustrative example of the never-ending hypocrisy of human beings. During his stint in Congress, Mark Sanford in 1999 called on President Bill Clinton to resign immediately following his own (less geographically adventurous) trip with Monica Lewinsky, because the President had, according to Sanford, betrayed the office by lying about his affair. When it became revealed (courtesy of Larry Flint) that the incoming Republican-Speaker of the House Livingstone, the main henchmen of the witch-hunt against Clinton, had also been in an affair, Sanford came down hard (pun intended) against his own Republican colleague, once again throwing his weight on the side of marital, and moral, purity. It was the same Sanford who, every time the issue of same sex marriage came up, defended his bigotry by arguing that he only wanted to "protect" traditional marriage.
Governor Sanford's blatant hypocrisy shows not some weakness that is endemic to the governor, but rather, the Republican instinct to deny reality in all circumstances. By trying to fit sexuality into neat, black-and-white, moral rubrics, the Republican right, particularly the religious wing, has always distorted reality in order to make their own sins sound better in their own heads. That is, seeing their own sexual impulse as some sort of "weakness," they immediately externalize it by painting it as a "sin," and then proceed to beat down their opponents with the stick of morality, hoping that this would not only offer them a cover from their own "weakness," but that it would help them deal with it internally, as if they are saying to themselves "I might be an adulterer, but at least I am fighting adultery in the society at large."
The Republicans will not become relevant in our political discourse until they stop distorting reality. Sexuality is an immensely fluid (pun intended) human experience where moral categories of "right" and "wrong," and "weakness" and "strength" and "purity" have always, inevitably, collapsed when confronted with reality. By trying to stuff these categories onto their own unwieldy sexual experiences, the Republicans will always, every single time (no exception), come off as idiotic, self-destructive hypocrites. And for this, they need to stay as away from our political discourse as possible! Because in this hypocrisy they have also become tiring.
But the reason why Governor Sanford should resign is not due to his hypocrisy--albeit, it has been fun to watch--but due to the fact that he has been a horrible governor and, umm, how shall I put this, well an asshole! This is the man who wanted to reject President Obama's stimulus money, to be used for the skyrocketing unemployment in the state, arguing, get this, that it would obligate the state to expand its unemployment requirements after the stimulus money runs out. Again, abstract, mean-nothing, principles trumping reality. Not once, did the governor think about REAL LIFE consequences of his actions before getting on the worn soap box and shouting nonsense to everyone who would and wouldn't listen. Oh, yes, and I forgot to mention, that the stimulus money he rejected, he would later use to fund his trip to Argentina (some $12,000) and was thankfully, rebuffed by the more sensible state legislature which overturned his veto, and accepted the money.
So, Governor, please let us all be, and just go away!
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
The Ongoing Iranian Revolution and the Obama Effect
There are two indisputable facts about the events in Tehran: 1) we are witnessing a Revolution, the country's second in 30 years; and 2) the election of President Barack Obama and his subsequent overtures to Iran are inextricably linked to the events. Let me address these two main points in more detail.
There are several reasons why I see the events in Tehran and other major cities in Iran (esp. Shiraz) as a Revolution:
a) the demands of the protesters have escalated from a simple demand for an investigation into the election, then to a recount, then to the election annulment, and finally, to the open challenge of the Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei's authority. Yesterday's riots were a brazen defiance of the Ayatollah's demand that there would be no more riots and his coronation of Ahmedinejad as the winner of the election. As the Ayatollah is supposed to be a stand-in for the "hidden Imam,"--who according to Shi'a Islam is supposed to re-appear at any moment (something akin to Jewish' awaiting of the Messiah, or the Christian second coming of Christ)--the brave Iranians who took to the streets yesterday, with some shouting "death to Ayatollah," something that would have been unthinkable just a few months or even days ago, openly questioned the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic. We have to keep in mind that the Revolution of 1979 was an explosion of genuinely democratic energy and while eventually overtaken by the mullahs, led by the immensely charismatic Ayatollah Khomenei, the Islamic revolution promised to many of its detractors, including many Communists whom it initially brutally suppressed, that while Islamic, this indeed would be a democratic Republic. Elections, while not free according to our standards, were at least seen as expressions of popular will. No more. In what has become a profound seismic shock to the leadership of the Supreme leader, the people of Iran (at least a significant number of them) have challenged his interpretation of the election result. This in turn has shook the foundations of the mullahs' promise to the Iranians that the Islamic state would be a republic. If this promise is now seen as a sham, or a betrayal, then the whole consensus of the state has to be re-worked.
What we are seeing in the streets of Tehran is the unraveling of the consensus established not only by the Iranian Revolution of the 1979, but the brutal Iraq-Iran war of the early 1980s, about what Iran should look like as a state. Thus, the protesters' demands are no longer about the annulment of the election, but about the authority of the Supreme Leader and his Grand Council.
b) The other piece of evidence of a Revolution in the making is the broad support the Moussavi people seem to be enjoying. While initially a mostly urban, student-based movement, the enemies of Ahmedinejad seem to have grown in numbers and include many middle-class, lower middle-class people, including many housewives. The presence of thousands of conservatively dressed (in black hijab) middle-aged women on the streets of Tehran, with some of them goading the men to fight the police, is a truly remarkable development. The broad support for the Moussavi wing of the Iranian political elite is shown also by what it seems to be a growing rift within the cleric wing. Last night's arrest of Rafsanjani's--the richest and one of the most powerful men in Iran--relatives, who had been playing a prominent role in the background of the protests, shows the extent to which the Iranian clerical elite is divided.
2) Now to my second argument that the Revolution has something to do with Obama. While it is indisputable that the Revolution has more to do with the internal dynamics of the Iranian society (the disappointment with the policies of Ahmedinejad, crumbling economy, staggering unemployment, the proliferation of educated women demanding more freedoms, etc) it is also indisputable that most of these protesters are Internet-savy people who have, like the rest of us, been glued to the screens in following the election of Barack Obama. Obama's post-election statements, his speech to the Iranian people, and his more recent Cairo speech seems to have also split the Iranian political elite as to how to respond to Obama's message. Should they "unclench their fist," to use the parlance of the Obama administration, or should they follow the example of Ahmedinejad and keep "death to America" facade alive. The global reach of technology and the liberalization of the Iranian youth (who compose the majority of the Iranian society by the way) seems to have given the momentum to those like Moussavi who want to seize the opportunity and talk to Obama and the US. A sign of this is the fact that many protesters wave English-language symbols to theirs friends' Iphones which they later submit to the CNN newsroom.
What we are witnessing is truly historic, but as Thomas Friedman said in his op-ed this morning "we should have no illusions about the bullets and barrels they are up against."
There are several reasons why I see the events in Tehran and other major cities in Iran (esp. Shiraz) as a Revolution:
a) the demands of the protesters have escalated from a simple demand for an investigation into the election, then to a recount, then to the election annulment, and finally, to the open challenge of the Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei's authority. Yesterday's riots were a brazen defiance of the Ayatollah's demand that there would be no more riots and his coronation of Ahmedinejad as the winner of the election. As the Ayatollah is supposed to be a stand-in for the "hidden Imam,"--who according to Shi'a Islam is supposed to re-appear at any moment (something akin to Jewish' awaiting of the Messiah, or the Christian second coming of Christ)--the brave Iranians who took to the streets yesterday, with some shouting "death to Ayatollah," something that would have been unthinkable just a few months or even days ago, openly questioned the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic. We have to keep in mind that the Revolution of 1979 was an explosion of genuinely democratic energy and while eventually overtaken by the mullahs, led by the immensely charismatic Ayatollah Khomenei, the Islamic revolution promised to many of its detractors, including many Communists whom it initially brutally suppressed, that while Islamic, this indeed would be a democratic Republic. Elections, while not free according to our standards, were at least seen as expressions of popular will. No more. In what has become a profound seismic shock to the leadership of the Supreme leader, the people of Iran (at least a significant number of them) have challenged his interpretation of the election result. This in turn has shook the foundations of the mullahs' promise to the Iranians that the Islamic state would be a republic. If this promise is now seen as a sham, or a betrayal, then the whole consensus of the state has to be re-worked.
What we are seeing in the streets of Tehran is the unraveling of the consensus established not only by the Iranian Revolution of the 1979, but the brutal Iraq-Iran war of the early 1980s, about what Iran should look like as a state. Thus, the protesters' demands are no longer about the annulment of the election, but about the authority of the Supreme Leader and his Grand Council.
b) The other piece of evidence of a Revolution in the making is the broad support the Moussavi people seem to be enjoying. While initially a mostly urban, student-based movement, the enemies of Ahmedinejad seem to have grown in numbers and include many middle-class, lower middle-class people, including many housewives. The presence of thousands of conservatively dressed (in black hijab) middle-aged women on the streets of Tehran, with some of them goading the men to fight the police, is a truly remarkable development. The broad support for the Moussavi wing of the Iranian political elite is shown also by what it seems to be a growing rift within the cleric wing. Last night's arrest of Rafsanjani's--the richest and one of the most powerful men in Iran--relatives, who had been playing a prominent role in the background of the protests, shows the extent to which the Iranian clerical elite is divided.
2) Now to my second argument that the Revolution has something to do with Obama. While it is indisputable that the Revolution has more to do with the internal dynamics of the Iranian society (the disappointment with the policies of Ahmedinejad, crumbling economy, staggering unemployment, the proliferation of educated women demanding more freedoms, etc) it is also indisputable that most of these protesters are Internet-savy people who have, like the rest of us, been glued to the screens in following the election of Barack Obama. Obama's post-election statements, his speech to the Iranian people, and his more recent Cairo speech seems to have also split the Iranian political elite as to how to respond to Obama's message. Should they "unclench their fist," to use the parlance of the Obama administration, or should they follow the example of Ahmedinejad and keep "death to America" facade alive. The global reach of technology and the liberalization of the Iranian youth (who compose the majority of the Iranian society by the way) seems to have given the momentum to those like Moussavi who want to seize the opportunity and talk to Obama and the US. A sign of this is the fact that many protesters wave English-language symbols to theirs friends' Iphones which they later submit to the CNN newsroom.
What we are witnessing is truly historic, but as Thomas Friedman said in his op-ed this morning "we should have no illusions about the bullets and barrels they are up against."
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Shame on the Serbian Government!
The popular Bosnian investigative show "60 Minutes" aired an extraordinary episode tonight moving from its usual slot on Mondays, in order to air the breaking images of the war criminal General Ratko Mladic who has been on the run from the Indictment for Genocide, issued by the War Trimes Cribunal in the Hague since 1995.
These highly disturbing videos show the banality of evil: the man accused of murdering in cold blood 8000 young boys and men in Srebrenica, shelling Sarajevo on a daily basis and murdering over 10,000 civilians during the siege, and orchestrating the biggest campaign of murder in Europe since the Holocaust, smiling, attending his son's wedding, singing Serbian songs. What is particularly remarkable is the extent to which these clips show the criminality of every Serbian government since Milosevic who has claimed that they did not know where Mladic was. If you have the stomach to watch this murderer, you will see that he is moving in open sight and is guarded by the Serbian and Bosnian Serb army (and sometimes is not guarded at all!), as it had been reported all along.
Now, Serbian President Boris Tadic is to be commended for his bravery in arresting Mladic's political henchmen the lunatic poet Radovan Karadzic: as a result, President Tadic has been surrounded by heavy security including a professional sniper squad due to threats against his life. His predecessor Zoran Djindjic had extradited Milosevic and paid with his life. I am glad that President Tadic is taking more precautions.
But this is still not enough. The crimes of Milosevic's Serbia are simply too grave to be ignored and Mladic has to be arrested immediately. Please join me in emailing the Serbian government to arrest Mladic immediately. The videos shown by the brilliant "60 Minutes" team ensure that the Serbian government, under any administration, can no longer prolong its legal--international and national--as well as moral responsibility to arrest this butcher and extradite him to the cells of the Hague.
The email of President Tadic's Secretary is: jzivanovic@predsednik.rs
It is also not coincidental that these clips were aired at the time the EU is mulling whether or not to allow Serbian citizens to enter Europe without visas. I am an enthusiastic supporter of open borders and bear no grudge against any individual Serbian citizen, but still believe it would be a crime if the EU accelerated Serbia's application for the EU membership, ahead of Bosnia's, while Mladic was still at large under the noses of the very government that is claiming to belong to the club of the EU.
With this in mind please email the EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, urging him to pressure the Serbian government to arrest General Ratko Mladic now that we all know where he is.
Until this happens, Serbia should not be allowed to join the EU or even begin the membership process.
These highly disturbing videos show the banality of evil: the man accused of murdering in cold blood 8000 young boys and men in Srebrenica, shelling Sarajevo on a daily basis and murdering over 10,000 civilians during the siege, and orchestrating the biggest campaign of murder in Europe since the Holocaust, smiling, attending his son's wedding, singing Serbian songs. What is particularly remarkable is the extent to which these clips show the criminality of every Serbian government since Milosevic who has claimed that they did not know where Mladic was. If you have the stomach to watch this murderer, you will see that he is moving in open sight and is guarded by the Serbian and Bosnian Serb army (and sometimes is not guarded at all!), as it had been reported all along.
Now, Serbian President Boris Tadic is to be commended for his bravery in arresting Mladic's political henchmen the lunatic poet Radovan Karadzic: as a result, President Tadic has been surrounded by heavy security including a professional sniper squad due to threats against his life. His predecessor Zoran Djindjic had extradited Milosevic and paid with his life. I am glad that President Tadic is taking more precautions.
But this is still not enough. The crimes of Milosevic's Serbia are simply too grave to be ignored and Mladic has to be arrested immediately. Please join me in emailing the Serbian government to arrest Mladic immediately. The videos shown by the brilliant "60 Minutes" team ensure that the Serbian government, under any administration, can no longer prolong its legal--international and national--as well as moral responsibility to arrest this butcher and extradite him to the cells of the Hague.
The email of President Tadic's Secretary is: jzivanovic@predsednik.rs
It is also not coincidental that these clips were aired at the time the EU is mulling whether or not to allow Serbian citizens to enter Europe without visas. I am an enthusiastic supporter of open borders and bear no grudge against any individual Serbian citizen, but still believe it would be a crime if the EU accelerated Serbia's application for the EU membership, ahead of Bosnia's, while Mladic was still at large under the noses of the very government that is claiming to belong to the club of the EU.
With this in mind please email the EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, urging him to pressure the Serbian government to arrest General Ratko Mladic now that we all know where he is.
Until this happens, Serbia should not be allowed to join the EU or even begin the membership process.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
An Insider to Islamic Reformation
President Obama's speech in Cairo cannot be deemed historic based on his frank criticism of all sides--the West, Israel, and the Arab world at large--as much for Obama's ability to insert himself, quite shrewdly, into a brewing war within the Islamic world, the war that the scholar of Islam Reza Aslan has likened to Islam's Reformation.
In his wonderfully articulate book "No God but God," Aslan argues that the rise of political Islam--and its most radical branch, the Wahabbism--rode the tailwind of the post-colonial movements in the Muslim world. The messages of the extreme wing of political Islam--the unconditional and irrational hatred of the West, rabid anti-Semitism, and an apocalyptic political platform--are directed not so much towards the West, but towards the Islamic world at large, Aslan insists. Thus, the burning towers of the World Trade Center and the gaping hole in the Pentagon building were the ultimate symbols of the Orthodox fundamentalism which seemed to say, again not to the West, but to its fellow Muslims: "See, we are winning, and God is on our side."
The brilliance of Obama is that he understands the intricacies of this internal fight within Islam and is not only not afraid, but relishes, straying into this political and literal minefield. In particular, Obama's ability to insert his own biography as a child of mixed marriage, of two worlds gives him the credibility to not only speak to the Muslims, but be an integral part of the Islamic Reformation! It doesn't really matter that he is a professed Christian as most Muslims seem him as essentially Muslim. In this regard they are not that different from the right-wingers in this country who see our President the same way the only difference being that this perception on the part of the Islamic world is tremendously positive.
Specifically, the most resonant part of his speech was his narration of his biography, his Muslim ancestry, and his memory trip to his childhood in Indonesia when he would wake up to the sounds of ezan. A particularly shrewd move on his part was to pepper his speech with eloquent verses from the Qur'an and his impeccable use of Arabic terms to denote uniquely Arabic experiences (the the hijab, zekat, etc. Criticizing Israel was a sideshow, albeit a significant one, but not necessarily historic. President Barack Husein Obama speaking to the Muslim world, not from the outside, but from the nooks and crannies of that world's own metaphors, dreams, images, and visions, was truly historic and seismic.
The Cairo speech will thus become a part of history for it has certainly tipped the balance in favor of the Reformation within Islam. With a few of those words, President Obama has lifted up women like Wedad Lootah, a 46 year old woman author from the United Arab Emirates who has written a wonderful little sex manual titled "Top Secret: Sexual Guidance for Married Couples," in which she offers frank advice to women (even guiding them through the ways to discover the ultimate pleasure in life, orgasm!), and informing the Arab men that while anal sex might have been their first sexual experience, due to the Arab world's intense gender segregation, that this should not be the expectation they have of their wives. What is interesting about this remarkable woman is that she wears the burqa and has never revealed her face and uses, get this, the Qur'an(!) to explain her views on sexuality. Needless to say, her work has prompted a fierce reaction from the sexually repressed Wahabbis, although it has achieved the bestseller status among many women. A 52 year old woman, with grandchildren, reported that she finally discovered orgasm: "Imagine, all that time she did not know," Lootah commented matter-of-factly.
President Obama's boost to the Reformation will certainly benefit the hundreds of thousands of Shari'a scholars who have been openly calling for the re-opening of the "gates of ijtihad, or the Shari'a consensus. The Shari'a law, and its all four mainstream schools of thought, is based on the consensus among scholars and jurists that was reached as early as 10th century after which the gates closed. Consequently, there can be no reopening of discussion on how Islam should view things such as homosexuality, adultery, theft, and gender relations. Some of the world's leading Shari'a jurists have been arguing, quite convincingly, that due to the modernity draped face of our world today, the ijtihad had been outlived, the gates have to be re-opened, and a more fluid, flexible, and pragmatic ijtihad established.
Finally, in not using the word "terrorism," or "good vs. evil," a single time, President Obama struck another deadly blow to Wahhabism: refusing to take up their apocalyptic language, he rooted them out of the debate, if only temporarily.
Let us remember that in getting to the point where it is now, modern Europe had to go through the horrors of Thirty Years' War, the Hugenot persecutions, and the brutal Vatican-inspired Crusades with the end result of making religion more meaningful and tolerable.
The Islamic world is engaged in this struggle at the very moment. And the fact that President Obama not only understands this, but can be an insider to this conversation (taking all of us with him), is simply remarkable!
In his wonderfully articulate book "No God but God," Aslan argues that the rise of political Islam--and its most radical branch, the Wahabbism--rode the tailwind of the post-colonial movements in the Muslim world. The messages of the extreme wing of political Islam--the unconditional and irrational hatred of the West, rabid anti-Semitism, and an apocalyptic political platform--are directed not so much towards the West, but towards the Islamic world at large, Aslan insists. Thus, the burning towers of the World Trade Center and the gaping hole in the Pentagon building were the ultimate symbols of the Orthodox fundamentalism which seemed to say, again not to the West, but to its fellow Muslims: "See, we are winning, and God is on our side."
The brilliance of Obama is that he understands the intricacies of this internal fight within Islam and is not only not afraid, but relishes, straying into this political and literal minefield. In particular, Obama's ability to insert his own biography as a child of mixed marriage, of two worlds gives him the credibility to not only speak to the Muslims, but be an integral part of the Islamic Reformation! It doesn't really matter that he is a professed Christian as most Muslims seem him as essentially Muslim. In this regard they are not that different from the right-wingers in this country who see our President the same way the only difference being that this perception on the part of the Islamic world is tremendously positive.
Specifically, the most resonant part of his speech was his narration of his biography, his Muslim ancestry, and his memory trip to his childhood in Indonesia when he would wake up to the sounds of ezan. A particularly shrewd move on his part was to pepper his speech with eloquent verses from the Qur'an and his impeccable use of Arabic terms to denote uniquely Arabic experiences (the the hijab, zekat, etc. Criticizing Israel was a sideshow, albeit a significant one, but not necessarily historic. President Barack Husein Obama speaking to the Muslim world, not from the outside, but from the nooks and crannies of that world's own metaphors, dreams, images, and visions, was truly historic and seismic.
The Cairo speech will thus become a part of history for it has certainly tipped the balance in favor of the Reformation within Islam. With a few of those words, President Obama has lifted up women like Wedad Lootah, a 46 year old woman author from the United Arab Emirates who has written a wonderful little sex manual titled "Top Secret: Sexual Guidance for Married Couples," in which she offers frank advice to women (even guiding them through the ways to discover the ultimate pleasure in life, orgasm!), and informing the Arab men that while anal sex might have been their first sexual experience, due to the Arab world's intense gender segregation, that this should not be the expectation they have of their wives. What is interesting about this remarkable woman is that she wears the burqa and has never revealed her face and uses, get this, the Qur'an(!) to explain her views on sexuality. Needless to say, her work has prompted a fierce reaction from the sexually repressed Wahabbis, although it has achieved the bestseller status among many women. A 52 year old woman, with grandchildren, reported that she finally discovered orgasm: "Imagine, all that time she did not know," Lootah commented matter-of-factly.
President Obama's boost to the Reformation will certainly benefit the hundreds of thousands of Shari'a scholars who have been openly calling for the re-opening of the "gates of ijtihad, or the Shari'a consensus. The Shari'a law, and its all four mainstream schools of thought, is based on the consensus among scholars and jurists that was reached as early as 10th century after which the gates closed. Consequently, there can be no reopening of discussion on how Islam should view things such as homosexuality, adultery, theft, and gender relations. Some of the world's leading Shari'a jurists have been arguing, quite convincingly, that due to the modernity draped face of our world today, the ijtihad had been outlived, the gates have to be re-opened, and a more fluid, flexible, and pragmatic ijtihad established.
Finally, in not using the word "terrorism," or "good vs. evil," a single time, President Obama struck another deadly blow to Wahhabism: refusing to take up their apocalyptic language, he rooted them out of the debate, if only temporarily.
Let us remember that in getting to the point where it is now, modern Europe had to go through the horrors of Thirty Years' War, the Hugenot persecutions, and the brutal Vatican-inspired Crusades with the end result of making religion more meaningful and tolerable.
The Islamic world is engaged in this struggle at the very moment. And the fact that President Obama not only understands this, but can be an insider to this conversation (taking all of us with him), is simply remarkable!
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Email to Bill O'Reilly
Dear Bill,
Well you finally did it. With your cruel incitement to violence against Dr. George Tiller, now a victim of a gruesome act of domestic terrorism, you finally might have blown up your career into bits and pieces.
You are right when you say that people have the right to speak their mind without fear of reprisals, but what you forgot to mention is that public figures like yourself also have an ethical responsibility to think through the ways in which their words might impact the likes of Mr. Scott Roeder.
Until your corporate bosses decide to let you go--or you resign effective immediately--Fox News will be the one forgotten dial on our remote controls and we will be asking our favorite local bar owners to avoid turning the channel on.
A concerned American
Fedja
Well you finally did it. With your cruel incitement to violence against Dr. George Tiller, now a victim of a gruesome act of domestic terrorism, you finally might have blown up your career into bits and pieces.
You are right when you say that people have the right to speak their mind without fear of reprisals, but what you forgot to mention is that public figures like yourself also have an ethical responsibility to think through the ways in which their words might impact the likes of Mr. Scott Roeder.
Until your corporate bosses decide to let you go--or you resign effective immediately--Fox News will be the one forgotten dial on our remote controls and we will be asking our favorite local bar owners to avoid turning the channel on.
A concerned American
Fedja
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