Welcome to the “Muslim World”.
Let’s pause right there: It’s interesting how easily the words “the Muslim world” roll off the tongues of liberal secular progressives who’d choke on any equivalent reference to “the Christian world.” When such hyper-alert policemen of the perimeter between church and state endorse the former but not the latter, they’re implicitly acknowledging that Islam is not merely a faith but a political project, too. There is an “Organization of the Islamic Conference,” which is already the largest single voting bloc at the U.N. and is still adding new members. Imagine if someone proposed an “Organization of the Christian Conference” that would hold summits attended by prime ministers and presidents, and vote as a bloc in transnational bodies. But, of course, there is no “Christian world”: Europe is largely post-Christian and, as President Obama bizarrely asserted to a European interviewer last week, America is “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.” Perhaps we’re eligible for membership in the OIC.
But of course it’s a political project. You don’t seriously think that the progressive left gives a snorting rip for someone’s religious beliefs, do you?
Except when the religion on question is Islam, Democrats go weak in the knees, like the President did in Cairo this past week.
One of the things I found interesting about this speech (besides that he spoke at a segregated college and not a single pundit among the MSM saw fit to mention that) was how much it empowered Muslim men at the expense of Muslim women. William Jacobson had some very good comments about that subject on his blog, but there’s a bit I want to tease out for particular comment. This is what the President said, with emphasis added:
The sixth issue that I want to address is women’s rights.
I know there is debate about this issue. I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal, but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality. And it is no coincidence that countries where women are well-educated are far more likely to be prosperous.
This is one of the President’s go-to rhetorical tricks. He sets up a false premise, usually by saying, “Some say [X]“, then goes on to demolish the premise. It’s a nifty trick, but it’s also incredibly deceitful. In the case of the Cairo speech, the President’s straw man was not only deceitful, but an outright abandonment of million of Muslim women all over the world.
The truth of the matter is that it is not a mythical group of “some in the West” who consider a woman unequal if she chooses to cover her head; it is Muslim men just like the ones who were sitting right in front of the President who require women to cover their heads because they consider her unequal. The President got the relationship between head-covering and inequality backwards. Women in Muslim nations (and even here in the West) are second-class citizens not out of choice but coercion. The hijab is not a cause of their inequality but a sign.
The President is right about one thing, though. There is debate on the issue, but it is not the debate he thinks. The real debate is whether or not we will continue to fight against the repression and tyranny of the “Muslim World” that forces women into perpetual subjugation. The President, whether he realizes it or not (and he probably doesn’t), chose a side. The standing ovations he got in Cairo were ample evidence of what side Muslim men think he’s on.
Tags: Islamism, President Barack Obama
