Strange bedfellows
These days ersatz progressives march alongside Hezbollah and, in an Orwellian logic beyond the Red-Brown alliances of old, "anti-nuclear" activists support the nuclear ambitions of Iranian Twelvers; the latest farcical impasse for the 18th Brumaire of the postmodern Left (via Harry's Place). Now I find I am in broad agreement with an essay by Andrea Dworkin. Strange days, indeed.
Dworkin wrote "A Feminist Looks at Saudi Arabia" in 1978. It is a simple, and scathing, critique not only of the Carter administration but of the democracies of the West, without exception.
Seductive mirages of progress notwithstanding, nowhere in the world is apartheid practiced with more cruelty and finality than in Saudi Arabia. Of course, it is women who are locked in and kept out, exiled to invisibility and abject powerlessness within their own country. It is women who are degraded systematically from birth to early death, utterly and totally and without exception deprived of freedom. It is women who are sold into marriage or concubinage, often before puberty; killed if their hymens are not intact on the wedding night; kept confined, ignorant, pregnant, poor, without choice or recourse. It is women who are raped and beaten with full sanction of the law. It is women who cannot own property or work for a living or determine in any way the circumstances of their own lives. It is women who are subject to a despotism that knows no restraint. Women locked out and locked in. Mr Carter, enchanted with his good friends, the Saudis. Mr Carter, a sincere advocate of human rights. Sometimes even a feminist with a realistic knowledge of male hypocrisy and a strong stomach cannot believe the world she lives in.
Well, that's depressing. Here is some Dannii Minogue to brighten up the place.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at August 14, 2006 05:44 AM
