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Thursday 23 February 2012

Feminists for Cameron?

Wednesday, 9th February 2011

The fallout from Labour’s morally and tactically disastrous decision to attack David Cameron’s defence of liberal values continues. Now it is Joan Smith’s turn to take a kick. She is one of the few true feminists left in Britain, and proves it by her willingness to say without equivocation that if white-skinned women in Britain should have equal rights then so should brown-skinned women inTehran. (Or to bring that comparison closer to home, if the emancipation of women is good enough for Hampstead and Highgate, then it is good enough for Bethnal Green and Bow.)

'Labour’s response to Cameron’s speech was lamentable, appearing to have more to do with electoral calculation than principle. As a secularist, I’m well aware that self-appointed representatives of ‘faith’ groups frequently complain about discrimination while displaying varying levels of misogyny, homophobia and intolerance. But the Party under Ed Miliband seems as unprepared as ever to acknowledge that people who are disadvantaged are not always shining examples of tolerance themselves, and that a willingness to condemn terrorism is not on its own proof of a commitment to universal human rights.

The ‘war on terror’ has a great deal to answer for. Successive British governments have been so preoccupied with the threat of religiously-motivated terror attacks that they’ve failed to acknowledge other forms of extremism in supposedly ‘moderate’ faith groups. They’ve listened to and funded religious groups which do little to further women’s equality in their communities, while at the same time condemning gay people, holding anti-Semitic views and trying to limit free expression.

We’ve ended up with the lunacy of British ministers condemning stoning in Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan while Government departments hand over taxpayers’ money to ‘faith’ organisations in this country whose leaders refuse to condemn it. Labour’s record doesn’t bear much scrutiny in this respect and shadow ministers would be better occupied acknowledging past incoherence, such as support for publicly-funded ‘faith’ schools, than launching petulant attacks on Cameron. If the Party isn’t careful, the Tories could easily steal Labour’s clothes as the champion of liberal/secular values.'

They could couldn’t they? I am researching a book on freedom of speech and am interviewing liberal Muslims from across Europe. These are men and women, who receive death threats when the make a stand for women’s rights. In the past, they would have been left-wing heroes. I am struck by how many of them are now giving up on a left that indulges their enemies and fails to defend its friends. Miliband does not realize it, but he is losing the best and the bravest. Go read the whole thing.

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Commentator

February 9th, 2011 4:50pm Report this comment

Since when was Labour the champion of secular/liberal values? Having said that, if secular/liberal values depend on the Tories for protection, then we are doomed as those shipped off to the gulag with Harold MacMillan's connivance could tell you.

David Lindsay

February 9th, 2011 5:12pm Report this comment

There are more women than men at university in Iran. But Iranian women still used to look longingly at Iraq. Until 2003, that is.

Erica Blair

February 9th, 2011 10:18pm Report this comment

This is a three-pronged attack on Inayat Bunglawala. Nick Cohen, Joan Smith and her boyfriend Denis MacShane.

Here's Inayat's response.

'Anyway, I raise this today because MacShane has been lying again – this time in parliament, where he yesterday accused me of not condemning the stoning to death of women because ‘it is written in the Koran’. I presume he is referring to a meeting organised by the London Evening Standard a couple of years ago when I was asked to give my views on stoning. I made clear that I would not condemn the Prophet Muhammad – it is foolish in the extreme to judge actions from 1400 years ago by today’s values and standards. However, I also made clear that I was opposed to stoning men or women today. And by the way, MacShane, stoning is not mentioned in the Qur’an, you twit.'

Nicholas

February 9th, 2011 11:03pm Report this comment

I lost the will to read it when I saw "Human Rights - Feminism -Shoes". Women want to be treated equally and taken seriously (as they should be) but also to indulge in the shallow vanity of overt sexual display whilst at the same time condemning men who respond naturally to that. The male equivalent to that blog doesn't bear thinking about and wouldn't last 5 minutes.

Equality means what it says on the tin, sisters. It ain't cake and eat it. And it certainly isn't the exchange of one tyranny for another. Think on please.

Criticalbill

February 10th, 2011 8:58am Report this comment

Feminists like Marine Le Pen?

Bugedone

February 10th, 2011 9:39am Report this comment

I remember as a foolish young man getting revolutionary and reactionary the wrong way round. I now see that I was merely 20 years premature...

Fergus Pickering

February 10th, 2011 10:42am Report this comment

My wife says succinctly that on the left being black and/or being gay trumps being a woman every time. So if you call someone a queer black bitch, the first two are very bad and probably unlawful, but the last is fair comment.

Ian Walker

February 10th, 2011 11:04am Report this comment

Labour has always been the champion of socialist values, which are neither liberal, nor secular - in the sense that socialism is effectively a religion, given that people blindly believe in it despite all the real world evidence that it's a sham.

Vulture

February 10th, 2011 11:53am Report this comment

It's very touching how Nick Cohen stands up for those two endangered and contradictory species 'liberal Muslims' and 'the Left' as they slide into extinction.

The rough beast that is slouching towards us all is neither liberal - muscular or otherwise - nor Left. AS we shall all shortly discover.

Baron

February 10th, 2011 6:49pm Report this comment

am sort of sick of the feminist induced prattle, those who preach it should come, have a look at the neck of woods I live in. Most women do what they’ve always done, and if they dream about anything it’s about children.

Vulture, young sir, gimmi a clue, what or who’s the slouching beast that may do me harm?

Erica Blair

February 10th, 2011 10:04pm Report this comment

Joan Smith is a feminist in Nick's eyes because she's Denis MacShane's girlfriend. Likewise Julie Bindel qualifies because she too writes for the neo-con rag Standpoint.

ps Nick is very quiet about the striking workers in Egypt. What happened to his 'solidarity' with the masses striving for democracy?

Edward McLaughlin

February 12th, 2011 3:54pm Report this comment

Baron

The rough beast is an image in Yeats' 'The Second Coming'.

john steadman

February 12th, 2011 6:01pm Report this comment

Nicholas, 11.03
I've not read the text to which you refer; but for the rest, beautifully expressed.

Baron

February 13th, 2011 10:34am Report this comment

Edward McLaughlin @ 3.54:

thank you very much for pointing out how little I know of great poetry pieces, silly me thinking the slumping beast was a metaphor for something I ought to be seriously scared of.