Pelosi among the Mohammedans
Maureen C. sent me a photo of Nancy Pelosi in Syria wearing a head scarf which was quite amusing. (Technical problems prevent me from posting the photo.) Maureen writes:
There are rumors she is going to be the fourth wife of King Abdullah. (Or maybe the 204th.)
LA replies:
My view is, if American female politicians or journalists visiting the leaders of Muslim countries must dress up like this (as Diane Sawyer did a couple of months ago), then they shouldn’t go. They shouldn’t allow themselves to be put in this Muslim-type subordinate position and be made to play by the Muslim rules.
What a disgrace. But they dig it. They love abasing themselves before the Other.
Maureen replies:
No, unfortunately, Americans don’t see wearing the hajib as abasement but as proof of their “sophistication”—proof of their “nobility”—that they know how to “respect” other cultures. American society has made a virtue of accommodating other points of view to achieve the all-important political “compromise.” Compromise, one of the major tools of the democratic political system, has become an end in itself in American society. Americans cannot even conceive of societies that regard compromise as a sign of weakness. It is easy for Nancy to wear an Islamic religious symbol, because her secular American society has deprived all religious symbols of any respect—and she literally cannot understand that her wearing the hajib is perceived by Muslims as the equivalent of getting on her knees.
The American-centric “tolerant” view of the world leads us to believe in the efficacy of endless “negotiations”—treaties, etc, which we use as “ends” and other cultures use as “means.” The Western rule-of-law cultures respect contracts—the rest of the world’s cultures, which are not rule-of-law cultures, use contracts and negotiations to bind us, while they remain free to do what they want, when they want, laughing at us all the while for our naivete.
The “fat and happy” American way of life—which, for many generations now, has not experienced the lethality of ethnic and religious strife—has made us the dupes of the world. We have allowed ethnic and religious strife to enter America through unrestrained immigration—and we’re going to see terrible strife in this country as a result. The same “fat and happy” view of the world led us into the war in so-called “Iraq,” a non-existent country that consisted only of a fragile Sunni-Shia status quo held together by the ruthless despot Saddam Hussein. Americans are not ruthless enough to deal with the Islamic world.
- end of initial entry -
N. writes:
I have one article indicating that Pelosi wore a scarf and abaya (black robe like garment) to visit what the AP called “an 8th century mosque.” The AP then goes on to observe she made the sign of the cross before an ornate tomb “said to contain the head of John the Baptist.” Which means that 8th century mosque was surely a church from the 2nd or 3rd century, converted to a mosque …
Anyway, if all Pelosi did was wear this stuff into a mosque, I can grudgingly accept it, as there were two images of her with tyrant Assad and she was bareheaded. There are reports from Syrian dissidents that she wore the scarf and abaya during her stroll through the Old City area of Damascus as well, which becomes exactly what Maureen has aptly described.
But suppose that Pelosi did only wear a headscarf into the mosque; this would be deemed a sign of polite respect by many. However, one has to wonder if she gives her own church the same sign of respect; what kind of hat, scarf, veil, etc. does Nancy Pelosi wear into her own church? None, I’m guessing. And so again we have greater respect for Islam than for Christianity; as you note, another example of abasement before the Other.
Ed D. writes:
I’m very impressed with Maureen C’s writing. She makes astute observations and has a grasp of what is happening. God bless her.
And as I sit here trying to break up the monotony of work, I had a thought of my own. Maureen’s point about the American/Western logic behind Pelosi’s act reminds me of a phenomenon we experience everyday here, especially on weekends. Women who dress in a slutty manner and expect saintly reactions from men. Liberal logic has it that Pelosi wearing a hijab, or a woman wearing revealing clothes, are acts that exist in a vaccum. There is no grasp of the idea that Moslems may look at Pelosi as acting in a subordinate way (not a culturally sensitive way), or that a woman who dresses in a provocative manner may attract the wrong types of men and put that woman in a risky situation escalating out of her control. In addition to liberalism’s countless flaws, one can safely say that it involves being very self-absorbed as well.
LA writes:
Here is the article N. was referring to showing a photo of Pelosi visiting Assad. She is wearing Western clothes and is not covered. Instead, she’s at the other sartorial extreme, wearing a skirt so short it’s above her knees.
Caught between the poles of multiculturalism and Western liberationism, Western women can’t figure it out. Either they yield to Muslims, covering themselves up completely, or they visit the president of a Muslim country with their knees and thighs showing.
What is the solution to this puzzle, the mean between these extremes? Western traditionalism.
Gintas J. writes:
You say: “Caught between the poles of multiculturalism and Western liberationism, Western women can’t figure it out. Either they yield to Muslims, covering themselves up completely, or they visit the president of a Muslim country with their knees and thighs showing.”
Pelosi, like most women, dresses the way the men want her to dress. In a Muslim country, she submits to the men. In the West, she submits to the men. I say that because I believe that if the men of the West insisted that women dress like old Victorian maids, it would happen. It just happens that Western men want their women to look slutty.
As for Assad, she dressed like that because that is her Western default, and he didn’t make her change.
LA replies:
I think women dress the way they think other women expect them to dress. Women’s fashion is a reality unto itself, working according to its own laws. Men (apart from fashion designers, etc.) have nothing to do with it.
Gintas:
If that’s the case it’s quite inscrutable.
LA:
I don’t see why that would make it inscrutable. People have put forth various theories—status, competition, conformity, etc.—to explain it.
As for the “men want it” theory, I doubt very much that there was, for example, some demand on the part of men that women start going around with their lower belly exposed. I doubt very much that men were demanding the de rigueur look of today’s professional woman: blazer over a low cut tank top, so that the woman is both “professional” and de-sexed looking, AND exposing way too much skin down to the middle of her chest, and not in an attractive way, but in an offensive, off-putting and strangely anti-sexual way. These are the creations of the fashion industry, which far too many woman automatically and like social insects obey. Whatever is the fashion, they wear it. I mean, how do you think it happens each time there is a new fashion, that suddenly all the women are instantly wearing it? They walk into a store, and this is what is there, and they buy it—not all of them, of course, but enough of them to keep it going. With the too-short blouse revealing the belly, many women didn’t seek that out, it was actually hard to find longer shirts that would cover them; it was easier to go with the flow. Of course, if so many women weren’t such conformists, if they had decent standards independent of their social environment, more of them would have said, “I’m not going to wear that, period,” and if enough of them had said it, the fashion industry would have adjusted and we would not have had to endure several summers of exposed lower midriffs—what I’ve called the lower-than-a-whore-look—in the cities of the Western world. But the women did not take that stand. They are conformist creatures and they went along with what was presented to them.
Gintas:
OK, I can see your point. I would still contend that the moral environment is largely determined by the men. It’s pretty much a vacuum now.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 05, 2007 01:02 AM | Send