The moral bankruptcy of many people - epitomized by its backing of Islamic dictators and extremists over moderate Muslims - saw Liberals defeated across Europe in recent EU elections. From what I read yesterday, the Huffington Post, and others, might want to take a lesson from that.
In one op-ed piece, Frank Schaeffer tells us that “the real lesson of Iran” actually has nothing to do with Iran, and everything to do with American conservatives. Neoconservatives and the religious-Right are - so we are told - trying their best to establish a Christian, pro-Israel dictatorship, replete with Old Testament law.
According to Schaeffer, Republican “hypocrites” would introduce “capital punishment […] to punish a variety of crimes including being gay.” It would also ban “gay men and women from serving in the military” (when they’re not being executed, of course). And would roll back “civil rights for blacks, women, gays [again], [and] unions […]” And “Gay men and women would be hounded and if they were murdered [rather than being officially executed] there would be leaders saying they had it coming.” And this from a man who says Republicans talk “crazy.”
There are plenty of other colorful accusations here. Republicans would initiate “a neoconservative led and religious right backed holy war against Islam,” although this never happened under the Bush administration, which always made it perfectly clear that the “war on terror” was a war against “Islamofascists,” not moderate Muslims. For example, in 2005, President Bush said this:
Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, Islamo-fascism. Whatever it's called, this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam. This form of radicalism exploits Islam to serve a violent, political vision: the establishment, by terrorism and subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom. These extremists distort the idea of jihad into a call for terrorist murder against Christians and Jews and Hindus - and also against Muslims [my italics] from other traditions, who they regard as heretics.
Nevertheless, Huffington Post’s psychobabble expert RJ Eskow, diagnoses “narcissistic frenzy” and “contradictions” in the “’clash of civilizations’ crowd” (that would be you and me).
“Why, Eskow wonders, “are the people who've been insisting there's a monolithic evil called ‘Islamofascism’ suddenly backing one Iranian faction over another? “
Well, it is because not every Iranian is an Islamofascist. And not every government, candidate, or leader is the same - that is why we, and they, have elections. That’s right. It is not all relative.
But let’s take a step back.
The Bush administration - and “the coalition of the willing” - invaded Afghanistan after the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001 and, later, Iraq, replacing the governments of both countries.
The government of Afghanistan - though very far from perfect - is now more moderate (or less extreme) than the previous Taliban dictatorship. Girls can get an education, instead of being murdered for wanting to achieve. And women can protest, instead of being the mere mute property of their male relatives. But, no, it’s not perfect because, yes, Taliban remnants (or Islamofascists) still exercise some influence, and still attack little girls that want an education and a better life.
And, yes, it is still a patriarchal and ultra-traditional society. Neither café lattes nor cultural relativism are in big demand yet. But then maybe Afghans just are not as sophisticated and smart as Americans.
Then there is Iraq’s government. Like the Afghanistan government, it is essentially Muslim. And we back it as well. There have been elections since the Iraqi dictatorship was toppled. And given a choice between a government that might help usher in a stable democracy, and a dictator like that of Saddam Hussein, who ordered the torture of civilians (including with a human “meat grinder”), who ordered the poison gas attack on civilians at the city of Halabja, killing thousands, and who used mass rape as a weapon of control, then we should back the former and oppose the latter. Or am I just talking all “crazy”?
Back to Iran. Unlike the US, Mr. Schaeffer, it actually does execute homosexuals - by hanging - for being homosexual. It also sentences people to death by stoning. For example nine illiterate people (eight women and one man) convicted without proper trial in 2008. Or the two sisters convicted of adultery - also stoned to death last year. Then there’s the murder of political prisoners and the imprisonment of foreign reporters, such as Roxana Saberi. And the morality police who routinely arrest women for wearing clothes that backward clerical fascists deem too fashionable, too Western, or too attractive.
And Mr. Eskow, you might really believe that Obama’s robotic yet fluffy statements about the Iranian protests “[…] went as far as they could wisely go,” even if “opportunists and fantasists will both say it wasn't enough.” But, personally, I’m with Joshua Muravchik, who said in Commentary, that Obama’s “Failure to use the bully pulpit to give the Iranian people as much support as possible is morally reprehensible and a strategic blunder for which he will not be forgiven.”
I’m not suggesting that we bomb Iran, or do anything neoconish or “crazy.” But those “opportunists and fantasists,” include the Iranian protestors risking their lives, fighting for the chance of democracy, and for the little things that Westerners take for granted, such as being able to wear what they want to wear without being arrested. And if they can not count on us to stand up and to articulate why they are right, and why we support them unequivocally, then shame on us.
(For up-to-the-minute info on the democracy movement in Iran, check out Anonymous Iran, Iranbaan and TehranBureau.)
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