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Self-described red-diaper baby, Radcliffe girl with cheek of tan (a little weak sun-taking, during that first job at Johnson State College, Vermont), a naif who -- in the middle of New York City -- was completely oblivious to, and shocked, shocked, shocked to discover, the "serial philandering" of her former husband (the man she thought was her eternal "soul-mate" earned his living as a joke-writer for someone, possibly Letterman, so she was being supported in quite a high style, presumably on the Upper West Side, by a husband who was very much a beneficiary, or part, of The System), Katha Pollitt is a girl -- oops, woman --whose "feminist politics" have not entirely erased her inner essential sweetness.
Listen to her voice, that of a twenty-year-old, on a radio show. But she refuses to grow up. That's sometimes okay. Yet one wishes that in one area she would decide to really start to inform herself, and thereby grow up about an ideology that, if she really thought about it, she would surely come to dislike and that would fill her with a dismay far beyond what the cheekbones of Katrina van den Heuvel may cause. She could start reading, on her own -- Why I Am Not A Muslim by Ibn Warraq, or While Europe Slept by Bruce Bawer. Or The Dhimmi or Islam and Dhimmitude by Bat Ye'or.
Or, if she can get over his presumed "right-wing-ness," even the guides to what is actually in the canonical texts of Islam -- Qur'an, Hadith, Sira -- by the notorious Robert Spencer. She might meet, over a period of a few weeks and sometimes tea, with Paul Berman. He's no right-winger, he's practically Village Voice People. She might read, and even try to think about enough to write about, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is no right-winger. (I use such terms as "right-winger" only because I must get down in the muck in order to help clear it away.)
Katha Pollitt might read the books of Oriana Fallaci on the matter of Islam. But before she does, she should learn all about Oriana Fallaci's aid to her father, and other partisans who fought as best they could against the Germans in World War II. She should familiarize herself with Fallaci's attacks on the Vietnam War. She should find out about her Greek leftist lover, Panagoulis, killed by Greek rightists (those "colonels"), about whom she, Oriana Fallaci, wrote Un Uomo.
Now if that doesn't get the attention of Katha Pollitt, what will? Rest assured that if Oriana Fallaci had been around in the 1930s, she would have fought in Spain, right alongside the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. That's right -- for Fallaci, fascism was fascism. And she knew Islam intimately. She had spent a lot of time interviewing the likes of Khomeini and Arafat (and even was subjected to Israeli fire, while accompanying a group of PLO fighters). And having learned all that, she can then read Fallaci's expressions of horror at the demographic invasion of Tuscany, of Italy, of Western Europe, by those who are adherents of a faith that discourages free and skeptical inquiry, without which science is impossible, and discourages or rather prohibits, almost all forms of artistic expression save (Qur'anic) calligraphy and (mosque) architecture, that inculcates in Believers the necessary (by our standards) mistreatment of women, and the mistreatment of non-Muslims, and does not permit, is bitterly opposed to, the individual rights that the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the Bill of Rights, and the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man all uphold, rights that are flatly contradicted by the Shari'a.
Then she might start to see Islam in a more intelligent and truthful light. And then she herself might become a light unto, not the nations, but to The Nation, or at least to its more intelligent and mentally open-to-new-knowledge contributors, among whom I suspect there are at least three: the gourmand and fugitive versifier and very touching memoirist Calvin Trillin, and the unforgettable cheekbones -- Right and Left -- of the editor, Katrina vanden Heuvel.
But because we are all feminists now, we won't dare to mention them, or their conceivable aid in making what Katrina vanden Heuvel says (on, say, Charlie Rose) more convincing to her rapt male listeners.
Posted by Hugh at March 14, 2008 11:00 AM
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This is some information on Katha Pollitt that has to do with the counterjihad:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/anotherthing?pid=273005
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Sign the Open Letter From American Feminists
With advice and counsel from the History in Action e-mail list, I wrote up the Open Letter below to protest the way the media slanders the women's movement as indifferent to the human rights of women in the developing and/or Muslim world. Fact: it's feminists who first identified atrocities against women around the world--female genital mutilation, forced marriage, child marriage, spousal violence, rape-- as violations of human rights, not family matters or customs of no state importance. It is feminists who have consistently pushed for women's rights to education, health care, and legal and social equality and who've pushed organizations from the UN to Amnesty International to broaden their perspective to include women's rights to be free from violence and coercion. "Women's rights are human rights" was not a slogan dreamed up by David Horowitz or Christina Hoff Sommers.
============
The responses below are a good read.
Take care.
Posted by: npabga![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at March 14, 2008 12:01 PM
An experiment: Google "Amina and Sarah". Scroll down on the results. See how long it is before you get to a mainstream feminist website which has so much as mentioned their murder. This will tell you how much mainstream feminists are really concerned about such matters, not Katha Pollitt's rant, no matter how many signatures she gathers.
Posted by: Karl Pov at March 14, 2008 12:34 PM
Why is web searching "Amina and Sarah" such a valid indicator of feminist's response to Islam?
Posted by: Dumbo at March 14, 2008 12:48 PM
Amina and Sarah Said were the (apparent) victims of an "honor killing" by their father, who is currently a fugitive, not in Jordan or Thailand or Indonesia or Britain, but in Texas. It seems to me that if American mainstream feminists were genuinely concerned with the horror that is called "honor killings", they might have mentioned this instance on their various web sites. And yet, when I do the Google search I recommended.... Well, try it yourself.
Posted by: Karl Pov at March 14, 2008 1:43 PM
Katrina van den Heuvel I only really saw interviewed on CNN, specifically during the early phase of the Iraq war.... she is an angry leftist that sees any disagreement with her as not only wrong, but immoral. Wolf Blitzer always had her on around noon in the "war room", with that funky music playing.
I disliked her within 5 seconds, and I've been pleasantly surprised that I haven't had the misfortune of seeing her forked tongue or hearing her venomous speech.
at March 14, 2008 1:48 PM
The majority of American feminists are intellectually, culturally and morally bankrupt as well as ignorant of the outside world. I didn't even know who Katha Pollit was until a few weeks ago, when I saw her name mentioned in one of Robert's articles.
When I was in university, I needed a random elective course and I ended up in a womens' studies class. I wasn't thrilled with the idea, but my work schedule wasn't very flexible and I needed the credits, so I went ahead and registered. It was an utter and total waste of time. I don't remember very much, because there weren't many relevant topics discussed, but I do remember having to read a chapter about some woman (who clearly had neither knowledge of linguistics nor of languages other than English-basically the kind of person who has absolutely no business doing any type of linguistic research) who had gone through the dictionary and made up lists of words that she viewed to be mysoginistic. I don't have any advanced degrees, and I didn't study in any expensive schools or universities, but I speak 4 1/2 languages and I like to read about linguistics in my spare time and I was stunned that "research" of such a poor standard could make it into a university-level textbook.
These are the type of people who coined words such as "herstory," because "history" was supposed to be sexist. Cursory research-for example, checking a dictionary that includes brief etymological descriptions-would have revealed that origin of the word is the ancient greek word "istoria."
Posted by: margheri at March 14, 2008 8:28 PM
The majority of American feminists are intellectually, culturally and morally bankrupt as well as ignorant of the outside world. I didn't even know who Katha Pollit was until a few weeks ago, when I saw her name mentioned in one of Robert's articles.
When I was in university, I needed a random elective course and I ended up in a womens' studies class. I wasn't thrilled with the idea, but my work schedule wasn't very flexible and I needed the credits, so I went ahead and registered. It was an utter and total waste of time. I don't remember very much, because there weren't many relevant topics discussed, but I do remember having to read a chapter about some woman (who clearly had neither knowledge of linguistics nor of languages other than English-basically the kind of person who has absolutely no business doing any type of linguistic research) who had gone through the dictionary and made up lists of words that she viewed to be mysoginistic. I don't have any advanced degrees, and I didn't study in any expensive schools or universities, but I speak 4 1/2 languages and I like to read about linguistics in my spare time and I was stunned that "research" of such a poor standard could make it into a university-level textbook.
These are the type of people who coined words such as "herstory," because "history" was supposed to be sexist. Cursory research-for example, checking a dictionary that includes brief etymological descriptions-would have revealed that origin of the word is the ancient greek word "istoria."
Posted by: margheri [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 14, 2008 8:28 PM
I was stunned that "research" of such a poor standard could make it into a university-level textbook.
WHY? I do not find it at all surprising given the level of brainwashing....er..EDUCATION...in the "institutes of higher learning" in this country!
at March 15, 2008 6:34 AM
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