ANUSHAY'S POINT

Palin Crowns Herself Queen Of The Party

February 8, 2010 · 1 Comment

The day I along with the rest of the world was first introduced to Sarah Palin was such a defining moment that sometimes I catch myself trying to recall what life was like before being exposed to the snark, obnoxious, shallow and often clueless attacks only Palin is capable of making on her “liberal opponents”. Have you ever noticed how Palin strategically places that thumb of hers under her point and middle fingers right before embarking on some self-righteous rant?

But what I try to recapture more than anything is what politics was like before a fraud like Sarah Palin came along. Seriously, that is what Palin is. A fraud. Nothing more, nothing less. There is no shortage of examples that show her sheer lack of intelligence (“I read all newspapers!”), or moral double-standards particularly on the issue of teens and abstinence.

But after Palin’s speech at the Tea Party Convention last night in Tennessee, it is clear that fraud is the perfect label for Sarah. If the scribbled notes on her hand for her Q&A session didn’t make that clear for you, let me make my case.

Palin At Her Party. Image Credit: Flickr

Dressed up all sexy and chic in black with her big hair, Palin’s speech before a small, fiery group of Tea Party Convention attendees in Nashville confirmed her as the leader of the Tea Party. Anybody even have a solid idea what the Tea Party people are even mad about? Do they even have a single unifying issue aside from just being really angry? Who knows?

Not me and definitely not Palin. And that’s the beauty of it. Palin doesn’t need to know what these people are all riled up about. She does not even care! In fact, Palin has convinced this already confused group of people that they do not need to know either:

“You don’t need an office or a title to make a difference, and you don’t need a proclaimed leader, as if we are all a bunch of sheep and looking for a leader to progress this movement.”

How fitting that Sarah Palin of all people should be reassuring anyone that they do not need direction! Palin went on to praise that, “the movement’s strength lay in its decentralization, and its activists’ love of country, political independence.”

To give Palin credit, this is perhaps the single smartest move she has ever made. Ever since the McCain Campaign fizzled and died, Palin has been floating around the world of politics kind of like a little lost lady looking for a home. After her abrupt resignation as Alaska’s Governor, her family’s scandals became staples on grocery store tabloids, and every now and then Palin would emerge in the press going off on some rant about Communism, America, Alaska being great, and crazy conspiracy theories about the Obama Administration.

Who ever even really knows what Palin is rambling about anyway? All I know is that Palin takes dangerous stances that usually do not make sense. She “energizes the Republican base,” but any Republican with a brain knows that Palin is too crazy of a loose cannon for the party to be associated with closely. Palin was hungry for power, but she hadn’t found her people yet.

All that has now changed. Because Palin at the core really is a fraud, with no real core principles or beliefs, there could have been no better crowd of people to associate herself with, or appoint herself to lead than the Tea Party people. A group without a leader for a leader without a group.

What Palin has done is brilliant. She is telling this movement it does not need to be united, but she is bringing it together. Palin is telling the Tea Partiers that they do not need a leader, but she is leading them. It is a great strategy because while we all know that Palin will say and do anything for the spotlight, she is painting herself as the reluctant leader, the reluctunt politician:

“This isn’t about money. It is not about a title. It is not about a leader position in this movement…it is about the people. I will live, I will die for the people of America whatever I can do to help. And this party, this party that we call the Tea Party, this movement is the future of politics in America and I am proud to be here today.”

Wow, Palin is willing to “die for the people of America!” That just brings tears to my eyes. Give me a break, where does she get this language from? Maybe from the notes scribbled on her hand.

The Ultimate Fraud. Palin Even Needs Notes For Her Q&A Session. Image Credit: Flickr

The thing is, as much as I and many, many other people just want to close our eyes and have Palin disappear, she won’t just go away. She is simply too marketable. There is too much money, and entertainment I suppose, to be made off of her madness. She has already written a book, so what else is left to do but run for President, right?!

By giving herself a group of people to lead, Palin is cultivating a voice for their anger, and giving herself a base for 2012. The words smart and Palin are rarely in the same sentence, but in this case…

On the bright side of all of this, at least Palin is keeping herself and her fellow crazies together. At least they are all identified and gathered in the same place! Hats off to the Tea Partiers I suppose.

Welcome to your party, Sarah Palin. Hate to admit it, but we are all watching.

*This post of mine was also published on The Huffington Post.

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For France, Banning The Burqa Is Not The Answer

January 26, 2010 · 2 Comments

Woman wearing a burqa in Le Bourget, France. Image Credit: NPR/Getty Images

The issue of banning the burqa in France has generated so much heat over the past few months that one would assume the ban had already come into effect. Not so. Since French President Nicolas Sarkozy famously stated that, “the burqa is not a religious sign, it is a sign of the subjugation, of the submission of women…it will not be welcome on our territory,” a parliamentary panel has spent the past six months looking into why Muslim women wear the burqa, and what it means for France.

The 170 page report released today recommends the burqa be banned in all public spaces such as schools and hospitals, but does not make it illegal to wear on the streets or in “private buildings.” The panel had to be very careful with their stipulations because a full ban would have been unconstitutional.

Of course all this fuss over what a small minority of Muslim women in France are forced, or in some cases choose to wear is just a fraction of the much larger issue of Muslim integration in Europe. France has ample reason to be worried. The country has the largest Muslim population in Europe and Islam is the second largest religion in France. The French are known for taking pride in their secular culture.

The burqa is a garment which has become synonymous with women’s oppression in Islam, but we have got to be kidding ourselves if we think banning it has anything to do with the liberation of Muslim women. Sarkozy can talk as much as he wants about how much the burqa subjugates women, but his policies are not going to bring them emancipation.

I think Sarkozy’s real motives are to protect and preserve secular French culture. He wants to stop French identity from being Islamicized. In the process, Sarkozy is sending a very clear message to future Muslim immigrants: You want to move to France? Then be ready to let go of your ways, and take on ours. The burqa is a very visual and tangible symbol, easy to target.

Ironically, Islamic extremists also use the burqa as a tool to express their power, and make their presence felt. I am from Bangladesh, one of the world’s most populated Muslim countries, where radical Islam has slowly but surely been rising over the years. Growing up, you could count on your hands the number of women you saw veiled let alone burqa-clad.

Nowadays, the numbers are astounding. Billboards that use to advertise colorful saris show women covered in black, with only the sliver of their eyes exposed. When the extremists want to let you know they are in town, there is no better way than covering up and restricting the visibility of women.

Sarkozy is doing something very similar, but in the opposite way by telling women they cannot wear the burqa. He can use the whole “it is a subjugation of women” language as much as he wants, but do we really think that Sarkozy is formulating policy to fight for the rights of Muslim women? If he was, he would factor in the issue of how many French Muslim women may not be allowed to go to schools, may be denied medical care, and have their mobility curbed in general because their (sexist) male guardians may not allow them out of the house without the burqa. We are seeing women’s bodies being exploited for political purposes.

The truth of the matter is France has to address its larger issue of Muslim integration instead of making a false case about Muslim women’s rights. Banning the burqa is not going to force Muslim women to wear tank tops and voila! suddenly become more French. In reality, it could have quite the opposite effect, marginalizing Muslim minorities and forcing them to become more extreme in their beliefs as they see them come under attack.

*This post of mine was also published on National Public Radio (NPR).

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The Sound Of Ted Kennedy Rolling Over In His Grave

January 20, 2010 · Leave a Comment

You will find no shortage of analysis today on what the loss of Kennedy’s seat to the GOP may mean for Democrats. Is it the end of Obama, who has ratings lower than any President during his first year since Eisenhower? Or is this symbolic of more political losses to come for the Democrats in 2010? And of course the central question on everyone’s mind, blinking in big, bold red lights is, did healthcare reform just die?

But what I want to know is how big of a role sexism played in this race, if any. Massachusetts is as Democratic and as blue as a state can be, but this post on Politico.com points out the larger issue of a glass ceiling in Massachusetts that women still have to break through. The post poses a very important question which clearly exposes the double-standards women, especially female political candidates, must endure:

“If a male attorney general and former prosecutor had been running against a woman who’d posed nude for Cosmopolitan Magazine and whose law practice consisted mainly of real estate closings, would he have been the one reduced to praying for a squeaker victory? Would she have even gotten elected to the state Senate? No and no are the probable answers. But it is an illustration of the kind of double standard voters apply to female candidates — a double standard that some longtime women’s advocates see in the success of Republican Scott Brown, whose college-aged centerfold and lesser professional success didn’t prevent him from capturing Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat from the Democrats.”

Scott Brown, the centerfold. Image Credit: Cosmopolitan

The loss of Kennedy’s seat is not just a huge loss for the Democrats. It is a huge humiliation. Despite the fact that Martha Coakely was not the strongest candidate and despite the fact that she did not run the best campaign, the sexist double standards applied to women, especially female political candidates, continue.

Disagree? Then imagine what an image like this one of Scott Brown would have done to the career Martha Coakley? She would not have been able to run for Ted Kennedy’s seat, let alone win it. Just the discovery of the existence of such an image for a woman politician would have spelled out the end of her political career. That is for sure. But for Scott Brown, it spells nothing but the beginning.

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Why The Attacks On Hillary Clinton Must Stop

January 13, 2010 · 1 Comment

During the 2008 Presidential Campaign, I felt as though coming to the defense of Hillary Clinton was my job. I think it is fair to say that the level of attacks- both personal and professional- that were mounted on this woman were of a height and intensity rarely seen. Anybody remember the Hillary Clinton nutcracker doll? You would have thought that after Presidential Nominee Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the constant attempts to assassinate her character would stop.

Clinton and Obama in Cairo, Egypt. Image Credit: Flickr

No such luck. The newly released and highly publicized book, Game Change by authors Mark Halperin and John Heileman, offers an insider’s look into the real Hillary versus the tightly controlled public image she has cultivated. Basically, the book offers first-hand accounts apparently from a slew of Clinton insiders who “anonymously” dish gossip about how Hillary is basically one manipulative and power-hungry woman.

What is it about a powerful woman that makes both men and women uncomfortable? Why does it make us feel so insecure to see a woman go after and more importantly, get power? Is it our social conditioning getting the best of us, or do we believe we have the right to tear her down?

I mean, there is even a section in this new book where “half a dozen instances when Clinton used the F-word” are recounted. Big deal, Hillary Clinton curses. Get over it! If I were in her high-pressure environment 24/7, I would be cursing, too.

This is just an example of how people love to pick on Hillary.  The capitalizing and profiting off of stories about Hillary being some big bitch need to stop. It is like the public cannot get enough of it, and journalists can’t stop feeding it to them.

My point on all of this is: so what? So what if Hillary Clinton is a bitch? So what if she loves power? She is a politician! She is supposed to love it. All this brings to surface the huge double-standard any woman in any position of power has to deal with: If you’re an aggressive and ambitious man, you are applauded and encouraged to go after your goals. If you’re an aggressive and ambitious woman, you are a bitch. The end!

There should be no place for this anymore. We should not tolerate this kind of hypocrisy between the sexes. To quote Tina Fey, there is nothing wrong with being a bitch because “bitches get things done!”

When you think about it, Hillary Clinton has been attacked and punished, all very publicly, for things that people would never make her male counterparts answer for.

When she stood by her husband Bill after his countless affairs and especially post the Lewinsky scandal, people accused her of staying for the sake of creating her own political career. When she brought out her daughter Chelsea Clinton on her campaign trail, a normal protocol for any political campaign, Hillary was accused of “whoring out” her child. And just this past summer when she openly scolded a Kenyan student who asked (maybe mistakenly) about the opinions of Bill Clinton, she was slammed for not being able to control her temper, exposing to people the real monster Hillary supposedly really is.

Can you imagine if a man in politics was repeatedly asked about his wife’s opinions on what is his job? No one would even question a man if he had an emotional outburst like Hillary did.  He would have been entitled to it. It is as though this woman is not even allowed the right to be insulted at such a remark! Totally sexist in my opinion.

People need to stop their obsession with picking apart this woman’s personality, and start focusing on her professional accomplishments. Hillary Clinton has one of the most important jobs in the world as the US Secretary of State. And just by running for President, she sent the message to millions of women and girls around the world that there are no limits to the power we can reach for.

Hillary has stipulated over and over again that the most underutilized resource in the world are women and girls.  She was one of the first to stipulate that women’s rights were human rights. Clinton has pledged that under her leadership, empowering women and girls is going to be a cornerstone of US foreign policy. Recently, she exposed to the world during her tour of Africa the horror of rape being systematically applied as a weapon of war in the Congo, and pledged millions in funds for their rehabilitation.

But when I think of Hillary Clinton, I think of a trip she made once to my country in the early 1990’s. There was a little known micro-finance bank in Bangladesh called the Grameen Bank, and Clinton made the trip to Dhaka to visit the Bank’s projects which provided the poor, namely poor women, with small loans, allowing many of them access to credit for the first time in their lives. Clinton was amongst the first to introduce the world to now Nobel Peace Prize recipient Muhammad Yunus, who founded Grameen Bank. I was just a young girl at the time, but I remember coverage of Clinton’s trip vividly.

My point is, give Hillary Clinton a break and stop with the attacks. Stop with the bitching. Give this woman at the very least the minimum level of respect by allowing her one full-term to do her job. If at the end of it you have something to say about her accomplishments or lack there of, go for it. But in the meantime, let us just agree that if we are going to judge this public figure on anything, it should not be her aggressive ambition or her husband’s sex drive.

Let us judge Hillary on one thing and one thing alone: The quality of her work and of her public service.

After all, is that not what we grant without question to men?

*This post of mine was also published on The Huffington Post.

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Tina Brown Tells Us The Things To Stop Bitching About In 2010

January 5, 2010 · Leave a Comment

The Daily Beast's Tina Brown.

Some chestnuts we need to retire in the new year: Obama is too cool. The Internet is killing newspapers. And the Goldman bonuses are worth getting riled up about.

1) Obama’s lack of emotional connection.

It’s all the rage at the moment to denounce the president’s cool and his “inability to connect.” Where did the inspiring Obama of the campaign go, that Facebook pied piper who friended the whole world with this update: Change you can believe in. What happened to him?

Nothing, as it turns out… Obama was always this guy. When I met him in 2007 along with a small group of New York donors, he was just the same as he is as president. A bit wordy, a bit aloof, a bit theoretical. There was a hint of truculence when challenged to be specific on policy. The gaggle of demanding Park Avenue big shots who shared the elevator with me on the way down were underwhelmed. They also felt vaguely dissed. He had failed to make a fuss of any of them.

The president is never going to go back to being “the Obama we voted for.”

Was there a contradiction between that cool customer and the orator who brought out and turned on huge crowds on the campaign trail? Not really. Obama’s gift for delivering set-piece oratorical tours de force had special resonance to Americans fed up with a president who could hardly string two words together without a collision of syntax and whose idea of clever was the single entendre.

Bush’s stubborn inarticulateness may have played as sincerity and determination in the immediate wake of the 9/11 attacks, but eventually it became a metaphor for incompetence. Obama’s grown-upness was a sensation. His suave coolness drove people into a frenzy. Give Obama a script he has made his own and he is the motivational speaker to end all speakers. Tony Robbins cloned with Honest Abe.

And that is the irony for Obama’s Internet-age supporters. The president has a writer’s temperament more than he has a politician’s.

He prefers his public utterances to be informed by fully formed thoughts that come to him after he has pondered. In contrast to the Twitter generation that flocked to his campaign, he doesn’t believe his first thought is his best thought. He has a lawyerly preference for caution.

Cruising on YouTube the other day, I caught a clip from Netroots Nation in August in which Bill Clinton was challenged about not doing enough in office for gays with his “don’t ask, don’t tell” cop-out. The way the former president engaged with his humble heckler was the ultimate contrast: an astonishing, fact-crammed, passion-fuelled, eye-blazing defense of his own record that was especially startling (and, yes, invigorating) after a year of Obama’s judiciously crafted stemwinders.

But hey, you go to war with the president you have, to paraphrase our old friend Donald Rumsfeld. Would we prefer Obama to snatch up his bullhorn and start hollering “bring it on!” when the latest jock-strap jihadist is apprehended at the airport? I thought we hated all that bellicose Bush-era posturing. Obama achieved something in his first year with health care that successive presidents have been unable to achieve. Sure, he turns out to be something we never expected—a bit of a bore who is too fast to compromise and too slow to anger. But the left needs to get over itself. Obama has not failed them. The left failed the Rorschach Test in which they thought they saw the real Obama. The president is never going to go back to being “the Obama we voted for.”

2) Newspapers are dying because of the Internet. Investigative journalism is finished!

What a load of Spam! American newspapers are dying mostly because they were so dull for so long a whole generation gave up on them. They needed to innovate back in the Fax Age of the 1980s but were too self-important and making too much money with their monopolies to acknowledge it.

In the U.K., there is a banquet of glorious newspapers to feast on in the morning despite the presence of the Internet. All of these papers look nothing like they did 15 years ago. Furrow-browed broadsheets like The Times of London and The Guardian got snappy new overhauls, cut down to a more modern-feeling tabloid size, with a use of pictures and color that’s imaginative and striking and appealing to the younger demographic.

These “serious” papers are replete with sexy culture coverage and hip fashion stories as well as foreign reporting and brainiac columnists that make them a guilty pleasure to read. It’s one of the biggest fibs going that American newspapers are now being forced to give up their commitment to investigative reporting. Most of them gave up long ago as their greedy managements squeezed every cent out of the bottom line and turned their newsrooms into eunuchs. As for the Internet thieving the bona fide news reporters’ hard-worked stories, “Back at ya!” is all I can say. Online writers for years have had their stories ripped off by newspapers with no credit. At least the Internet links to the things it steals. Whatever his views on this issue, by the way, Rupert Murdoch has greatly improved The Wall Street Journal. Leave it to an Aussie to give American journalism a swift kick in its down under.

3) Lloyd Blankfein and the Goldman Sachs bonuses.

Let’s stop pretending that investment bankers got into their line of work for reasons other than Willie “because-that’s where-the-money-is” Sutton’s. Goldman’s CEO Blankfein has had more opprobrium heaped on his billiard-ball head (including by The Daily Beast’s Charlie Gasparino) than any corporate leader since Vlad the Impaler. His offense is that he is just scarily good at making money. That’s unlovable, I agree, when everyone else is broke. But Goldman is not the reason so many people can’t get mortgages.

One of the more preposterous inferences I read in 2009 was in Jenny Anderson’s front-page story in The New York Times, which gave an approving nod to the cadre of ex-Goldman people who now moan that “Mr. Blankfein has built a money machine that, while it still values its customers, culture and reputation, puts profits above all.” Isn’t that what he is supposed to do?

The larger question is why business reporters routinely idolized money-machine CEOs with suck-up covers on Fortune, etc., and never questioned what they were doing to the economy any more than the banksters did. New York without their excess isn’t exactly fabulous either. (There is a name for New York minus the excess. It’s called “Philadelphia.”) Ask the workers in New York’s service industry. The city is currently overrun with the new version of the Bonus Army in 1932—out-of-work waiters, barmen, florists, drivers, real-estate brokers, nannies, maids, decorators, manicurists, carpenters, house painters, and all the miserable, broke handlers of “luxury” goods and the shop assistants who gift-wrapped them. Excess and luxury is to New York’s economy what tax hikes and stimulus packages are to Washington’s. Maybe in 2010 we should pray for more of what we fondly used to trash as “egregious corporate boondoggles” to rescue the staffs of our empty five-star hotels.

4) And finally: Let’s not hear any more from Democrats being shocked about Republican obstructionism.

In a GOP bereft of any one leader that can inspire its faithful to say yes to, it’s Mitch McConnell’s job to hold down the fort by saying “No.” Besides, complaining about McConnell only saps valuable time away from objecting vehemently to Joe Lieberman. Save your strength. It’s going to be a long year.

Tina Brown is the founder and editor in chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times bestseller The Diana Chronicles. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines and host of CNBC’s Topic A with Tina Brown.

Cross-posted from “The Daily Beast.”

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Security Could Be Obama’s Downfall

December 30, 2009 · 2 Comments

Image Credit: Flickr

Like many young politicos, Obama’s oratory skills eventually won me over, too. More than that, it made me believe that what this politician had to offer was going to be different. And yes, that somehow “change was going to come to Washington.” Things were meant to be a little bit different at the very least, right?

The frustration people are feeling with Obama’s still very young Administration has less to do with their inability to magically make all the world’s major problems disappear (global economic meltdown, two wars, joblessness, mortgage crisis), and more to do with that fact that Obama has not really delivered on anything. This is a big problem for someone who got voted into the White House on the back a lot of big promises.

In the past few days the message which has been repeatedly reenforced in the minds of people, both in America and abroad, is that this Administration is not capable of handling security. At the end of the day, people need to feel safe and Obama’s inability to give people that sense of security could be his downfall. Your public, your supporters will be patient with you to deliver on a whole host of other issues, but not with the safety of their lives.

There are countless security blunders over the past few days. The one I just can’t seem to get over is that the suspect, 23 yr old Nigerian Abdulmutallab, was already on a watch list, but still was able to not only get a US visa, but get onto a US bound flight.

For anyone who has ever applied for a visa, (as a Bangladeshi I am a specialist), this is one point that is very hard to get past. I mean, how could that happen? Even at the basic level, with the amount of screenings and background checks a regular person has to go through during the visa application process, you would think that being on the terror watch list would set off some kind of red flag! At the very least, the system should be able to immediately place someone who is on the terror watch list on the no fly list. That is just basic security common sense.

And this is just one aspect of this whole debacle. Add to it the issue of clearly nonexistent inter-agency communication, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano’s retraction of her statement that the “system worked,” and you have many red flags. They all point to this Administration’s incompetency in dealing with security.

Now officials are finding ties between the failed Christmas Day attack and former Guantanamo detainees, probably spelling the end for one of Obama’s biggest campaign promises- closing Guantanamo. In fact, now that the public knows that the possibility of former detainees rejoining terror groups has actually happened, it is highly unlikely that the detention center will be shut anytime soon.

This is a slap in the face of the Obama Administration. It goes beyond security and begins to question credibility. I read that two of the former Guantanamo detainees who were released went to art rehab in Saudi Arabia before crossing the border into nearby Yemen where the attack on Flight 253 was plotted. I wonder if they drew any clues to that in their art class!

In the process of all of this by the way, the Administration has quietly let the public know what they have known for months: There is a new front on the War on Terror and it is in Yemen.

We have learnt in the past few days that we have actually been living under a false sense of security. You can call it a “security mirage”. I, like many other people, really believed that a massive security overhaul had taken place after 9-11. Now we have all been shown that you can be on a terror watch list, get denied a British visa, have your father come to the Nigerian Embassy in the US to warn them about you, but still get a US visa, buy a one-way ticket to the US, and get on the flight with explosives in your underwear. And I had to throw away all my liquid toiletries before boarding a flight for what?

This story is still developing and to be fair, the Administration still has some time, not very much but some, to clean up the massive blunder they have on their hands. How they handle it could spell out the destiny of Obama and his team. Because the one thing that we do know for sure is that when it comes to the issue of security, people like to feel safe and they need to know more than anyone, their President can handle that responsibility.

*This post of mine was also published on The Huffington Post.

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Making The Burqa Sexy: A New Frontier In Advertising?

December 22, 2009 · 3 Comments

In a post 9-11 world, perhaps nothing has come to represent the subjugation of Muslim women the way the burqa has. Despite the fact that it comes in various styles, each providing its own degree of covering such as the niqab or the chador, which many Muslim women choose to wear, it is the full covering scary black burqa with a slit just for the eyes, or the sky blue Taliban-made burqa with its infamous mesh covering, that has become an increasingly powerful political tool, widely used to exploit or justify fear of the Muslim world. Just look at the strategic use of images of burqa-clad Afghan women the US applied in its campaign for the war in Afghanistan.

I honestly thought the burqa had no more identities to take on until an article by Mona Eltahaway brought this video to my attention. Apologies for two video blogs in the last week, but you have to see this to believe it:

Is it not ironic that the very piece of clothing that is used to deny Muslim women their sexual identity, or any kind of identity as Eltahaway puts it, is now being used to make sexual objects out of the burqa-clad Muslim woman? Eltahaway rightfully points out that this ad does not just sexualize any form of Muslim covering such as the chador or the niqab, but goes straight for the most restrictive and most political of Muslim coverings.

Talk about a clash of civilizations.

Is it not just a tad bit hypocritical of a European company to give the burqa this sexy makeover just to sell their lingerie given the fact that the burqa has been so openly attacked and targeted by European politicians?

There is no shortage of quotes from French President Sarkozy on how he feels about the burqa in France, but the following is one of my favorites: “The burqa is not a religious sign, it is a sign of the subjugation, of the submission of women. I want to say solemnly that it will not be welcome on our territory.”

Most recently, it was the Swiss who used the image of a Muslim woman in a burqa, lined up next to missiles, coincidentally mirroring minarets, in its posters to promote the banning of mosque towers. The issue is currently a burning political topic in Switzerland.

Are we just supposed to ignore the fact that on the current European political stage the “Muslim question” is a rather large one? It is one in which the burqa symbolizes the domination of Muslim men over their women, and the general “backwardness” of the Islamic faith. All this gives ample propaganda for many Right-Wing European political parties’ stance on the general issue of Muslim integration.

Once again we see women’s bodies and women’s sexual identities being exploited for profit. It is all about marketing over politics at the end of the day. But hey, whatever sells, right?

If anything, this advertisement makes that point, regardless of politics, shockingly clear.

*This post of mine was also published on The Huffington Post.

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Berlusconi: The Symbolism Behind the Blood

December 14, 2009 · 2 Comments

There is so much symbolism couched in the attack on Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi yesterday that I do not know where to begin my analysis.  The one word which keeps coming to my head is basta, Italian for “enough.” Clearly that is just what the Italian people have had.

Let us recap with actual footage of the attack:

There are only so many times one can hit the repeat button, but I just cannot get enough of this video because I am still in shock:  Somebody actually hit Silvio Berlusconi. The Italian Prime Minister had become this larger than life figure mainly through his masterful manipulation of the Italian press and media, 90% of which he owns.

The Italian Prime Minister had cultivated an image of himself as an untouchable and unbeatable force. He not only runs his country, but he practically owns everything in it!

A few years ago when I still lived in Italy, Berlusconi was getting some new hair implants put in. The whole day, every single major Italian news channel ran the entire procedure. There was nothing else on TV. It was a testament to Berlusconi’s hold over Italy, whether she wanted it or not.

Yesterday, seeing him battered and bleeding on my television screen was like discovering the mortality of a supposedly immortal character in Greek mythology.

But it was only a matter of time before someone let Berlusconi know how people really feel about him. Of course attacking the Prime Minister with a metal statue of Milan’s Duomo is a tad bit dramatic, but we could not have expected anything less spectacular from the Italians!

We are talking about a man who is currently embroiled in a sex scandal involving prostitutes and cocaine dealing businessmen, an ongoing divorce with his wife of twenty-plus years, a criminal trial for corruption, and who has recently been accused of having ties to what else? The Italian mafia. Go figure.

I have often pondered what the Italians think of their leader. I always found the Italians to be a very proud people who take the concept of respect very seriously. They have taught the world about that concept. Though we all know better than to judge a population by their President or Prime Minister; however, the fact of the matter is, that figure, for better or for worse, represents their country on the international stage. Just look at the extent of the damage done to the global perception of Americans under George W. Bush.

I rest my case.

Despite the obvious security questions which naturally surface with the assault on Berlusconi, (who would have thought it would be so easy?!), the attack symbolizes something deeper: Italians have had enough.

For the past few years, but especially in recent months, Berlusconi’s reckless and pompous behavior have made a mockery of both Italy and the Italians.

Furthermore, his repulsive infatuation with women is so offensive and derogatory that it takes sexism to a whole new level, given it is being conducted by a head of state. Stacking his Parliament with attractive, but unqualified former beauty queens and actresses in countless and meaningless positions is an insult to women around the world. Berlusconi objectifies and exploits women with impunity. It is no wonder that earlier this month, thousands of Italians marched in the streets of Rome demanding he resign.

The era of Berlusconi has just received a massive blow.  Silvio’s seemingly unbreakable image has been broken, and in the process the people of Italy have reclaimed their self-respect from their buffoon of a Prime Minister.

Watch the footage above. And feel free to hit repeat all you want.

*This post of mine was also published on The Huffington Post.

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Au Revoir Minarets? The Swiss Message To Muslims

December 7, 2009 · 6 Comments

Worth A Thousand Words- Or More. Image Credit: Swiss People's Party (SVP)

When I first heard about the recent Swiss referendum to ban minarets in the country, all I could think about was how unexpected it was to get such a hostile  action from the Swiss. Weren’t they supposed to be the all loving, peaceful, neutral European country?

Apparently not. The Swiss clearly are just as freaked out about the surging Muslim population in their country as many of their European neighbors. It should be noted that far-right parties in Italy, Netherlands, and Belgium all welcomed the Swiss referendum, and called for similar measures to be taken at home.

All this makes me think about an article I read a few years ago in Foreign Affairs called, “Europe’s Angry Muslims.” It was horribly offensive and it outlined major European nations’ problems with integrating their Muslim communities: The Algerians in France, Turks in Germany, Moroccans in Spain, and Pakistanis in London.

To give the article some credit, it was a brutally honest analysis of Europe’s growing “Muslim problem.” It was also the first time the threat Muslims pose to European secular culture was articulated to me.

Initially I thought the Swiss were having a delayed reaction to their Muslim population, but after reading H.A.’s Hellyer’s “Daily Beast” piece on how Europe’s Muslims should respond to the Swiss, I see that Switzerland’s move has to do with a much larger issue of European identity.

In his article, former Brookings Institute Fellow Hellyer states that, “Muslims are not a comfortable reality for much of Europe…Muslim Europeans are a problem. They adhere to a religion which for many centuries had provided many Europeans with an “alter-civilization” by which to judge themselves.”

This point makes me think of renown literary theorist Edward Said’s book (read: masterpiece) Orientalism. In it, Said states that the West has always defined itself against the Orient, against the “Other.” He stipulates that one basis for European colonialism was the feminization of the Orient, of the East as a wild, untamed woman that must be controlled and contained.

So what happens when the “Other” moves into your country and becomes a citizen? Demands the same rights as you? If you begin to view the situation from this perspective, you begin to understand the roots of European paranoia. It also becomes startlingly clear to you how insecure contemporary European identity must be, so easily threatened.

This however does not vindicate what is happening in Switzerland. The fact of the matter is that hostility towards Muslims in Europe is rising. I have written previously about the need for American Muslims to do more to provide tangible responses that clearly separate us from the violent acts committed in the name of Islam.

But it’s a different ballgame for European Muslims.  You hear so many calls about the need for Muslims to “better integrate” themselves into European society. But how can they really when European laws such as this Swiss law and the ban of the burqa in France make it so difficult for Muslims to even pretend to be equal citizens with their fellow Europeans? Blatantly prejudiced legislation against Muslims is not only still being authored and introduced, it is even praised by other European nations.

So what does the future hold for Europe’s Muslims? Hellyer prompts us to be cautious optimists. He reminds us that one of the reasons America even exists is because of Europe’s  “historically bad record on respect for diversity,” and inability to “cope with pluralism.”

While what is happening in Switzerland today gives an opportunity for Swiss Muslims to stand up, speak out against this blatant discrimination (just look at the Swiss People’s Party’s poster!), and demonstrate their peaceful contributions to their societies, I have to agree with Hellyer. I fear this is another very troubling sign of growing Islamophobia in Europe- and increasing isolation of its Muslim populations.

*This post of mine was also published on The Huffington Post.

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Today’s Politician’s Wife Is No Longer Standing By Her Man

November 30, 2009 · 9 Comments

Jackie Kennedy used a glamorous mask to cover up John's countless other women. Image Credit: Flickr

Remember the way it use to be? Shamed politician stands at podium, admitting affair, acknowledging homosexuality, while his disgraced wife stands loyally by his side. Anyone who didn’t know what the word humiliation really meant needed only to see pictures of Eliot Spitzer’s wife standing by her husband’s side as he confessed his involvement with a prostitution ring last year. A little piece of that woman died with each word her husband uttered.

Is it not ironic that the wife of a politician plays such a huge role in making her husband’s public image a moral one? But if he does anything to damage how people perceive him, does he take his wife down, too? Eliot Spitzer made his wife the pity of the world, a sorry and tragic character. It was painful just to watch that press conference.

But Spitzer’s wife was not the one paying to traffick prostitutes across state lines. The wife of a politician must always put protecting her husband’s image over everything else. But no one is giving her that same security.

Well that is no longer the case. Today’s politician’s wives are no longer playing the part of victim in their husband’s charades. If anything, wives are ‘outing’ their husbands before even they get the chance to, sparing themselves of the looming humiliation by exposing their husbands for who they really are. They are providing themselves with security and protecting their own futures.

Look at Veronica Lario, Silvio Berlusconi’s wife. Earlier this year, she bluntly announced to the press that she could no longer put up with her husband’s “infatuation with young women,” and wanted a divorce. Berlusconi, Italy’s current Prime Minister and one of the richest men in the world, is now entangled in a sex scandal with a cocaine dealing businessman accused of supplying Berlusconi with girls at his private residences in Rome and Sardegna.

Many Italian women credit Lario with igniting a new “feminist” fervor in Italy where women are culturally encouraged to guard their men and their family’s honor. No public hanging of dirty, private family matters, per favore. But Veronica Lario opted for telling the world what being married to Silvio Berlusconi was really like- and the $65 million a year in alimony she is currently seeking.

Women have had enough of society’s rules which allow and condone men to be promiscuous while they are supposed to act oblivious to their husband’s cavorting. Women are forced to be responsible for men, especially men who are public figures. The most important role a politician’s wife plays is that of loving, fiercely loyal spouse, and it is a role that has to be played very convincingly. After all, if the wife has seemingly forgiven her husband, the public will eventually follow her lead, right?

But while Lario is getting her revenge on Berlusconi financially, the political wife who is really coming into her own is Jenny Sanford.

When it came to light that South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford was actually having an affair with an Argentinean woman in Buenos Aires, and not hiking in the Appalachian Mountains, his wife Jenny Sanford opted out of standing by him at the press conference.

Now it turns out that Mark Sanford has run up 37 counts of ethic charges for his “improper use of campaign contributions,” and “unreported use” of friends’ private planes. He even openly referred to the other woman, Maria Belen Chapur, as his soul mate.

Jenny Sanford, a Georgetown University graduate and former investment banker,  is having none of this. As her husband’s political future falls to pieces, his wife is building a brand.

The Sanfords in better days. Image Credit: Flickr

I recently read this article in the New York Times that says Jenny Sanford is writing a book (of course!) on her experience dealing with her husband’s infidelity. She also trademarked her name to sell clothing and other merchandise. Sanford even has her own website with press releases and pictures. To top it all off, Jenny Sanford endorsed State Representative Nikki Haley to succeed her husband as South Carolina’s Governor. The NY Times labels Mrs. Sanford as, “the reluctant poster woman for not standing by her man.”

More like poster woman for not standing by her man and coming into her own! Jenny Sanford is becoming Jenny Sanford INC. Sources cited in the article say that Sanford “has moved from promoting him [Mark Sanford] as a loyal spouse to using those same talents on behalf of herself.”

What would Jackie Kennedy have said?

Who cares? It is about time women stop doing their politician husbands the favor of abetting them in their illicit affairs, covering up their homosexuality, etc. What we learn from women like Veronica Lario and in particular Jenny Sanford is that you do not have to pay the price for your husband destroying his political ambitions. Politician’s wives have already sacrificed enough dignity by pretending to play dumb in the first place, for even a second let alone years.

Women like Sanford show us what it means to be a political wife in this day and age. More importantly, they remind us to be our own person when playing the “committed till death” role of wife comes to a close. They remind us that when your husband ruins his career, instead of falling with him, build your own empire instead.

That is the best revenge.

*This post of mine was also published on The Huffington Post.

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