Travel Alert

The comments this weekend on Globe & Mail articles about the US State Department's latest travel alert are unanimous in claiming that it is a fraud. They opine that the government is warning Americans away from European capitals as a way to scare the public into voting for incumbents in the upcoming election and as a way to deflect public attention from more important matters, like the economy. Many express amusement that there will be less Americans in Europe creating queues at art galleries and so on.

Canada, the US, and other countries regularly issue travel alerts, and anyone who travels should get in the habit of checking them before buying tickets. They aren't a joke, they aren't political, and they carry repercussions in terms of whether you'll be bailed out if things go wrong. See travel advisories from the US, Canada and the UK.

The current travel alert for Europe does not warn people against going to Europe; it merely describes an ongoing threat and current concerns by European governments, and suggests that US citizens register with a US travel service. I wouldn't cancel a trip because of it, but it would cause me to keep my ears open for possible developments.

There are times when you can take advantage of non-existent but perceived threats. When Reagan bombed Libya in 1986, I immediately made plans for a European holiday. American tourists were terrified of terrorism in Europe that summer and stayed away in droves. I rented a car for three weeks and did a driving tour to French 3-star restaurants. I could walk in to establishments that normally required at least a year's advance booking, and they were grateful to see me. It was quite a trip - mired only by being doused with radioactive fallout from Chernobyl. But that's another story.

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Fun Factoids: al Qaeda

Doing some research about al Qaeda recently, I learned some interesting things.

One: the reason there are so many ways of pronouncing the name is that the Arabic pronunciation requires being able to make a voiceless uvular plosive as well as a voiced pharyngeal fricative. The former is, I believe, the first consonant in the name Khomeini; sort of a combination of a k and an h. That's easy enough. But the voiced pharyngeal fricative is not so easy for us non-Arabs to get a handle on; even in phonetic symbology, it is represented by a question mark. To make matters even more difficult, there is controversy over whether this sound is truly a voiced pharyngeal fricative, or whether it is a voiced pharyngeal approximant, epiglottal consonant, voiced epiglottal fricative, epiglottal approximant, or pharyngealized glottal stop. In other words: don't worry about it.

Two: In writing my last post, I stumbled on al Qaeda's list of targets: "Western, Jewish, Israeli, Muslim apostate and Shiite" communities. (Muslim apostates are ex-Muslims. Shiites comprise 15% of the Muslim world and are concentrated in Iran and Iraq.)

That means that al Qaeda doesn't target quite a few groups, other than its own religion of Sunni Muslim. The groups that are getting off scot-free include Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Confucianists, Christians who don't live in the West, Baha'is, Jainists, atheists who don't live in the West, animists, Taoists, Shintoists, Druze, and the Vodunsi.

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Our Achilles' Heel

A burning issue for our government, businesses and civil society should be our increasing vulnerability to computer breakdown. Consider just three stories that were in the news recently:

* Air Canada had a small computer glitch (a communications error) that grounded planes for hours. One inconvenienced traveler said on the news, "Don't airlines have backup systems?" Apparently they don't. Planes were grounded for only six hours, but the ensuing mess lasted much longer and affected airports worldwide.

* Britain lost computer disks containing confidential details of 25M residents - all the recipients of child benefits in the country. The data is a potential goldmine for identity thieves, as it contains bank account information as well as personal data. The astounding thing about this is not that someone made a mistake and lost the disks, but that the government does not use strong encryption to protect confidential data.

* Fresh news broke about the al Qaeda "hacker wing" that is dedicated to cyber-terrorism. In late October, al Qaeda announced it would start its attack on November 11. Of course, al Qaeda is trying to keep us in a state of fear, but it's true that they have been targeting computer usage for some time; just last March Scotland Yard broke up a ring that was trying to bring down the British internet (particularly targeting the stock exchange).

Our computer vulnerability is already having consequences. For example, three years ago a friend of mine had a recurrence of breast cancer and was scheduled for chemotherapy in our local hospital. Her treatment had to be delayed for several months because of a computer virus that had disrupted the hospital's computer system. She died - just another unreported casualty of inadequately protected computer systems.

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Reliving History?

When civil war broke out in Spain in 1936, Adolf Hitler was quick to support the fascist side. The Spanish Civil War proved to be an important training ground for the Germans. It distracted the world from Germany's rearmament (in defiance of the WWI treaty); it provided combat experience for German troops, especially its air force; and it allowed Germany to develop and test its armaments. With German support, the fascists prevailed in Spain in January 1939; Germany waged full-scale war later that year.

The 1937 bombing of Guernica by the German Condor Legion was a massive PR offensive against the rest of Europe, and was part of the reason European countries were frightened into appeasing Hitler in the disastrous Munich Agreement of 1938. But the fascists played it both ways, creating controversy about who actually bombed Guernica that was only settled in the 1970s.

In fact, western opposition to the fascists was slow to develop. Many did not want to support communism. The little that Britain and France did to oppose the civil war ended up hurting the socialist side more than the fascist side. Both sides had their good points and bad points, which led to controversy that distracted the world from the real threat.

Here we are 70 years later, and I think there are some lessons to be learned as we consider the activities and aspirations of Iran. I am by no means supporting the idea of bombing Tehran or following George Bush-style "democracy" at the end of a gun. Nor am I suggesting that there's anyone in Iran who compares to Hitler. But I think there are some disturbing historical similarities and that we should forget for a moment whether we sympathise more with the Palestinians or Israelis, put aside our disgust and outrage at the US, and think in a clear and non-partisan way about what might be coming.

What might be coming is Iran. Iran has clearly-expressed territorial ambitions in the Middle East, and it sees the west as its enemy. How will it achieve its ends? Probably in some ways we can predict (such as an Iranian-backed coup in Egypt; the gradual, partly democratic take-over of Lebanon and Iraq; and increased support for terrorism against the west) and some we can't (something wholly unexpected like a deal with Turkey to take on the Kurds; or a deal with the UAE or Oman that would allow them to close the Persian Gulf). Iran is not now a superpower, but that would change quickly if it had nuclear weapons, control of the world oil supply, and the support of a large proportion of the world's billion-plus Arabs.

It would be foolish to underestimate the intelligence or determination of Iran. Iran is a large, stable parliamentary democracy (it's an Islamic theocratic republic, but it also has free elections and a parliament) with a millennia-old civilization and a history as a colonial power. Just this week Iran demonstrated its Thaqeb submarine-to-surface missile. Iran's Hoot torpedo travels four times faster than conventional torpedoes (223 mph), and its Shahab-3 missile can travel 1,200 miles and carry a nuclear warhead.

I hope that all this comes to nothing. I would very much like to live in a world where Iran was our ally and we all co-existed peacefully. However, there is a chance that a few years down the road we will be embroiled in World War III and it may have eerie similarities to WWII, with the Middle East taking the place of Europe and - who knows - Iran, Syria and North Korea taking the place of Germany, Italy and Japan. (An old joke goes, "Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean everybody's not out to get me." Just because the idiot George Bush called them the axis of evil doesn't mean they're not going to become just that.)

We need to keep our eyes open to the big picture. Also, we need to be a lot more careful about electing national leaders who will be up to the challenge of avoiding and possibly fighting a world war.

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Terrorism in the '70s

Terrorism didn't start on September 11, 2001. It's been around for a long time, and we've had more serious bouts with it in the past.

Back in the 1970s there was loads of terrorist activity from groups like the IRA, PLO, Beider Meinhof, Red Brigades, FLQ, and SLA. Airport security was very tight (the laxness of the last 25 years could be viewed as an anomaly). I was strip-searched and heavily patted down on more than one occasion. Once in the Geneva airport I watched a security guard squeeze all the toothpaste out of a tube. I was never able to carry my Swiss Army knife on a plane. In the summer of 1973 I passed through airports in Tel Aviv, Beirut, Tehran and Athens, and security was unbelievable; we were constantly surrounded by soldiers with machine guns. Passengers had their cameras dismantled with screwdrivers. It was scary, but I didn't complain - I welcomed the protection. Lots of things were getting blown up that summer, including part of the Athens airport.

Nowadays we hear a lot of discussion of why the Islamic terrorists are attacking us and what we have done to cause their anger. In the '70s there was less of that sense of western blame. The stated goal of groups like the SLA and Beider Meinhof was to overthrow western democracy and bring about the revolution. Those organizations were largely made up of middle class, educated westerners - not a group that seemed particularly oppressed. Back then, even the IRA garnered very little public support, although the Irish people were widely seen to be treated very unfairly by Britain. The IRA was a band of criminal thugs who committed crimes to finance their operations, who trained with and supported other terrorist organizations, and who killed innocent civilians. Likewise, there was public sympathy for the Palestinians, but the PLO were seen as murderers rather than champions of the cause - partly because many people understood at that time that Arab governments were ensuring that the Palestinians stayed in refugee camps so they would generate an army to fight Israel.

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Foiled Again

My company (a big US outfit) issued a High Alert Security Advisory travel guideline today, restricting business travel to the bare minimum. Until I read the email outlining it I hadn't taken this UK bomb plot very seriously. After a while it all starts to feel like Snidely Whiplash with the babe tied to the railway tracks... it looks like endsville for the babe but somehow the story always ends with Snidely saying, "Foiled again!"

(Although, as the IRA used to say, The authorities have to be lucky every single time; we only need to get lucky once.)

I'm more concerned about personal inconvenience than bombs, but the stories that are coming out about the vulnerability of air travel are a bit unnerving, even to me. The talking heads are making a convincing case that airport security is bogus and designed to make us feel safe, rather than make us be safe. For example, it's nice that they check laptops, but terrorists could use any battery to detonate a bomb - even a watch battery. And restricting people from carrying water bottles or shampoo is not solving the problem... in a previous plot, liquid explosives were put in contact lens containers. And some explosives, like Sentex, are virtually undetectable. In fact, unless the authorities do complete body searches of every passenger there isn't much they can do to keep the bad guys from blowing us up. If then.

So it all seems to come down to figuring out what they're up to in the plotting stage, and that requires the cooperation of the communities where the terrorists live. Canada seems to have made some good moves in that regard, and it's heartening that Pakistan helped the UK government to uncover this latest plot. But the US isn't helping by pissing off our friends and allies in the Muslim world. I don't mean that we should appease our enemies, but that we should forge stronger ties with the majority of Muslims that aren't the enemy. As a start, this means avoiding racist discriminatory unfair treatment of Middle Easterners. A recent example: if a bunch of WASP exchange students went AWOL for a few days before showing up for university, would the FBI issue a statement that they would be deported - even before figuring out what they were up to?

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Perspectives

As I continue to think about the conflict in the Middle East I am trying to better appreciate the Iranian perspective. I suspect that last year's "leaked" US government statements about nuking Tehran probably caused this situation, especially after the US called Iran part of the axis of evil and made it clear that it was thinking about bombing or even invading the country... no country wants to end up like Iraq. Iran is trying to develop nuclear capabilities and is working on long-range missiles that could hit Europe, and the US is desperate to stop it. Even if another goal of Tehran is to occupy parts (perhaps all) of Iraq and vastly increase its domination over the Middle East, probably the immediate cause of its aggression against Israel is related to defending itself from the US.

Pinned down between Iranian missiles in the Gaza strip and southern Lebanon, Israel would make a heck of a hostage. Even if Israel prevails, the only way it can do so is to bomb Lebanese civilians with its US-funded military, which will increase hatred of the US in the Arab street. And Iran has set itself up as a Muslim protector and a major player, which will help it garner support when and if it is attacked by the US. Finally, as I reported in a previous post, Iran may be using this diversion to move along its nuclear program.

As to the Israeli perspective, Israel's immediate strategy is to disarm Hezbollah and make it impossible for Iran and Syria to send reinforcements. To that end, Israel bombed the Beirut airport and the Beirut-Damascus hiway. Hezbollah hid itself in the civilian population, which is why Israel is bombing civilian areas. As to its long range goals, Israel has made it clear that it wants a sovereign Lebanon that is free from Iranian and Syrian control.

Along with the rest of the world, I'm horrified by the widespread killing in both countries, but I think Israel has a strong case that its actions are a proportionate response and are justified:

- Israel tried all diplomatic methods to remove the military build-up on its border. Since 2000 when Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon and Hezbollah moved in, the UN has repeatedly demanded that Hezbollah leave the area and has called on the Lebanese government to remove them.
- Israel did not attack until it was attacked... many times over the last few years by Hezbollah in its hiding places across the Lebanese border. Throughout this conflict, Israel has been bombed continuously by Hezbollah.
- Before bombing civilian areas, Israel drops leaflets warning residents that the area will be bombed. Unlike Hezbollah, Israel is not bombing civilian areas because it wants to kill civilians; it is doing so because it is the only way to destroy Hezbollah's military capability and cut off reinforcements from Syria and Iran.
- It is vital to the security of Israel that it defeat Hezbollah. That's why the US is not asking for a ceasefire. There are two reasons why Israel can't hold back. One is that Hezbollah has an estimated 15,000 rockets in Lebanon aimed at Israel; as with the Cuban missile crisis, that situation can't be allowed to continue. The other is a deadly psychological consideration: if Israel doesn't win and win decidedly, it will look weak and its enemies will attack more ferociously.

Israel can and probably will beat Hezbollah, and the Lebanese might even kick out the foreign agitators who have been wrecking their country for decades. But lasting peace isn't possible until there is some sort of detente between the US and Iran. A US-Iranian peace accord might provide assurances that the US will not invade Iran, with Iranian concessions on its weapon build-up, or something like that.

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Behold Your Enemy!

It has been bothering me for some time that I don't understand violent religious extremists. Why are they the way they are? Are they put up to it by manipulative people (as many believe) or does the instigation to murder come from within? Do they find a justification for sociopathic behavior in religion, or does religious zealotry lead to hatred and violence in some people? How the heck do middle-class Canadians become terrorists? This applies to doctor-killing Christians and those who incite them as much as to Islamic terrorists, but the latter are more prominent these days.

The Globe & Mail published an article called "Hateful chatter behind the veil" (June 29) about some of the wives of the 17 men who were arrested in Toronto recently for plotting to blow up the Toronto Stock Exchange, a military base and a Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) office. The article is based on public Internet postings by the women, in English, that the Globe uncovered apparently with a Google search. There's something about reading a person's own words to get an understanding of where they're really coming from... and these women appear to be very, very scary.

Nada Farooq came to Canada from Saudi Arabia as a youngster. She was teased at school; her name is pronounced "needa" and kids called her "Needa Shower". If the suggestion is that she became what she did because she suffered intolerance, I think this is a red herring: every kid is taunted and teased in school. That seems rather mild compared to some of what I witnessed, and if this is the biggest instance of intolerance that the reporters could uncover, then that doesn't seem to be a factor.

She grew up in a stable family with two parents in one of the most ethnically diverse and immigrant-supportive places in the world, metro Toronto. Her father is a pharmacist. He dispenses drugs at a Canadian military base and supports the military intervention in Afghanistan. Farooq finished high school and her parents wanted her to go to university. Farooq's father says that he never heard extremist views from her like those she expressed in her Internet postings. She is very devout, according to her father - much more devout than her parents.

According to her Internet postings, Farooq hopes that all her sons will become terrorists. She considered adding a clause to her marriage contract that she could divorce her husband if "he ever refuses a clear opportunity to leave for jihad".

While a student at Meadowvale Secondary School, Farooq founded an Internet forum for Muslim students and she and another suspect's wife, Cheryfa MacAulay Jamal, used it to promote radical views to the students. They posted videos of the beheadings of US hostages and wrote posts with titles such as "Terrorism and killing civilians" and "Behold Your Enemy!"

Jamal, a native of Cape Breton who converted to Islam and then married a Muslim, argued on the forum that Muslims should not vote in the federal election, saying: "Are you accepting a system that separates religion and state? Are you gonna give your pledge of allegiance to a party that puts secular laws above the laws of Allah? Are you gonna worship that which they worship? Are you going to throw away the most important thing that makes you a muslim?"

In her mid-40s, Jamal was by far the oldest participant in the Meadowvale high school student forum. According to the Globe, Jamal expressed hate for banking, the UN, women's rights, Canadian laws and Americans.

Jamal told the Meadovale students, "You don't know that the Muslims in Canada will never be rounded up and put into internment camps like the Japanese were in WWII!" Writing about Americans, she told them, "Know what you will face one day. Let them call you a terrorist, let them make you look like a savage, but know that THIS is the filth of the earth, the uncivilised destroyer of humanity...Know from this day that this is not an Iraqi problem, it is not an Afghani problem, it is not a Palestinian problem, it is not a Somali problem. IT IS YOUR PROBLEM!!!"

Farooq's online avatar is a picture of the Koran and a rifle. She repeatedly referred to Canada as "this filthy country." In her postings, according to the Globe, Farooq expressed hate for gay people, Jews, Americans, moderate Muslims, and Canada. Here are some of the things she wrote:

* "All muslim politicians are corrupt. There's no one out there willing to rule the country by the laws of Allah, rather they fight to rule the country by the laws of democracy."

* She posted a photo of a gay rally, and wrote, "Look at these pathetic people. They should all be sent to Saudi, where these sickos are executed or crushed by a wall, in public."

* "May Allah crush these jews, bring them down to their kneees, humuliate them. Ya Allah make their women widows and their children orphans."

* "Those who are sincere in pleasing Allah will go to whatever length to help the true believers. Those who fear Allah more than they fear the CSIS. Those are the ones who will succeed in the hereafter."

The Canadian model of a female monster is, of course, Karla Homolka. It's interesting to compare Farooq and Jamal to Homolka. All three seem to be sociopaths. Homolka took a passive role in that she helped her husband torture, rape and murder young women for his pleasure. Farooq and Jamal are instigators but it's not clear whether they would ever engage in murder themselves. They egg on their husbands, they plan to raise their children to kill, and they manipulate young Muslims. They apparently hate everyone on earth who is not a devout, radical Muslim and want to see every non-Muslim institution destroyed.

One woman is an immigrant from the Middle East who grew up here; the other is a Cape Bretoner who converted to Islam. Both seem to take for granted the freedoms they are afforded in Canada. They make explicit arguments about the right to free speech, and yet they say they hate Canadian law because it is not religious law. (Not that it's unusual for sociopaths to feel strongly about their own rights but disregard the rights of others.) They don't, at least in the quotes from the Globe article, seem to have any goal other than to enjoy their comfy life in suburban Canada and incite hatred and murder.

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Borderline

I was in Boulder Colorado last week, and was struck by the number of times I heard reference to the need to tighten security at the US-Canada border. There seem to be two motivations: (1) The recent concern over illegal immigration from Mexico is being expanded to include concern over [non-existent] illegal immigration from Canada; and (2) There is a growing belief, brought on by wholly spurious accounts from media and politicians, that Canada is a hot-bed of terrorist activity and represents a real threat to Americans.

My first reaction was to be a bit pissed off. But then I started to think about it more, and realized that the US concerns don't have to be valid. It's the right of Americans to tighten up any of their national borders for any reason.

Some Canadians believe that the northern border states won't allow the new passport law to come into effect, but given that Canadians are far more likely to have passports than Americans, it will benefit the border states to make it more difficult for US tourists to leave the country.

It's part of the post-9/11 world that the US has changed, and instead of wailing about it Canadians should accept and adapt. In this case, it seems that the only solution is to strengthen our east-west ties (Asia and Europe) and loosen our north-south ties. If we don't, we're possibly in for big trouble down the line.

As Walt Kelly said, "When you starve with a tiger, the tiger starves last."

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Whodunnit

Two very mysterious things happened after 9/11. One is that Osama bin Laden got away. The other is the lack of progress in the FBI investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks.

In case anyone has forgotten... in the weeks following 9/11, several letters were mailed that all contained the same strain of anthrax. Some, containing a relatively unrefined form that was not deadly, were sent to New York news agencies. Some, containing a more refined and deadly version (some call it "weaponized"), were sent to a tabloid in Florida and two Democratic senators. All in all, five people died and about 20 were sickened.

There has been a lot of speculation about who sent the anthrax and why:

- Arab terrorists sent it to terrorize the country.
- An Anthrax bioresearcher sent it to make the country aware of the threat.
- A US extremist group sent it to get in on the terrorizing of the country.
- Bush supporters sent it to gain access to Democratic offices during their evacuation.
- Bush/Republican/right wing supporters sent it to gain support for the Patriot Act and war in Iraq.

Who knows what the truth is. When al Qaeda bombed the World Trade Towers in 1993 the attempt seemed mammothly incompetent; it may just take them a while to go from prototype to production. Likewise, it's conceivable that a researcher with access to the chemical might have done it, although you'd think that the FBI would have checked out that angle pretty carefully. None of the other theories seem credible.

What is a lot clearer is the effects of the anthrax attack. Coming so quickly after 9/11, it put the country into a state of panic. It created the war-time climate that made it possible for Bush to sell the war in Iraq, and that (in part) got Bush re-elected. It made many Democrats feel that they couldn't oppose Bush's plans in Iraq. It is only in the last few months that the country seems to be emerging from that war-time mindset.

Richard Cohen wrote in the Washington Post, "The terrorist attacks coupled with the anthrax scare unhinged us a bit -- or maybe more than a bit. We eventually went into a war that now makes little sense and that, without a doubt, was waged for reasons that simply did not exist. We did so, I think, because we were scared. You could say we lacked judgment. Maybe. I would say we lacked leadership."

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The Cartoon Controversy

The cartoon controversy is one of those things that might not bear close inspection. In previous blogs I have tried to understand the Muslim perspective and think my way into a happy solution. After spending more time reading and thinking about it, I am starting to back away from my previous tolerant stance. I think sometimes we have to stand up and say that something is wrong.

It's wrong that people are in hiding fearing for their lives over these cartoons. It's wrong that almost every media outlet is afraid to publish them for fear of violent reprisal. It's wrong that violent protests have destroyed embassies and killed people. It's wrong that book editors, film makers and politicians are being murdered because Muslims are offended by something they said. It's wrong that Danish imams published a booklet about the cartoons that included fake cartoons that are offensive and there's no scandal. It's wrong that moderate Muslims are condoning the violence.

I went to a lecture today called "Interfaith Dialogue & Diplomacy: The Cartoon Controversy" given by a PoliSci professor (who is from Pakistan) at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

She said that the belief in freedom of speech is not big "T" truth because it is not accepted by all. She argued that when we claim free speech we are claiming that our view of what is sacred is more important than another person's, and we can't do that. Now, there might be some justification for this argument within Muslim countries, although I'm dubious. There might even be some slight justification in the international community. But within western countries, freedom of speech is the law. It isn't some relativistic notion that we can choose to ignore if we have religious faith.

She admitted that each cartoon on its own was not offensive, but argued that the publication was offensive because the article was titled "Mohammed". She said that naming the article after the prophet was akin to walking into a church naked and constituted a great impropriety. She didn't really make the leap from impropriety to violence; in fact, she didn't really explain this whole bizarre line of reasoning at all. But she claimed that it explained (and implied that it justified?) the violent reaction.

I thought the speaker, Dr. Samina Yasmeen, said some offensive things. She described herself as an enlightened feminist, but she talked about the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh as if it were completely understandable. She didn't outright condone it but she described the murder as a reasonable reaction.

And yet some in the audience seemed to think that she was too soft on the issue. One said that dialogue between Muslims and non-Muslims would never solve anything as long as atrocities were being perpetrated against Muslims. Just in case we didn't get who he was talking about, he added, "...atrocities which have been committed since 1948..." Now let's look at what he's saying: Palestinians are in conflict with Israelis, and that means that there's no point in any dialogue between any Muslims (about a billion of whom are not Palestinian) and anyone else. It is exactly when there is conflict that dialogue is most needed.

Another guy who identified himself as head of a local Muslim organization said that people in the west say they're open-minded but if they're truly open-minded then they must be open-minded about people who are closed-minded. I think he meant that westerners are a bunch of patsies who are so liberal that all the tolerance must come from them and none from anyone else, and to be liberal they must accept everything without question.

Around this point it dawned on me that if I keep backing up on these issues, I will be pushed and pushed and pushed until there is nowhere to go.

I had a question I wanted to ask but I was afraid to. I've read too many stories about people who spoke out and then got hurt. Jyllands-Posten originally published the cartoons to spark a dialogue about self-censorship due to fear of Muslim violence. And that's what we've got. And that's why we have to speak up and say it's wrong, and that's why sometimes we've got to do it anonymously.

I know this is a very sensitive topic, and I apologise if I've offended anyone.


The fake cartoons
When Danish imams wanted to stir up a reaction in Muslim communities, they created a pamphlet about the cartoons that included several fake ones (fake in the sense that they hadn't been published by Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper that solicited and published the cartoons). One of the fake cartoons shows a dog humping a man who is praying with his bum in the air, and the caption reads, "This is why Muslims pray." Another fake cartoon is a very crude drawing of a horned man exposing himself and holding children in his hands, with the caption, "A sketch of Mohammed as a demonic pedophile." You can easily pick out the fake cartoons because they are dark and fuzzy, as if someone ripped them out of a newspaper and scanned them, except in one case where the quality of drawing is no better than a child's. The real cartoons were drawn by professional cartoonists and look it. Also, the real cartoons aren't offensive.

The cartoons are reprinted here.

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The Burqa

Looking through Al Jazeera today, I came across the article Dismay about possible Dutch burqa ban.

The article starts out by stating that Dutch politicians are considering the ban because the burqa is a security threat. There seems to be justification for such a law in cases such as passport control. However, according to the article, the Dutch government is planning a total ban on wearing the burqa.

The Al Jazeera article is interesting because it provides a pro-burqa perspective. A photo of burqa-clad women walking in a group of fluttering light blue behind a US soldier in full body armor seems manipulative to me, but from another perspective it probably sums up the situation that Muslims face in the world today.

One day when I was living in East Africa I bought a day pass to a luxury hotel to use the pool. An Arab family was also there. The men and boys in the family swam in bathing suits, along with girls up to about age 10 wearing long sleeved t-shirts and long pants, while five older girls and women, completely covered in black burqas, sat on chairs nearby. Next to the burqas were three women from South Africa who were buck naked, stretched out on their backs on deck chairs, drinking a lot of beer and smoking. When they were done with a cigarette they would toss it over their heads onto the concrete, even though people were walking around barefoot. As the day went by, I realized that these two groups of women at either end of the propriety scale were at ease together. They didn't talk to each other, but they were friendly.

I still remember the first time I saw a burqa in Canada: I felt like I'd been smacked in the face. It was a shock, even frightening, to see a woman who wasn't allowed to show herself. It seemed a personal threat to my own freedom.

Why didn't I react like the boorish South Africans? Why don't the Dutch?

In the Dutch context, you have to consider the murders of Theo van Gogh and Pim Fortuyn. The Dutch filmmaker van Gogh said some absolutely disgusting things about Jews and the Holocaust. He was irreverant and rude about all religions. But it was his criticism of the Islamic treatment of women that got him murdered in 2004. Fortuyn was a Dutch intellectual and politician who openly challenged the intolerance of the Islamic community in Holland. He was assassinated in 2002 for this position, resulting in an upsurge in national concern about the issue.

Then there's the widespread Islamic violence in reaction to Danish cartoons. The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten solicited the cartoons in 2005 to start a dialogue about self-censorship in the Danish press. The result has been self-censorship all over the world, in fear of violent reprisal. Take a look a the cartoons and decide for yourself whether they're offensive.

In 2004, Norwegian journalist Asne Seierstad published The Bookseller of Kabul, a best-selling expose of life under the burqa. After reading this brilliant book, no-one is going to fall for the line that burqas are harmless expressions of respect that do not curtail a woman's freedom.

And yet, despicable as they are, we can't ban the burqa. We can restrict immigration, we can do more to integrate immigrants, we can wage a PR war, but we can't forbid someone from wearing the clothing they choose, except for situations such as security.

Update, December 2006: A Canadian Arab named Tarek Fatah has a web site called Say No to the Burka in which he largely quotes articles by Muslim women against the burqa. I learned a lot from this site, including that in Turkey it is illegal for women to cover their heads in government offices and schools.

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