Geoff Arnold's Blog

There’s an appalling case documented in The Guardian:

A Muslim woman forcibly separated from her Hindu husband by Malaysia’s Islamic authorities after 21 years of happy marriage wept inconsolably yesterday after a judge endorsed her decision to hand custody of six of her seven children to her former spouse.
In an unprecedented move for Malaysia – where Islamic religious laws are strictly enforced – the children, aged four to 14, will be raised as Hindus despite being born to a Muslim mother. Last month Selangor state’s Islamic authorities took Raimah Bibi Noordin, 39, and her children away for “rehabilitation” and religious counselling after belatedly declaring that her marriage was illegal.

In a recent comment, Conskeptical pointed out “you can’t effectively, or informedly, change something you’re not part of”. And he’s right, of course. But there are several things we can do:
As Conskeptical also said, “When in Rome, behave as the Romans do.” When people arrive in the US or Western Europe, we have to emphasize that we’re not going to compromise our legal and cultural principles to accommodate what they may have been used to. There will be no sharia law in Bradford or Oslo, and spousal abuse will not be condoned. We should make sure that this is never repeated:

[T]he woman, as a Muslim, should have “expected” it, the judge explained. She read out passages from the Koran to show that Muslim husbands have the “right to use corporal punishment”. Look at Sura 4, verse 34, she said to Nishal, where the Koran says he can hammer you.

This was in Germany, not in Malaysia or Saudi Arabia.
We also need to be vigilant about the way in which religious bigotry can creep into our Western political and legal fabric. Andrew Sullivan has a good summary of the way in which the right is fighting to prevent homosexuals being added to the groups that are covered by hate crime legislation. Anyone who believes that this isn’t about pandering to religious fundamentalism need to get out more. Just like the C of E bishops in England, the message is same: we want our bigotry to be exempt from legal sanction. That slippery slope leads to forcing women to the back of the bus, busting up families based on their choice of mythology, and worse. Just say no….

According to a piece entitled America’s war on tourists:

…overseas travel to the US has slumped 17 per cent since 2001, even as world travel to other countries reaches historic growth levels. The decline has cost US$94 billion… in visitor spending, US$16 billion in tax receipts, and some 194,000 American jobs.
…
Interestingly, the poll suggested US foreign policy was not “a significant factor” in global dissatisfaction with the US, but that US entry policies were.

The slump in tourism to the US comes in the middle of a worldwide boom in overseas travel. The USA is singled out by travellers because of the way they are treated:

Before September 11, US airport staff often seemed to err on the laid-back rather than on the vigilant side. Now some overzealous officials appear to regard all tourists as potential terrorists. Entering America can feel like running the gauntlet.
“We are citizens of a country regarded as one of the closest allies the US has,” frequent British visitor Ian Jeffrey told the Orlando Sentinel last November. “Yet on arrival we are treated like suspects in a criminal investigation and made to feel very unwelcome.”

Personally I think that the EC countries should duplicate the US policies exactly – fingerprints, retina scans, arbitrary visa delays, abusive officials – but only for US visitors. And they should put up posters around their airports explaining the reason for their actions, and suggesting that if US visitors don’t like it, they ought to call their congress-critters.
(Of course they won’t do this, because – unlike the US, apparently – they have no wish to cripple their tourist industry.)

The Paul Wolfowitz affair is provoking the usual partisan food-fight, complete with bellowing Hitchens, and it’s dragging on much longer than I expected. I’ve read the arguments from both sides, and frankly they all carried much less weight than did one little detail in Blumenthal’s piece in Salon.com last week:

But in 2006 Wolfowitz made a series of calls to his friends that landed her a job at a new think tank called Foundation for the Future that is funded by the State Department. She was the sole employee, at least in the beginning. The World Bank continued to pay her salary, which was raised by $60,000 to $193,590 annually, more than the $183,500 paid to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and all of it tax-free. Moreover, Wolfowitz got the State Department to agree that the ratings of her performance would automatically be “outstanding.” Wolfowitz insisted on these terms himself and then misled the World Bank board about what he had done.

Automatically “outstanding”. What a deeply cynical, self-important, “fuck-you” touch. This is what distinguishes a “painful forced choice” from an act of brazen, selfish nepotism.
Firing’s too good for him. Wolfowitz should be made to walk the plank by the Crimson Permanent Assurance.
UPDATE: Hallelujah! Someone has actually found a funny angle to this whole sordid affair. And it’s a beaut!