…. writes Katha Pollitt in an essay today about Christopher Hitchens.
And yet I’ll take Hitchens’ seriousness about women’s persecution over Pollitt’s thoughtless nonchalance any day. In an essay attacking a number of European countries for banning the burqa, Pollitt writes “religion is what people make of it.”
Uh, no. As Hitchens points out, “Mormons may not have polygamous marriage, female circumcision is a federal crime in this country, and in some states Christian Scientists face prosecution if they neglect their children by denying them medical care.” Turns out there’s a state involved here too; religion (as the haredim of Israel are beginning to notice) is not only what you make of it, but what you and the state make of it.
Had Pollitt bothered to do the most basic kinds of reading and thinking, she’d perhaps have concluded something like this:
[W]e have no assurance that Muslim women put on the burqa or don the veil as a matter of their own choice. A huge amount of evidence goes the other way. Mothers, wives, and daughters have been threatened with acid in the face, or honor-killing, or vicious beating, if they do not adopt the humiliating outer clothing that is mandated by their menfolk. This is why, in many Muslim societies, such as Tunisia and Turkey, the shrouded look is illegal in government buildings, schools, and universities.
December 19th, 2011 at 3:13PM
That’s nice. How about a pox on both their houses? The lionization of Hitchens is embarrassing.
December 19th, 2011 at 3:15PM
Oh, and Pollit’s point in the essay is that the states banning the burqa end up punishing the women wearing it, not the men forcing them to. That’s rather more subtle than you allow her. I’ve yet to here a subtle explanation of why Hitchens felt the need to call the Dixie Chicks “fat fucking slags.”
December 19th, 2011 at 3:16PM
_hear_, sigh.
December 19th, 2011 at 3:53PM
Total…”the states banning the burqa end up punishing the women wearing it, not the men forcing them to”
I’m pretty sure that the various forms of “forcing them to”…throwing acid in someone’s face, vicious beatings, “honor” killings, etc…are *already* illegal in France and the other countries in question, and indeed would imagine that making threats to do such things is also illegal even where the threat is not acted upon. The anti-burqua laws don’t remove these sanctions.
December 19th, 2011 at 4:03PM
I’m pretty sure that the various forms of “forcing them to”…throwing acid in someone’s face, vicious beatings, “honor” killings, etc…are *already* illegal in France and the other countries in question, and indeed would imagine that making threats to do such things is also illegal even where the threat is not acted upon. The anti-burqua laws don’t remove these sanctions.
No, but it’s pretty clear that those crimes often don’t reported and people refuse to be witnesses, which means that they don’t get prosecuted, and thus we circle back around to Pollitt’s point, which is that the law enforcement ends up being against the women. This becomes even worse if the enforcement efforts are focused on the burqua-wearing to the detriment of focusing on the men imposing it on the women.
You haven’t accounted for Hitchens’ calling the Dixie Chicks “fat fucking slags.”
December 19th, 2011 at 4:16PM
I’m not here to defend everything Hitch said…like many brilliant men, he had his imperfections.
You are correct of course that these crimes often don’t get reported and that witnesses tend to be unavailable or uncooperative…which is exactly the reason why these governments have chosen to pass laws against a publicly-visible act, the wearing of the burqua. Personally I have reservations about this, being pretty close to a free-speech absolutist, but I understand why people are drawn to this solution. How specifically would you handle the problem? Arrest a woman’s husband if she’s caught wearing the burqua? Arrest her father and her brothers if she’s single?
December 19th, 2011 at 4:36PM
Total: Pollitt points out, as she should, that the big money fines are against men forcing women into burqas.
As to these crimes not getting reported often – surely the more the law in Europe “outs” this behavior – the more it is known among these women that they’re not living in Afghanistan, and that this state is very serious about this array of behaviors, the more likely it is that the women will seek legal relief. People refuse to be witnesses when they’re scared – and they’re scared because they know the state won’t protect them if they report crimes. The more reason the state gives them to believe they in fact will be protected, the more likely these women – and their daughters (Do eight-year-olds choose to wear the burqa? They’re made to in many of these families.), or their daughters’ teachers, or whoever – will report the abuse.
There’s no accounting for Hitchens calling the Dixie Chicks names.
December 19th, 2011 at 5:11PM
@david foster Margaret Soltan essentially answered your question for me: focus the enforcement on the people who make the women wear the burquas, not the burqua-wearers themselves.
I don’t think there’s necessarily a perfect solution to the situation, but I’m sure horribly uncomfortable with laws that could lead to those who had acid thrown on them being put in jail.
I’m also uncomfortable with a post (and a comment) that lauds Hitchens for his seriousness about female persecution without even acknowledging the FFS remark (or similar ones; I just chose the most notable) or excusing it as an “imperfection.”
December 19th, 2011 at 5:23PM
Total: Jail is a very distant possibility as these laws are written. No woman has gone to jail. A millionaire burqa enthusiast is paying all the fines that have so far been given out.
Okay, a little more on FFS: Hitchens was a drunk (about this Pollitt was certainly correct) and said and did bad things when under the influence. If the idea that people capable of saying and doing cruel and stupid things – drunk or sober – can also be exceptionally good and serious people, worthy of praise, makes you uncomfortable, it shouldn’t. Hitchens could be a real shit. No one here is making excuses for him.
December 19th, 2011 at 6:53PM
Jail is a very distant possibility as these laws are written. No woman has gone to jail. A millionaire burqa enthusiast is paying all the fines that have so far been given out.
I’m not really buying a defense of a law that requires benefactors to pay fines. So the person who had acid thrown on her gets her fine paid for her?
Hitchens was a drunk (about this Pollitt was certainly correct) and said and did bad things when under the influence. If the idea that people capable of saying and doing cruel and stupid things – drunk or sober – can also be exceptionally good and serious people, worthy of praise, makes you uncomfortable, it shouldn’t.
Since I’m the one acknowledging both sides of his personality (unlike the original post) and not handwaving it away with it being an “imperfection” I don’t believe I’m the one who is uncomfortable, thanks. And the FFS was not the only thing that I could have brought up. Hitchens’ discussion of those who opposed the Iraq war provide nearly 10 years’ worth of usable quotes. Was he drunk the entire decade?
No one here is making excuses for him
Uh, then stop making excuses for him, either by minimization or omission.
December 19th, 2011 at 8:15PM
Pollitt’s essay is the first reflection on CH that really seems to get him right, warts and all – acknowledging the virtues that ought to be celebrated (“clever, hilarious, generous to his friends, combative, prodigiously energetic and fantastically productive”), whilst at the same time not being taken in by the bravura that characterized too much of his writing and hoodwinked too many of his admirers (“those passages of pointless linguistic pirouetting? The arguments that don’t track if you look beneath the bravura phrasing? Forgive the cliché: that was the booze talking.”)
December 19th, 2011 at 8:24PM
Alan: I agree. There have been other essays that get at the very mixed picture, but I think Pollitt’s is pretty good. I think she’s absolutely wrong about him on women (his essay about women not being funny is hilarious, well-observed, thoughtful, and basically correct), but she’s got a good sense of the truth of the man.
December 19th, 2011 at 8:41PM
It’s a fool’s errand (Hitchens will never be forgiven by the unreconstructed Left for his apostasy on the Iraq War) but a bit of context is helpful on his Dixie Chicks outburst. Apparently,
“At a debate a few hours earlier, he (Hitchens) lost his temper when someone asked about the country band the Dixie Chicks and the flak they copped for criticising George W. Bush’s Iraq policy.
“Each day they dig up dead bodies in personal death camps run by a Caligula dictator,” Hitchens shouted, “and I’m being asked to worry about these fucking fat slags—do me a favour!”” [the source is The Left At War].
So Total is quite right. Hitchens was mean.
He should have just dismissed the pop tarts as poorly educated, sniveling ingrates but in the heat if debate he lost his cool.
December 19th, 2011 at 8:54PM
Shane: Thanks for that background.
December 19th, 2011 at 8:58PM
Alan: I agree. There have been other essays that get at the very mixed picture, but I think Pollitt’s is pretty good. I think she’s absolutely wrong about him on women (his essay about women not being funny is hilarious, well-observed, thoughtful, and basically correct), but she’s got a good sense of the truth of the
Then it would be nice if your post acknowledged that.
“Each day they dig up dead bodies in personal death camps run by a Caligula dictator,” Hitchens shouted, “and I’m being asked to worry about these fucking fat slags—do me a favour!”” [the source is The Left At War].
So Total is quite right. Hitchens was mean.
Oh, gee willikers, Shane, we’re giving Hitchens a pass because he was *asked a question*? That’s some incitement right there, that is. Next, someone might actually *dispute one of his points*.
You really thought you were justifying the comment, didn’t you?
December 19th, 2011 at 9:43PM
No, Total. I did not think the comments needed justification. I thought I had made that much obvious.
December 19th, 2011 at 9:46PM
I did not think the comments needed justification. I thought I had made that much obvious.
I’m glad to know that you didn’t think that “fat fucking slags” need justification.
December 19th, 2011 at 10:21PM
Especially since the Dixie Chicks were right and Hitchens was wrong.
December 20th, 2011 at 1:26AM
Beef with Hitch’s lionization?
Greenwald rips the MSM for one-sided fawning coverage:
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/17/christohper_hitchens_and_the_protocol_for_public_figure_deaths/
(I think Gawker had a critical piece as well.)
This next one begins by quoting Pollitt at length and is sort of in agreement with her but is less forgiving:
http://echidneofthesnakes.blogspot.com/2011_12_18_archive.html
The author’s take is that Hitchens’ was disrespectful and dismissive of women to the point that she didn’t feel herself to be part of his intended audience. Consequently she doesn’t really appreciate his writing irrespective of the topic.
In a word: alienation.
December 20th, 2011 at 7:23AM
“He should have just dismissed the pop tarts as poorly educated, sniveling ingrates but in the heat if [sic] debate he lost his cool.”
First, “pop tarts” is less sexist than FFS only by degree. You do Hitchens no favors defending him this way.
Second, in what benighted civics class did you learn that public disagreement with the policies of a given president makes one an ingrate? Or that “poorly educated” citizens deserve to have their opinions ignored or denigrated? (Also, if you review what Natalie Maines actually said, you will realize that “sniveling” has quite a different meaning than you imagine it does.)
December 20th, 2011 at 9:16AM
It’s not “the Left” that should have a hard time forgiving Hitchens for his bloody-minded asshattery on the Iraq War: it’s people who care about the moral commitments that Hitchens claimed to hold as sacred. Anyone who reads Orwell with the supposed devotion that Hitchens read him with would have hard time forgiving Hitchens his fawning inability to apply anything remotely like a consistent moral standard to the war. You cannot rise in absolutist defense of liberalism and then forgive, dismiss or ignore torture, brutality, and indifference to the rights of human beings just because it’s “in a good cause”.
Hitchens’ craftwork as a writer was tremendous. His moral reasoning was often atrocious, and particularly so in light of the other writers and thinkers he claimed to venerate.
December 20th, 2011 at 9:28AM
The day Hitchens, dead or alive, needs defending from me is the day squadrons of heavily armed simians fly out of our collective backsides. Can I be any more direct about this point?
Publically bad-mouthing the president while overseas is the behavior of attention-seeking sniveling ingrates. Who were poorly raised.
But I’ll concede that Rep. Hruska was right and even mediocrities have their opinions and deserve representation.
December 20th, 2011 at 9:41AM
Publically bad-mouthing the president while overseas is the behavior of attention-seeking sniveling ingrates. Who were poorly raised.
You betcha!
December 20th, 2011 at 9:47AM
Some commenters here would do well to read Pollitt’s actual piece. I think it is more nuanced than some would assume. She clearly is coming at the burqa topic from a feminist perspective, and I think only a David Horowitz would see in her writing a conspiracy between the Left and fundamentalist Islam. She is pretty clear about wanting the state to have the effect of supporting the integration of Islamic women and is no fan of the fake modesty the burqa promotes, seeing it as a form of oppressive patriarchy.
In the end, I think she opposes the ban but sees it as a close call, concluding that minaret banning and clothing restrictions end up playing into the hands of fundamentalists by tearing down bridges and creating more marginalization.
I wish I were as sanguine as Pollitt. In America, it is arguably the case still that heated anti-Muslim rhetoric can marginalize, but our history with Muslims, and our overall history with assimilation, puts us in a different place than Europe. To argue that all would be peaches and cream if only Europeans were more welcoming is, I suspect, a little naive. Some pushback seems essential.
It’s like the situation with Sharia. It’s true that it’s only right wing loonies in the US that are worried the sky is falling. I just don’t think the American people would begin to cotton to the idea of different laws for different cultures, as Archbishop Williams proposed in Britain. But sharia as implemented in Europe is in fact a threat. I’d hope Pollitt wouldn’t endorse a so-called “voluntary” arrangement under which a daughter got less of an inheritance than the son, or was treated poorly in a divorce by virtue of her gender. Yet that’s sharia for you in England.
Europe and the US have different histories on this front, and Pollitt would be wise not to be a Pollyanna if the situation in Europe doesn’t call for it.
As for Hitchens, I am not commenting on the grounds that it is silly to make this a contest between the two.
December 20th, 2011 at 9:48AM
You cannot rise in absolutist defense of liberalism and then forgive, dismiss or ignore torture, brutality, and indifference to the rights of human beings just because it’s “in a good cause”.
This is a foolish sentimentality. The list of counter examples is too long to even begin an exhaustive refutation of this weak-willed, self-defeating claim, but here’s one that comes to mind because of recent reading:
Leading up to the D-Day invasion of 6 June 1944 and in the short campaign that followed Allied bombing killed 50,000 French civilians, of course including women and children. Cities like St-Nazaire and Le Havre were totally destroyed. 50,000 in something like six weeks. 50,000.
Sit pretty in your well defended tower. You are fortunate. Try to remember that. Try too to remember why it is so, because it’s not on account of your goodness, or righteousness, or even your upright humanity. Nor will your believing otherwise change the facts.
December 20th, 2011 at 10:30AM
It’s a shame that the vocabulary and rhetorical style of contemporary talk radio has found its way to the comment section of this wondeful site, but let’s leave that to the side.
If Hitchens’ life had one common theme, it was contempt for religious devotion and, especially, for its more extreme manifestations. As you may recall, he even despised Mother Teresa of Calcutta. I have no doubt, therefore, that the events of 9/11 struck a particular chord with him, and that he might well have concluded, along with the neocons, that the threat of radical Islam must be answered decisively wherever it appears. I suspect that Katha Pollitt correctly discerns that this, and not a heretofore unrevealed feminism, was responsible for Hitchens’ attitude toward the burqa.
Nevertheless, Saddam Hussein was a secular tyrant and Hitchens almost certainly knew that he bore no responsibility for the atrocities of 2001. So why did he support Dick Cheney’s obsessive pursuit of war with Iraq? Perhaps there was enough idealism under all the alcoholic world-weariness that Hitchens actually bought into the neocon vision of transforming the Middle East by force.
My guess, however, is that the veteran lefty had simply become bored with the same old arguments, and craved a new set of fights. The intellectual right, symbolized by Buckley, Kirk, and others, had given way to naive libertarians and angry populists, and most conservatives were simply no longer worth the trouble of debating. So Hitchens, agile conversationalist that he was, simply switched sides.
You could see the beginning of this in his bizarre pursuit of Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal. By the time he was done, he had even sold out his long-time friend, Sidney Blumenthal. No matter–he now had a fight, and a set of opponents, worthy of his talents. I believe the same spirit motivated his full-throated support for neocon foreign policy.
Christopher Hitchens loved a good argument and, in the end, that love got the best of him.
December 20th, 2011 at 11:13AM
Shane wins the thread by invoking both Godwin’s Law (albeit somewhat indirectly) and doing the “you wimpy academics safe up in your ivory towers” meme.
I’m sure he’ll be happy to regale us with the wars that Hitchens fought, to keep the rest of us safe?
December 20th, 2011 at 11:25AM
Hey wait, I’m a wimpy academic up in an ivory tower!
Ah, blog comment flamewars. Reminds me of Usenet in the 90’s. Good times.