Why do right wing leaders always want to tell women how they
should be living, particularly with reference to their religion, family roles
and sexual activities? Turning this around to what should right wing leaders be
doing we find the answer. They should be leading their people into peace,
ensuring some measure of fairness and equality in their populations, and
generally making things better for their people. Since this is manifestly not
what they are doing, they turn to the old reliable mantra, it’s all the women’s
fault. After all, if this worked for thousands of years, why shouldn’t it
continue working?
To whom does religion belong? Are you allowed to use it to
back up your own worldview, or is that going to get you in trouble later with
your god? Today, it seems to be up for grabs.
Everybody seems to be using the same tactics. The Israeli
right is tied to the most extreme religious males, the haredim, and committed
on religious grounds to a policy of settlement which is one of the main blocks
to ever securing peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians. The regime of
Netanyahu was even just blatantly reelected by the ploys of appealing to racism
and fear on the part of the Israeli public.
Young Muslims in the Middle East these days, blocked from
even the means of making a decent living, or having a safe living environment,
find themselves drawn to making a Caliphate in order to hasten the Apocalypse. This
is their response to governments who have stayed in power through the
imposition of almost constant military rule over the last few decades, in line
with the control and power hungry leadership class.
America’s Republicans, deeply offended that the country has
elected a Democrat to the presidency twice in a row, has vowed as their primary
focus to prevent him from doing anything at all. Their outreach to the public,
Fox News, warns of the dire consequences of Obamacare, of homosexual marriage, of
an agreement with Iran – sure to bring in a nuclear era, they tell us. And back
in America, the Republicans are looking everywhere they have any power to turn
back the clock on personal freedoms that have been won through hard-fought
battles since the sixties. They seize every opportunity to restrict access to
abortion, they pass laws that clearly make it easier for people to avoid
prosecution for discrimination against homosexuals. While Texas clearly leads
the way, the south in particular jumps enthusiastically on the bandwagon.
So as all of these right wing governments unite around a
common tactic, to impose their religious
views on people, Israel is torn apart from within over conflict between the
orthodox and the more secular, or even just less extremely religious, Jews. The
Haredim refuse to do their military service, they force the settlements, they
openly disdain both Arabs and secular Jews, slashing tires, enforcing their
beliefs and practices on the communities in which they live. And their champion
is Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu is planning on ruling with a coalition made up
of a large contingent of the religious right, so he will of course have to make
major concessions to their demands.
ISIS, the current self-declared Caliphate in power over a
large region, makes no effort to hide their policies. Kill all dissenters,
preferably by gruesome public decapitations to maintain and spread fear,
enforce major restrictions against women, force them into prostitution if they
are not true believers. Israelis now live in fear of an even more powerful
Caliphate, the one they are assured is being built step by step by the
Iranians, with the help of Obama and the misguided American left. In this
climate of fear, the evil of Netanyahu seems relatively inevitable because he
serves as their shield against an even bigger evil.
Fear is the main tactic worldwide. In the US we see a major
turn back of freedoms, almost unlimited government supervision in the name of
the terror threat, jails overflowing,
those running them getting rich, the people getting poor. Worldwide we see policies
that channel wealth to the few at the top, while ensuring that housing and
daily living expenses are so burdensome that the vast majority of the
population is so exhausted with meeting survival needs that they have no energy
left over to organize against their governments’ values.
Women worldwide should be very concerned. Even western
nations have a huge amount of restrictions coming from their governments. No
woman is going to benefit from a Caliphate, an Orthodox-dominated Israel, or a
Republican-controlled US, unless they are happy with a world that narrows the
opportunities for their children and mandates all sexual behavior and morals.
At the same time, it is only a minority who really think
this way, everyone else is drawn along by the need for staying in power or
advancing their careers. Sometimes just by sheer lack of reflection. Several
Republican women are forging their careers by being the mouth pieces for their
party line. Be careful you don’t lose your soul, ladies! Women who are looking
to the Republican party to keep you safe and launch your careers, make sure you
are not being used in the short term by people who are seeking to restrict your
freedoms in the long term. Who should be deciding your values, you or the
government? Who should be telling you right and wrong in how you conduct your
relationships? Do not be too ready to cast off the hard-won freedoms that
required such battles since the sixties, and for religion, the Pope is a better
guide than the Republican party, the president of Turkey or the various
Caliphates who show their devotion by the number of beheadings they can
authorize.
