The Republic Formerly Known As Macedonia, or France
(cross-posted at Dispatch)
The Ambassador At Large points out some rather tongue-in-cheek suggestions from Gregg Easterbrook on how to resolve the, er, name problem of the so-called (and very strictly so, if you ask a Greek) Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
The Republic Formerly Known As Prince. Steve. Wouldn’t Steve be a cool name for a nation? An Obscure, Landlocked Mountainous Region Along the Vardar River. Emmanuelle. Really sexy woman’s name might increase tourism. ROM. Subliminally suggests Republic of Macedonia, but the official name would be just initials — like KFC — thus frustrating Greece’s objection. Skopje and So Much More! The Greatest Nation in Human History. This would force the United Nations to say, “Now we will hear from the delegate representing The Greatest Nation in Human History.” The United States of America. Leading national brand in the world, yet cannot be copyrighted.
Easterbrook’s suggestions rest of the logic that, as he exasperatedly reminds Greece, “titles cannot be copyrighted!”
Anyone may publish a book called “Gone With the Wind.” Any country can call itself France, though it’s not clear what the incentive would be.
Perhaps. But I don’t think Macedonia would improve its prospects of joining NATO among, say, the French if it tried to call itself “France.”
Female genital mutilation — just a “small problem”
This bit of yesterday’s Washington Post article about female circumcision in Kurdistan captures the sexist domestic attitudes that make ridding this horrific practice so difficult.
Zangana has been lobbying for a law in Kurdistan, a semiautonomous region with its own government, that would impose jail terms of up to 10 years on those who carry out or facilitate female circumcision. But the legislation has been stalled in parliament for nearly a year, because of what women’s advocates believe is reluctance by senior Kurdish leaders to draw international public attention to the little-noticed tradition.
The Kurdish region’s minister of human rights, Yousif Mohammad Aziz, said he didn’t think the issue required action by parliament. “Not every small problem in the community has to have a law dealing with it,” he said.
Describing the damage done to girls by this practice as a “small problem” is bad enough, but the truly heinous aspect of the minister’s comments is his firm situation of the issue within “the community.” By shoving the problem out of the political, and into the communal — read: the familial, a.k.a. the patriarchical — Aziz is both damning the prospects of achieving such legislation and striking a powerful and timeworn blow against feminism. Issues like female circumcision very much belong in parliament, and shunting them out, will naturally only prolong the abuses toward Kurdish women and girls.
The right and the left converge at Starbucks
One of The Village Voice’s priceless picks for the top ten most insightful analyses ignominious belly flops by right-wing bloggers might hit a little too close to home for us lefties:
Enemy of the right and left alike
#6: The War on Starbucks. For Michelle Malkin, even hot beverages are political. Malkin announced she was giving up Starbucks because they wouldn’t let customers put the phrase “Laissez Faire” on their gift cards, and switched to Dunkin’ Donuts because they were “unapologetic supporters of immigration enforcement.” Then she denounced Dunkin’ Donuts because Rachel Ray wore a keffiyeh in one of their ads, but relented when the ad was pulled. The price of breakfast is eternal vigilance!
Well, the price of everything (particularly freedom) for conservatives is eternal vigilance, but that distinction, I think, is drowned out by overall boycott-happy inclination that this is satirizing. And when it comes to Starbucks, some Village Voice readers may end up smirking into their independent coffee shop lattes. And now Dunkin’ Donuts may have to be added to the list of snobbishly-ineffectual-but-morally-gratifying individual boycotts (mine against Exxon-Mobil lasted over six years before…I needed gas.)
(image — of a sickeningly sweet gingerbread latte — from flickr user Stuart Bryant under a Creative Commons license)
Bend it like Nir Rosen
This blistering Guardian piece — on the relativity of terrorism as it applies to Israel-Palestine — by intrepid journalist Nir Rosen goes just a bit too far. He rightly condemns Israel’s assault on Gaza, but, perversely, sees it as not just a humanitarian and political travesty, but as a symptom of the cruel and blackened heart of every Israeli politician, writing, without a sense of the moral weightiness of the claim, that “[y]ou cannot be prime minister of Israel without enough Arab blood on your hands.”
There may be metaphorical Arab blood on Mr. Olmert’s hands, but to imply that Olmert’s action — and every Israeli polician’s desire — is motivated by the singular racist goal of spilling this blood is morally and intellectually irresponsible, to say the least. To imply, further, that each successive Israeli government will simply try to out-slaughter its predecessor is a tired non-starter for any sort of peace process.
Terrorists aplenty in Gaza
Channeling Noam Chomsky, Rosen makes the legitimate point that “[t]errorism is a normative term and not a descriptive concept.” This is anathema — and downright treachery — to conservatives, of course, but the truth behind it is why, to choose an example that the right doggedly derides, the UN has not been able to come up with a “definition” of terrorism. The United States’ definition, as Chomsky would not hesitate to interject, would, applied honestly, very easily bring many of its own policies under a very uncomfortable umbrella.
But the breadth of even a Potter Stewart-esque “I know it when I see it” definition of terrorism should not allow the pendulum of subjectivity to lodge too far in the other direction. To wit, in a neat inversion of conservatives’ t-word-baiting, Rosen’s mock incredulity at the description of someone who throws acid at someone’s face as a terrorist.
Haaretz reported that a Palestinian woman blinded an Israeli soldier in one eye when she threw acid n [sic] his face. “The terrorist was arrested by security forces,” the paper said. An occupied citizen attacks an occupying soldier, and she is the terrorist?.
Terrorism is not, as it were, mutually exclusive. The real takeaway here, though, should be the utter uselessness of calling either the civilian or the soldier a “terrorist.” Throwing acid in anyone’s face is, by any measure, a recourse to criminality. The complications of power dynamics, of course, make explicating the situation of the Israeli soldier much, much more complicated. But calling him a terrorist is, again, not an effective way to end his — and more accurately, his government’s — policy.
But one more exaggeration from Rosen:
Do not be deceived: the persistence of the Palestine problem is the main motive for every anti-American militant in the Arab world and beyond. But now the Bush administration has added Iraq and Afghanistan as additional grievances.
This is infantilizing reductivism conducted on the part of anti-American militants everywhere. Suggesting these factors as relevant “grievances” is one thing; boiling away all other motivations to get to this rock of an issue is another.
(image of an Israeli patrol in Gaza in 1988, from flickr user cromacom under a Creative Commons license)
Congress and the NFL
The WSJ makes an odd comparison between the National Football League and Congress:
But in this age of government failure and corporate bailouts, there is something refreshing about a line of work that is so unforgiving about performance. In the phrase of Bill Parcells, the head of football operations for the (11-5) Miami Dolphins and former Super Bowl coach, “You are what your record says you are.”
Members of Congress can thank their lucky gerrymandered districts that they aren’t judged by the same standard.
Yes, for only in the “ruthless meritocracy” that is the NFL can the 8-8 San Diego Chargers — not to mention the 9-7 Arizona Cardinals and the 10-6 Minnesota Vikings — make the playoffs, and the 11-5 New England Patriots miss out.
Not that I’m bitter or anything.
(image from flickr user jonathan_moreau under a Creative Commons license)
