Two reasons to thank Sunera Thobani
By MARGARET WENTE --
LEFT WING LIBERAL GLOBE AND MAIL
( She will probably loose her job for this )
Thursday, October 4, 2001
The path of U.S. foreign policy is soaked in blood," declared Sunera Thobani the other day, to the horror of almost everyone in Canada except a few hundred women who leaped to their feet in wild applause. "There will be no emancipation for women anywhere on this planet until the Western domination of this planet is ended."
Ms. Thobani is an idiot. But she's also a living demonstration of the values that we must defend. She's entitled to get up in public and say any idiotic thing she wants, and no one has the right to lock her up. The terrorists would like to destroy that.
In fact, Ms. Thobani's freedom to speak her mind (and to be defended for it, quite properly, by the university that employs her) stands as the decisive counterargument to her argument. The truth is that the emancipation of women anywhere on this planet depends solely on the spread of Western democratic values.
The failure of many feminists to grasp the link between women's rights and liberal democracy is a mystery to me. Where in the world, I wonder, do they think women are more equal than they are here? In Muslim countries, where men can have four wives? In China, where the state forces women to have abortions? In Tanzania (Ms. Thobani's homeland), where wife-beating is widespread?
Perhaps she and her friend could explain why they seem to be so fond of the regimes of thugs, dictators and fascists. Perhaps they could explain how American military intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo -- which saved thousands of Muslim women from being raped by Serbian gangsters -- qualifies as foreign policy soaked in blood. But I digress.
We should also thank Ms. Thobani because she has put the spotlight on a problem that's long past time to fix. I don't mean governments that waste money funding useless conferences. (So what? They waste money on lots of things.) The problem is that many of our country's most important social agencies are run by people in thrall to the sterile rhetoric of women's oppression.
The organizers of this conference were the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies and the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres. The Elizabeth Fry Society has deep roots that go back to the very first British prison reforms in the early 1800s. In Canada, it runs counselling services and halfway houses for women in trouble with the law, as well as services for troubled girls and their parents. It has worked for justice reforms and fought to shut down the notorious P4W in Kingston, Ont. It's deeply involved with aboriginal women offenders.
We need the work these agencies do. They need our tax dollars, our United Way money, our personal cheques and our corporate support. But they also need to hear that they are in danger of losing our goodwill. The destructive ideology that has infected their planning and thinking is severely undermining the good work they do.
There was nothing unusual about Ms. Thobani's speech or about the warm reception it got; she gives it often. She would never have made news if the conference had been held three months ago, pre-Durban and pre-Sept. 11. But now that she has, I can tell you that her remarks set the tone for the three-day event, which was called "Women's resistance: from victimization to criminalization."
The conference included the usual roster of professional activists and academics. Their general theme, as usual, was the systemic oppression of women by the capitalist patriarchy. "Is social change possible in a world of violence against women?" was a typical discussion topic. Even the recovered-memories crowd showed up to hawk their thoroughly debunked claims.
One underlying premise of the conference was that women in trouble with the law are just like rape victims. It's not their fault. It's not even the rapist's fault. It's the system's fault.
"How do we explain the systemic setup against us that makes women vulnerable to risky criminal behaviour?" was one topic. "How do we discuss the life-affirming acts of liberty like breaking the law to survive, without being irresponsible?" Which means, I think, how do we let women know it's okay to steal?
What the conference did not include were pragmatic discussions about working more effectively with the police and courts, or making scarce dollars go further, or helping clients get better and move on. You get the impression that, compared to radical social transformation, the needs of actual clients are a nuisance. "How can we resist the pressure to do only service work?" was another discussion topic.
I've got a suggestion for the governments, United Ways, good-hearted corporations and citizens who pay the bills. Tell these people it's time to get back to service work, and stop wasting their time and money cheering for Ms. Thobani. She just gets in the way.
mwente@globeandmail.ca |
