Mick Hartley

Intermission

Off for a few days. Back Tuesday the 4th.

Iran is different

Ayaan Hirsi Ali at UnHerd:  

Perhaps more than anything, the wave of protests now sweeping the country is a perfect moment to remind ourselves of the shameful stupidity of US policy in the region in recent years. Take the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal, which gave the regime time and space and money to strengthen its morality police and security infrastructure, as well as extend its regional influence. If no deal had been signed, perhaps the regime’s current crisis would have come sooner.

Nor should we forget the fact that Iran has recently tried to abduct and kill several American citizens on American soil; or that a number of senior US officials believe Iran is to blame for the attempted assassination of Salman Rushdie last month. It’s a national disgrace that America’s politicians saw fit to break bread with the butchers of Tehran in the first place. And still too many think we can politely sit down with them again to re-negotiate the nuclear deal. I wouldn’t blame the brave men and women of Iran if they never forgave us for such short-sighted idiocy.

Still, while the response of the West should be limited to cautious optimism, there is one other conclusion we can draw, no matter what happens: the current protests are a unique, and uniquely inspiring, phenomenon. Nowhere else in the Muslim world — and I mean, literally, nowhere else — would we see what we are seeing right now in Iran: men and women, together, standing up for each other, the men demanding justice for the regime’s murder of a woman who dared to let her hair show. It bears repeating: the men of Iran are standing alongside women as they burn their hijabs.

This is the most dramatic evidence of something I have long suspected: Iran is different. I have many Iranian women friends who are highly accomplished. They are doctors and scientists and writers and artists. When I ask them how they do it, they tell me that they owe much of their success to their male relatives’ support of their ambitions. So perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that the fire behind the protests was lit by Mahsa Amini’s family — in particular, her father, whose remarkable courage in accusing the Iranian authorities of a cover-up serves as an emblem of the solidarity many Iranian men have with their women.

It's true: Iranian culture seems to run much deeper than its Arab neighbours, where Islam guides everything. Yes, Islam guides everything officially now in Iran too, but it seems like an aberration. It seems like there's a civilised world there, waiting to be freed from its oppression - and one key element, as we're seeing, is that many Iranian men are out there supporting the women. Underneath the Islamic hatred of women enforced by the theocrats, there's a more liberal world aching to break out. It's doubtful that now is the moment of freedom - but who knows.

East End shops in the early Sixties

On the streets of pre-gentrification Stoke Newington, plus Shoreditch, Dalston, Stepney, Hoxton, with photographer Tony Hall:

[Photos: Tony Hall Archive at the Bishopsgate Institute]

Zionist lebensraum

Deadly serious and possibly demented Egyptian TV Host Muhammad Musa: Freemasonry aims to establish a new world order, turning Arab States into Zionist lebensraum. Oh yes, it's all in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Also, plans to spread deviant entertainment: loud music, cheap sex. I'm not making this up! It's all written down in the Protocols. There's the proof. This is serious! You fools - you must listen to me!!

Sussex police playing “identity politics”

The new Home Secretary Suella Braverman has made it clear that she wants the police to concentrate on catching criminals rather than wading in with the virtue signalling, and, good as her word, she's jumped straight in on the Sussex police trans row:

The home secretary condemned a police force last night that had warned social media users not to “misgender” a convicted paedophile who identified as a woman.

Suella Braverman accused Sussex police of playing “identity politics” just days after writing to chief constables telling them to reverse the perception that they care more about “woke” issues than tackling crime.

Sussex police had warned Twitter users who pointed out that Sally Ann Dixon, who was jailed earlier this month for abusing seven children, was formerly a man called John and was not legally recognised as a woman.

The force reported the case under the headline: “Woman convicted of historic offences against children in Sussex”.

Clare King, 65, a Labour councillor in Cambridge, responded to the police report by tweeting: “No. This is not a female crime.”

When another user highlighted King’s comment, the force responded: “Sussex police do not tolerate any hateful comments towards their gender identity regardless of crimes committed. This is irrelevant to the crime that has been committed and investigated.”

It then directed the user to its definition of a hate crime and added: “If you have gender critical views you wish to express this can be done on other platforms or your own page, not targeted at an individual.” ...

Braverman later tweeted that the force “have done well to put a dangerous criminal behind bars”. She added: “But they’ve got it wrong by playing identity politics and denying biology. Focus on catching criminals not policing pronouns.”

Dixon, 58, from Havant, Hampshire, was jailed for 20 years after being convicted of 30 indecent assaults on five girls and two boys aged from six to 15.

Ryan Richter, prosecuting, told Lewes crown court: “The defendant, living as a man in the late 1980s and 1990s, was a brazen and callous sexual predator. He exploited young males and cultivated a toxic relationship with female children, whom he systematically abused throughout their childhoods.”

A strange way of putting it. He was "living as a man" because he was a man. He is a man.

Dixon began transitioning to live as a female in 2004 but does not have a gender recognition certificate. The court heard Dixon was being sent to a women’s jail, despite not being legally recognised as a woman.

Nice for Dixon: he wouldn't be treated with the kindness and understanding he no doubt deserves as a trans woman if he was sent to a men's jail. And they tend not to like paedophiles. Not so nice for the women he'll be imprisoned with - but who cares about them? 

Sussex police later apologised for their Twitter post and confirmed the offences had been recorded as committed by a man. The force added: “We recognise the rights of the public to express themselves freely within the boundaries of the law.”

Good for Suella Braverman.

Paedophilia charges

A proud note from the Sussex Police (via) - Woman convicted of historic offences against children in Sussex:

Seven children who were sexually abused in Sussex between 26 and 33 years ago have seen justice done after their abuser was jailed for 20 years on Thursday, September 8.

Sally Ann Dixon, 58, of Swanmore Avenue, Havant, Hants, was sentenced at Lewes Crown Court after being convicted of 30 indecent assaults against her victims.

She was given an 18-year custodial sentence, with an additional two years to be served on extended licence.

Except, as they acknowledge further down, she's not a woman at all:

At the time of the offences, Dixon was John Stephen Dixon, who transitioned to female in 2004 - after the period during which the offences took place.

So why the headline? These crimes were committed by a man. 

The local Sussex World has the headline Woman jailed for sexual offences against children in Bexhill and Crawley.

But don't criticise:

Hi, Sussex Police do not tolerate any hateful comments towards their gender identity regardless of crimes committed. This is irrelevant to the crime that has been committed and investigated. Sussex Police

— Sussex Police (@sussex_police) September 27, 2022

Of course it's relevant. These are male crimes.

Waters revisitted

More on the Roger Waters Krakow cancellation (previously), from the Times of Israel.

The Polish city of Krakow canceled gigs by Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters because of his sympathetic stance toward Russia in its war against Ukraine, a local councilman said Monday, inviting the singer to visit Ukraine with him to see the extent of Russian crimes.

Councilman Lukasz Wantuch said the city owns the arena where two of Waters’ concerts had been scheduled for April before being canceled. He said the city would not tolerate them being used for an artist spreading ideas objectionable to most people in Poland. And he said Waters was free to perform in a private venue if he wishes.

“He doesn’t realize the truth,” Wantuch told The Associated Press. “He doesn’t understand what is going on in Ukraine.”

Polish media on Saturday had reported that the gigs were canceled by Waters’ management in reaction to the outcry over his views. Waters denied that on Sunday and Wantuch confirmed that Krakow and the venue made the decision to cancel the concerts.

Wantuch, who has been on 27 humanitarian missions to Ukraine since the war began, spearheaded a symbolic resolution to declare Waters “persona non grata” in this city. A vote is scheduled to take place....

Waters has blamed both NATO and Ukraine for the war. He wrote an open letter to Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska this month in which he blamed “extreme nationalists” in Ukraine for having “set your country on the path to this disastrous war.” He also criticized the West for supplying Ukraine with weapons, blaming Washington in particular.

He has also openly sided with China on the issue of Taiwan.

Wantuch wrote in his open message to Waters that with 2.6 million followers on social media, he had the power to influence many minds.

“You are calling on the West to cease military aid, which in fact means the capitulation of Ukraine,” Wantuch wrote. “Ukraine will not give up, it will fight, but because of people like you, because of what you say and write, it will be a much harder fight.”

Waters is also known for his anti-Israel campaigns and is one of the most prominent supporters of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

He has urged fellow artists not to perform concerts in Israel.

Several Jewish advocacy groups, including the Simon Wiesenthal Center, have accused Waters of antisemitism.

He's also a keen supporter of Venezuela's Maduro. In fact you'd be hard put to find a topic on which he isn't on the side of oppression and the despots, all the while proclaiming himself a tireless champion of human rights. Perhaps he's been reading too much Chomsky. Or perhaps he's just a loud-mouthed buffoon.

Rigid doctrinal intransigence

Yasmin Zenith looks back at the Standing for Women meeting in Brighton last Sunday, when the usual band of trans activists were out in force, many dressed in black paramilitary gear, determined to disrupt the meeting and silence the women. That's the grim reality many feminist campaigners are now facing, but it's just reflecting the capture of so many organisations by gender ideology:

More disturbing than the splenetic scenes in Victoria Park were the first hand accounts of women who had encountered rigid, doctrinal intransigence on these issues from inside the Establishment institutions where they work. 

Alison Eden is a Lib Dem District Councillor in Teignbridge Devon. She is committed to the party and has ambitions to advance her political career by becoming a parliamentary candidate. However, she is concerned her future prospects are stymied and she risks excommunication. She describes a pervasive environment of witch-hunts, fear, and enforced silence. She explains that the party’s upper echelons have adopted gender ideology as an “Article of Faith” and are purging the party of dissenters.

This evangelical fervour is not only incompatible with the party’s stated principle of “liberty” and “freedom of thought,” it has a curiously 16th century valence. Alison uses religious imagery to describe this oppressive atmosphere. When I ask why she came to the Brighton meeting, she cites Natalie Bird. Natalie was recently expelled from the Lib Dems and banned from standing for any position within it for 10 years. Her crime? She wore a t-shirt displaying the words “adult human female” to a meeting. Alison says: “We’re living in a time when the zeitgeist is becoming more totalitarian.” She will not be silent.

One of the most powerful speakers described how a robust safe-guarding policy delivering single sex accommodation in hospitals has been undermined by the clandestine insertion of Annex B. What is Annex B? It potentially enables men to be placed on female wards. This speaker works with people after spine or brain injuries. Her concern for this vulnerable group of patients is palpable.

She asserts that “spineless policy makers” have capitulated to “ideologues,” and in doing so increased women’s exposure to risk when they are particularly vulnerable in a public hospital. This is a serious, consequential issue. Why has there not been more media scrutiny and open debate? Why are discussions about this hobbled inside her workplace, the NHS? 

If you have lived in an autocratic society as I have, you understand that self-censorship, topic avoidance, silence are survival tools. It is shocking to find the UK lurching in this direction.  On Sunday in Brighton women from diverse backgrounds stood up to say that is not a paradigm they wish to emulate. Serious issues require serious discussions. Not the paralysing dominance of new orthodoxies.

It's not just the Labour Party.

Between Dallas and Fort Worth

More 1940s Texas from Arthur Rothstein:

January 1942. "Auto graveyard -- U.S. Highway 80, between Fort Worth and Dallas."

January 1942. "Roadside stand -- U.S. Highway 80 between Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas."

January 1942. "Roadside cafe. U.S. Highway 80, Texas, between Dallas and Fort Worth."
[Photos: Shorpy/Arthur Rothstein]

Calf fries - bottom picture - go by the more poetic "prairie oysters" in Canada. They're bull testicles.

Deterring women

Joan Smith at UnHerd - Gender ideologues have captured the Labour party conference:

Are feminists welcome in the Labour Party? I mean the old-fashioned kind of feminist, who knows the difference between men and women. The answer appears to be that we’re not. Delegates to this year’s party conference in Liverpool will be able to browse stalls outside the main hall, talking to activists about everything from climate change to animal welfare. What they won’t be able to do is speak to representatives of the Labour Women’s Declaration, an organisation that advocates for women’s sex-based rights and single-sex spaces. It has been denied a stall at conference along with FiLiA, which last year organised the largest feminist conference in this country for decades.

The party claims the decision was taken on commercial grounds, which makes no sense at all; both organisations offered to pay the going rate for a stall and said they were flexible about size and position. Rates are advertised on the party’s website, which boasts that “exhibiting at our Conference is a unique opportunity to increase awareness of your aims and objectives to a wider audience and reach influential groups of people”. Not, however, if your aim is to defend the fact that human beings can’t change sex.

Starmer, like so many others who aren't interested in confronting the issue, has taken it as received truth that gender ideology and trans activists are somehow progressive, and therefore to be supported by all nice well-meaning people.

Women hoping for an unequivocal statement from Sir Keir Starmer about our right to speak openly about biological sex will be disappointed. The Labour leader has repeatedly failed to condemn harassment of feminists in the party, who have been targeted by “pledges” and motions threatening “transphobes” with expulsion. Instead of standing up for free speech and women’s rights, as you might expect a former Director of Public Prosecutions to do, Starmer has proved himself anything but an ally. “Trans women are women,” he intones, holding to this line as firmly as devout Catholics preach transubstantiation.

Here is the result: with the eager assistance of members of his front-bench team, Starmer has deterred substantial numbers of women, including members of the party, from voting Labour. It’s an agonising situation for many of us on the Left and centre-Left, who desperately want an end to 12 years of Conservative government, but have watched aghast as the Labour Party opened its arms to trans activists. Now Boris Johnson has been replaced as prime minister by Liz Truss, a hard-Right ideologue who actively opposes the redistribution of wealth, Labour should be facing an open goal. Instead, we have a leader who last week warned republicans to show respect to people mourning the death of the Queen, while displaying no respect at all to women in his own party.

He's made his choice. Perhaps he genuinely believes that trans women are women - or perhaps he thinks it would be a mistake to change now. Or, more likely, he knows the fury from the left of the party that would greet any repudiation of gender ideology. He's only just managing to keep the Corbynites at bay: to face up to the trans activists might be a step further than he's prepared to go.

In the Seventies, Labour governments passed ground-breaking legislation on equal pay and sex discrimination. Now the party has been captured by an extreme ideology which, to anyone with half a brain, is an excuse for an outpouring of misogyny. We don’t know the exact number of trans people in this country but they appear to be vastly outnumbered by self-styled trans activists, who turn up at women’s events wearing home-made masks and balaclavas. They threaten us with sexual violence and their aim is to intimidate women into silence, driving home the message that we are no longer entitled to single-sex spaces. But instead of getting support from leading Labour politicians, all we get is trans slogans and hyperbolic claims about the “oppression” of trans people.