While recriminations over Iraq may be largely justified, it is worth bearing in mind that we were always in the line of fire.
Meanwhile a welcome article by Mona Eltahway talking tough on the "yes, but..." attitude of so many Muslim spokesmen. The article got me thinking that while there is a tendency in the West (the liberal West at any rate) to try to see things from the Islamic perspective, what is so seldom remarked upon is that this perspective is usually male.
It is only the very few female voices that seem to really challenge Islam these days. Maybe it is because they are the ones who really have something to lose.
As news comes in on Iraqi women's groups fighting desperately to preserve the rights they had under Saddam, I do wonder about our dialogue with the Muslim community. Isn't it a kind of paradox that out of respect for their culture we largely keep quiet about their stance on women and gays? Is our supposed tolerance not actually born of a multicultural "equal but different" ethic, but in a simple effort to save our own skins (or perhaps an inverted kind of racism)?
Does anyone have any doubts that Bush and Blair would happily withdraw the troops from Iraq regardless of what the constitutional settlement meant for women or gays?
What kind of way of life are we fighting (or just surviving) for? And among the supposed liberal-left what non-Muslim Westerners (never mind feminists) have dared speak out? Only Peter Tatchell so far, for which he has received the customary death threats.
Iran today - hung for being gay
Should sensitivity to different cultural mores mean turning our backs on the very principles of equality and freedom for all that we have been raised with? Little wonder then a third of British Muslims think ours is a "decadent, immoral society that should be brought to an end".
If we are not true to our beliefs, how can we expect others to respect them accordingly?
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