Is the media coverage of Faye Turney sexist toward men? Women? Both?
Are Iranian officials sexist for demanding, apaprently, that Turney wear the veil? Are they trying to make a point to Britain? To the U.S. via Britain? To Iranian citizens who have to wear the veil by law if they weren’t born with a dick between their legs (lest anyone should think that Turney is getting special treatment)? Are they just following their own laws, and sod what the Daily Mail might think?
Hm. What matters is that she is in the armed forces, and she will bleed like her male comrades when hurt, and it won’t matter if she’s a “mummy” with a three-year old back home.
We’re not used to the idea of women risking their lives in this fashion, and we invent all sorts of reasons for our discomfort, “oh, but she’s a mother, she’s a wife, she migh turn someone on with that brazen hussy-hair of hers and send diplomacy down the crapper.” Uh, no. She’s out there because she had a job to do, just like the men. She is in trouble, just like the men. This doesn’t make her any less of a woman or a mother or a wife, or any of the other things she is (the things that no one seems to want to talk about – probably because they are not so deliciously at odds with Turney’s work; after all, who wants to hear about her possible stamp collection, for example).
Natalia A. 
“She’s out there because she had a job to do, just like the men. She is in trouble, just like the men. This doesn’t make her any less of a woman or a mother or a wife, or any of the other things she is”
Like, for example, a soldier. A soldier of an occupying army. A soldier from a country with an all-volunteer army. Trouble comes with the job, and damn well should, given the actions of her government.
While the seizure of the group cannot be justified in international law, as the seizing country was outside its territorial jurisdiction, they have no business being in Iraq’s territorial waters either. This is well-understood by most Britons.
To counteract this, the UK government is making cynical use of the fact that one of the group is a woman to drum up sympathy for the entire lot at a time when the natural attitude of most Britons would be to tell their government to put pressure on the US to do a hostage exchange of one group of illegally-captured prisoners for another. Instead, the Labor party PR machine has been working overtime to emphasize how this poor little helpless woman is caught in the tentacles of the evil monster.
I was wondering how muuch of the extremely unhelpful posturing on both sides is more for the benefit of the home audience as anyone else.
There as well as here, interestingly. There’s been a lot of outrage here over the humiliation of the soldiers in forcing them to make statements on TV, which we all seem to be taking personally. But surely that’s propoganda aimed at their own people?
But I think you might be overestimating how much the UK government is leading the charge, Rann. I rather suspect they are merely scrambling to keep up and not upset the Sun readers by appearing insensitive. Getting a bit of a pasting in the press, the Labour leadership are at the moment and not a good time to be setting themselves up for another kicking.
So which system is better: one where the actual governement leads the press, or the one where the press leads the government?
***So which system is better: one where the actual governement leads the press, or the one where the press leads the government?***
I’ll take option B, with a sex scandal on the side, please. 😉
Oh, but anyway, my post wasn’t about who’s better. Rann just needs to air out his views at any opportunity, that’s all.
The outrage over the soldiers being ‘forced’ to appear on TV (I put forced in quotes, because we’re making a rather large assumption there) is absurd. No one was pissed off when Israel paraded Lebanese prisoners on TV, looking far more haggard and possibly tortured. Anyone remember that?
It may well turn out that the British sailors were told ‘right, we will release you if you all apologize on TV’. Is that being ‘forced’? There were no signs of torture or physical coercion.
The British press and the government are so tightly bound together it’s hard to see who’s leading the charge. I don’t think the government are ‘scrambling’. It is convenient for them to make it appear the tabloids are in charge so that they can be seen as benevolent. Whether or not the tactic will work this time remains to be seen, but it’s not like they haven’t done this before.
Regardless, I find Iran endlessly humorous. They’ve obviously figured out that they can pretty much do whatever they want without any serious consequences. What’s gonna happen? The US will invade? HAHAH. With you and what army? No seriously, we have no more army.
Indeed. Iran has the world by the balls. Well done Bush and Blair…
I think Ahma is good for Bush… In a weird way
Yes, he is. He represent an easy enemy, which nutballs like the neocons need to survive.
He’s also good for Colbert, which is far more important 🙂
Oh, I wasn’t commenting on your post with the ‘better’ thing, Natalia. It was just something I thought of as I was tapping away at the keyboard.
I also agree it was hard to take the comments about being forced seriously when there the sailors were, standing there looking positively cheerful.
Her wearing a headscarf was interesting though. I got a distinct whiff of how uncomfortable it makes people feel to see ‘their’ lot in prison jump suits rather than what would be more normally worn.
Anyway. Storm in a teacup now, innit.
Oh, I totally see your point.
Are you really comparing Guantanamo prison jump suits to a headscarf? Seriously?
Uh, where did you read the word “Guantanamo”? A lot of people see any kind of “different” dress on a detainee to be jarring and offensive. Especially considering all these “battles” over hijab – re: new storm in teacupt: Nancy Pelosi wears scarf to mosque, civilization collapses. But she was not a detainee, of course.
Er: “I got a distinct whiff of how uncomfortable it makes people feel to see ‘their’ lot in prison jump suits rather than what would be more normally worn.”
Different dress in itself shouldn’t be offensive. Jump suits should be, because of the entirely realistic associations with them: you’re in a jump suit, there’s a decent chance you’re having fake mentrual blood thrown on your face.
These people received courteous and hospitable treatment. There is no comparison to those the US chooses to force to wear jump suits, in Guantanemo or otherwise.
If the male prisoners were forced to wear faux-70’s jackets, now THAT would be offensive 😉
PS I’m don’t know about civilization collapsing, but crucifying Pelosi seems like a positive and constructive move forward. Always look on the bright side of life…
This is all just to say… SEXYTIME
*Scratches nose* I did mean Guantanamo jump suits, actually, yes.
I think the key words there are ‘comparing’ (rather than ‘comparable’) and ‘whiff’ rather than ‘exactly the same’.
I appreciate that it _shouldn’t_ be seen as offensive to ask someone to participate in the customs of the country. I think it _shouldn’t_. The fact remains, though, that it _is/ was_.
My point was that I found this mildly amusing, in a black humour kind of way, since the very same people who were frothing at the mouth at the fact that whatsherface was in the scarf are the sort of people who are totally blind/ unsympathetic to the particularly humiliating effects of seeing someone forced into wearing something which goes against what they think is the correct way to behave.
[I was going to use the word ‘regrettable’ there instead of ‘humiliating’, but I thought that it might cause you, Rann, to spit your coffee over the screen in outrage. I am ecsessively proud of my restraint. *beams*]
In fact, the only place where we disagree is that I think that the jump suits are offensive _in part_ because they do represent a forcible dissing of the wearers culture/ religion. This does not mean I don’t also think that you are correct in your estimation of what they represent.
Which is a longwinded way of saying ‘I’m with Natalia’ but there you go.
Nothing in Islam (last time I checked) says you can’t wear an orange jump suit, so I don’t really see how the jump suits dis Islam.
The insult in the jump suits has nothing to do with Islam itself and have everything to do with the conditions in (and existence of) Guantanamo.
Whereas the offense caused by the head scarf was whipped up by the Sun etc and was a byproduct of increasingly anti-Islamic views among Britons. It had no basis whatsoever in reality. Therein is the lack of comparability to the jump suits.
Well, the orange jumpsuit isn’t a look favoured by the strict muslims I know. And they do appear to have a dress code which goes beyond merely covering up and growing a beard.
However, I was thinking about it, and I’d find it just as horryfying, I’m sure, to be foreced to wear something which said ‘prisoner’ rather than what I chose to wear. And supporters who saw me would be rendered unconfortable by that too, I daresay.
How galling of you to be right about that.
I wonder if the jumpsuits are held up as a particular insult on their side though? Perhaps I can redeem my position by suggesting that while I agree with your low estimation of the Sun’s motives, it doesn’t necessarily mean that ‘they’ aren’t doing much the same?
You think not? Ah well.
Again, the jumpsuits are merely symbolic of the torture and illegal detention in Guantanamo. It is not that they are offensive in themselves, but that people are offended by what those who are forced to wear them are forced to undergo in addition to wearing them.
Another note: as far as I know, no Iranians are being held in Guantanamo, so once again the Sun conflates Arab with Persian, or rather, it fails to distinguish between different Muslims. A far more accurate comparison would be the Iranian agents/diplomats being held by the US. I have little doubt that they have been subjected to far crueler treatment than any of the British detainees.
Clearly, the Iranians are whipping up populist rhetoric in their own country too. However, they are miserably failing at it: all indications were that common Iranians were relieved to see the detainees released.
Iran’s response to the press conference held by a few of the ex-detainees was furiously screaming ‘this is UK propaganda’, just as the UK did when they were paraded on Iranian TV. A far more sensible response would have been to point out that the soldiers’ treatment was similar to, or even better than, the treatment given to regular criminals by the British police. Yep, they were handcuffed, isolated, lied to, made to sleep on blankets and interrogated at night. Sounds pretty damn similar to what happens in most countries when one is arrested. Compared to what the CIA/FBI/MI5/MI6/Mossad/Shabak do to their ‘enemies’, it sounds like these guys were being treated with silk gloves.
It is a bit of genious nastiness to have such a distinctive uniform for the Guantanamo prisoners though, isn’t it?
I totally agree about the silk gloves. I caught the end of the press conference thingy when the sailors got home. They were all very earnestly describing how worried and unnerved they were by things like Faye being separated and told the rest of them had been sent home and she was the only one there so she might as well confess.
And while I’m sure it was most unpleasant, I couldn’t help thinking: do these people never watch cop shows? The ones that are on before 9pm even? I fully expected one of them to pop up and say in a wondering tone of voice that it was odd that one of their interregators was a bit of a bastard and the other one was really nice.
I think the biggest shock was not being treated as ‘honorable opponants’ in a ‘this is very regrettable old chap, here have the best room and a cigar while the politician wallahs sort it all out, what?’ kind of way.
I’d say it was part of the ‘war is a video game’ mentality, but actually it’s probably the ‘I have a British passport and am the master of all I survey’ sort of attitude. British people just aren’t used to being persona non grata and shoved in detention camps every time they turn up somewhere. They just weren’t expecting to get treated the way we treat illegal immigrants in this country.
Well, presumably they weren’t expecting to be captured at all, but there you go.
Anyway, I suspect the journos at the press conference all got the irony of it all, actually. They kept piping up and asking ‘So when they lined you all up and cocked their guns a bit behind you and you were scared, did they do anything else? Did anyone fire any guns, for example?’
Oh dear. Shouldn’t laugh.