Apparently Nancy Pelosi wearing a veil on her trip to Damascus was the Middle Eastern equivilant of someone wearing Al Jolsen makeup while pretending to support Martin Luther King.
Her April 2 act of defiance placed Dr. Nouriya Al-Subeeh on the front line of the growing ranks of Muslim women leaders who are denouncing the veil as a symbol of female oppression. But on the following day, April 3, America's Speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the very first woman to hold that position, meekly donned a veil during a visit to a popular market in downtown Damascus, sending the exact opposite message to tens of millions of Arab women.
After her precedent-setting episode, Dr. Subeeh explained her stand in an interview with the Egyptian weekly Rose El Yousuf: "A woman who wears the veil out of belief, which must be respected — just as the belief of a woman who does not want to wear a veil must be respected. The essence of democracy," she said, "is to respect and accept the opinions of others."
Ms. Pelosi made a similar choice — but in the opposite direction. Anxious to curry favor with the male rulers of the Middle East, she failed to comprehend that as an American woman, a symbol of Western democracy and secularism as well as a guardian of women's rights, her agenda should have rested elsewhere.
I have no doubt Ms. Pelosi, a liberal San Francisco Democrat, is a progressive feminist. But her decision to visit Damascus has proved counterproductive on many levels. Aside from giving the appearance of legitimacy to a rogue regime, photos of the unveiled and defiant Dr. Subeeh juxtaposed with a visibly diffident, veiled Ms. Pelosi are circling the Internet, an image that is taking a toll at a time when jihadist Islamists rely on the imposition of the veil as a weapon in their cultural war to the same degree as they utilize suicide bombers in their terrorist campaigns.
Feminists and progressives cannot be taken seriously or trusted with the running of this country when they continue to see Dubya and all conservatives as a bigger threat than Islamofacism.
Source: To Veil or Not To Veil: The Pelosi Question - May 14, 2007 - The New York Sun
