This is how Iraqi poet Waddah Ali ends his short piece in the NYT:
America did well to liberate Iraq. But Iraqis were used to tyranny and afraid of freedom. The Americans entered Iraq without a psychological program for dealing with this fact. Iraqis had been programmed according to another system of thought and feeling. America should have considered that.
(via Althouse)
From the Times’ science correspondent Anjana Ahuja:
Wayne Fenton, an expert on schizophrenia and an associate director of the National Institute for Mental Health in Washington, was found beaten to death in his office in September. A 19-year-old patient who was booked to see Dr Fenton that afternoon has confessed to the killing.
Dr Fenton, 53, clearly had not foreseen that he was at serious risk. And if he couldn’t predict it, who can? That question is posed by Richard Friedman, a clinical psychiatrist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. In the New England Journal of Medicine, Professor Friedman questions the policy — common in America and Britain — that the mentally ill can be forcibly medicated or restrained only if they are a danger to themselves or others. It may, he says, be time to “reset the threshold” so that action is taken before threats are made.
The question answers itself: these experts on schizophrenia are unable to predict which patients are prone to violence, yet it’s being suggested that they should be given the power to imprison individuals before any actual violence is committed. Clearly, they don’t have the competence. And that’s quite apart from the fundamental breach of the foundations of any liberal legal system: that people are answerable only for what they’ve done, not for the type of person they are or the opinions they may hold. It’s unfortunate, then, that the government is now proposing changes to the Mental Health Act to allow for precisely this: the detention of people deemed to have a personality disorder. Theodore Dalrymple sounded off on this last week.
Anjana Ahuja goes on to say that this is a timely debate in the light of the inquiry last week into the case of John Barrett, the paranoid schizophrenic who stabbed a man to death in Richmond Park. But in fact Barrett’s case is about the failure of the staff at Springfield Hospital to follow established guidelines. Barrett already had a history of violence, having stabbed three people at random in a hospital outpatients unit, one of whom almost died, back in 2002. He was granted a conditional discharge by a mental health review tribunal in 2003, just one year later. Prior to the murder in Richmond Park he’d been readmiitted, having “failed to adhere to the conditions laid down for his release, including taking his antipsychotic drugs and staying off recreational drugs”. He would have done what he did whatever changes were made to the Mental Health Act.
I realise this is largely academic, in that Barrett’s been charged with manslaughter and will spend most of the rest of his life in confinement, but I wonder how much responsibility he should be assigned for the killing of Denis Finnegan. Yes, the acceptance of his plea of diminished responsibility was correct in the light of his hearing voices and so on. Could he have told the voices to bugger off? From what I understand these schizophrenic voices have a religious intensity, making them more than simply annoying noises in the head. Then again we don’t excuse religious maniacs for their terrorist excesses (well, most of us don’t).
But no, I was thinking more of his refusal to take his drugs, and to (presumably) smoke dope. If you knowingly took a drug which turned you into a zombified killer, would you then be guilty of manslaughter, or murder, even if the act of killing was not one that you had control over at the time? And if you knowingly didn’t take drugs which stopped you turning into a potential killer, is that much different?
he law, the constitution, the political system. This to me is the best legacy of the enlightenment.
Europeans, even those living in the most liberal societies, still find this difficult to accept. But Islam is now part of the European landscape. It is no betrayal of “our values” to be flexible towards habits and beliefs that not everyone shares.
Let people wear headscarves if they wish. Islam as such is not incompatible with citizenship of a liberal democracy. The violent imposition of a revolutionary faith is, but it will only be contained only if mainstream Muslims feel accepted as fellow citizens. The single demand we should make on immigrants and their offspring is respect for the law, including laws that guarantee the right to free speech. This is not a surrender to the Islamist revolution. On the contrary, it is the only way to combat it.
Rita Verdonk’s proposal to ban the burqa is more of a cheap attempt to win votes prior to the Dutch elections than a considered response to the problems of Muslim integration in Holland. It’s worth pointing out though that there’s a world of difference between the Dutch approach, of using the law to address the problem, and the Jack Straw approach, which is to suggest that many Britains find the wearing of face coverings to be offensive, and to open up a debate on the subject. I think Buruma’s wrong to suggest that Britain is imposing conformity in the same way as Holland. Encouraging debate isn’t the same as passing laws.
personable and sympathetic, but said: “You don’t have to show me the truth. There is no truth. There is only this side’s version and that side’s version.”
Well, I believe that there is such a thing as truth. This is not to say that different sides don’t have different versions of a story. Of course, it’s important to note and recognize that. Nor do I underestimate or undervalue the significance of it. But I think that the academic approach is to strive to present the truth.
The Dutch are proposing to ban the burqa:
The Dutch cabinet has backed a proposal by the country’s immigration minister to ban Muslim women from wearing the burqa in public places.
The burqa, a full body covering that also obscures the face, would be banned by law in the street, and in trains, schools, buses and the law courts.
The cabinet said burqas disturb public order, citizens and safety.
Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk is known for her tough policies, and has clashed with past coalition partners.
Late last year she said the government would look into a ban after a majority in the Dutch parliament said they were in favour.
This is the same woman who proposed that only Dutch should be spoken in the streets, who helped force Ayaan Hirsi Ali into exile, and who wanted to send gay asylum seekers back to Iran.
The decision by the centre-right government comes days ahead of an election in which questions of immigration and nationality are likely to play a key role.
Update: the BBC page has now been modified, and a photo of two women wearing a full burqa – ie with the whole face covered, and a mesh over the eyes – is now showing in place of the original photo of a woman wearing a niqab. I’d be surprised, frankly, if anyone ever wears a burqa in Holland. According to Wikipedia, it’s “little seen outside Afghanistan”. Does Rita mean to ban the niqab? I think we should be told.
When you get complicated medical stories, like this one…
A young model who lived on a diet of apples and tomatoes has died of anorexia on the eve of an international photoshoot.
Ana Carolina Reston, 21, a Brazilian who had worked for Giorgio Armani, was 5ft 7in tall but weighed only six stone when she died on Tuesday.
…it’s always useful to have the words of a professional, like the Times’ Dr Thomas Stuttaford, to help us make sense of it:
The death of Ana Carolina Reston illustrates the dangers of anorexia.
Yes indeed. Can’t argue with that.
Yonhap News report a scarlet fever epidemic in North Korea:
Scarlet fever has been spreading fast in North Korea for nearly a month and is showing signs of becoming a full-blown pandemic despite efforts by North Korean authorities to contain the disease, a source close to the North said Wednesday.
The disease first broke out in the communist state’s northern Yanggang Province last month, but is quickly spreading to other parts of the country, the source told Yonhap News Agency on condition of anonymity.
Nowadays scarlet fever is easily treated with antibiotics – but this is North Korea.
As pointed out at One Free Korea, Yanggang Province is home to Camp 22, the worst of North Korea’s prison camps, where Mengele-like biological experiments have been reported. Purely a coincidence, of course…..
> syndrome again. Well, covered or uncovered, it makes little difference: it’s still meat.
ulture of hatred.” He says that if “Muslim countries want peace they need relations with Israel.”
Mr. Choudhury says he holds no hope of getting a fair trial. The judge, he says, is a radical Islamist who has already made clear his view that Mr. Choudhury is guilty. “In open court … he made comments that by praising Christians and Jews I have hurt the sentiment of Muslims … which is a crime,” the journalist says. Other comments made by the Judge have made it clear, Mr. Choudhury tells me, that the judge’s goal is a conviction and a death sentence. Mr. Choudhury describes his judge as a “one man judge and jury,” and Mr. Choudhury cannot even present witnesses in his own defense.
Why hasn’t Mr. Choudhury fled Bangladesh despite having had the opportunity? Because, he says, “if I leave I will be proved to be a coward … I want to fight the matter to the last.” Many of Mr. Choudhury’s colleagues have fled the country, but Mr. Choudhury, a practicing Muslim, wants to live free in his own country and beat the case set against him. “There is no pride, no honor, and no dignity in retreating,” he says.