RUTHFULLY YOURS

Ayatollah Khamenei made clear that he would hold President Rouhani responsible for a failure to produce improvements in Iran’s economy. He implied that if Rouhani fails to adopt a “Resistance Economy” approach, it would negatively impact Rouhani’s aspirations for a second term.

Khamenei’s warning to conserve foreign-currency windfalls that result from the lifting of sanctions is probably a criticism of Rouhani’s recent visit to Europe, where he signed deals to purchase 138 passenger planes.

Rouhani’s management of the economy will be closely monitored by hardliners seeking a return to popularity and the presidency in the 2018 presidential elections.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei last month used the Persian New Year holiday (Nowruz) to deliver his most comprehensive plan for Iran’s economy. His address, proclaimed from his hometown of Mashhad, outlined ten principles of the “Resistance Economy.”

From this speech, it is clear that Khamenei’s plan for Iran’s economic recovery is quite different from that of President Hassan Rouhani and his cabinet. Moreover, Khamenei threw down the gauntlet that he would hold Rouhani responsible for a failure to produce promised improvements in Iran’s economy. Left unsaid but implied was the threat that if Rouhani fails to adopt a “Resistance Economy” approach, it would negatively impact the President’s aspirations for a second term.

For a worldview that claims to be all about freedom and choice and “being oneself,” transgenderism sure is tetchy and intolerant. Consider what has just happened to the celebrated British novelist Ian McEwan. Last week, during a speech at the Royal Institution in London, McEwan took a genteel swipe at the politics of identity. He said identity politics is becoming increasingly consumerist, where we now pluck a ready-made “self” from “the shelves of a personal-identity supermarket.” The making up of one’s identity has gone so far that “some men in full possession of a penis are identifying as women and demanding entry to women-only colleges,” he said. Then came his killer line: “Call me old-fashioned, but I tend to think of people with penises as men.”

Can you guess what happened next? Yes, McEwan was subjected to a Twitch hunt, to that 21st-century bloodsport in which anyone who expresses an unpopular view or makes a less than PC utterance or simply misspeaks a little will be “called out” (shamed) by the bedroom-bound, Twitter-living, self-styled guardians of correct thinking. Twits went berserk over his apparently perverse linking of penises with maleness. They branded him a bigot, weird, a transphobe. Trans-rights activists put the boot in, too. Stonewall, the LGBT activist group, slammed McEwan for being “uninformed” and said his weird worldview doesn’t only “denigrate the trans experience, it denies its very existence.” Paris Lees, a trans woman and journalist, scolded McEwan, telling him his “ideas about penises are outdated.” He should apologize, the mob said.

And he did. All the virtual tomato-throwing at this heretic who dared to say that people with penises are men had the desired effect. It elicited a public backtrack. In an open letter in the Guardian, McEwan accused some of his critics of being “righteous and cross,” yet he then bowed and scraped before the trans religion. Transgenderism “should be respected,” he said. Then, most strikingly, he obediently expressed the key tenet of the trans ideology: “Biology is not always destiny.” Remarkable. In the space of a few days, he went from raising interesting, awkward questions about trans identity to repeating in a national newspaper the trans mantra that “biology is not destiny.” For those of us who believe in freedom of thought, it was an ugly sight, reminiscent of those poor souls dragged before the Inquisition and set free only when they dutifully bought into their inquisitors’ belief system and publicly declared: “I believe in Jesus Christ.”

Anti-Zionism and anti-Israel sentiments in Sweden have morphed in recent times into blatant anti-Semitism. In the city of Malmo (known for its violent Arab and Muslim population), a Jewish teacher in a Swedish public school was fired last month for being Jewish. The teacher identified only as A, is an Israeli-Jewish woman who immigrated to Sweden 39 years ago with her native born Swedish husband who served with the UN Observers Force in the region. A claimed that her school principle warned her that the students “hate the Jews,” and added that she would be “abused by both the Swedish and the Arab students.”

A’s experience is not unique in 2016 Sweden, and not just in Malmo. Naomi Lind, another Israeli woman living in a Stockholm suburb, also encountered the same anti-Semitism as a teacher in Swedish public schools. Lind moved to Sweden from Israel in 1982, and taught computer science to adults and youngsters. She recalled that on one occasion a young female student who was upset by a grade Lind gave her, responded with “I hope Hitler would rise from his grave and finish his work.” Lind remembered the difficult situations in her work that compelled her to leave her job. “I always felt that the school administration felt uncomfortable with me because I was an Israeli and a Jew.”

Lind, a daughter of Holocaust survivors, pointed out that her school administration refrained from dealing with the anti-Semitic and hurtful remarks of the girl that invoked Hitler.

Visiting Sweden late last summer, this reporter witnessed the fear and discomfort Jews in Sweden now feel. In discussions with Swedish Jews, I was told of avoidance to wear Jewish identifying symbols such as a kippah or a necklace with a Star of David. Ralph, 29, a veteran of the Swedish army, put it plainly by stating, “There is no place for Jews in Sweden.” He added that he was planning to move to the U.S. Many young Jews have moved to Israel.

A synagogue in central Stockholm had its windows boarded to hide the fact that it was a Jewish place of worship. There was no sign at the entrance to mark it as a synagogue. This was not happening in a remote village but just a few miles from the seat of the Swedish government and its people’s parliament.

Gender equality is now so thoroughly advanced, thanks to Western men, that feminism’s latest wave is free to insist the hijab is no instrument of oppression but a symbol of choice and liberation! You’ve come a long way, baby. Once, only men were privileged to make public fools of themselves.

“Can a privileged white male like me talk about equality and diversity?” While clearly suffering from ‘white-male guilt’, former Victorian politician Rob Hulls, writing in the Fairfax press, grudgingly answered in the affirmative. Bully for him, but that he thought the question worthy of sweating over is instructive. White men are not the flavour of the times. Indeed, those supporting Donald Trump are often described in left-wing media (e.g., in The Huffington Post) as “angry white men” whose influence is dwindling in the racial mixing pot.

I take no personal credit as a white man but it seems queer to me, without in the least belittling other parts of humanity, that the very part of humanity which has made this modern West, in which gender equality and ethnic and sexual diversity can flourish, is the subject of scorn and derision. I will focus on gender equality.

Men and women are one in Christ (Galatians 3:28) and therefore equal; no ifs, buts or maybes. And, in any event, indubitably, life is better for everyone and infinity less mean spirited in societies in which men and women have equal status. But, as we all surely know, that something is closer to God’s intention and better, doesn’t necessarily mean it will hold sway. For most of history and in most places it hasn’t. To wit: bad things have happened, are happening in many parts of the world, and can happen in our part of the world unless we guard the ramparts.

Equality as a state of affairs is often misunderstood. Turning to arithmetic: two plus two makes four but, equally, so does one plus three. Being equal is not the same as being the same. When it comes to men and women there is one important and statistically significant difference across all ethnicities and cultures. Men, on the whole, and with few exceptions, are stronger and more aggressive than are women.

Throughout most of history women have occupied a secondary position to men – certainly outside the narrow confines of the home. Their childbearing role undoubtedly contributed to this. But, undoubtedly, their lesser physical strength and aggressiveness were defining. This hasn’t changed, yet women in the Western world now occupy positions of authority in all walks of life.