OP/ED 4 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, November 11, 2003 Ub tilt 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 letters@michigandaily.com EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 LoUIE MEIZLISH Editor in Chief AUBREY HENRETTY ZAC PESKOWITZ Editorial Page Editors Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other articles, letters and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. NOTABLE QUOTABLE (tI think the Democrats can be fairly charged with chronic whining, and they ought to look at themselves first and foremost." - Former Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader, on the 2000 presidential election controversy, as reported by The Associated Press. COLIN DALY THE MICHIGAN DALY < ,--_ / a r " '," o M - " ---01 * Dear * Here's a copy of our constitution. Sorry about the b£,%# . Let me know how democracy goes for you. ttyll ,-- "l I O ° " © '" V - f Seeing eye to eye with Pat Robertson's kid and other horrors AUBREY HENRETTY NEUROTICA I Sometimes when I catch myself being unduly optimistic about the human race as a whole, I like to flip on Pat Robertson's TV show, "The 700 Club." Nothing like a full hour of dead- eyed, militant born-again moral superiority to bring a starry-eyed college girl back to reality. Also I have a fairly sick sense of humor, and religiously intolerant folks tickle my funny bone like no one else. The stereotypes they spew and embody - and I find this to be true of most stereotypes - are hilarious. Wealthy white Southerners talking about where a woman's place is (beneath man, clearly) and how the homosexuals are trying to ruin mar- riage. No hyperbole necessary.-I love it. Anyway, I was watching Thursday night and Lee Webb, the "news" anchor guy, was reporting a story about a "former lesbian who became a Christian" and her legal struggle for the right to raise a good Christian daugh- ter. (Note: As a matter of course, I do not assume anything I hear on "The 700 Club" is even remotely true. So after the show, I per- formed a little informal Internet search and found a Denver Post article confirming that the "former lesbian" is in fact a Colorado physician named Cheryl Clark.) After con- verting to Christianity and splitting from her partner - with whom she had been raising an eight-year-old adopted daughter - Clark was granted full responsibility for the girl's religious instruction with just one little stick- ing point: that Clark "make sure that there is nothing in the religious upbringing or teach- ing that the minor child is exposed to that can be considered homophobic." Gordon Robertson - son of Pat - was furious. And so was I. I'd never agreed with a Robertson before. After pausing to slap both hands against my cheeks and let out a "Home Alone"-style yelp, I realized that ol' Gordon was missing the point as usual and - sigh of relief - the world made sense again. Gordon was shaking his head, insisting that this ruling "should alarm Christians every- where." Correct on count one (alarming), short sighted on count two (Christians). This ruling should alarm everyone every- where - not just Christians. No judge has any right to tell a mother what she can and cannot teach her child as long as the lesson itself does not place the child in physical danger or involve active infringement on anybody else's rights. A judge could, for instance, reasonably order Mom not to teach her daughter to eat rat poison or to punch Pat Robertson in the face, but any- thing beyond that would be way out of line. Gordon Robertson didn't like this ruling because he saw it as a threat to his deeply held religious prejudices - which it definitely was - but in his fervor, he failed to notice the two bigger and scarier issues at stake here: the legis- lation of parenting and the censorship of ideas. Some people (and I'm looking to the Left here) might be tempted to side with the judge on this one because they also happen to think homophobia is a poor quality to instill in a small child. But I suspect that every one of those peo- ple would be outraged if the tables were turned and a judge was ordering them not to teach their children that politicians tend to be greedy and deceitful by nature. Am I suggesting that Cheryl Clark should be allowed to teach her daughter that homo- sexuality is evil? Yes. I'm more than sug- gesting it - I'm insisting. And if she wants to, she should also be allowed to teach her daughter that one race is superior to another, that the moon is made of green cheese, that all poor people are lazy, that the tooth fairy exists, that Fox News is fair and balanced, that every woman's purpose in life is to serve her husband and raise 14 children and that if she makes that face one more time, it'll stick that way. The kid might grow up to hate cer- tain people and disapprove of others and be thoroughly confused about the moon, and that is unfortunate. But the alternative - the government claiming the right to step in and tell Mom to keep her mouth shut about ideas it doesn't like, at least until her child has grown beyond the formative years - is just too frightening a precedent to set. Any judge's order that could make Pat Robertson's kid sound reasonable even for a second is major cause for alarm. But if we let our own inner zealots stop us from defending one woman's right to pass her personal preju- dices onto her child, we may ultimately have someone like him to thank for our right to teach our children that he is an idiot. Henretty can be reached at ahenreti@umich.edu. LETTER TO THE EDITOR Editorial unfounded, Borders employees should not strike TO THE DAILY: The Daily's editorial of Nov. 6 on the union negotiations at Borders Books and Music (Bor- ders patrol) has prompted me to respond. While I certainly respect the Daily's duty to be an advocate, I would appreciate more facts to sup- port its views. What I have read in the Daily seems to me to be much more heat than light. The union's behavior at Borders reminds me of the counterproductive attacks that marked union negotiations in decades past. Contrast the United Auto Workers' approach then, which led to many jobs leaving Michigan, with the cooperative negotiations that were just concluded between the UAW and the automo- tive companies. Why is the UAW more sophis- ticated and measured in its demands nowa- days? Automotive labor realizes that it has interests, but it also realizes that there is a limit to what labor can cost in building cars that can compete in the marketplace. When I was a teenager, I used to drive to downtown Ann Arbor to buy books that I could not get at home. There was no Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble. Nowadays the retail book environment is extremely competitive. Cus- tomers are very price conscious and expect dis- counts. Borders's net income is only 3.2 percent of sales and was only 2.6 percent the year before. Employees should realize that a union can- not negotiate away competitive realities. If Bor- ders were to -let its cost structure get out of line with its industry they will become uncompeti- tive and eventually fail. We have all watched favorite independent stores evaporate. Tney dis- appeared because you and I preferred the dis- counts the larger chains and online sellers were able to offer. It is our buying habits that decide which stores survive and which do not. These are market realities that every retail company must face or they must die. The cost of labor is one of those realities - Frankly, I have done work with Borders and know for a fact that it is most concerned with giving a voice to their employees. I know it has worked very hard to learn what matters most to every employee and to create a compensation package and a work environment that is optimal for the employees within the competitive reali- ties of the marketplace. Borders works to con- tinue to improve its offering. We should all want to keep this great Ann Arbor institution competitive and growing. CRAIG MATTESONCH Alum VIEWPOINT Pakistan's injustices do not justify India's BY WAJAHAT SYED Strong winds of opinion have been blowing in from a seldom-remembered, at least on this cam- pus, part of the world. South Asia, coupled with the Middle East, has entered the debated fray. And it all started with a brilliant viewpoint published last week (With blood on their hands, 11/06/03) which claimed, summarily, that India and Israel, which have recently been enjoying a boost in their diplomatic and defense relations, have a common agenda in their alliance. The agenda is a composite state effort by both countries to suppress religious minorities in their respective domains (the view- point, by the way, was written by designated chiefs of the Pakistani Student Association, the South Asian Awareness Network and the Muslim Students Association). Ensuing was another, or should I say two brushstrokes of brilliance. The wounded party reacted. In this case, two letters to the editor, both rebuking Pakistan, and defending India, and Israel (kind of), were printed the follow- ing day. The writers both had Hindu names. This case of Indian defense made three salient points: That India is the world's largest democracy (thanks to sheer the size of population) and that because in 2002 India held an election in Kashmir, an internationally disputed territory which it mili- tarily occupied in 1947 - an election in which most Kashmiri parties which are for Kashmiri self determination promised to those people by a Unit- ed Nations resolution in 1948, did not participate in 1998, a step which initiated a nuke and missile race in the region. Things like promoting a pogrom against thousands of Muslims massacred in the state of Gujarat just last year, only to be voted in again on an agenda of wiping out the rest of Gujarat's Muslim population. And of course, things like following the trend of every other "democratic" Indian government, which by the way, governs the "largest democracy" in the world, by not allowing the Kashmiri people (about 10 million of them) their right to self- determination, by systematically manipulating elections, governments, leaders and the political economy of that region for the last 56 years. That and the brutal suppression of an indigenous politi- cal and armed struggle through non-judicial killings, assassinations, rape, and torture (which are all recorded in unprecedented detail by moni- tors like International Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International). That Pakistan is the real villain because it mistreats its women, and arms and trains Kashmiri militants. Hmmm. Reasonable criticism. Very rea- sonable for that bad-boy, nuclear rock-star state, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. But what's the connection? How does such bad behavior by Pakistan, such terrible things (like training volunteers who want to fight for their land and liberty in Kashmir) explain and redeem India's bad behavior (like depriving those volunteers from their land and liberty) in Kashmir? And what about the Gujarat pogroms? What does an uninvestigated honor killing of a implementations and rights to millions of people who have been fighting us for 56 years, and who we've been killing and raping right back, huh. Well hey, these guys actually helped out the Tal- iban back in the day. Come on now. They're much worse than us, these Pakistanis. We're India. We're the world's largest democracy, of propped elections and Muslim massacres and arms races and Gandhi and curry sauce and the Hare-Krishna influence on the Beatles. Pakistan sucks. And hey, we're friends with Israel, that other bastion of democracy in that messed up region, the Middle East, that other great country which builds fences and settlements on occupied territory and brings down civilian build- ing blocks with F-16 fighter bombers every time it figures out it has to get back at the those crazy Palestinians with their poverty-stricken stone throwers and suppression-crazed suicide bombers. Shame on India, and on the Indians who defend it by criticizing Pakistan. There is no honor in criticizing the enemy's intentions when your own are tainted. No doubt that Pakistan is a troubled state, one of military coups and militancy, rampant corruption and terrorism, a nation which is at a crossroads, teetering to stabilize and modernize. A nation which is trying. Unfortunately, its history of problems cannot be covered here. But what can be covered, or discovered, is the typical Indian political knee-jerk reaction to point west and blame a smaller, volatile, and strug- gling state, while it dons on the decorative .fie; , i : < c ; vwu u m