McDonald: Hijab or mask—burn them both
Earlier this month, a 22-year-old Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, was beaten to death by religious police in Tehran for not wearing a hijab properly. Her death sparked nationwide protests involving thousands of Iranians, mostly women. More than 50 protesters have been killed by police, who have fired indiscriminately into crowds. The protests are widely seen as a populist revolt against 40 years of oppression of women by the Iranian theocracy. An identical revolt should be happening right now in the United States—against a secular theocracy.
Every major left-wing news organization has assiduously covered the death and resulting protests. NPR wrote, “Amini is the latest symbol of the oppression of Iranian women.” The Guardian has published an average of three articles per day since Amini’s death, most under the heading of “Iran” and “rights.” Everyone on the Left is celebrating the events as a referendum by Iranian women on a theocracy that denies basic human rights to its citizens, especially women. Women are burning their hijabs on the street! What courage! Yet no one on the Left ever celebrates Americans who “improperly” wear masks, or, God forbid, actually assemble in the street to burn them publicly. Why? Apparently not all forms of oppression are equal, even when they are.
Fundamentally, there is no difference between the actions of Iranian women who refuse to adhere to the mandates of a religious dictatorship and the actions of Americans of both sexes who refuse to adhere to the mandates of a secular dictatorship. Under both, the individual is ordered to display compliance with the pronouncements of a supreme leader by covering the face (or face and hair). Violations result in removal from businesses, schools, and government buildings; the imposition of fines; arrest and jail. A protester jailed in Washington, D.C. was handcuffed, pepper-sprayed, and beaten by guards for refusing to wear a mask. How is this act of government torture at the hands of the D.C. jail police any different than the treatment Amini received by the religious police in Tehran? Neither NPR nor The Guardian covered the story, despite it happening in our nation’s capital.
The ugly truth is that we Americans also live under a theocracy. Ours is secular but no less fanatical. Iran is ruled by the Ayatollah Khomenei and his mullahs, ours by Joe Biden and the DNC, with the support of religious disciples working in media and large corporations—all true believers in the religion of the Left. All zealots. All dangerous. All unified against truth, freedom, and liberty. The DNC and its shock troops in the trans-activist, environmentalist, and pro-abortion regiments use coercion, extortion, and violence to expand their tyranny over Americans. They are all members of an anti-human movement that is destroying the fabric of American society.
Giorgia Meloni, an Italian mother and non-politician, just won a nationwide election for Prime Minister of Italy. She ran on a simple platform that resonated with all Italians: God, Country, Family. She rejects UN technocrats, open borders, and attacks on parents and children
Predictably, she has been called an ultra-right conservative and a fascist by every Left and Democrat-controlled media outlet in the United States. Apparently strong women aren’t celebrated by the American elites when they espouse values that go against the international anti-human movement. Meloni is attacked because she is a threat to the secular religion that has taken over Western Europe, the United States, and all Anglophone nations. The Left fears someone like Meloni might emerge from the populist discontent that brought us Donald Trump—their worst nightmare. Where are the American Giorgia Melonis? Where are the courageous American women burning their masks in the streets? Fifty years ago they burned their bras. Why aren’t they burning their face diapers?
I have frequently written and spoken about the powerful display of support for freedom in the former Yugoslavia. Now that power is on display in Iran. And Italy. And Sweden. May this pandemic of freedom spread as rapidly and widely as the Chinese Wuhan virus, and infect every last human being on the planet.
Mark McDonald, M.D.
Psychiatrist and author of United States of Fear: How America Fell Victim to a Mass Delusional Psychosis and Freedom From Fear: A 12 Step Guide to Personal and National Recovery
