September 02, 2002
Rolling Back Radical Islam
While I was recently in Indonesia, Miss Spears got far more air-time than Osama did, which made me wonder whether Mr. bin Laden doesn’t have a point concerning the cultural brutality of the West. Now, hard-headed politicos may dismiss the Cult of Britney (and of bare-midriff blondes in general, for whom one cannot help feeling a certain admiration), but a society in which the girls and women have been watching Christina Aguilera’s displays of life-affirming exuberance on video is unlikely ever to sign up for the whole fundamentalist package. Indeed, when confronted with the word "fundamentalist," the young women of Indonesia tend to concentrate on the first three letters.
Posted at September 02, 2002 03:29 PM | Perspective
