During the same week in which U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) visited Syria to present “an alternative, Democratic foreign policy” and adorned a veil, Dr. Nouriya Al-Subeeh, the new minister of education in Kuwait, defied tradition and received the ire of Islamists in her nation for taking office with a naked head. Al-Subeeh’s act of defiance against the headscarf is worth noting, espcially in the context of Western dhimmis symbolic stance in support of the piece of clothing.

After her precedent-setting episode, Dr. Subeeh explained her stand in an interview with the Egyptian weekly Rose El Yousuf: “A woman who wears the veil out of belief, which must be respected — just as the belief of a woman who does not want to wear a veil must be respected. The essence of democracy,” she said, “is to respect and accept the opinions of others.”

Pelosi certainly does not wear the veil out of belief.  She has a belief, though I’m unsure of what it is when she is ready to curry favor with Assad while Iranian women are being arrested for not wearing Islamic dress.
Pelosi fancies herself as a feminist, but her action of wearing the veil is anything but being a feminist. Yousseff Ibrahim offers a suggestion for Pelosi.

The next time America’s highest ranking female office holder, Ms. Pelosi, wants to make a splash, she should opt for championing Muslim women in the line of fire.

Among those she might want to invite to appear before Congress is a brave Somali immigrant to the Netherlands, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who came to the attention of the world in 2004 when a Muslim fanatic killed director Theo van Gogh for making a film based on her accounts of the oppression of women under Islam. After fleeing her adopted nation under threats of death, the 37-year-old politician and activist’s best-selling 2006 memoir “Infidel” has finally been published to great success in America — it contains plenty of useful information about the veil to enlighten Ms. Pelosi.

The House speaker could also honor an amazing Syrian-American psychiatrist who resides in Los Angeles, Dr. Wafa Sultan, who also receives constant death threats since denouncing Islamists on Al Jazeera and CNN, and scolding Muslims for persecuting non-Muslims and treating their women as “cattle” and “indentured servants.”

Another possibility might be an Egyptian sociologist, medical doctor, and militant writer on the problems of Arab women, Dr. Nawal El Saadawi, who is now a refugee forced to shuttle between Belgium and the Netherlands in order to escape the death warrant placed on her by several sheiks of the Saudifunded Al Azhar School of Theology in Egypt.

With all due respect to Ibrahim, his suggestions assume Pelosi is actually trying to shed light on women’s rights in the Middle East, not to just campaign against President Bush any way she can think of.