Candace de Russy is traveling, but asked me to pass on these observations. Happy Thanksgiving!
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As 2006 winds down there are good reasons for Americans to be concerned: Sectarian strife worsens in Iraq, the Taliban are resurgent in Afghanistan, the battle against Islamist terrorists promises to be long and demanding, and there seems to be no concerted effort on the part of moderate nations to stop the mad despots in Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Yet there are also manifold reasons to be grateful in this Thanksgiving season. Heroic fighters for freedom and justice continue to rise up on the world scene. Among numerous examples, as offered by National Review’s Rich Lowry, there is Mukhtaran Bibi:
This young Pakistani woman was sentenced to gang-rape by her village elders after her younger brother was accused of having a relationship with a woman of another tribe. She fought back and had — a rarity in Pakistan — her attackers prosecuted. She now is an internationally recognized voice for the rights of Pakistani women, who are often punished for being raped. The country’s lower house has just passed a change in the country’s sick rape laws, a baby step toward civilized norms.
Let us give thanks for living in a land in which rule by law prevails. And let us give thanks for those, like Bibi, who struggle at terrible personal cost and against all odds to institute civilized values.