Too Many Keep Minding Other People’s Business

Kota Baru in Indonesia, Indore in India and New York City have one thing in common this week. Each seems to be full of busybodies worried about minding other people’s business. One can readily catch the whiff of totalitarianism emanating from each. In the first, the city's Nosey Parkets are worried about how women dress, in the second about two actors kissing on screen and in the third about transfat in restaurant food. The jackasses are loose.

In Kota Baru, a town in northeastern Indonesia which calls itself an “Islamic city” (which sounds like an idle boast), non-Muslim women are going to be fined for wearing “sexy” clothing (Muslim women, according to reports, are already under a dress code). An exposed navel, tight clothing, mini-skirts or see-through blouses will result in a fine of 500 ringgits (about US$140). Municipal council spokesman Azman Daham, “Such outfits are prohibited here as it smears the reputation of Kota Baru and affects its status as an Islamic city.” One was unaware that Kora Baru existed, let alone had a reputation as anything at all.

Not to be outdone, criminal charges have been filed in Indore, near Bhopal in India (where a real crime took place a few years ago in which thousands were poisoned by Union Carbide), by lawyer Shailendra Dwivedi against two actors. Aishwarya Rai (truly one of the most beautiful women in the world) and Hrithik Roshan (truly one of the luckiest men alive) kissed in a scene from a film called “Dhoom 2.” The ambulance-chaser said, “Bollywood actors are conveying vulgarity in the society. These films cannot be watched with our families, they are so vulgar at times.” And lawyers aren’t? Most Indians are not as expressive in public as, say, American teenagers, but criminal charges for the content of a film? What’s next, criminal charges for an internet website that calls Shailendra Dwivedi an embarrassment to common sense? To quote Mr. Bush, “bring it on.”

Of course, New York City hates being outdone by any other burg, and thus has moved beyond clothing and kissing to eating. Yesterday, the New York City Board of Health voted to ban transfats from restaurant food served in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island. OK, the stuff clogs arteries and leads to heart disease and can cause premature death. Doesn’t the NYC Board of Health have better things to do? Like maybe, get flu shots to everyone in town who needs one? Or maybe finding a way to keep 16 healthcare facilities open that the state is going to close between now and 2008? What about banning heavy cream or serving white wine with beef, or any drink ever featured on “Sex in the City”?

One doesn’t object to women in Kota Baru dressing modestly, nor to Bollywood films avoiding kissing scenes, or for that matter Manhattan diners ordering the fruit plate rather than the French fries cooked in partially hydrogenated oils. What annoys, vexes and otherwise miffs is the use of the state to make person “A” live the way person “B” wants them to live. How dare they?! If that’s how things are going to be, then this journal insists on a global law that reads, “Everybody has to tolerate the behavior of others that doesn’t cause demonstrable physical harm to other persons or their property -- on pain of death.” One shouldn’t have to tolerate intolerance, and using the power of the state to abolish it might prove amusing as well as valuable.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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