The trip to Kurdistan to “be there live” must have been quite an adventure. It is a major failure of American “journalism” that the real stories aren’t represented in the headlines. Kudos to those who go get them and give them airtime.
As iron sharpens iron, I would make these observations about the reference to Mandela.
I think it is difficult to resist those kinds of things because, as a writer, there is a powerful awareness of the existence of Mandela as a mythic hero of the Left, and such references can serve to draw those people in for a closer look. However, that can eventuate into what we see here — what I call an “Appeal to Superficial Similitude” — where there is a parallel drawn that goes to no greater depth than just the surface of the matter.
Mandela was imprisoned in a really nasty prison.
Maryam and Marzieh are imprisoned in a really nasty prison.
The parallel between the two stories both begins and ends with that observation, and although it is certainly valid at that level, it leaves the door wide open for a cascade of unintended, and invalid parallels to arise in the minds of readers. These can leave a reader with a sense that something is being implied by the writer that they would, in fact, never imply, and may even regard with abhorrence.
When you next speak with Ms. Duin, do pass my gratitude for giving these two women a voice in her column.
I shall indeed.