Tobacco Documents Online

- 11 - tant lifestyles, promoted by middle-class professions, bureaucrats and assorted do-gooders. Politically, working- class voting patterns in several Western democracies (notably the United States, Britain and West Germany) demonstrate this resistance. It is at least possible that working-class culture will also continue to resist the imposition of a non-smoking lifestyle by upper-middle-class professionals and government bureaucrats. The religion theme : The session devoted to this ("Smoking and Religion") was chaired by a Dr. Omar Sherif (sic) , an Egyptian cancer surgeon. There was only a handful of people attending. This evident lack of interest may lead one to dismiss the theme as a non-starter; this may be premature, if the theme is taken up again and pushed by those in charge of anti- smoking activities; more on this below. Be this as it may, the session in itself was fairly grotesque. Sherif, correctly enough, opened the session by saying that this was the first time that religion was discussed in an international conference on smoking. He expressed the belief that this could initiate "a new avenue to reach the masses" in the

anti-smoking cause. He then discussed Islam in relation to smok- ing. He argued, with reference to some (to my knowledge, marginal) authorities on Islamic law, that smoking was contrary to Islam because it is an intoxicant harmful to health (thus, by analogy, falling under the Quranic prohibition of alcohol). He made refer- ence to a meeting on the topic recently held in Medina (no less); he was a member of this group, which, according to him, concluded that smoking was indeed to be proscribed. Sherif was followed by one R. P. Bulka, a Canadian rabbi, whose argument was very similar. While traditional Jewish law did not mention smoking, one could reason by analogy: Harming innocent others and committing suicide were both contrary to Jewish law, and smoking could be subsumed under both these behav- ioral categories. This argument was buttressed by various tradi- tional citations. Bulka admitted that his position was not at all common among rabbis, but expressed the hope that it would gain credence as the harmful effects of smoking became more gener- ally known or acknowledged within the rabbinical community. Christianity was represented in this anti-smoking ecumen- ical troika by three speakers - F. A. Soper, director of the Seventh-Day Adventist "5-day plan to stop smoking"; R. Vincent, a Mormon physician; and A. Haggart, an Anglican bishop from Scotland. Both Soper and Vincent reiterated the theological/ethical position on smoking long held in their respective denominations, as a violation of the body created in the image of God. Soper Z501021696

emphasized that, quite apart from practical health reasons, abstin- ence from smoking was a spiritual goal. Vincent spent the bulk of his time presenting data on the superior health of Mormons (to my knowledge, these data are correct), which he attributed not only to non-smoking but to various other health-producing aspects of the Mormon way of life. Haggart's presentation was rambling, very poorly organ- ized (he was actually supposed to be a discussant of the preceding four papers, but, as an Anglican, had little to say about them). He regretfully reported that smoking was hardly an issue in the mainline Protestant and Catholic churches. He ended with a "con- fession of guilt and promise of amendment", and with the not very confident intent to push the anti-smoking agenda in church circles (such as the forthcoming assembly of the World Council of Churches). Taken by itself, this session would lead one to the conclusion that nothing much is to be expected by way of anti- smoking activities by religious groups. Both Sherif and Bulka represent minority viewpoints within their own communions (in the case of Bulka, this minority is very small indeed). The anti- smoking positions of Adventists and Mormons are long-standing and well-known, and are very unlikely to influence anyone outside these denominations. And Haggart hardly appeared as a herald of a new wave of concern among mainline Christians. For the moment, this may well be a correct conclusion. However, I would suggest some caution, for two reasons. One (and

by far the more important one): Sherif may still represent a minority viewpoint within the Muslim world. However, as was pointed out both by himself and by a member of the audience (an- other Egyptian physician), there are data showing that non-smoking is strongly correlated with strong adherence to Islam, especially among young people (the data mentioned are from Egypt). I know from other sources that abstinence from smoking is part of the lifestyle urged on their members by fundamentalist Muslim groups in several countries (for example, Pakistan and Malaysia). It follows, therefore, that Sherif may be quite correct in surmising that the anti-smoking cause could have considerable appeal to the Muslim "masses" - or, more precisely, to fundamentalist Muslim groups. Since such groups are a very powerful presence in most Muslim countries, the little gathering at Winnipeg could con- ceivably be the beginning of a much more serious development. In that context, it could be significant that the session was chaired by a Muslim. Two (and this is the less important reason): Mainline Christianity, both Protestant and Catholic, has become very sus- ceptible to rhetoric attacking multinationals and endorsing the interests of the Third World. It is at least possible, if efforts are mounted to this end, that anti-smoking could become incorpor- ated within the general anti-capitalist/Third-Worldist agenda of various Christian organizations. At the moment, this does not seem terribly likely; these organizations are preoccupied with

other concerns ("peace", "social justice", "equality", and so on). But the possibility of anti-smoking creeping into their agendas cannot be summarily dismissed. The feminism theme: The session devoted to this theme ("Smoking and Feminism") was very well attended (a majority of women, but considerable male attendance as well). It was chaired by Bobbie Jacobson (a British physician, active in both feminist and anti-smoking activities, and author of The Lady-Killers, a little book that was for sale at the conference). Jacobson (an evidently self-satisfied individual, bursting with energy) ran a brisk meeting, introducing speakers (all women) by their first names (standard feminist etiquette) and injecting forceful com- ments of her own. In ringing tones, she began by declaring that the anti-smoking movement must no longer be run by "middle-class, middle-aged, white men"; instead, the session was run by middle- class, middle-aged and (with one exception) white women. The most interesting problem of this session was one of (so to speak) ideological dissonance: The data about smoking women would seem to indicate that smoking is correlated with emancipation; if so, here is something that feminists generally applaud; it is, therefore, necessary to dispute the notion (appar- ently expressed by some) that feminism is to be blamed for women smoking so much. The basic ideological thrust of the session was to argue that, on the contrary, women's smoking is an additional

oppression (presumably foisted upon them by men) , and not to be confused with genuine liberation. Jacobson initiated this thrust by referring to the three groups singled out by the conference - women, children and Third World people - as "the three most underprivileged groups in the world". She insisted that there was no evidence that women smoke in order to relate to the world in a masculine way; on the contrary, "women smoke like women and die like.women"; this sen- timent was much applauded by the audience (most of which was very much in tune with Jacobson's fervor). Then came several presentations. Ingrid Eide (a Norwe- gian sociologist and former government official) presented data on women and smoking, from a Norwegian study. Based on criteria of age, education, location and occupation, Eide had constructed an "index of emancipation", on the basis of which she concluded that the most "emancipated" women were not over-represented among heavy smokers. She also reported on another study, which supposedly shows that feminists are under-represented among daily smokers but ("unfortunately") over-represented among overall smokers. Eide concluded that her data show that feminism cannot be blamed for increased smoking among women. It is difficult to evaluate these data without more knowledge about them. But in my opinion the "index of emancipa- tion" is not very convincing; as to the data, I suspect that they simply reflect the class bifurcation in the smoking population - 2501021700

since feminists tend to be upper-income individuals, they will naturally smoke less than lower-income individuals. This would mean that Jacobson and Eide are quite right that feminism per se cannot be "blamed" for women's smoking; this, though, is rather besides the point; the point is that women, and especially working- class women, smoke more as they enter the labor force - and that has been one of the goals of the feminist movement. There was a purely factual report on smoking and women in India, by M. B. Aghi (of the Tata Institute, Bombay). Virginia Ernster (a professor of public health from UCLA) gave a witty presentation, with slides, of changing images of women in tobacco advertising - the main point being, of course, that women were "exploited" in a sexist mode in this advertising. Pattie White (an ASH activist from Britain) argued that smoking represented women's place in society - again, of course, a place of under- privilege/exploitation. She related (convincingly) data on smok- ing to the desire of women to remain thin. She attacked "male bias" in research on smoking and women, though it was not very clear in what that bias consisted. She also confirmed that smok- ing was higher among women in the labor force. The discussion was spirited, with an obviously engaged and concerned audience. The data on women and work were obviously disturbing, from a feminist point of view, and there was the evident need to "explain" these data in feminist terms - a not very easy undertaking. Eide took a leading role in these efforts.

There were complaints that the feminist movement has generally been indifferent to the smoking issue. For example, it was reported that attempts to get Ms. Magazine to drop its (allegedly) pro-smoking slant have been unsuccessful. There was applause, though, when one member of the audience reported that the forthcoming new edition of the feminist health-bible, Our Bodies, our Selves, will include a chapter on smoking. After the discussion, the session broke up into workshops that mainly dealt with "how to" questions of organisation and propaganda. I'm not sure what to make of all this. As several speakers themselves stated, anti-smoking is not a prominent issue within the feminist movement either in North America or in Europe. I could well imagine though, that it could become more important. The class location and the general ideological posture of the movement makes it natural "soil" for anti-smoking sentiments. There are themes with an affinity to anti-smoking already strong in the movement - a generalized sentiment of being put upon by male-dominated institutions, and thus a readiness to identify with other categories of alleged "victims" (I would suggest the concept of victimological amalgamation for this); ergo, a tendency to come out on the Left on miscellaneous political issues (for example, the "gender gap" on economic and defense issues in the U.S.); this would lead to a perception of the tobacco industry as one more case of predatory capitalism, which is supposedly a key cause for the oppression of women.

My guess would be, though, that it would be on the positive rather than the negative side that feminists would come out on in terms of anti-smoking. That is, feminism would be perceived as linked to a non-smoking lifestyle - with the implications discussed above. In this connection, I will allow myself a general sociological hypothesis here: The anti-smoking cause is part of a much larger ideological configuration, which is marked by a tendency toward hypochondriacal and paranoid perceptions of the world. Therefore, the readiness of groups to adopt the anti-smoking cause may be predicted by the degree of proclivity toward such perceptions (no matter with what specific contents) that a group already has. So much for religion and feminism. There was one other new ideological theme, that of smoking among minorities. The session devoted to this theme was not only very sparsely attended, but the papers supplied straightforward information (such as on smoking rates among American blacks) with very little ideological payoff. I can only guess why this theme was included in the program - either for token reasons, or as yet another attempt to expand the anti-smoking constituency by the strategy of what I have ~ just baptized as "victimological amalgamation". If the ~ Q latter was the intention, it flopped. ~ ~ C Lh?

- 20 - In my observations of Stockholm, I had spent some time discussing ideological linkages of the anti-smoking cause - such as Third Worldism, anti-capitalism, environmentalism and consumer protection. All these linkages continue to be visible, thus placing the anti-smoking cause broadly Left-of-center in terms of conventional Western politics. However, the emphasis on health is so overriding and the explicit Marxist or even quasi-Marxist themes so muted that most Right-of-center people would have little difficulty affiliating with the cause, as long as they were persuaded of its cognitive assumptions concerning the health efforts of smoking. To put it crudely, being against lung cancer is not necessarily a Leftist position. The healthful/youthful/ with-it lifestyle that is now intended to incorporate non-smoking as one of its features could also go quite comfortably with Right-of-center politics (Republicans do jog, eat health foods, and - sad to say - have been known to be both hypochondriacal and paranoid); an older American movement, the campaign against fluoridation, may serve as an example of such linkage between health cultism and Right- leaning politics. I do suppose that Right-of-center adherents of the cause would be less enthusiastic about the role of government in controlling smoking and more inclined toward voluntarism in this area; take that as a hypothesis. Institutionally, the linkage with consumer protection appears to have been strengthened (thus a number of papers mentioned anti-smoking actions by consumer groups - for example, in Malaysia).