Month: September 2006

Well that’s a funny thing – I’ve already commented on that Seyran Ates piece, I commented on it when it was new. I’d forgotten that. And furthermore, that was the day before Homa won her long fight, when Ontario’s premier decided not to allow Sharia in Ontario. Remember that? That was a good day. I ended the comment on Ates and Fadela Amara and others by saying I was looking forward to congratulating Homa on her victory – but I wasn’t expecting to be able to as soon as the next day. That was a good surprise.

What was Seyran Ates saying a year ago?

Why are a few particularly estimable, highly intelligent women and men in very prominent positions, blind in one eye when it comes to the protection of minorities? Why are they blind in that eye with which they have otherwise promoted equal rights for the sexes, and still do? The so-called minority protection with respect to Islam and religious freedom can only be had at the cost of the equal rights of women, and ultimately only serves to perpetuate and reinforce obsolete, archaic, patriarchal structures.

That’s what. That ‘minority protection’ and ‘religious freedom’ for some boil down to subordination and oppression for others; that you can’t have everything; that toleration and respect are good things, other things being equal, but not if they mean toleration and respect for subjection of women.

I want to know, and many thousands of Muslim girls and women have a right to know, why understanding and infinite tolerance is practised with particular cultural traditions that are clearly oppressive of women. Human rights are universal and unconditional. And that goes most certainly for religious objectives. It is only girls and women who are forced to wear head-scarves. And it’s also a majority of girls and women who are affected by forced marriage. I don’t want to enter into the debate about women and schoolgirls who wear the headscarf of their own free will, or about the difference between arranged and forced marriages. Just one note: silence cannot be understood as assent. But very many girls are brought up to be silent on such topics.

Silence cannot be understood as assent, and neither can non-appearance on radio and tv and in newspapers, especially when the people who don’t appear are to varying degrees prevented from appearing in such public fora precisely by their own subordination and segregation. It’s a vicious cycle. Part of the subordination consists of segregation and concealment, so radio producers and newspaper reporters don’t interview Muslim women as much as they do men partly simply because they’re not as visible and audible, they’re not in such conspicuous positions, they’re not as accessible, and perhaps partly out of a bashful idea of good manners or respect; so their voices aren’t heard; so silence keeps on being understood as assent. It’s something to watch for. If an oppressed group’s oppression consists partly precisely in being kept systematically out of the public eye, then that fact should be kept firmly in focus.

Many judgements have been handed down in Germany which have excluded Islamic girls from school classes. The arguments always tend in the same direction. The “others” don’t have to live like we do. For example, in its judgement of March 24, 1994 (InfAuslR 8/92, S. 269), concerning the exemption of an Islamic schoolgirl from gym class, the higher administrative court in Bremen ruled: “…it is irrelevant that adolescent Muslim women are prevented by the demands of their religion from achieving equal status as women in Western society…”

Ouch. Well, what a good thing Seyran Ates is staying. Go, sister.

Dutch Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner seems like a funny guy – especially for a justice minister, at least in a country that is fortunate enough to have a constitution.

Donner believes that if, some time in the future, two-thirds of Dutch citizens believe that Sharia, Islamic law, should be introduced in the Netherlands, then it must be allowed. That, says the minister, is the ultimate consequence of democracy…The minister’s remarks have caused uproar in parliament. His own Christian Democrat [sic] party is astonished…The largest Dutch party, the opposition Labour Party, also thinks the justice minister is on the wrong track. Labour point out that, in their view, Sharia is in conflict with the Dutch constitution on a number of points. For example, it could never be officially possible to discriminate against women or homosexuals.

Well, there you are. It’s rather basic. Democracy in the form of simple majoritarianism always carries the risk that a majority will decide (vote, want, choose) to persecute a minority or even (in the case of women) a majority, and that’s why farsighted people decided constitutions were a good idea. People aren’t nice, in fact people are crap, so pure majoritarian unhedged democracy is a terrible, terrible idea.

(And by the way, why is Radio Netherlands talking about the Christian Democrat party? Surely they haven’t picked up that rude habit of US Republicans of refusing to say ‘Democratic’ party or candidate because it sounds too complimentary…but why else would they be doing it? That’s not standard usage. I’ve noticed the World Service doing it lately, too, to my deep fury, but I’m astonished to see it’s made its way to the Continent. Christian Democratic party. Cut it out.)