Author: Ophelia Benson

  • ‘Saint’ Faked His Stigmata With Carbolic Acid

    Except he was canonized by the pope, and the pope is infallible, so that can’t be right.

  • Teacher’s Murder Increases Fear in NW Pakistan

    ‘If such things can happen in broad daylight, then what safety is there for us teachers?’ asked Uzaira Afridi.

  • Congo’s Rape Fields Will Thrive

    In Eastern DRC, it is easier to get raped or killed than jailed for breaking the law.

  • ‘Return of the Muslim Other’

    Soumaya Ghannoushi is nostalgic for the ‘tradition of post-colonial studies and radical critique of Orientalism.’

  • Grayling on Public Duties v Religious Scruples

    When individuals cannot allow their religious loyalties to be trumped by their public responsibilities, they should resign.

  • Those who Lived Under ‘Islamo-fascism’

    Dear friends in WIB [Women in Black],

    In response to the mail alerting us about this event against ‘Islamo
    fascism’ led by conservative forces, I think there is a need for
    clarification from us, who lived under ‘Islamo fascism’:

    First of all, let me say that the term ‘Islamo fascism’ was initially
    coined by Algerian people struggling for democracy, against armed
    fundamentalist forces decimating people in our country, then later operating
    in Europe, where a number of us had taken refuge.

    For us, it has never been equated to Islam, but it points at fundamentalists
    only: i.e. at political forces working under the cover of religion in order
    to gain political power and to impose a theocracy (The Law – singular – of
    God, unchangeable, a-historical, interpreted by self appointed old men)
    over democracy (i.e. the laws – plural – voted by the people and changeable
    by the will of the people).

    For fundamentalists indeed are ideologically close to fascism/nazism. Of
    course one cannot equate Muslim fundamentalism to fascism because those
    phenomena happened in different times and history. However, there are
    similarities that should ring a bell to our ears: just like fascists,
    Muslim fundamentalists believe not in a superior race but in a superior
    creed, like nazis they believe that non believers or ‘kofr’ are
    ‘untermensch’ ( some of them even used this very term !) that should be
    physically eliminated (and please please please remember that it is
    Muslims who do not adhere with their version of Islam that are first
    targeted by Muslim fundamentalists and are their first victims); like
    fascists they believe in a mythical past ( whether Ancient Rome or the
    Golden Age of Islam) that justifies their superiority ; like fascists they
    are pro-capitalists; like fascists they put women in their place ( church,
    kitchen and cradle); etc…

    This is why we called them ‘Islamo fascists’.

    The fact that this term has now been recuperated by the Right and even the
    Far Right, in order to express plain racism against supposedly ‘Muslim’
    people is terrible and should of course be combatted.
    However we have seen over and over again in Europe well meaning people
    siding – de facto – with fundamentalists, in the name of defence of
    ‘Muslims’ or of ‘Islam’, and walking hand in hand with them in
    demonstrations.

    I therefore urge you to carefully plan how you are going to oppose the
    ‘awareness week on islamo fascism,’ in ways that will support the democratic
    forces and women within Muslim countries, and not reinforce the
    fundamentalist fascist forces.

    Please remember that fundamentalist forces are those who slaughter women
    everywhere in Muslim countries and communities, those who promote war not
    peace. You cannot support them in the name of anti racism and human rights
    without signing our own death penalty at the same time.

    If you demonstrate, as I hope you will, please support democratic anti fundamentalist forces in our countries, do not let
    fundamentalist forces manipulate you in the name of human rights. Make a clear-cut difference between 1. migrants from Muslim countries,
    2.Muslim believers (who are the only ones who should be called ‘Muslims’), 3. Islam, and 4. fundamentalists: these are different categories that
    cannot be intermingled without playing into the fundamentalists’ game, and against women.

    I take this opportunity to let all of you know how hurt and angry I was when
    a statement was discussed at the end of the WIB meeting in Valencia, that,
    in its first paragraph, supported Hamas as the legitimate winner of the
    ‘democratic’ elections of 2006.

    It is one thing to say that western governments used a supposedly
    antifundamentalist stance to play their own game in the Middle Eats. It is
    one thing to say that Palestinian people have a right to self determination.
    But, as a women’s organization, it is another thing to support Hamas. As
    women against war, it is another thing to equate a democratic process with
    democracy and ignore the consequences for women…

    Let me explain my point : ‘democracy’ has two meanings; 1. it describes a
    process of political representation through the vote of all citizens, and 2.
    it also represents an ideal of justice, equity and equality . So far
    parliamentary democracy (i.e. the vote of all the people) is better, more
    just, more representative of the people, than monarchy (the rule of one
    leader), or oligarchy (the rule of a selected group), etc…But we should
    not confuse the means – elections – with the aim – a just society. Yes,
    elections are generally the imperfect but best way to come closer to a more
    just society – however sometimes the people make a very wrong choice that
    denies justice to a part of the people: one should remember that Hitler was
    legally elected . Despite the fact that the rule of electoral process had
    been respected, his reign in Germany cannot be counted as a phase of
    democracy i.e. more just society – definitely not for Jews, Gypsies, gays,
    disabled people, communists and political opponents in general.
    One of us in Valencia was a Palestinian lesbian citizen of Israel: you
    cannot pretend to igniore the fact that, had she lived under Hamas’ rule,
    she would not have been with us, nor would have she been alive. To me, very
    clearly, signing a statement in favor of Hamas was signing her death penalty
    in the name of the rights of the Palestinian people, which we all stand for.
    How could WIB do that? How could WIB agree to a hierarchy of rights in
    which people’s rights, minority rights, religious rights, cultural rights,
    etc… supercede women’s rights? in which women’s rights are subsumed to all
    these other rights?

    We women have to invent ways to defend basic human rights and democracy,
    to combat racism and discrimination, without trading the rights and often
    the lives of our sisters in doing so.

    It is a complex task, no doubt. But I do hope that WIB will face the
    challenge.

    The opposition to this event in the USA that confuses a whole population of
    migrant descent with Muslim fundamentalists would be a good opportunity to
    design ways to face the challenge. Thanks in advance to all of those who
    will at least make the attempt!

    All the best to all of you

    Marieme Hélie-Lucas

    Marieme Helie Lucas is an Algerian sociologist, founder and former International Coordinator of the ‘Women Living Under Muslim Laws’ international solidarity network.

    This letter was published on the international Women In Black email information list on 5 september 2007 and is republished here by permission.

    Posted October 24 2007

  • Family Values American Values Family Family

    Oh look, Theocracy in America.

    A collection of major Religious Right groups is seeking to flex some muscle this weekend, screening Republican presidential hopefuls and demanding they show fealty to the fundamentalist political agenda. The so-called “Values Voter Summit” in Washington, D.C., is sponsored by the Family Research Council Action, Focus on the Family Action, the Alliance Defense Fund, American Family Association Action and Gary Bauer’s American Values group. Every major GOP presidential hopeful is slated to appear. “This may be the biggest collection of theocrats in one room since the Salem Witch Trials,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “Their goal is simple: to consolidate their power within the GOP and elect a president who is in their pocket. They want to ramp up their efforts to run everyone else’s lives according to a narrow and rather hateful definition of Christianity.”

    Well if they can’t run everyone else’s lives, where’s the fun in belonging to one of those crapulous outfits? Who would want to hang out with the Family Focus on Family American Values Defense Action Focus Action Group if there were no opportunity to tell other people what to do? What else are they going to be doing? Having interesting conversations? Boogying? Drinking and telling jokes? Humping? Seems unlikely! No – the only fun those people know of is the fun of Coercion and Regimentation, with a little Exhortation and Excoriation thrown in. Poor bastards.

  • Funding for Creationism Dropped from Bill

    More than 30 educational, scientific and religious groups joined forces to oppose the provision.

  • Religious Right Seeks To Muscle GOP

    ‘This may be the biggest collection of theocrats in one room since the Salem Witch Trials.’

  • Review of Robert Richardson’s William James

    James’s modernity is too often lost in the fog of intellectual mannerisms that ‘read’ as late-Victorian.

  • Jesus and Mo Discuss Abortion

    Easy for them.

  • The Debate About Watson is Too Predictable

    We have to unpick exactly what was objectionable in what he said and what was acceptable debate.

  • Bettina Aptheker’s Memoir and Memory

    It raises questions about ‘recovered memory’ and how to evaluate it.

  • Anthony Kenny on his History of Philosophy

    Some interesting insights into the figures that have shaped the subject ranging from Plato to Derrida.

  • Nigel Warburton Interviews Tim Crane

    How the mind relates to the body: how could a piece of soft tissue think and feel?

  • Prisoners’ Rights Activist Imprisoned

    Emadeddin Baghi was charged with ‘propaganda against the Islamic Republic.’

  • Public Executions in Iran: Dominance via Fear

    Almost all the executions have been public hangings. Videos of the process are then broadcast over the Net.

  • Wrested from the bitter reactionary grip of religion

    We had a good time (I did anyway) with Roger Scruton’s review of Anthony Grayling’s new book, so now let’s have a different but related kind of good time with another look at Anthony Grayling’s review of John Gray’s latest book. I flagged it up here last month but it’s so relevant to the Scruton review that I feel like flagging it up again.

    Now let us ask whether secular Enlightenment values of pluralism, democracy, the rule of independently and impartially administered law, freedom of thought, enquiry and expression, and liberty of the individual conform to the model of a monolithic ideology such as Catholicism, Islam or Stalinism. Let us further ask how Gray imagines that these values are direct inheritances from Christianity – the Christianity of the Inquisition, which burned to death any who sought to assert just such values. Indeed, the history of the modern European and Europe-derived world is precisely the history of liberation from the hegemony of Christianity. I shall be so bold as to refer the reader to the case for this claim in my forthcoming full-length discussion of it, Towards the Light.

    The very book Scruton tried so hard to patronize the other day.

    As to the weary old canard about the 20th-century totalitarianisms: it astonishes me how those who should know better can fail to see them as quintessentially counter-Enlightenment projects…They were counter-Enlightenment projects because they rejected the idea of pluralism and its concomitant liberties of thought and the person, and in the time-honoured unEnlightened way forcibly demanded submission to a monolithic ideal…Most of what was achieved in the history of the West from the 16th century onwards – most notably science and the realisation of the values listed above – was wrested from the bitter reactionary grip of religion inch by painful and frequently bloody inch. How can Gray so far ignore this bald fact of history as to make the modern secular West the inheritor of the ideals and aspirations of what it fought so hard to free itself from (and is still bedevilled by)?

    Having a book contract probably helps with the ignoring.

  • Mina Ahadi is Secularist of the Year

    Undeterred by the inevitable death threats, Mina has pressed on, determined as ever to protect women from the ravages of Islam.

  • Anthony McIntyre on Maryam Namazie

    It is this idea of political Islam as a voice for the oppressed and voiceless which annoys her most.