Author: Ophelia Benson

So what is going on here? Why is this issue not on the radar?

David Hadley asks:

…within these oppressive religious regimes – in this case strict Islam – there is a form of sexual apartheid too. Where women don’t even get the luxury of being even second-class citizens. Which makes me wonder why none of the left-wing ‘progressive’ media are calling for sanctions and boycotts of these regimes.

Surely it is a great cause for them to rally behind, isn’t it?

Karl adds:

there’s that post-colonial guilt thing going on. Women’s rights, gay rights, individual rights–they’re all so modern and western. They’re all undermining those fragile traditional cultures and turning everyone into atomized consumers who exist without real purpose in shiny soulless Corporate World. Sympathy is reserved for those proud noble tribesmen who are fighting to preserve their unique cultural heritage.

Karl nailed it, I think. It’s the authenticity thing. I was pondering this the other day – why do right-on people feel slightly (or sometimes more than slightly) uneasy about rationalist atheist feminist people from Third World countries when they don’t feel that way about atheists, rationalists, feminists from First World countries? I think it is a guilt thing. The background idea (generally, I think, not very carefully thought about or examined, as background ideas often aren’t, which is why we call them background ideas, hence one that may be vulnerable to argument, eventually) that rationalism etc are ‘Western’ importations and contaminations; that they are not authentic. I think the background idea behind that background idea is a vague postcolonialist guilt about taking away distant people’s authenticity. This relies, of course, on the still further background idea that irrational and anti-rational ideas are natural and authentic while the other kind are not (or else some even weirder idea that they’re in the DNA of Western people and not that of Third World people). I think this is an easy idea to slide into – I think I used to do it myself, hence this hypothesis is partly an extrapolation from my own lumber room of formless unexamined assumptions. I suppose we have some sort of mental picture of rationalist atheist (that’s inaccurate of course, but that’s just it) thrusting capitalist imperialism from The West injecting itself as if from a giant syringe or sexual organ into the irrationalist theist traditionalist rural homogeneous Nonwest. And of that Nonwest as uniformly and consistently Different – Other, you know – from The West, therefore (by definition) not rationalist or atheist or feminist, because those are all items in the syringe. A mental picture of the Third World as something rather like the way women used to be conceptualised – shapeless, formless, chaotic, swirling, opaque, mysterious, and above all uniformly and everywhere completely different from the invading exploiting uninvited imperialists.

In other words, I think there is a tendency to assume that for instance feminism is an importation from the West and that therefore it is, one, not authentic, and two, a contamination. It’s almost a kind of touristy idea. We don’t go to Bombay or Jakarta to eat at McDonald’s, and we don’t go there to encounter rationalist feminists of the kind we could find on any corner in Camden Town or Cambridge. Nosir. When we go abroad, god damn it, we want our exoticism, we want authentic traditionalism and primitivsm. Well, hey, what could be more primitive than oppression of women? Hah? Not much.

And there’s a feeling that it’s too easy. That’s another outcropping of the postcolonialist guilt thing. It’s too easy for us to prefer our own ideas. What’s difficult is to force ourselves to accept the things that trouble us. It’s easy to eat unfamiliar food, but to accept unfamiliar morality, that’s not so easy. So, people often unfortunately conclude, because this acceptance is difficult, therefore it is the right thing to do. Uh oh. Red flag. Wrong, Wrong, wrong, wrong. Look – the mere fact that it is difficult for us to accept that the oppression of women is okay, does not mean that it is in fact okay. It’s not a useful moral exercise for us to force ourselves to think that cruelty and deprivation are good things. That ‘too easy’ thought is one that should put people on alert. It may be a useful insight, and the starting point for asking ‘why do I think this particular idea or taboo is right?’ but it may also be a disastrous starting point for accepting horrors.

Of course all this is all wrong anyway. It simply assumes that only one kind of thinking, one kind of morality, is ‘authentic,’ and that others are importations and injections. But that’s nonsense. The West has no monopoly on rationalism and feminism (and it could be considered quite arrogant and Eurocentric and ethnocentric to think it does) and the Nonwest has no monopoly on irrationalism and antifeminism. Ideas don’t have DNA, and they don’t have passports. Anybody can think of anything. It’s insulting and ridiculous to think or even assume that atheists and feminists from Iran or Pakistan or anywhere else are the slightest bit less ‘authentic’ than misogynist theists are. So get over it, already. Tariq Ramadan is not more ‘authentic’ than Azam Kamguian, any more than the BJP is more ‘authentic’ than Amartya Sen. The ideas need to be judged on their merits. The oppression and subordination of women does not become more noble or acceptable because it’s enacted by ‘devout’ Muslims, any more than the oppression and subordination of dalits becomes more noble or acceptable because it’s enacted by ‘devout’ Hindus. Authenticity is an idea whose time has gone.

And a little more again, about that conference at the UN, because Azam sent me the link to this Commission on Human Rights report, and it has more detail than the news articles. You should read it.

Ms. Azam Kamguian from Iran was the first speaker in the session on ‘Infidels and Apostates’. She started by describing her own experience; growing up with an all powerful and pious father. The temptation to subordinate her being to God was very strong but when she was an adolescent she decided that she did not need religion to tell her who she was. “Even though I left Islam, I had to live with it”, she stated.
According to an extremist interpretation of the Sharia Law, the greatest sin is disbelief. Non-believers and atheists do not have the right to life and apostasy is punishable by death. There was a case where a man was executed for having converted his wife. Even in the academic community, discussions of the Koran are considered to be taboo. According to Ms. Kamguian, Islam should be subject to criticism. Currently, if someone criticizes Islam in Iran they face death.

Yep, it’s hard to disagree with the statement that Islam should be subject to criticism, as should any other religion. But…it’s not a news flash that criticism of Islam is not exactly popular in a lot of right-on circles. In fact it’s taboo. So deafening silence greets conferences like this one. Where is the Guardian, eh?

Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides for the “freedom to change religion or belief”. Mr. Ibn Warraq observed the discrepancy between this standard and the situation in Muslim countries. He first described the evolution of Islam in regard to its position on apostates. The Koran prescribes condemnation for apostates only in the next world, but this has evolved to mean those who change religion must be killed. In some countries, such as Sudan and Mauritania, the penal code provides the death penalty for apostasy. Also, Muslim theologians are aware that apostasy can tempt Muslim women to free themselves from Sharia law and they have taken measures to prevent this from happening. In fighting causes of apostasy and bringing changes to the Muslim world, Mr. Warraq sees one solution: “without any post-colonial guilt, we must defend our values. We still have freedom of expression and the right to criticize Islam”. In this sense, publications in the West are very important in helping populations in Islamic countries.

Aren’t they though. So isn’t it too bad they aren’t helping. Because of post-colonial guilt, no doubt. How depressing it is…

Ms. Fourest listed three main reasons why Muslim extremism is more threatening today. First, Muslim movements compete by rejecting and resisting western modernization. This, in turn, encourages them to add extreme elements to their religion, such as the veil or genital mutilation. These used not to be commonplace, but now “the veil has become almost the sixth pillar of Islam”, she stated. Second, the degree of secularization in Muslim states is non-existent. On that point, Ms. Fourest drew a comparison. Jewish women in Mea Shearim may face the same oppression as those of Tehran, but the former have access to justice, whereas the latter will be put in jail by the state itself. The third factor, mostly playing in places where Islam is a minority religion, is cultural relativism. The minority is expected to continue its “cultural” practices, including wearing the veil, genital mutilations or stoning, for the “folklore”, Ms. Fourest said. Indeed, cultural relativism is a real danger and must be addressed first, since it deprives those who are fighting extremism of the support that progressive humanists should grant them.

Exactly. Cultural relativism deprives those who are fighting extremism of the support that progressive humanists should grant them. Indeed it does. It never stops surprising me how completely this subject gets ignored.

Finally, Ms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, member of the Dutch Parliament and women’s rights activist, recalled all the discriminations and atrocities suffered by Muslim women in the world. These include the need to be granted permission by a man in order to leave the house; the right of men to divorce their wives by repeating ‘I divorce you’ three times; wearing the veil; inheriting less than men and feminine genital mutilations. “The only way out is education. We must stop financing faith based schools in Europe”, Ms. Hirsi Ali said.

And Hirsi Ali has to have police protection, and, if you remember, has to live in hotels away from her desk and books and papers; she can’t work, her life has been trashed. But – hey – that’s their culture.

A little more about that meeting and press conference at the UN last week. It’s interesting that one of the available articles is from the CBC – the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation – since Canada has some ‘issues’ itself on this stuff, as regular readers of B&W know. Homa Arjomand has been working tirelessly to oppose the introduction of Sharia law in Ontario, but Ontario in its wisdom has not changed its decision. Ontario should have been at the UN last Monday. Ontario needs to pay attention.

Hirsi Ali, a Somali immigrant who has become a prominent women’s advocate in the Dutch parliament, said European countries have to accept that women are more threatened within Muslim communities than in their wider secular societies. Governments must take measures to protect these vulnerable women, even if such action is deemed culturally insensitive to the Islamic community or leads to accusations of anti-Muslim bias, she said. “If you look at the women’s shelters in the Netherlands, the majority of the victims are women from non-Western countries and the majority of them are Muslim women,” she said. “Liberal democratic governments are not interfering because they argue that that’s their culture,” she added.

And if they’re Ontario they go beyond not interfering, and actually help. Not clever. Not even all that culturally sensitive, really. Culturally sensitive toward fundamentalists who want to push women around, but damn insensitive toward the women who don’t want to be pushed. Odd to take the side of the former rather than the latter, isn’t it.

Respecting cultural diversity is really a form of “upside-down racism,” preventing immigrant women from enjoying the same freedom and protection as native European women, said Iranian activist Azam Kamguian. While Europe pays lip service to universal human rights, it is in reality “bribing Islamic countries and Islamists to give up terrorism and then saying the rest is OK,” Kamguian said. By turning a blind eye to Islam’s hostility toward homosexuality and Jews, European governments are buying “a one-way ticket to the Middle Ages,” Hirsi Ali said.

And they don’t even get frequent flier miles. Not clever and not even smart shopping.

Homa gives an example.

In communities where Sharia law interferes with people’s lives, family problems are not simply disagreements between a man and a woman and who gets what. In fact, private matters and religion are closely linked together. To make my point clear, I would like to present one case study I have come across in my social work. I have a client in Toronto who was taken out of school by her parents at the age of 15 and forced to marry a 29 year old man; according to Sharia, she is married whilst under the Canadian legal system she is not. At the age of 16, this young pregnant girl is going through separation because of domestic abuse. In a secular court, the fact that she was forced to marry at a young age is considered a crime and her husband will be charged for assault and child abuse. As for her parents, they too will be charged. The Children’s Aid Society will get involved and if they have any other children younger than 16, all will be moved out to the Aid Society’s care. While in the eyes of the Sharia tribunal no crime has taken place and the matter is a civil one, which can be resolved by the Islamic tribunal, under the modern secular system of Canada, the child will be immediately protected and the abusers prosecuted.

Cultural sensitivity, eh?