Neither whores nor slaves

From AFP, with thanks to David Russell, who comments: "This issue of 'ni putes ni soumises' in France is very interesting, and is probably incomprehensible to most Americans. You can see it in the tone that this article takes, presenting it as a 'feminist' issue. Even in France, as you can see, many on the left do not know how to approach the issue...it is a 'clash of two political correctnesses': feminism and multiculturalism. Fundamentally it is about the presence of Islamic culture in France, and Islamic 'behavior' on the part of Muslim men here...but as you can see...it is often presented in Marxist 'economic' terms...the men who perpetrate these acts are poor and down and out etc...although the dreadful acts described occur only in the 'northern Paris suburbs' which are populated virtually exclusively by Muslims..."

A year after it launched a campaign to denounce violence against women in France's high-immigration, high-rise city suburbs, called banlieues, the group "Ni Putes Ni Soumises" has become a nationwide force - but still finds itself held at arm's length by the mainstream feminist movement. The organisation - whose name means "Neither Whores Nor Slaves" - was born out of the appalling tragedy that befell a 19-year-old girl, Sohane Benziane, who was set on fire and killed by a boy she knew in a run-down apartment estate in the Paris outskirts in October 2002.
Led by 38 year-old activist Fadéla Amara, "Ni Putes Ni Soumises" conducted a much-publicised series of demonstrations around France in early 2003, culminating this year in a Women's Day march through Paris after which a petition signed by 15,000 people was handed to President Jacques Chirac.

The movement directs its anger at the violence and stigmatisation suffered by young women of North African origin who it says are increasingly the victims of a culture of abuse justified in the name of Islamic tradition in the neglected French banlieues.

"When I was growing up it was perfectly normal for girls to wear short skirts, or tight jeans, or low tops. No man would have dared make a remark."

"Today - and for the last ten years - femininity is seen by boys as a provocation, as something to be condemned," Amara said in a recent book.

The group's message is a frightening one: that social breakdown in the country's high-immigration neighbourhoods has led to a generation of young Arab men crippled by self-loathing and alienation, who take out their frustrations in aggression against their increasingly assertive female counterparts.

The most symbolic illustration of the phenomenon is the practice of "tournantes" - the gang-rape of young women handed over by their boyfriends for group enjoyment - though of more general significance is the day-to-day abuse and humiliation encountered among the tenements, the group says.

What has exacerbated tensions has been the debate over the Islamic headscarf in schools, which will be banned from September under a highly-contentious law that has just passed through the French parliament.

"Ni Putes Ni Soumises", which sees resurgent Islamic traditionalism as the major threat to young women, has come out unequivocally in favour of the law and believes the focus of feminist pressure should be "the defence of secularism, the Republic and the fight against fundamentalism."...

From the start "Ni Putes Ni Soumises" put France's feminist movement in a quandary, because it explicitly accused mainstream activists of abandoning the "banlieues" in their pursuit of elusive political goals. It also made clear it made no distinction between left and right in apportioning blame for the crisis.

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7 Comments

Ali Dashti | January 5, 2005 7:59 AM

Some online resources for background information on Islamic teachings:

http://www.apostatesofislam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=661

ISLAMIC SOURCES:

The Koran, in three English translations:

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/

Look up 8 Koran translations at the same time:

http://quranbrowser.com/

Audio Recitations & Translations of the Koran, text translations in other languages than English (French, German, Spanish, Indonesian etc):

http://www.islamicity.com/mosque/quran/

More Koran:

http://www.road-to-heaven.com/noblequran.htm

http://www.quraan.com/

http://www.muslimaccess.com/quraan/

http://www.free-minds.org/quran/quran.htm

http://www.quran-hadith-index.com/

Transliteration (Arabic words written in Roman letters) of the Koran:

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/transliteration/

http://transliteration.org/quran/home.htm

The complete, renowned tafsir (Koran commentary and explanation) of Ibn Kathir:

http://tafsir.com/

More tafsir:

http://tafseercomparison.org/

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/maududi/

About principles of tafsir:

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Tafseer/Ulum/

http://www.quran.org.uk/ieb_quran_tafseer.htm

A non-Muslim, critical view of the Koran and Islam:

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/

http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/quran_teaches.htm

http://www.atheists.org/Islam/mohammedanism.html

http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Text/index.html

http://syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye/Vol6No1/HV6N1PRPhenixHorn.html

http://syrcom.cua.edu/Hugoye/Vol3No1/HV3N1Griffith.html

http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/AbulKasem41205.htm

http://www.studytoanswer.net/myths_ch1.html

The Koran's 164 Jihad Verses:

http://www.angelfire.com/moon/yoelnatan/koranwarpassages.htm

http://www.secularislam.org/jihad/index.htm

The ahadith (Traditions about Muhammad and his companions) of al-Bukhari and others:

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/reference/searchhadith.html

About hadith collections, Islamic perspective:

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/scienceofhadith/brief1/

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/scienceofhadith/atit.html

Letters and Treaties of Muhammad (Islamic translations and presentations):

http://www.islamicresources.com/member/modules.php?name=Sections&op=listarticles&secid=5

The Constitution of Medina, 622:

http://www.constitution.org/cons/medina/macharter.htm

About the Sunna (The example of Muhammad and his companions) and jurisprudence:

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/law/fiqhussunnah/

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/muwatta/

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Sharia

"Sirat Rasoul Allah", The earliest biography of Muhammad, an abridged version:

http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/sira/index.htm

The four Sunni schools of Islamic law (Madhhab):

http://www.uga.edu/islam/shariah.html#law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhahib

About Sufism:

http://www.arches.uga.edu/~godlas/Sufism.html

The Islamic calendar:

http://www.muslimaccess.com/islamic_calendar.asp

http://www.islam.com/calen.htm

Some Shia Muslim resources:

A Shi'ite Encyclopedia:

http://www.al-islam.org/encyclopedia/

A multi-media site by Richard Hooker:

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/SHIA/SHIA.HTM

Shia Library:

http://al-shia.com/

Sunni website critical of Shias:

http://www.allaahuakbar.net/shiites/word_of_advice_to_shiites.htm

http://www.allaahuakbar.net/shiites/index.htm

http://www.allaahuakbar.net/shiites/KAFI.HTM

Shia ahadith (Traditions about Muhammad and his companions) of Al kafi:

http://hahsim.s5.com/kafi.html

Sayings of Imam Ali (Muhammad's son-in-law, first Shia Imam):

http://www.al-islam.org/nahjul/index.htm

Shia tafsir (Koran commentary and explanation):

http://www.almizan.org/

Other:

http://www.al-islam.org/short/martyrdom/

http://al-islam.org/ashura/

http://www.shiachat.com/

DEFINITIONS OF ARABIC-ISLAMIC TERMS, HISTORICAL INFORMATION:

The Internet Islamic History Sourcebook, a long list of historical and religious resources and texts, from the early days until today:

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/islam/islamsbook.html

Encyclopaedia of the Orient:

http://lexicorient.com/e.o/

Atlas of the Orient:

http://lexicorient.com/e.o/atlas/index.htm

Other historical maps:

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/map_sites/hist_sites.html#mideast

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~rs143/map.html

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbookmap.html

http://www.muhammadanism.com/maps/default.htm

http://www.al-bab.com/arab/maps/maps2.htm

Definitions of Islamic terms:

Thomas P. Hughes' "Dictionary of Islam":

http://answering-islam.org/Books/Hughes/index.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Islamic_terms_in_Arabic

http://www.knowislam.info/drupal/mno

http://www.onelook.com/ (Dictionary Search)

Islamic definitions:

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/reference/glossary.html

http://muttaqun.com/

Mike | January 5, 2005 10:11 AM

Thank you, Ali Dashti!

Admiral Don Juan | January 5, 2005 10:39 AM

Wow. Thanks Ali Dashti.

Patrick | January 5, 2005 2:14 PM

Thanks, Ali, for a comprehensive list of links.

Greg | January 5, 2005 3:22 PM

I’ve read the posts asking for Jihadwatch readers to provide ideas for what we might do to help spread the word. From what I’ve seen so far, there are some great ideas and you have my complete support. I would suggest though that we’d be remiss in our efforts if first we didn’t recognize and show our tangible support and appreciation to Robert and Hugh for running the Jihadwatch site. They’re providing a great service and doing outstanding work--I think we should do what we can to help them continue that work.

With that said, I’M CHALLENGING ALL JIHADWATCH READERS TO DONATE $100.00 (OR WHATEVER YOU CAN) TO JIHADWATCH.ORG AND TO SEND AT LEAST ONE OF ROBERT’S BOOKS TO SOMEONE (FRIEND, FOE, FAMILY, POLITICIAN, ETC.).

There’s a donation link in the left column on the home page and a link at the top of the page for purchasing books.

Any takers?

Hugh | January 5, 2005 8:59 PM

There are Muslim women who attempt to win better conditions for Muslim women, as in Iran, or Afghanistan; there are others who, when they sense that Islam itself may be impugned, choose at all costs to defend Islam -- "women's rights" be damned. Such are Fatima Mernissi and Leila Ahmed (as pointed out by Reza Afshari), and Sherin Ebadi. An egregious example of a self-described "feminist" whose desire to protect Islam from critics trumps any other concern, and who has even begun to find good things to say about "polygamy" (for providing a "homosocial" environment for all those wives having fun chatting and giggling in the women's quarters, as opposed to the single, lonely wife in a Western "companionate marriage"), and to defend burka and hijab for providing a kind of "portable seclusion," is Lila Abu-Lughod. She teaches, unsurprisingly, at Columbia.

feralee | January 5, 2005 10:28 PM

I don't think those young Arab men are "crippled with self-loathing and alienation" at all. They're just fired up with typical Islamic hatred and intolerance, stuff they learn at the local mosque and probably at home too. These are mainly youth who were born in France. As Van Gogh's murderer was born in Holland. This second generation is not assimilating, never will. They loath the West and choose to remain alienated from it, even while living amongst us.

What other ethnic group has to get together an activist group called "Neither Whores Nor Submissives"? What other group of ethnic women are burned to death for being "too French"? Or beaten, raped, threatened? This is what happens when you get too many Muslims in one place. Where they go, trouble follows. Just about every country has its own version of the "Parisian banlieues". It's very telling, the comment how things are getting worse for women. Regressing. This is not how it has gone for other ethnic groups who've migrated to Western countries. It is a clear sign of the danger of Islam amongst us.

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