According to this report, Ahmadinejad's recent move to cancel Iranian women's legal right to object to or even know about their husbands' plans to marry additional wives is part of a much larger (albeit unsurprising) agenda to further restrict women's rights under Sharia law. Meanwhile, apologists are likely preparing the standard boilerplate: Islam elevates women, Sharia liberates them, and any time a measure comes under criticism from the West, it is to be branded as "cultural," not Islamic.
Funny how those same "cultural" flaws keep cropping up in association with Islamic law and tradition, though. Like communism, no one is apparently ever implementing Sharia "right," and that's why countries under its yoke are dysfunctional, corrupt, and largely impoverished outside the ruling class. But hey, let's try it in your country, and this time it'll be different. Honest.
"Ahmadinejad's New Enemy: Women," by Amir Taheri for the New York Post, September 6 (thanks to JCB):
In one of his last sermons before his death, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini warned of "three threats" to his vision of Islam: the US, the Jews and women.
Two decades later, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad thinks he has the United States and the Jews in hand - and is moving on the third "enemy."
Women were the first to demonstrate against Khomeini's regime with a mass rally in Tehran on March 8, 1979 - less than a month after the mullahs had seized power. Over the next decade, the authorities imprisoned hundreds of thousands of women for varying lengths of time, and executed thousands.
But women continued to fight a regime that deemed them subhuman. Their resistance prevented the mullahs from abrogating pre-revolutionary laws limiting gender discrimination. Thus, women succeeded in keeping their right to vote and win public office.
They also retained a veto, granted by the shah, on their husbands' Islamic right to take up to four permanent wives and countless temporary concubines.
Last June, Ahmadinejad sought to remove that veto, launching a campaign with quotations from the Prophet and the 12 Imams of Shiite Islam to prove that men who took many wives would have a fast track to paradise.
To make polygamy practically impossible, a law predating the revolution required men seeking added wives to prove that they're financially capable of running more than one household. Since few can meet that condition, the number of Iranian men with more than one wife had fallen to a few hundred before the mullahs seized power.
And most of those polygamists were mullahs or wealthy bazaar merchants associated with them.
Last month, Ahmadinejad presented a draft bill designed to "re-Islamicize" the status of women. He claimed that the shah had used laws inspired by "Zionist-Crusaders" to deal with women's issues.
His new law would restore men's Islamic right to divorce their wives without even informing them. Men would also be absolved from paying alimony.
In exchange, they'd be required to pay a mahrieh (a severance payment, whose amount is set in the marriage contract) to a wife they wish to divorce. But the draft law also plans a hefty government tax on the mahrieh. So a divorced woman left with no alimony and no resources except her mahrieh could end up losing most of that to the government. "This text is designed to return women to the dark ages," says Sousan Tahmaspi, a spokesperson for the campaign against the law.
To prevent the law's passage, women have been holding meetings nationwide, and launched a campaign to collect a million signatures in support of gender equality.
This week, their campaign seemed to have produced some results: The speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, Iran's ersatz parliament, opted to delay formal debate on the measure.
"The text has not been withdrawn," a spokesman for Ahmadinejad said Monday. "It will be debated when we have a calmer atmosphere." To get that "calm," the regime has launched a crackdown against women's-rights groups. This week, four leading campaigners (Pari Ardalan, Nahid Keshavarz, Maryam Hussein Khah and Zhaleh Javaheri) got sentenced to six months in prison in what their lawyers call "kangaroo courts." A fifth campaigner, Zeinab Bayazidi got a four-year sentence.
And at least five women's-rights advocates have gone missing. One, Solmaz Igdar, was abducted on her way home in Tehran, her family says.
The Khomeinist propaganda machine seeks to portray the women's movement as part of a plot by "Zionists and Crusaders" to undermine Islam. In recent days, government media have published claims linking Shirin Ebadi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who has spoken in support of the women's movement, to the Bahai faith, a religion banned by the regime. This is a deadly threat: To abandon Islam for another faith carries a death sentence.
"Free people everywhere should speak out in support of Iranian women," says Tehran feminist Haydeh Karimi. "The proposed law is the thin end of a wedge. Ahmadinejad wants women out of universities and public life. He thinks he can curb mass unemployment by forcing women out of work, giving their jobs to men."
Another facet of jihad - womb to tomb jihad - allowing polygamy so that irresponsible men can keep their wives barefoot and pregnant continuously creating more warriors for the grist mill.
Allah merciful and enlightened - utter nonsense. Just ask the women.
These are trying times for Dar al-Islam. First, it was lifting the jizya and giving equality to dhimmis, coupled with nigh universal emancipation of slaves. And now, those treacherous najis Jews and Americans want to liberate our women! I tell ya, ISLAM just doesn't get any RESPECT these days!
I wonder if Beasty Boy Ahmadinijad is preparing to take on additional wives himself, or to divorce the one(?) he has.
I don't see how he could divorce her without her knowing it, but he could marry three others and 'arrange things' so that she would never know. Or if she did know, so what? Join the happy group or get out. That's what Allah told Mohammads 'wives' when they were unhappy about one particular wife taking charge.
But Khomeni, was right, women are a threat to Islam.
If average women in Islam ever get actual equality, Islam is finished. It cannot proceed in its present form.
That's why they need to be held down and held back. And kept totally dependent on Islam and their husbands.
Allah realized that way back in the days of Eve.
According to Tabari, Allah was so distraught over Eves actions that he started creating women stupid. It's been down hill for muslimahs since then.
Every time a woman proves her intelligence, Allah is insulted, and 'concerned' muslims react.
Every woman who expresses her intelligence, unless expounding on the glories of Allah, is a target.
Every Islamic woman who expresses her intelligence in a complaint about Islam/Sharia,
is a brave woman.
Just a little more intelligence, and she would apostate herself all the way...
NOW? Comments, please?
They're Not Our Women, tanstaafl.
Yeah, don't expect any help from the Talibanessas in this country. That would be too much to ask. They are much more preoccupied with destroying Sarah the Moose Huntress than they are speaking out against the persecution and murder of women and girls in Dar el Gutter. My Iraqi friend just sighs and shrugs her shoulders, "Insha'allah, women are destined to go to hell in the Koran and the Hadith. So why bother wearing the hijab or the niqab?" She is hopeless, but wouldn't think of becoming an apostate. Hell is a far off destiny, to be consigned forever after you have died a natural death. Why go there earlier than necessary? What a tragedy for women. How deprived those societies are whose women would never live up to their full potential and contribute to the wealth and welfare of their cultures.
The Khomeinist propaganda machine seeks to portray the women's movement as part of a plot by "Zionists and Crusaders" to undermine Islam.
I agree with the statement above. They are not that far off at all!
Islam means submission, and Zionists and Crusaders are fighting against their Dhimmi status.
Women must also submit to Muslim men. If they are more reluctant to submit (Islam), then they of course "undermine Islam".
The Khomeinist propaganda machine seeks to portray the women's movement as part of a plot by "Zionists and Crusaders" to undermine Islam.
I agree with the statement above. They are not that far off at all!
Islam means submission, and Zionists and Crusaders are fighting against their Dhimmi status.
Women must also submit to Muslim men. If they are more reluctant to submit (Islam), then they of course "undermine Islam".
Jewel,
Your Iraqi woman friend should read the Injil, the Gospel, the Good Tidings--let's give her a copy of the New Testament.
John C - you're right, of course, Western women are so oppressed, that NOW cannot contemplate the thought that Islamic women might be worse off than they are.
Talk about the forest for the trees.............
With or without NOW the Khomeinists will be fighting a losing battle. Why would they try to instill these new "laws" if they didn't already feel threatened by something? There must be an undercurrent of female islamic disillusionment, getting stronger. It's only a matter of time before this stupid cult gets changed from within - by the very people it tends to subjugate the most, and by the people it has underestimated the most. The sad part is that more women and girls will die before signigicant change happens, and there is no group there, like NOW, to help them.
One small step forward into uncivilization for Iranian mankind. One giant leap backward for Iranian womankind, and the rest of us too.
Marisol wrote:
Like communism, no one is apparently ever implementing Sharia "right," and that's why countries under its yoke are dysfunctional, corrupt, and largely impoverished outside the ruling class.
.......................................
Marisol, excellent point! Somehow no one ever created a true communist paradise--the huge Soviet Union and its satellites, sixty-plus years of Red China, the "purity" of Kmer Rouge-era "Kampuchea"--nope, nothing to do with "true" communism.
Probably the closest we've seen in modern times to a "pure" Shari'ah state is the horror of Taliban-era Afghanistan, with Wahhabi Saudi Arabia and post-Islamic-revolutionary Iran as close seconds. All have been horrors of intolerance, repression, torture, and brutal execution.
Another similarity between communism and Shari'ah is how they eat their own. Fighting against "the other"--the running dogs of capitalism, or the filthy kuffar--is never enough. Eventually they turn on the members of their own group who are insufficiently pure.
Stalin killed more of his own people than died at the hands of the savage Nazis. Lush Ukraine and China suffered through politically-engineered famines, and the term "the killing fields" sums up Cambodia under Pol Pot.
The practice of "Takfir" allows Muslims to designate other Muslims as "insuficiently Islamic", apostate, or even just Infidels and "Zionists".
Claiming that Shirin Ebadi is Bahai--which seems extremely unlikely--is exactly in line with this. Claiming that any Iranian woman who is willing to stand up for even the most elemental rights is influenced by "Zionists" and "crusaders" is the same.
In contrast, usually even a small amount of freedom, democracy, the rule of law, or the embrace of even a semi-free market is usually beneficial (a few exceptions do exist, such as granting the vote to people who use it to vote in Shari'ah or their tribal cronies). Generally, though, even an imperfect implimenting of these values vastly improves a country.
For instance, India, especially in the last twenty years (when they jettisoned at least some of their socialist policies) is freer than, say, Nepal; Taiwan is more prosperous than communist China; Thailand (well, with the exeption of its Jihad-ridden south) is more secure than neighboring Laos, Mexico is prefferable to Guatamala, South Korea is far better off than North Korea--and, perhaps most striking of all--Israel, with no oil reserves at all, is so superior in all regards to her Muslim neighbors that it is difficult to believe that they exist in the same region.
From above: "[F]eminist Haydeh Karimi [says] "He thinks he can curb mass unemployment by forcing women out of work, giving their jobs to men."
Ahmadinejad here proves that, in addition to all his other shortcomings, that he lacks even the most elementary understanding of economics. Even if it weren't so evil, this is hardly the way to tackle an unemployment problem.
The brutal truth is you cannot, and should not, "help" people who refuse to help themselves.
Iranian Muslimahs wish to stay Muslimahs, except for the fact that they wish to partake of Western freedoms. NOW, or any other Western womens' organizations, should stay well clear of the drowning flailings of women who cannot distinguish that it is their own professed ideology that is systematically killing them.
It is a no-win situation. A Western woman is either a colonialist oppressor who does not understand the culture (if she becomes involved), or she is a callous multiculturalist who does not care about cross-cultural women's rights (if she does not become involved).
Some of us have recognized that so-called "feminist reformer" muslimahs in Islamic paradises are literally brick walls, whining about family and tribe and Ramadan feasting when asked why they are still Muslims. All we can, and should, care about are the women in our own countries who are trying to escape Islam with their necks intact.
Truly a Wack job....time to eliminate this piece of shit with his close set beady eyes, & shut his mouthpiece for his personal twisted beliefs & for the other goof balls above him.
USA, needs to start a fight before Israel gets an itchy finger. Better if we take the lead.
Spread the word that Islam is a total political doctrine & NOT a religion of peace & it needs to be banned & outlawed.
A shame, muslims are not a problem yet in the USA with only 7 million, though we tend to bend over backwards for religious beliefs. ISLAM is not religion though & that needs to be spread all over the internet.
Robert, your doing a GREAT job...please continue.
Just a point of clarification - I'm not advocating that NOW load up some airplanes and parachute into Iran to "liberate" the Muslimahs. I do expect NOW to condemn the Iran republic for its oppression of women.
From experience, I can say this: If you contact NOW, online, with a concern about women in Islamic countries, your email will be ignored, and you will end up on a NOW mailing list.
NOW is outmoded, and in its death throes. Best to let it die, and come up with something else.
NOW just signed their own death warrant with the Sarah Palin thing and their reaffirmation that abortion is a 'feminist' cause, like pro-lifers want to oppress women rather than stop killing babies.
I have a very hard time believing that Muslim women want rights. I really do. I realize that Iranian women aren't holding their daughters down during genital mutilation and singing a sick song about how much they enjoy it, but iif they were Shafii instead of Shiite, who's to say?
I also believe that Muslims are a minority in Iran. According to Ali Sina, even in a country with a per capita income of $1200 where people get paid to attend mosques and get fed when they go there, less than 10% of the population consists of practicing Muslims. And nobody under 30 has an Arabic name. Everyone under 30 does. I think that Iran may be the first Muslim nation to realize that Islam really is the problem, but Persians were always better, more evolved, and more progressive than the rest of the Muslim world. And they exported their worst and their most backassward ones to Lebanon and Syria.
I say let them do their thing and Islam will run its course. These are the only Muslims who ever took responsibility for their own fates and had a revolution. They have seen the error of their ways, except for the tiny minority who believe that Khomeini was a British puppet. Persians are obsessed with the Internet, wih democracy, with the West. I read somewhere that Persian women are even bleaching their hair and suffering from anorexia. Women will be the undoing of Islam and Iran will be the first place they reassert their rights. Islam is such a house of cards built on a mudslide. Even granting gays rights would be the undoing of Islam, but women are 51% of the population.
I just hope we bomb their nuclear facilities and get the hell out, rather than try to change them like we did in Afghanistan. Had we let Afghanistan do its thing they would ditch the Islam soon enough too. Women's rights are a Western/Zionist plot. The West and Israel are also the only successful, prosperous, truly free places on this planet. Coincidence?
Anakinejad Skywanker strikes again with his light sabre. This time against women.
Marisol, gravenimage
Geraldine Brooks in 'Nine Parts of Desire' (first published 1994) made exactly the same point.
'Presented with statistics on violence towards women [in the Muslim world] or facing the furor over the Rushdie fatwas, progressive [sic - dda] Muslims such as Ali Allawi, Rana Kabbani and others ask us to blame a wide range of villains - colonial history, the bitterness of immigrant experience, Bedouin tradition, pre-Islamic African culture.
'Yet when the Koran sanctions wife-beating and the execution of apostates it can't be entirely exonerated for an epidemic of wife slayings and death sentences on authors.
'In the end, what Rana Kabbani and Ali Allawi are proposing is as artificial an excuse as that proposed by the Marxists who used to argue that socialism in its pure form should not be maligned and rejected because of the deficiencies of 'actually existing socialism'.
'At some point every religion, *especially one that purports to encompass a complete way of life and system of government* {my emphasis added - dda} has to be called to account for the kind of life it offers the people in the lands where it predominates".
Despite Brooks' bibliography including only the slimiest of apologists for Islam (Armstrong! Esposito!!), she retained enough common sense and had seen enough of the atmospherics of Islam and the realities of women's lives in places as far apart as Iran and Egypt, to be able to make that observation which I have just quoted.