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Evidently multiculturalism trumps feminism at Duke. From Cinnamon Stillwell at FrontPage, with thanks to the many who sent this to me:
Afghanistan’s Taliban was one of the most oppressive regimes in the world, and doubly so when it came to women’s rights. For years, various activists expressed concern about the situation of Afghan women and supported the efforts of RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan [1], to try and affect reform. So when the opportunity arose to overthrow that brutal regime, it was expected that RAWA activists would naturally back the insurrection.However, it turned out these activists were more opposed to U.S. military intervention than they were in favor of getting rid of the Taliban, even if it meant that Afghanistan’s women remained in a state of perpetual slavery. And among those who subscribe to such views is Duke University Professor Miriam Cooke. Cooke is a Professor of Asian and African Languages and Literature and President of the Association for Middle East Women’s Studies, an international organization staunchly opposed to what they call on their website the “new imperialism,”[2] and a disciple of the theory of post-colonialism. [3] Cooke is also a strong proponent of “Islamic feminism.”[4]
Islamic feminism holds that Muslim women should enact social change from within the confines of their own culture and religion. Western powers are viewed as having purely imperialistic designs and, as a result, their intervention is unwelcome. Such is the “logic” that caused Cooke, a longtime proponent of Muslim women writers, activists, and intellectuals, to oppose the U.S. overthrow of the Taliban, as well as the democratization of the Middle East.
During a talk at a forum on the future of Iraq at the John Hope Franklin Center on March 26th, 2003, [5] Cooke rejected the liberation of Afghan women as a reason to go to war. Rather than being grateful for calling attention to the suffering of fellow women, she castigated First Lady Laura Bush for her radio address on behalf of the women of Afghanistan. Cooke accused Laura Bush of furthering “the imperial project in her highly gendered appeal to a world conscience.”
Of course, this never was the principal reason for overthrowing the Taliban, but rather a welcome side effect. As for the al-Qaeda terrorist training camps dotting the Afghanistan countryside, Cooke said nothing. She is equally silent today on the ten million Afghans who are now registered to vote - forty percent of them women - in the upcoming election.[6]...
So what exactly does Cooke have to offer to Muslim women as a concrete course of action to better their lives? It turns out, not much. Not only are her ideas vague and overly academic, all too often she falls back on concepts steeped in the terminology of Islamism. For instance, throughout her career, Cooke has written extensively about the idea of a “women’s jihad.”
During a lecture at Wellesley College in November, 2003, Cooke elaborated on this concept. [11] This jihad, she maintained, is not for an “Islamist state,” but rather for “an Islamic community.”...
As usual, Cooke jumps through hoops to blame anyone other than the culture that created suicide bombers - female or otherwise. And she conveniently overlooks the use of sexism in Palestinian society to coerce women into becoming suicide bombers as penance for the shame of having sex out of wedlock, being raped or unable to marry.
Beyond teaching her own courses, Cooke is very active in Duke’s Islamic Studies Department. She is co-director of the university’s Center for the Study of Muslim Networks (CSMN), [13] as well as being involved in the 2003-2004 Carolina Seminar on Comparative Islamic Studies.[14] She accompanied a group of students on a trip to Lebanon in 2002 [15] and has taken part in various local film festivals in the past few years.[16] As such, Cooke has a lot of influence over the way Duke students experience Islamic culture and particularly its relationship to women.
Unfortunately, instead of learning about women’s liberation, these students are receiving a lesson in women’s oppression, and especially oppression caused by the United States. And as long as Islamic studies professors like Miriam Cooke serve as apologists for backwardness and repression, they will continue being part of the problem instead of the solution.
Posted by Robert at September 28, 2004 5:33 AM
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Socialists have been "defiled" in their thinking to such an extent that they no longer know what is basicaly right or wrong.
They are so deep in the mire of their ideology that their rationale cannot be rationalised.
Posted by: Joe Bananas...in Pyjamas![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at September 28, 2004 7:05 AM
It's not just Islamic studies. Even "feminist" studies departments all around the "Western" world are very pro-Islam - it's ironic, contradictory, incomprehensible, but true. That is because the multiculti agenda has become more important than equality, that old-fashioned concept. Part of the current academic fashion is to admire anything non-Western and despise anything defined Western, including the rights that those "feminists" themselves take for granted. US and European postmodern relativist "feminists" go as far as defending forced marriages, female circumcision and honor killings, just because these practices are "non-Western" and the cultures cherishing these practices resist Western "colonialism" and "imperialism". If some Western feminists still dare to support the Muslim women's fight for their rights, they are called racist, patriarchal and imperialist. (just see all the hateful reactions against late Susan Møller Okin for her daring to question the blessings of "multiculturalism" for women)
Unfortunately, this anti-Westernism does not stay within the academy. NGOs working for the human rights of "non-Western" people are closing down in fear that they might be promoting "imperialist" goals, imposing "Western" values on other peoples. Perhaps Joe BiP is right here. If all the rapings, imprisonments, killings and beatings in the name of God or "honour" don't open these peoples' eyes, I don't know what does.
Posted by: Scandie at September 28, 2004 8:23 AM
This is obviously a mixed up Academic and perfect tool for Islam. Would like to point out that Afghan women themselves are still fighting and being killed by the Taleban. Let us support these
extremely BRAVE AFGHAN RAWA WOMEN whilst giving a
'thumbs down' to this idiot Cooke .
at September 28, 2004 12:07 PM
"she conveniently overlooks the use of sexism in Palestinian society to coerce women into becoming suicide bombers as penance for the shame of having sex out of wedlock, being raped or unable to marry."
Where can I find information about this?
at September 28, 2004 12:59 PM
Professor Miriam Cooke.Osama useful idiot.
Posted by: RED at September 28, 2004 1:04 PM
Ah, yes, Miriam Cooke. I believe she and her husband Bruce Lawrence have been noted here before.
As for her participation in film festivals, the only action I know of is censorship.
A couple of years ago the annual documentary film festival in Durham wanted to have a doc film on religion, and picked out one showing the annual mourning of the death of Ali by Shia Muslims. Since this was post-9/11, they decided to ask a local Muslim authority about the showing of the film.
Miriam hit the roof. All those awful blood-covered people thrashing themselves and slashing their scalps were *not* Islam, she informed the committee, which dutifully axed the film. Such a Sunni disposition!
I can imagine somewhere in the Middle East a film committee wanting to show a movie about Christianity, and they pitch upon an old Bing Crosby or Loretta Young number. And then they ask this visiting clergyman, Ian Paisley, what he thinks.....
Posted by: anonymous coward at September 28, 2004 1:41 PM
Strange indeed...I read a little article Cooke wrote after 9/11, tracing the antecedents, in her mind, which, of course, have everything to do with sins of the United States and everyone else, except Islam.
There is something condescending in her work and attitudes toward Islam. Islam and Muslims (especially women) appear as poor little victims against the powerful colonial, imperialist West, and she appears as the great white, Oxford, D. Phil, saviouress and protector.
Even the way she stands, short hair, crossed arms, "I am here to help!"
Well, Miriam, help you have, to further a movement that will swallow you up and spit you out; your relativism will not fly, I am afraid, in the end, and the end must come, sometime, somewhere...nor will that smug sense of female confidence.
I believe its time to come home to the culture that bore you, that made possible your 'studies', that creates the conditions for your 'ideas', and publication of your books.
In Islam you will surely die, a la larga, a la larga...
Posted by: JTF at September 28, 2004 2:52 PM
I have developed a theory about people like her.
They have a Christ complex, ie, "only I have the answers and only I can save you" while they totally ignore the long term pain and harm they are causing.
It's not about the people that are suffering, it's about, "look at me, aren't I so special, I stood up against the status quo. I'm DIFFERENT from everybody else".
These people make me sick.
As a woman, when I see this stupid stuff, that other women do and should know better, I want to slap the stupidity out of them.
Posted by: susan_b at September 28, 2004 3:26 PM
Her husband needs to get a job in Saudi Arabia so that she can acoompany him and live the dream of Islamic feminism. She won't be allowed to work or drive. She would not be allowed to travel out of the country without her husband's written permission and her husband can beat her once a week just so that she knows he's still paying attention. She can even wear the black tent-like abayya in the 120-plus degree heat and if she's lucky the mutawah won't beat her with a stick as she walks in the local suqq with her forearms exposed. She can sit in her husband's car when they go to a local restaurant that does not allow women and if she needs a doctor whe can enjoy the privilege of entering the hospital in the women-only entrance. If she rides the city bus, she can feel "safe" in the rear compartment with 10 seats and 30 other female riders, and watch the 5 men in the front compartment with the 30 seats.
And this is only a scratch on the surface. Those of us who have lived it and personally witnessed the profound suffering of the oppressed women in the Middle East and Africa, have seen with our own eyes what these self-deluded Polyannas cannot ever imagine is horribly true.
Posted by: Hulegu Khan at September 28, 2004 9:41 PM
Big deal. A lot of us have been convinced that Leftism, especially of the academic kind, is simply the West's collective suicidal tendency.
However, I also think that liberating Afghan women should be no concern of the US government (unless the Afghan women in question are legally resident in the USA, and being denied rights under law). The Taliban regime sheltered OBL, who plotted and directed a bloody attack on US civilians, and hence we're a war. That's enough.
Posted by: Kepha1 at September 29, 2004 2:13 AM
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