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The heroic Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes in Opinion Journal (thanks to Andy) what I have been saying for quite some time: "Shariah endangers women's rights, from Iraq to Canada."
In every society where family affairs are regulated according to instructions derived from the Shariah or Islamic law, women are disadvantaged. The injustices these women are exposed to in the name of Islam vary from extreme cruelty (forced marriages; imprisonment or death after rape) to grossly unfair treatment in matters of marriage, divorce and inheritance.Muslim women across the world are caught in a terrible predicament. They aspire to live by their faith as best they can, but their faith robs them of their rights. Some women have found a way out of this dilemma in the principle of separation of organized religion and state affairs. They fight an uphill battle to achieve and hold on to their basic rights. Two cases demonstrate just how difficult that struggle can be, in the context of new as well as established democracies.
The first is the draft constitution of Iraq, now due next week. Iraqi women like Naghem Khadim, demonstrating on the streets of Najaf, are fighting to prevent an article from being put in the constitution that would establish that the legislature may make no laws that contradict Shariah edicts. The second case is the province of Ontario, in Canada. There, Muslim women led by Homa Arjomand, an activist of Iranian origin, are fighting--using the Canadian Charter of Rights--to keep Shariah from being applied as family law through a so-called Arbitration Act passed as law in Ontario in 1992.
It seems strange to associate the context of Canada with that of Iraq, but a closer look at the arguments used to reassure the demonstrating women in both countries reveals the similar ordeals that Muslim women in both countries must go through to secure their rights. It shows how their legitimate and serious worries are trivialized, and how vulnerable and alone they are. It shows how the Free World led by the U.S. went to war in Iraq, allegedly to bring liberty to Iraqis, and is compromising the basic rights of women in order to meet a random date. It shows how the theory of multiculturalism in Western liberal democracies is working against women in ethnic and religious minorities with misogynist practices.
Read it all.
Posted by Robert at August 16, 2005 7:31 AM
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Ms. Ali makes a number of excellent points in her editorial. But, her piece also brings to mind a question asked over and over again and by many more people. Where are the moderate Muslims? Her views would not be considered so dangerous and radical if she had the support/agreement of the supposed millions of those peaceful moderates, the presumed majority in Islam. The longer I read JW and the more I learn about Islam, the more I have come to believe that the world of "moderate" Muslims is out there somewhere, in a mythical land, like Dorthy's Oz or Alice's Wonderland or in the heads of the editorial board of the New York Times. Those millions of people really don't exist; The West would just like them to exist.
Posted by: maryrose![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at August 16, 2005 9:24 AM
"Where two pieties – feminism and multiculturalism – come into conflict, the only way of preserving both is an indecent silence."
Theodore Dalrymple
http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_2_when_islam.html
at August 16, 2005 9:49 AM
Mentat:
Unfortunately, Dalrymple is wrong. Phyllis Chessler and a couple of other feminists discussed the reasons behind the strange alliance between "mainstream feminists" and Islamists in a FrontPageMag forum some time ago. The feminists seek vindication of their victim status by identifying with the poor, third world Islamists, some even going so far as to oppose the overthrow of the Taliban as they thought that Afghan women should have been the ones somehow miraculously to do this themselves.
Posted by: waterdragon52 at August 16, 2005 10:10 AM
What's wacky, Geoff? I don't think you've understood what I wrote, or perhaps I was unclear.
Chessler was not endorsing the nutbars. Quite the contrary. She was offering a theory on why the majority of feminists seem to be aligning themselves with the most female-repressive culture afloat these days and I think she's on the money: enhance your own claim to victim/underdog status by latching on the cause of the most acclaimed "victims" of the day. Gays are doing likewise (supporting the Palestinian cause), despite the fact that their gay brethren in the Middle East o/s of Israel are persecuted and even executed by Hamas.
Chessler's recent book, The New Anti-Semitism, looks into this strange phenom, underwhich feminists laud the Palestinians as a positive, female friendly force (honour killings, etc., notwithstanding) and are toxic in their view of very liberal, progressive Israel.
Posted by: waterdragon52 at August 16, 2005 11:55 AM
There is a weird affinity between some feminists and Islam - is it the fact that both presume to have the same enemy: the Western male-dominated patriarchal system? I don't know, but it's a fascinating subject for further research.
I'm a feminist but have no desire to ally myself with the misogyny I see in Islam. It would be anathema to me. It's so maddening when you hear of a friend's daughter who eagerly decides to wear hijab, although she is neither Muslim, nor married to one. Maddening when you notice a young, pale skinned woman in public with a large, loose head scarf over a tightly fitting underscarf, and upon studying her clothes further, you notice she has a distinctly "hippie" look, and you know that she's defiantly adopted this "style," and when your eyes meet, you know that she knows that you have found her out. I'd like to give her a shake but realize sadly that she must learn for herself.
I say maddening, but it's also so tremendously disappointing. In their rush to rebel, these young women have adopted a dress style which they think is distinctive, oh-so-different and rejecting of our mainstream Western civilization, but in reality they wear a symbol of women's oppression on their heads. In other words they have chosen, for whatever deep psychological motivations (to spite Mom and Dad?), to choose public repudiation of their home-grown values at the expense of women's hard-won achievements in equality.
Not just feminists do this - the "alternative lifestyle" movement (or whatever you might wish to call it) also shows signs of embracing Islam to spite the West. Recently I visited the Findhorn Community in northern Scotland. I was dismayed to see included with art for sale a painting of a woman in an Islamic headscarf. Obviously the painter chose this subject to show her/his connection with what they perceived as the spiritual side of Islam, by implication the spiritual partner of the earth-conscious Findhorn Community. I saw it differently - a glorification of a symbol of oppression that would continually send my blood pressure rising if it were to hang on my wall.
Posted by: Jen at August 16, 2005 12:12 PM
Jen:
Adapting the hijab is only the updated version of tying on the familiar fringed Palestinian scarves around the neck, but only women don the hijab.
When I see those Palestinian scarves, I wonder if the wearers realize the origins of it are, more likely than not, the prayer shawls worn by orthodox adult Jewish males under their outergarments. (I do not believe they are warn by Arab Christians, but could stand to be corrected.)
Posted by: waterdragon52 at August 16, 2005 1:32 PM
Waterdragon52:
Maybe I'm out of touch, but who's wearing the Palestinian scarves these days? Do you mean Westerners, feminists, etc. wear them as a sign of solidarity with the Palestinians?
What I'd expect to see, if Chesler's theory is correct (promote your own cause by identifying with the underdog) would be young Muslim males, who view themselves as victims, identifying with Muslim females who surely must more of an underdog than they -- Don't hold your breath!
We won't of course see this happen (not in our lifetimes anyway). Ingrained sexism is a stronger force for division than common victimhood is a force to unite. The plot thickens and there are many factors at work here. Beyond the idea of identifying with another "victimized" group there must be some selection process going on - not just any victimized group will do. Fascinating stuff!
Posted by: Jen at August 16, 2005 3:06 PM
Jen:
My [buried] point is that the Palestinian scarf is not the current fashion statement that the hijab is, and in either case, the wearers are quite clueless as to what they are actually buying into in their misguided attempt to make a statement as to their political beliefs.
As for who the young Muslim males identify with to validate their victim status -- it seems the ethnic Pakistanis who bombed the London tubes found theirs in the Iraqis and the Palestinians.
Posted by: waterdragon52 at August 16, 2005 3:12 PM
Why Oh! why do moslem woman allow themselves to be treated so barbarously. Their holy?? religious leaders, including that stinking paedophile mohamad, even say that not many women will be in "paradise??" If they do make it all they have is to watch their menfolk having sex continuous with their 70 "perpetual??" black eyed virgins? and/or the perpetual "untouched??" 'pearls' or hairless, pubic wise, BOYS! What a disgustingly sick and totally perverse pagan religion. numbat
Posted by: numbat at August 17, 2005 1:22 AM
Why Oh! why do moslem woman allow themselves to be treated so barbarously. Their holy?? religious leaders, including that stinking paedophile mohamad, even say that not many women will be in "paradise??" If they do make it all they have is to watch their menfolk having sex continuous with their 70 "perpetual??" black eyed virgins? and/or the perpetual "untouched??" 'pearls' or hairless, pubic wise, BOYS! What a disgustingly sick and totally perverse pagan religion. numbat
Posted by: numbat at August 17, 2005 1:24 AM
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