Status of women in Islam today's great moral challenge?

[shereads]

We can do one other thing. Governments are not the only vectors of change in the world. Opinion matters also. We can buck the relativist orthodoxy and confidently assert, "It is wrong to oppress women. You should stop it."

Dear Grand Ayatollah,

I saw "The Circle" twice. Great movie. Iran was wrong to ban it. And if women living in Islamic theocratic republics are really treated the way they are in that film, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

One thing that really ticks me off is that women can buy cigarettes from a Tehran street vendor, but have to hide in an alley to light up. Not that I'm a fan of smoking, but fair is fair.

Oppressing women is wrong. You should stop it. I'm sure you can justify some of it by quoting select passages from the Koran. We do the same thing over here with the Bible. And trust me, there are some stories in our Old Testament that make Mohammed look like Oprah Winfrey. But we don't go around stoning people to death, or making our servants bear our children, or singling out homosexuals for discriminatory marriage laws, just because the Bible suggests it.

It's not just about women, you know. It's more far-reaching than that. I still haven't gotten over what happened to Terry Waite over there. Seriously, whose idea was it to take a hostage negotiator as a hostage? Oliver North's? Oh, please. Tell me you guys didn't risk the reputation of one of the world's major religions on the word of a man who does that "innocent eyebrows" thing. Anyway, you should condemn hostage-taking. It's wrong. It's also bad public relations.

Thanks for listening. I look forward to signs of postitive change in Iran and wherever else you have influence in the Islamic world. I know you don't personally condone female circumcision or revenge-rape, but if you could spread the word that those practices aren't kosher, you might do some good.

Meanwhile, if you're ever in Miami, I know a restaurant that makes the best kadayif this side of the Persian Gulf. Or so they tell me. I could bathe in the stuff!

Sincerely,

Shereads

P.S. Without the fatwa, I would never have read "The Satanic Verses." The same thing happened when Bob Jones University boycotted Monty Python's "Life of Brian." These things always backfire.

P.P.S. I guess we backed the wrong horse with the Shah. Sorry about that.

 

[elsol]

Maybe you should start small:

Come over to my place and see if you can get my girlfriend to get up in arms about me not doing any housecleaning...

I mean we're both college-educated, american... I figure she, at least, should in theory be a receptive audience.

If you can sell that one in a reasonable amount of time... say six months... maybe you can move on to something bigger.

Like maybe... getting me to put down my Catholicism... personally, I believe that one is going to end real badly... but courage! Change requires sacrifices after all.

Hmm... now that I think about it... that is way too big a jump.

Next, you should tackle me sharing the remote control. (Though, that one could end JUST as ugly as the Catholic thing.)

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[past_perfect]

Well, for islamic societies it is one of the great moral challenges, no question about that. I don't think you need to raise awareness on that, they are pretty much cognizant of this challenge themselves and will deal with it in their own fashion and at their own time. As to Iran for instance, are you aware of the fact that their Vice President happens to be a woman? See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatemeh_Javadi
I'm not an American history buff, so please remind me: how many female vice presidents have you had thus far?
She might be a better partner for an imaginary dialogue.

For western societies I would regard the effects of our greed on this planet and other societies as the paramount challenge, i.e. the disparity between what we claim to be our values and our factual living. I realise that it is unfashionable to judge one's own lifestyle; however, in my view that's the only area where one's own judgements and actions have any relevance.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Dear Grand Ayatollah,

I saw "The Circle" twice. Great movie. Iran was wrong to ban it. And if women living in Islamic theocratic republics are really treated the way they are in that film, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

One thing that really ticks me off is that women can buy cigarettes from a Tehran street vendor, but have to hide in an alley to light up. Not that I'm a fan of smoking, but fair is fair.

Oppressing women is wrong. You should stop it. I'm sure you can justify some of it by quoting select passages from the Koran. We do the same thing over here with the Bible. And trust me, there are some stories in our Old Testament that make Mohammed look like Oprah Winfrey. But we don't go around stoning people to death, or making our servants bear our children, or singling out homosexuals for discriminatory marriage laws, just because the Bible suggests it.

It's not just about women, you know. It's more far-reaching than that. I still haven't gotten over what happened to Terry Waite over there. Seriously, whose idea was it to take a hostage negotiator as a hostage? Oliver North's? Oh, please. Tell me you guys didn't risk the reputation of one of the world's major religions on the word of a man who does that "innocent eyebrows" thing. Anyway, you should condemn hostage-taking. It's wrong. It's also bad public relations.

Thanks for listening. I look forward to signs of postitive change in Iran and wherever else you have influence in the Islamic world. I know you don't personally condone female circumcision or revenge-rape, but if you could spread the word that those practices aren't kosher, you might do some good.

Meanwhile, if you're ever in Miami, I know a restaurant that makes the best kadayif this side of the Persian Gulf. Or so they tell me. I could bathe in the stuff!

Sincerely,

Shereads

P.S. Without the fatwa, I would never have read "The Satanic Verses." The same thing happened when Bob Jones University boycotted Monty Python's "Life of Brian." These things always backfire.

P.P.S. I guess we backed the wrong horse with the Shah. Sorry about that.

P.P.P.P.S.

My friend Roxanne is a huge pain in the ass, and says, "Ditto."

 

[Pure]

for those who actually want to do something....

http://www.feminist.org/afghan/

Campaign Objectives

Expand Peace-Keeping Forces

Support the Aghan Ministry for Women's Affairs, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, and Afghan women-led non-governmental organizations (NGOs)

Promote the leadership of women

Increase and monitor the provision of emergency and reconstruction assistance to women and girls

Afghan girls in a classroom funded by the Campaign


{Links} [[ Afghan Home
About the Campaign
About Afghanistan
The Taliban & Women
Photo Gallery
Additional Resources ]]

Without security, women in Afghanistan will never be able to obtain their rights and the country will never have sustained peace and democracy. Print the petition!

Spread the word to friends, family and colleagues about how they can help Afghan women participate in Afghanistan's future.

Your donation of only $25 will help continue the fight to restore the rights of Afghan women and girls.

Gather friends, classmates, coworkers, a Girl Scouts troop, or a community organization and directly help support schools, clinics, and other humanitarian programs run by Afghan women.

100% handmade by Afghan women. All proceeds go to benefit Afghan women and girls.
====



Lessons in Terror: Attacks on Education in Afghanistan
Human Rights Watch, July 2006

Unicef Humanitarian Action? Afghanistan Donor Update
Unicef urgently requires US $20.7 Million to respond to the needs of children and women in Afghanistan, April, 2006.

The Situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), March 2006

Afghan Election Diary
Human Rights Watch?This site contains daily posting, photos, and audio clips regarding the 2005 Afghan parliamentary elections.

Afghanistan Reconstruction: Despite Some Progress, Deteriorating Security and Other Obstacles Continue to Threaten Achievement of U.S. Goals
United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), July 2005.

NGO Insecurity in Afghanistan
Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO) and CARE in May 2005.

Back to top

Links

Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC)

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission was established in the Bonn
Agreement of 2001 as the national institution in charge of defining the Human Rights agenda in Afghanistan .

United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)
UNAMA was established on March 28, 2002 through United Nations Security Council. , UNAMA's mandate includes providing political and strategic advice for the peace process; assisting Afghanistan's government towards implementation of the Afghanistan Compact ; promoting human rights ; and continuing to manage all UN humanitarian relief, recovery, reconstruction and development activities in coordination with the government.

UNICEF
UNICEF's Afghanistan profile provides news and statistics regarding the lives of Afghan children.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
USAID is an independent agency of the federal government that provides economic, development and humanitarian assistance around the world in support of the foreign policy goals of the United States .

Afghan Women's Network
The Afghan Women's Network is a non-partisan network of women and women-led NGOs working to empower women and ensure their equal participation in Afghan society.

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Afghanistan
UNFPA is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. The goal of this program is to contribute to enhancing the quality of life of the people in Afghanistan through improved reproductive health, gender equability and women's empowerment.

CARE-Afghanistan
CARE is a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. The website provides a country profile and CARE's Afghanistan project information.

CIA World Factbook? Afghanistan
Country profile of Afghanistan .

International Crisis Group
The International Crisis Group (ICG) is an independent, non-profit, multinational organization, with over 100 staff members on five continents, working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict.

Back to top

Books

My Forbidden Face: Growing Up Under the Taliban: A Young Woman's Story
by Latifa

The Women of Afghanistan Under the Taliban
by Rosemarie Skaine

Veiled Threat: The Hidden Power of the Women of Afghanistan
by Sally Armstrong

Taliban
by Ahmed Rashid

Jihad
by Ahmed Rashid

I is for Infidel
by Kathy Gannon

Unholy Wars
by John K. Cooley

The Storyteller's Daughter
by Saira Shah

The Kite Runner (Fiction)
by Khaled Hosseini

Back to top

 

[neonlyte]

Gosh folks, hadn't meant to re-visit this, my earlier posts expressed my opinion as to the question RA posed, but something in Pure's last post caught my eye:

Without security, women in Afghanistan will never be able to obtain their rights and the country will never have sustained peace and democracy. Print the petition!

Spread the word to friends, family and colleagues about how they can help Afghan women participate in Afghanistan's future.

Your donation of only $25 will help continue the fight to restore the rights of Afghan women and girls.

Gather friends, classmates, coworkers, a Girl Scouts troop, or a community organization and directly help support schools, clinics, and other humanitarian programs run by Afghan women.

100% handmade by Afghan women. All proceeds go to benefit Afghan women and girls.

Did 'we' really fight a war in Afganistan to install a regime that doesn't respect the rights of Aganistan women and girls or give them the security they need to live full and meaningful lives. The war in Afganistan is costing $1.0bn/month (US Gov), and these people, (pure's post) are having to plead for $25 to held secure womens rights. Do 'we' know what the fuck we are doing?

 

[oggbashan]

Gosh folks, hadn't meant to re-visit this, my earlier posts expressed my opinion as to the question RA posed, but something in Pure's last post caught my eye:

Did 'we' really fight a war in Afganistan to install a regime that doesn't respect the rights of Aganistan women and girls or give them the security they need to live full and meaningful lives. The war in Afganistan is costing $1.0bn/month (US Gov), and these people, (pure's post) are having to plead for $25 to held secure womens rights. Do 'we' know what the fuck we are doing?

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the UK 4 billion pounds from a much smaller economy. Teachers and schools are targets of the Taleban especially if they teach girls. Being a teacher is putting a large target on yourself saying 'Shoot me'. The Afghan government supports schools and education but it does not control large parts of the country, nor does NATO.

Og

 

[neonlyte]

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the UK 4 billion pounds from a much smaller economy. Teachers and schools are targets of the Taleban especially if they teach girls. Being a teacher is putting a large target on yourself saying 'Shoot me'. The Afghan government supports schools and education but it does not control large parts of the country, nor does NATO.

Og

Yet someone thinks they can secure the country for $25 per head.

OK - I know I'm being flipant and the problem is much greater than that. I'm still left with a nagging question, WHY? If $12bn a year doesn't solve the problem - bring security and freedom - what does?

ETA: The Afganistan budget for 2005 was $500 million?

 

[shereads]

P.P.P.P.S.

My friend Roxanne is a huge pain in the ass, and says, "Ditto."

Never use the words "huge" and "ass" on the day after a holiday that celebrates binging.

Believe me, Rox, the issue of women's powerless status in much of the world is not one I take lightly. I remember hearing about the Taliban punishing adolescent girls for showing their ankles, back when only Hilary Clinton and a few high-profile women were expressing any outrage. That we suddenly cared after 9/11 might be the only positive legacy of that day; that we haven't pressed the issue of women's rights in post-Taliban Afghanistan is a symptom of the larger issue: short of military intervention in every country with a lousy record of women's rights - whether or not religion is used to justify the abuse - we can't enforce our will.

You say opinion matters. I say it only matters when it's backed up by consequences or incentives. Do you care what Islamic extremists think of your ideology? I didn't lose any sleep over Osama's crazy ramblings until things started getting blown up.

We value the opinions of those we respect, and whose respect we'd like to have in return. The opinions of everyone else are meaningless, unless they have the power to change our lives, for better or worse.

Compassion doesn't feed the hungry.

Outrage doesn't curb genocide.

The combined opinions of you, me and everyone we know will not stop one female circumcision, persuade one father to send his daughters to school, or save one girl from being offered for rape to a family her brothers have offended.

Our governments intervene economically and politically; corporations change the world when they put money into foreign economies. Those decisions should be guided by conscience and not just expediency, and that's something we can change, if enough of us back our opinions with what can't be ignored: our votes; our behavior as consumers.

Lasting change has to come from within, but it can be encouraged from outside. For an example, check out World Ark, a charitable organization dedicated to sustainable changes that address world hunger. They were named by Forbes magazine as one of the most effective charities.

World Ark found that children benefit when women have a say in how the household spends some of its income. So they began directing a lot of their efforts at women - but first they had to eliminate the obstacle of cultural resistance. Offering the men of the village the opinion that women should be able to spend what they earn would only have make World Ark look like a threat to local tradition. It couldn't be done by decree, either. So World Ark offers incentives to male village elders, heads of household, anyone with the power to trash the program or encourage it. Allow your wives and daughters to participate in our program and control a percentage of their income, and you get a brand new car! Or Superbowl tickets! Or a beer. Whatever. It hasn't worked everywhere, but it's worked better than anything else.

Edited to add:

and makes great Christmas gifts. No re-gifting, guaranteed.

Goats: this year's hot gift item!


http://img162.imageshack.us/img162/2605/103348picture574ez9.jpg

 

[elfin_odalisque]

RR - I don't wish to appear rude, but don't make such statements. Even you know it is wrong. It helps no body to make such claims.

Both comments are a bit emotional. The issue of women being entirely responsible for enticing men to commit adultery and rape sits uneasily with Western civilization.

I still object to Amish families being allowed to take their daughters out of school at 14 in case they learn too much.

 

[Pure]

well, as you know, neon, when the US installs or supports a government, that government's policies on women may or may not be affected. indeed, whether that government is democratic, in any way, or throws dissenters in prison, or worse, is also up for discussion.

at that afghan site is a story saying that Frist has called for inclusion of the Taliban in the Afghan govenment. while this may help with 'stability,' you can guess the effect on women's rights. (same as the inclusion of conservative shi'a elements in the present Iraqi goverment).

here is where ms roxanne faces a bit of a dilemma if she supports Republican foreign policy: while she's 'saying here I stand' on the internet, is she voting for Republicans who are supplying military assistance to the government in power, or training its police in keeping 'law and order.' for instance, while denouncing hoodood in Pakistan, is she supporting Bush's 'friendly' stance toward Musharreff ('our ally') in Pakistan and giving him all the money and hardware he asks for? Mushareff appears very *mildly* attuned to some women's issues (perhaps because of international scrutiny).

i might mention that Democratic presidents and senators are not immune to assertion of American power, either, and have helped a number of dictatorial and anti-women goverments.

so anyone interested in human rights has a very limited menu, and has to look at specially concerned representatives of either party, who support human rights. one must turn to NGOs, perhaps, as mentioned at that afghan related site.

 

[shereads]

Reading Lolita in Tehran:
A Memoir in Books

by Azar Nafisi

Publishers Weekly: This book transcends categorization as memoir, literary criticism or social history, though it is superb as all three. Literature professor Nafisi returned to her native Iran after a long education abroad, remained there for some 18 years, and left in 1997 for the United States, where she now teaches at Johns Hopkins. Woven through her story are the books she has taught along the way, among them works by Nabokov, Fitzgerald, James and Austen. She casts each author in a new light, showing, for instance, how to interpret The Great Gatsby against the turbulence of the Iranian revolution and how her students see Daisy Miller as Iraqi bombs fall on Tehran. Daisy is evil and deserves to die, one student blurts out. Lolita becomes a brilliant metaphor for life in the Islamic republic. The desperate truth of Lolita's story is... the confiscation of one individual's life by another, Nafisi writes. The parallel to women's lives is clear: we had become the figment of someone else's dreams. A stern ayatollah, a self-proclaimed philosopher-king, had come to rule our land.... And he now wanted to re-create us. Nafisi's Iran, with its omnipresent slogans, morality squads and one central character struggling to stay sane, recalls literary totalitarian worlds from George Orwell's 1984 to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Nafisi has produced an original work on the relationship between life and literature.

BTW, we're never more than a few constitutional amendments away from undergoing a similar re-creation ourselves. Evangelical Christians and Islamic fundamentalists are equally qualified to govern, equally willing, and can quote similar scripture on the role of women. (Our boy Amicus manages without the scriptural references, but the concept is the same.)

 

[Pure]

Anyone remember this?

It sheds some light on why the British and American governments are not exactly on the forefront of the fight for muslim women's rights.






http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/princess/etc/synopsis.html

In the spring of 1980, America was at a dramatic crossroads in the Middle East: President Carter's attempt to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran had just ended in failure, oil prices were rising steadily, and the U.S. economy was in shambles.

At that moment, the PBS series WORLD -- the precursor to FRONTLINE® -- broadcast perhaps the most controversial film in the history of public television.

Amid a clamor of political uproar and international front-page headlines, "Death of a Princess" told the true story of a young Saudi princess and her lover who had been publicly executed for adultery. The broadcast ignited protests from both the Saudi Arabian and U.S. governments and big oil companies.

FRONTLINE marks the 25th anniversary of this defining moment for public television with an expanded re-issue of "Death of a Princess." The film is a docu-drama, based on transcripts from interviews conducted by reporter/filmmaker Antony Thomas on his journey through the Arab world in search of the truth and the meaning of the public execution of Saudi Princess Misha'al. The original film is accompanied by a new examination of the controversy surrounding the original broadcast and an analysis of the politics behind the protests against the film and of what the film reveals about the struggles of Arab women.

When "Death of a Princess" was first broadcast in Great Britain in April 1980, the Saudi government's reaction to the film touched off a diplomatic firestorm that reportedly included threats to impose sanctions on British business interests in Saudi Arabia and to break formal ties with the United Kingdom. Amid the furor, the British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia was sent home.

The Saudis also protested the U.S. broadcast in May 1980. Mobil Oil, which had extensive interests in Saudi Arabia and was also a significant PBS funder, ran ads criticizing the film in The New York Times and other newspapers. Members of Congress concerned about oil supplies and U.S.- Saudi relations spoke out against the broadcast, while others supported PBS's right to broadcast the film. Acting Secretary of State Warren Christopher sent a letter to PBS president Larry Grossman relaying the concerns.



"We plan to schedule the program," Grossman said in response to the pressures. "We have great faith in the program. It's a program of integrity, it was made responsibly, and we intend to broadcast it."
"It was a bald question, 'Would the journalistic enterprise be defended against the powerful political and economic opposition?'" recalls Peter McGhee, then the program manager for public affairs at WGBH, which produced "Death of Princess." "And in the end we prevailed. It put a chock behind the back wheel of public television."

Though reporting of the 1977 executions was largely suppressed in Arab countries, the story of "the princess who died for love" traveled far and wide by word-of-mouth. But as reporter Antony Thomas conducted his investigation in London, Paris, Beirut, Riyadh, and Jeddah, almost all of those he interviewed off-the-record declined to appear on camera.

"And so we made this crucial decision to dramatize the interviews," says co-writer and executive producer David Fanning. "That way, we would be able to hide or to mask the people's identities to protect them. But we were also able to preserve the journalistic integrity of the investigation."

Although the identities of most of the interviewees were disguised, the dialogue spoken by the actors in the film was based on the transcripts of the interviews with the film's sources.

"I heard literally dozens of contradictory reports," says Antony Thomas, who co-wrote the screenplay and directed the film of his journey through the Arab world. "And though some brought me further from the truth about the executions, each revealed a truth about the storyteller. It seemed that they were not talking only about the Princess, but about themselves and their own place in the Arab world."

One of the few characters in the film whose identity was not changed was Violet Costandi, a Palestinian wife and mother living in Beirut. "As a Palestinian, when I was deprived of all these things, of my homeland, of everything that belonged to me, I had the feeling of revolt," says Costandi. "I feel I love this girl. I think she was a free soul."

Others were more practical about the executions. "She committed a very grave sin against Islam," says the owner of a fashionable boutique in Saudi Arabia. "He couldn't let her get away with this. All sorts of silly girls would have followed. She had to be sacrificed."
Still others saw her as a revolutionary supporting a revival of democracy and women's rights in the Muslim world. "By her actions she was saying, 'Look at this blasphemy. Look what is being done to our women,'" says a Saudi school teacher. "A woman is nobody's property in Islam. There is no veil in Islam."

 

[shereads]

It sheds some light on why the British and American governments are not exactly on the forefront of the fight for muslim women's rights.






http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/princess/etc/synopsis.html

In the spring of 1980, America was at a dramatic crossroads in the Middle East: President Carter's attempt to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran had just ended in failure, oil prices were rising steadily, and the U.S. economy was in shambles.

At that moment, the PBS series WORLD -- the precursor to FRONTLINE® -- broadcast perhaps the most controversial film in the history of public television.

Amid a clamor of political uproar and international front-page headlines, "Death of a Princess" told the true story of a young Saudi princess and her lover who had been publicly executed for adultery. The broadcast ignited protests from both the Saudi Arabian and U.S. governments and big oil companies.

FRONTLINE marks the 25th anniversary of this defining moment for public television with an expanded re-issue of "Death of a Princess." The film is a docu-drama, based on transcripts from interviews conducted by reporter/filmmaker Antony Thomas on his journey through the Arab world in search of the truth and the meaning of the public execution of Saudi Princess Misha'al. The original film is accompanied by a new examination of the controversy surrounding the original broadcast and an analysis of the politics behind the protests against the film and of what the film reveals about the struggles of Arab women.

When "Death of a Princess" was first broadcast in Great Britain in April 1980, the Saudi government's reaction to the film touched off a diplomatic firestorm that reportedly included threats to impose sanctions on British business interests in Saudi Arabia and to break formal ties with the United Kingdom. Amid the furor, the British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia was sent home.

The Saudis also protested the U.S. broadcast in May 1980. Mobil Oil, which had extensive interests in Saudi Arabia and was also a significant PBS funder, ran ads criticizing the film in The New York Times and other newspapers. Members of Congress concerned about oil supplies and U.S.- Saudi relations spoke out against the broadcast, while others supported PBS's right to broadcast the film. Acting Secretary of State Warren Christopher sent a letter to PBS president Larry Grossman relaying the concerns.



"We plan to schedule the program," Grossman said in response to the pressures. "We have great faith in the program. It's a program of integrity, it was made responsibly, and we intend to broadcast it."
"It was a bald question, 'Would the journalistic enterprise be defended against the powerful political and economic opposition?'" recalls Peter McGhee, then the program manager for public affairs at WGBH, which produced "Death of Princess." "And in the end we prevailed. It put a chock behind the back wheel of public television."

Though reporting of the 1977 executions was largely suppressed in Arab countries, the story of "the princess who died for love" traveled far and wide by word-of-mouth. But as reporter Antony Thomas conducted his investigation in London, Paris, Beirut, Riyadh, and Jeddah, almost all of those he interviewed off-the-record declined to appear on camera.

"And so we made this crucial decision to dramatize the interviews," says co-writer and executive producer David Fanning. "That way, we would be able to hide or to mask the people's identities to protect them. But we were also able to preserve the journalistic integrity of the investigation."

Although the identities of most of the interviewees were disguised, the dialogue spoken by the actors in the film was based on the transcripts of the interviews with the film's sources.

"I heard literally dozens of contradictory reports," says Antony Thomas, who co-wrote the screenplay and directed the film of his journey through the Arab world. "And though some brought me further from the truth about the executions, each revealed a truth about the storyteller. It seemed that they were not talking only about the Princess, but about themselves and their own place in the Arab world."

One of the few characters in the film whose identity was not changed was Violet Costandi, a Palestinian wife and mother living in Beirut. "As a Palestinian, when I was deprived of all these things, of my homeland, of everything that belonged to me, I had the feeling of revolt," says Costandi. "I feel I love this girl. I think she was a free soul."

Others were more practical about the executions. "She committed a very grave sin against Islam," says the owner of a fashionable boutique in Saudi Arabia. "He couldn't let her get away with this. All sorts of silly girls would have followed. She had to be sacrificed."
Still others saw her as a revolutionary supporting a revival of democracy and women's rights in the Muslim world. "By her actions she was saying, 'Look at this blasphemy. Look what is being done to our women,'" says a Saudi school teacher. "A woman is nobody's property in Islam. There is no veil in Islam."

Good point.

 

[shereads]

Related to Pure's post ("Death of a Princess," reaction by Saudi royal family)

Princess Misha'al bint Fahd al Saud (1958-1977) was a Saudi Arabian princess who was a victim of an honor killing, being publicly killed by her own family for adultery in 1977, at the age of 19. She was a granddaughter of Prince Muhammad bin Abdul Aziz, who was an older brother of the then King of Saudi Arabia, King Khalid bin Abdul Aziz.

After attempting to fake her own drowning and being caught trying to escape from Saudi Arabia with her lover, she and her lover were executed on the orders of her grandfather, Prince Muhammad bin Abdul Aziz. There is no clear evidence that a trial of the Princess or her lover took place. No charges have ever been brought against her grandfather.

Her death and events that lead up to it were dramatized in the docu-drama Death of a Princess (1980):

"The difference between the official version, which was the girl was killed because she was found guilty of adultery, and the truth of it, which turns out that she was, in fact, executed by the king's elder brother in an act of tribal vengeance in a parking lot in Jeddah, was, in fact, the heart of the controversy because that was the part that, of course, the royal family could not countenance. And that was the great outrage."

~ from Wikipedia, which also notes that "honor killing," which takes an estimated 5,000 victims a year, primarily women accused of pre-marital sex or adultery and killed by their own families, is prohibited by Sharia law, but the guilty are exempted from punishment if their families agree to pay 'blood money.'


(Since most honor killings are committed by members of the victim's own family, the family that pays the fine also receives the payment. And you boys wonder why girls hate math... )



Wikipedia also notes that honor killing isn't exclusive to Islam:

Honor killing in national legal codes

According to the report of the Special Rapporteur submitted to the 58th session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (2002) concerning cultural practices in the family that reflect violence against women (E/CN.4/2002/83):
The Special Rapporteur indicated that there had been contradictory decisions with regard to the honour defence in Brazil, and that legislative provisions allowing for partial or complete defence in that context could be found in the penal codes of Argentina, Bangladesh, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Peru, Syria, Turkey, Venezuela and the Palestinian National Authority.

Some of these, including those of Turkey, have since been modified.

Countries where the law can be interpreted to allow men to kill female relatives in a premeditated effort as well as for crimes of passions, in flagrante delicto in the act of committing adultery, include:

Jordan: Part of article 340 of the Penal Code states that "he who discovers his wife or one of his female relatives committing adultery and kills, wounds, or injures one of them, is exempted from any penalty." [26] This has twice been put forward for cancellation by the government, but was retained by the Lower House of the Parliament. [27]

Countries that allow men to kill female relatives in flagrante delicto (but without premeditation) include:

Syria:Article 548 states that "He who catches his wife or one of his ascendants [sic], descendants or sister committing adultery (flagrante delicto) or illegitimate sexual acts with another and he killed or injured one or both of them benefits from an exemption of penalty."

Countries that allow husbands to kill only their wives in flagrante delicto (based upon the Napoleonic code) include:

Morocco: Article 418 of the Penal Code states "Murder, injury and beating are excusable if they are committed by a husband on his wife as well as the accomplice at the moment in which he surprises them in the act of adultery."
Haiti: Article 269 of the Penal Code states that "in the case of adultery as provided for in Article 284, the murder by a husband of his wife and/or her partner, immediately upon discovering them in flagrante delicto in the conjugal abode, is to be pardoned."
Turkey: Recently Turkey changed its laws concerning honor killings. Persons found guilty of this crime are sentenced to life in prison. [28]

In two Latin American countries: Similar laws were struck down over the past two decades: according to human rights lawyer Julie Mertus "in Brazil, until 1991 wife killings were considered to be noncriminal 'honor killings'; in just one year, nearly eight hundred husbands killed their wives. Similarly, in Colombia, until 1980, a husband legally could kill his wife for committing adultery." [29]

Countries where honor killing is not legal but is frequently in practice include:
Pakistan: The practice is supposed to be prosecuted under ordinary murder, but in practice police and prosecutors often ignore it. [30] Often a man must simply claim the killing was for his honor and he will go free. Nilofer Bakhtiar, advisor to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, stated that in 2003, as many as 1,261 women were murdered in honor killings.[31]

On December 08, 2004, under international and domestic pressure, Pakistan enacted a law that made honor killings punishable by a prison term of seven years, or by the death penalty in the most extreme cases. Women's rights organizations were, however, wary of this law as it stops short of outlawing the practice of allowing killers to buy their freedom by paying compensation to the victim's relatives. Women's rights groups claimed that in most cases it is the victim's immediate relatives who are the killers, so inherently the new law is just eyewash. It did not alter the provisions whereby the accused could negotiate pardon with the victim's family under the so-called Islamic provisions.

Man! I am so going to be a bitch this week. I'll pretend it's PMS.

 

[Pure]

The number one women's problem in the world

imo,
is women dying of AIDS in subsaharan Africa.

[[Final CORRECTION: 11:28 pm EST]]

About 2,000,000 persons have died there, of AIDS, per year, in recent years.


assume half are females. that's 1,000,000 females dying per year.




here are sources of the above 2,000,000 number.

http://www.avert.org/worldstats.htm---

http://pathmicro.med.sc.edu/lecture/whoreport.htm

 

[ishtat]

Honour killings in UK

In 1946 in the UK there was an increase of about 70% in the normal murder rate.The whole of the increase was attributable to de-mobbed soldiers returning from the war to find their wives had 'strayed'.

They generally received sentences of 3 years and less - many were found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter and therefore received a much lighter sentence. Honour Killings??

 

[ishtat]

imo,
women dying of AIDS in subsaharan Africa.

about 100,000 persons die there of AIDS each year;


assume 50,000 are females; that is about 130 PER DAY (females).

Those numbers are way too small. If the incidence of Aids noted on the CIA website is correct the deaths would be several times these.

Having spent some time there I suspect however, that Malaria and malnutrition are even bigger killers

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Whose, then?

Were you an Englishman in the 1850s would you say, "Chattel slavery in the Southern states of the U.S. is not my moral burden to carry."

Were you an American in 1938 would you say, "The plight of European Jewry is not my moral burden to carry."

Were you a Western European in 1980 would you say, "The struggle of Polish dockworkers is not my moral burden to carry."

Your analogies are false. Black slaves and Jews under the Nazi's were enslaved against their will and given no choice in the matter. They were given no choice.

(I don't know much about the plight of the Polish dockworkers, so I can't really comment, but as I recall, they were involved in a mass uprising against an oppressor and were asking for help.)

What's your evidence that Muslim women are being forced against their will to live the way they do? What makes you so certain that Islamic women are all secretly crying out to be liberated, to abandon their culture and sense of identity and adopt the ones you tell them to? Where's the proof of this? The protests and mass bourqa burnings? The huddled masses yearning to breathe free?

Most of us in the west believe that individual freedom and responsibility are the way to go - in fact, the only way to go. But we make a mistake when we assume that it's an Absolute Value shared by everyone else in the world and that they're secretly dying to be just like us. There are lots of people who value other things more than freedom and individuality, things like belonging to group or being part of a family, security and stability, religious duty, a sense of continuity, whatever. I don't understand by what authority you can go into their cultures and tell them that they're wrong in what they believe. Or how you can say that they have to be "free", which actually means, "You have to be just like me."

Whatever change happens in the Muslim community is going to have to come from the inside. You can't force someone to be "free".

 

[Pure]

hi ishtat,

i went over the figures and made some corrections.
[ADDED] As you said, they were way too small.



certainly malaria is devastating, and probably interacts with HIV problems.

here is one figure for malaria.

http://www.aaas.org/international/africa/malaria91/background.html

Each year between 675,000 and 1,000,000 deaths among children in sub-Saharan Africa are attributed to malaria.

Several sources say these deaths could easily be halved if proper preventative measures were taken and medical treatment were available.

PS. Good points, Ishtat. Honor killings (spur of the moment) are alive in the West--they get light penalties. I know a fellow who killed a wife and did, i believe, one year (of a three year sentence).

I think it's good, though, to distinguish 'spur of the moment' actions when catching guilty parties, and planned 'honor' executions. in one case in Jordan, the males pledged to police they would not harm the woman, and she returned home; but a relative killed her anyway.

 

[Liar]

I don't understand by what authority you can go into their cultures and tell them that they're wrong in what they believe. Or how you can say that they have to be "free", which actually means, "You have to be just like me."

Whatever change happens in the Muslim community is going to have to come from the inside. You can't force someone to be "free".

I discussed the whole wearing-a-veil thing with a muslim woman not long ago. She explained it like this:

First of all, it's a badge of faith and culture identity. A sikh male wears a turban in public. A muslim woman wears a veil. Second: Hair and neck to a muslim woman is a private part, that you can flaunt all you want for your lover in privacy but never flop out in public. Like tits. Or imagine having to walk around with no pants on. Even if you've moved to a culture where eveybody else is walking around with everything waist down on full display, most of us still wouldn't be comfortable doing that, and opt for pants anyway.

But veils looks alien to us, and the first reaction is to think that those poor women are forced to cover up against their will. Ok, so maybe their society is pressing them into thinking that covering up the right thing to do. Fair enough. But isn't western society also pressuring women into thinking that showing as much as possible is the right thing to do? Well...yeah. Which is better? Which is the "truth"? I'm afraid that I'll have to wave the moral relativist's flag here and say "both". Not because I think so, I believe we're better off here in the decadent west. But whether I'm right or wrong about that, doesn't matter.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Your analogies are false. Black slaves and Jews under the Nazi's were enslaved against their will and given no choice in the matter. They were given no choice.

(I don't know much about the plight of the Polish dockworkers, so I can't really comment, but as I recall, they were involved in a mass uprising against an oppressor and were asking for help.)

What's your evidence that Muslim women are being forced against their will to live the way they do? What makes you so certain that Islamic women are all secretly crying out to be liberated, to abandon their culture and sense of identity and adopt the ones you tell them to? Where's the proof of this? The protests and mass bourqa burnings? The huddled masses yearning to breathe free?

Most of us in the west believe that individual freedom and responsibility are the way to go - in fact, the only way to go. But we make a mistake when we assume that it's an Absolute Value shared by everyone else in the world and that they're secretly dying to be just like us. There are lots of people who value other things more than freedom and individuality, things like belonging to group or being part of a family, security and stability, religious duty, a sense of continuity, whatever. I don't understand by what authority you can go into their cultures and tell them that they're wrong in what they believe. Or how you can say that they have to be "free", which actually means, "You have to be just like me."

Whatever change happens in the Muslim community is going to have to come from the inside. You can't force someone to be "free".

150 years ago in the southern U.S., masters pointed to the "darkies" singing joyful songs outside their slave cabins at night and said, "You see, they like their status."

Yes, that is a cruel example for me to throw in your face, but the fact is, neither the black slaves in the U.S. nor women in many Islamic nations today were given any choice about their status. Second class status combined with lack of choice is the definition of oppression. You think you are being open minded, but you have repeated the claim used by all apologists of oppression through the ages.

The 2,000 women in Pakistan prisons for Hudood law violations did not volunteer. The adolescent Saudi girls forced into marriages as the third or fourth wife of old men are not volunteers.

When women in those societies are allowed to exercise choice on their status, then of course I will accept their decisions. As long as they have no choice, I won't sell them down the river by pretending that second class status is the choice they would make.

 

[Pure]

Reply to Roxanne,

mab asked,

m: //What's your evidence that Muslim women are being forced against their will to live the way they do? What makes you so certain that Islamic women are all secretly crying out to be liberated, to abandon their culture and sense of identity and adopt the ones you tell them to? Where's the proof of this? The protests and mass bourqa burnings? The huddled masses yearning to breathe free?//

You replied:

RA the fact is, neither the black slaves in the U.S. nor women in many Islamic nations today were given any choice about their status. Second class status combined with lack of choice is the definition of oppression. You think you are being open minded, but you have repeated the claim used by all apologists of oppression through the ages.

The 2,000 women in Pakistan prisons for Hudood law violations did not volunteer. The adolescent Saudi girls forced into marriages as the third or fourth wife of old men are not volunteers.

When women in those societies are allowed to exercise choice on their status, then of course I will accept their decisions.

I don't see any evidence. You assert the women are NOT exercising choice. Maybe you're right, in some of your examples, but how is one to know? Here, you do give or imply two reasons: 1) The women were not "given" a choice. 2) Some are in prison, which, you imply, could not be a choice.
---

Pure: In any society, the roles and status envelope people. They just don't, generally, decide a place. Let's say, in India, it's not "i want to be in the merchant caste." Some of this would apply to you. Were you ever "given" a choice about wearing clothes? Why do you wear them? Did you reason it out? Maybe you chose to follow Ayn Rand instead of Phyllis Schafly-- a few of the big items. But many are just handed to you.

Even your second point does not bear much weight. No one likes being in prison. But many feel they deserve to be there. And even if they'd escape, it doesn't mean they reject 'prisons,' per se. In the Massachusetts hanging of an adultress, it appears she accepted her fate.

So your reasons don't wash, though as i said, i'm not saying all your examples are wrong, just that you haven't shown anything.

Let's look at your general principle:
RA Second class status combined with lack of choice is the definition of oppression.

P: Maybe this is true, but 'lack of choice' is at issue. You were asked for evidence that the women lacked choice. You say they have second class status *and no choice* and are thus "oppressed."
So you beg the question. In attempting to prove 'no choice' you've assumed/imputed it.

The principle is simply not true. There are, in the US, many Mormon, Jewish Orthodox, and Baptist women who are in (what we call) 'second class status'. They have freedom to leave their husbands and communities, but they don't. Probably *some* of them--say some mormon women in remote areas--are oppressed, but what the test for that? We need more than Roxanne's intuition, or 'trust me.'

I'm afraid, Roxanne, that you offer no criterion of [when someone has] 'choice.' So it APPEARS that where some lifestyle doesn't suit you, you're assuming it can't be chosen.

Look at the article below, about the University of Helwan, in Egypt.
In particular note the last line
//In recent years the hijab (headscarf) and the niqab have become popular among Egyptian women. //

I ask, are they *choosing* these items? Why not? Egypt is not ruled by 'fundamentalists' or Ayatollahs? Did their dads make them? What's your evidence?

Consider Ms Zeinab in particular (mentioned in the first para), who wants to wear the niqab:
She says, "I won't give up this attire, which makes me feel decent and secure. ...."

Is there any reason to think she's been coerced? It's possible, sure, but I don't think your speculations are going to be valid, to apply generally to those, in Egypt, who've lately taken to wearing the hijab or niqab. I suspect their mothers did not, since Egypt is quite modern.

So, while I understand your concern for oppression, you simply cannot just say "there it is" without offering evidence; and second class status isn't enough. Indeed you sound like the orthodox marxists who say "American workers are oppressed; they lack the political power of the company bigshots. And their incomes are 1/400 of the executives' salaries."

I needn't remind you that you'd reject such an argument immediately, and start by saying, "Ask the worker. Is he oppressed? In particular by capitalism. ... Well he says not, though he's having a tough time."

The 'objective' definition of 'oppression' is held by you Roxanne, and by orthodox Marxists. Unfortunately, while there something to it, it is fatally flawed. It's not based in reality because the predictions don't pan out: The workers don't rebel; the Saudi women don't rebel, in general (and don't reject the system). You cannot face the reality of a choice that you don't see yourself making. So, against all evidence, e.g. statements by the persons, you dogmatically assert: "oppression."


http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/06/10/22/10076682.html

Veil war breaks out on Egypt university campus [10-22-2006]

By Ramadan Al Sherbini, Correspondent

Cairo: Zeinab, a veiled student at the University of Helwan in Cairo, vows to defy a controversial decision against female students who don the niqab from staying at the university hostel. (The niqab is a veil covering the woman's face except for the eyes). "I won't give up this attire, which makes me feel decent and secure. Why should they target veiled female students, while tolerating scantily clad girls on the campus," said Zeinab, aged 20.

A few weeks ago the Provost of Helwan University Abdul Hayy Ebeid infuriated Islamists in Egypt when he ordered that niqab-wearing students should not be allowed into the dormitories of the institution unless they agreed to be checked by security women to verify their identities. Students are accommodated in these hostels for very low fees.

The decision has drawn protests from students and human rights groups, who have slammed it as an infringement on personal freedom.Officials at the university say the decision was taken on security grounds. "The university will not rescind this decision because it would be blamed if a man, veiling his face behind the niqab, walked into the female-only dormitories,"

Mahmoud Refaat, a director at the University of Helwan, said in press remarks."The niqab has been grossly misused by criminals and even terrorists," said another university official, who asked not to to be named. "We should not forget that over a year ago two veiled women were involved in a foiled attack on a tourist bus in Cairo," he told Gulf News.Last week, a female Muslim preacher was threatened with death after declaring the niqab was not an Islamic duty.

Suad Saleh, a famous TV preacher and a former dean of the women's college at the religious University of Al Azhar, told the private satellite channel TV Dream that it was wrong to consider the niqab an obligatory item of the Islamic attire."There is no unequivocal text in the Holy Quran that women must cover their faces," she argued. Islamists have filed a lawsuit against Saleh and Dream TV over the remarks."

The niqab was common in the Arabian Peninsula centuries before Islam and was not imposed by this religion," said Amnah Nousir, a professor of Islamic philosophy. "The face is one's mirror. So why should the woman hide herself behind this black veil?" she told Gulf News.Her argument is supported by Jamal Al Bana, a liberal Muslim thinker, who said in a recent interview that "the niqab is an insult and he who calls for it is backward".

MP Ebrahim Zakaria of the Muslim Brotherhood has filed a complaint with the Prosecutor-General demanding investigations into alleged exclusions of veiled students from government-run universities.In recent years the hijab (headscarf) and the niqab have become popular among Egyptian women.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

150 years ago in the southern U.S., masters pointed to the "darkies" singing joyful songs outside their slave cabins at night and said, "You see, they like their status."

Yes, that is a cruel example for me to throw in your face, but the fact is, neither the black slaves in the U.S. nor women in many Islamic nations today were given any choice about their status. Second class status combined with lack of choice is the definition of oppression. You think you are being open minded, but you have repeated the claim used by all apologists of oppression through the ages.

The 2,000 women in Pakistan prisons for Hudood law violations did not volunteer. The adolescent Saudi girls forced into marriages as the third or fourth wife of old men are not volunteers.

When women in those societies are allowed to exercise choice on their status, then of course I will accept their decisions. As long as they have no choice, I won't sell them down the river by pretending that second class status is the choice they would make.

So by your analogy, the majority of Muslim women are a seething mass of repressed humanity yearning to break free of this religious oppression? And the ones we see who seem to be happy in their roles (like that Muslim schoolteacher in Britain we were just talking about) are like some kind of showcase Uncle Toms (Or Aunt Fatimas)? And just too ignorant to know how oppressed they are?

Because I mean, it seems to me that what you're basically suggesting is taking up the Missionary Flag once again, only this time not about Chritisanity ands the one true Faith, but about cultural values. I'm all for empowerment of women, no matter where they might be. (How about we start by getting our government to restore aid to organizations that advocate family planning by contraception? They cut it off, you know. Entirely. You advocate condoms or BC pills, and Uncle Sam won't give you dime one for your work. Go get empowered with 8 kids hanging on your back.)

if you want a better analogy than the happy pickaninny down on the plantation, why don't we look at women in America who are socially oppressed by their lack of education, early and abusive marriages, inability to find decent healthcare or daycare so they can work? They weren't given any choice about their status in life either, and they're actually begging for help. Begging. You want to help someone, help someone who's begging right in your own Land of the Free. Why is it the foreigners who are noble when our own poor are just welfare cheats?

Okay. Sorry. Enough wise-assing. It's just that this attitude of "I know what's best for you" is just so irritating and such a maddening and persistent American vice, and it's exactly this insistence on pushing our way of life on people that makes America so hated around the world.

Now, I don't know how many self-confessed oppressed Muslim women you know, (I admit that I myself don't know any), but I do happen to know a lot of Iraqi families in Skokie here. Most of them are Christian, but they share a lot of Iraqi Muslim values regarding family and the role of women and all that. I was invited over to my son's friends' house for dinner a few times (they're Iraqi. SO Iraqi that the granfather was killed by an American bomb in 2004) , and the women don't eat with the men. The men eat in the dining room and the women serve them - like "slaves" if you wish, but I guess in their ignorance they consider it the social norm - and then when the men are done, the women eat in the kitchen with the children. It made me kind of uncomfortable, but I wasnt going to demand that they bring the women in to eat with us and be treated as equals, because they would have looked at me like I was crazy. They didn't want to eat like that. I'd might have well suggested that we al used the bathroom together. This is the way they do things, and they dont want anyone coming in and telling them they're oppressed and should eat with the men.

Does anyone study cultural anthropology anymore? I know Americans don't. We wouldn't have waltzed into Iraq like that if anyone in the upper levels of givernment knew anything about how cultures work and what happens when you start fucking around with them. The cardinal American sin has always been hubris.

This isn't to minimize that women are second class citizens under Islam and get terribly fucked over - at lkeast to our western eyes. But you know, the whole idea of equality between people let alone between the sexes is not accepted by most of the people inthe world, and as several people have pointed out, it's not just confined to Islam. Hindus commonly sell their girls into slavery or whoredom, or just let them die, and the practice is pretty widespread in Southeast Asia as well.

As far as barabaric practices go, I had my son circumcised without his consent. I guess that makes me an oppressor too. The shoe just kind of feels different when it's on my foot though.

I don't mean to trivialize this stuff, but honestly, I don't know what you expect. You want us to give money to NGO's that help politically oppressed women? I'm all for it. You want us to support the UN's efforts on behalf of women's rights (did the US sign that one by the way? Or did we give that a pass too?) I'm behind that too. But if you think we can cram our form of democracy down another culture's throat at the barrel of a gun, I'd just direct you to Iraq to see how well that's working.

You might also want to consider what did happen to the American Slaves after they were emancipated by law without the cultural changes that made real integration into that society possible. It wasn't pretty. It took another 100 years to address the problem, and we're still dealing with it. The point being

 

[elsol]

If you want a better analogy than the happy pickaninny down on the plantation, why don't we look at women in America who are socially oppressed by their lack of education, early and abusive marriages, inability to find decent healthcare or daycare so they can work? They weren't given any choice about their status in life either, and they're actually begging for help. Begging. You want to help someone, help someone who's begging right in your own Land of the Free. Why is it the foreigners who are noble when our own poor are just welfare cheats?

That's what I said...

Of course, Dr. Mab says it SOOOOO much better.

Probably has something to do with my sense of humor... I just can't help but poke people with sharp sticks.