Muslim world requires a dose of girl power

The Australian ^ | 27th December 2006 | Janet Albrechtsen

[naturalman1975]

HER voice shaking, the young woman in the hijab sitting about five rows back from the podium was clearly angry with me. As were other women in the audience, some in hijabs, one wearing a nikab, only her eyes visible through a narrow slit. Angry with me for writing about Muslim women.

It was late one Friday afternoon a few weeks back and I was speaking at a conference on The Journalist and Islam at NSW Parliament House. I asked them what I had done to offend them so.

Was it that I had written about the many Muslim women in Arab and other Muslim countries who are treated as second-class citizens and the many Muslim women in the West who are similarly mistreated in the shadow of Islam?

Apparently, white Christian girls should not write or speak about such things. My error, they said, was to presume to speak on behalf of Muslim women. But, of course, I had done no such thing. The role of the media is to expose and debate. No apologies for that. And in doing so, a journalist is no one's spokesman. When I pointed out that a more open debate depended on Muslim women talking honestly about the problems of radical Islam and the consequent inequality inflicted on women, there was only silence.

And that silence is the problem. So again, in that vacuum, a white Christian chick will write on this issue because, in an enlightened world, the inequality of the sexes should transcend race, ethnicity and religion.

[jamie_justice62]

To bad Brigitte Gabriel (Because They Hate-St Martin's Press) wasn't there. Tho, I wonder what excuse they would have used against her.

[daviddennis]

It wasn't silence, was it? They were shouting her down. That implies that they have the freedom, at least where they were, to express their own point of view.

I still think it would be very interesting to make an effort to understand her viewpoint.

Government Shrinker, you are of course right. It is very similar to how the men behave as well, so perhaps some interesting insights could be found that would help in both cases.

Old Enuff, bear in mind that the religion was developed by a man who had, shall we say, a rather robust sex life, and in many respects he seems to have rewritten the rules to fit his precise situation. In one case, he didn't like what two female witnesses said about one of his wives, and so he made the rule that you need to have two female witnesses to equal one male. I'm sure there are thousands of cases like that scattered all over the Koran and his other writings.

There are some less pleasant aspects of Islamic divorce law you might not have heard of. If you say "I divorce you" three times, you are divorced. But say you do that when you're upset, and when you come back to your senses, you realize you didn't want the divorce. In that case, your wife has to marry someone else, have sex with him and he has to divorce her. Under those circumstances, she can marry you again.

What's particularly interesting after understanding these examples is that the system does not allow correction. The Koran was created via divine inspiration and is the unchangable, unalterable word of God. This is why Islam has no science; God can do anything and act arbitarily, and so science and understanding of the world are impossible to man.

This seems absurd on the face of it considering that Mohammed changed things around extensively when he was alive, and Western science has been successful in understanding more about the world.

D

[pandoraou812]

Maybe to make look as ugly as possible? I think they look like a bunch of crows. My ex mother in law lived in Saudi Arabia for a number of years while her husband was training pilots for the govt. She says the royal family doesn't dress in burkas, and most of the women try to get out and come to America or England using education as their way out. They are called home once a husband is found for them.

[BigBobber]

Your questions are thoughtful but I find your proposition absurd. You don't need to ask a slave why they are loyal to the system that oppresses them. Women's behavoir under Islam betray's their lack of loyalty.

If women were so loyal they would not need religious police in Iran to whip and beat those who dare to wear make-up or expose an ankle. They would not need religious police in Afghanistan to keep girls from attending school or to murder those who teach them.

Women in this country have been well exposed to Muslim ways and have the freedom to adopt them. Yet how many have recognized the "benefits" of Islam and adopted their mode of dress? How many choose to share their husband with other women? How many choose never to travel without a male relative, or be flogged for being alone with a man not their husband?

Fundamentalist Islam is a brutal, dehumanizing system. Very few women "loyal" to it will choose it once they are exposed to the wider world. The Imams know this, which is why they seek to destroy the West.

[daviddennis]

Your points are well taken but it would still be interesting to see what kind of defense the women involved would make of the system.

My point is that to develop the case against, it would be good to know the case for.

There appear to be women who support the oppressive system. Why?

It would be very useful to know.

D

[metmom]

It's not like this white Christian chick was making things up, of pretending to understand what muslim women go through. The unequal treatment of women in Muslim countries is fact; can't drive, can't vote, can't escape from burning buildings,... The list goes on. So why do they have a problem with people discussing the facts?

[weegee]

Apparently, white Christian girls should not write or speak about such things. My error, they said, was to presume to speak on behalf of Muslim women. But, of course, I had done no such thing. The role of the media is to expose and debate. No apologies for that. And in doing so, a journalist is no one's spokesman. When I pointed out that a more open debate depended on Muslim women talking honestly about the problems of radical Islam and the consequent inequality inflicted on women, there was only silence.

It is considered "improper" for kufir to speak out against muslim society at all. Islamic supremacists want us to stay in our place.

I agree that muslim women should not be kept down in muslim societies. But we also need to transform muslim societies into societies with muslim members who tolerate the free exercise of other faiths, including muslims who chose to convert away from that faith.

[weegee]

One of the five pillars is to make pilgrimage to the muslim only city of Mecca, contained within the "Jew free" nation of Saudi Arabia (Jews are not permitted to enter the country). Other faiths are supressed in Saudi Arabia.

That the world's "peaceful" muslims do not speak out against this discrimination (in rights) while they pray 5 times a day to this segregated nation speaks volumes.

[Blue_Ridge_Mtn_Geek]

When Muslim women start talking, they have quite a story to tell. For example:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=26094

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Nonie Darwish, author and founder of ArabsForIsrael.com. She grew up in Cairo and Gaza, the daughter of a high-ranking Egyptian army officer. She now lectures around the country to civic organizations, universities, churches, and synagogues. She is the author of the new book, Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror.

[Blue_Ridge_Mtn_Geek]

Your points are well taken but it would still be interesting to see what kind of defense the women involved would make of the system.

My point is that to develop the case against, it would be good to know the case for.

There appear to be women who support the oppressive system. Why?

It would be very useful to know.

D

= = = = = = = = = = = =
see post #29 for a detailed explanation by an "insider" (former).

[Northern Alliance]

I think this would be a much better article if this person had actually talked to a Muslim woman and tried to understand their loyalty to the current system.

A good and valid point, but this reporter seems like kind of an airhead who was not really looking to do a thoughtful piece.

The current system must offer them some advantages, or at least perceived ones, or they would be on her side.

One would think they don't choose it because of it's advantages, but because rightly or wrongly, they believe it is a requirement of their God or their religion which is a path to God. But if that was truly the case, why the anger? I think when a supposedly faithful person is angered by criticism of their rituals and beliefs, it indicates that in their faith is lacking, their confidence is shaky, and they are unsure they have committed to a valid belief system. People that truly believe in something generally welcome questions rather than get angry with them.

[GovernmentShrinker]

To be fair, Orthodox Judaism requires a man to throw his wife out of the house permanently if she has been raped. "Sorry, kids, mom won't be coming home. Some thug grabbed her on the street and raped her, so I had to throw her out." Lovely. There's a history of seriously warped thinking in that part of the world, and it seems to be rather slow to fade away. Of course, in Europe and the US, Christians had their witch hunts and went on crusades, but fortunately that nonsense has been put to bed as history we're not proud of.

[daviddennis]

What I find intensely disturbing is that Islamic men and women hate life in their Islamic countries, and so they leave for the West. But they work within the West to make the West Islamic! On a practical level, why would they want to make their own lives worse?

Perhaps you would say because it is following their religion, and Jihad is a requirement of the religion.

But if I realized that successful Jihad would end in nothing but tyranny, I'd change my religion in seconds flat!

Now, this link, which Blue_Ridge_Mtn_Geek was kind enough to send me, seems to explain a lot of it:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=26094

This says that admitting you're wrong is the cardinal sin in Islamic society, and so anyone who engages in self-criticism (which of course is a major pillar of Jewish thought) is by definition bad.

So if you admit that Islam is damaging your society, you open up a can of worms that has to be sealed firmly shut.

It seems like a horrible way to live since you have made it impossible to solve your problems. Which means that Paradise might not be so great even if you made it there ...

D

[daviddennis]

On the other hand, I doubt that this requirement has been enforced in some time.

I guess Muslims don't have a complete monopoly on warped thinking, but if their warped thinking maketshare is 95% +, that's good enough for me.

And, of course, even their most brutal laws are still being enforced, with vindictive severity.

D

[GovernmentShrinker]

I'm sure there are some groups of orthodox Jews who still follow that rule. Some of the more extreme groups are given to amazing legalistic crap. There was a case in Brooklyn a few years back where a father in one of these sects retaliated for a messy divorce by declaring his daughter, then aged around 13-14, to be "betrothed", but he wouldn't say to whom and it was questionable whether the father had actually arranged any such betrothal (nobody seemed to question the notion that he had a right to do so). The effect was to make the girl unmarriageable within this community, and apparently until the rabbis ruled otherwise, everyone was planning to observe this unmarriageable status regardless of the devastating effect it would have on the innocent girl's life in a community where marriage was essentially obligatory. It took a year or more for the rabbis of this sect to finally come up with some tortured interpretation of Talmudic law under which the betrothal announcement could be disregarded (but only as long as the father refused to name the man he had allegedly betrothed his daughter to). I don't doubt for a second that this sect would require a man to put his wife permanently out of the home if she were raped.

Judaism as a whole has certainly evolved way ahead of Islam as a whole, but the common roots are there, so I always bristle at claims that Islam is somehow fundamentally vile in a unique way. Trying to pigeonhole all Muslims as primitive barbarians strikes me as impeding the progress of those who are inclined toward progress -- and there are many who are so inclined, as well as many who have already progressed to a civilized rendition of their religious tradition.

[Northern Alliance]

What I find intensely disturbing is that Islamic men and women hate life in their Islamic countries, and so they leave for the West. But they work within the West to make the West Islamic! On a practical level, why would they want to make their own lives worse?

Perhaps you would say because it is following their religion, and Jihad is a requirement of the religion.

But if I realized that successful Jihad would end in nothing but tyranny, I'd change my religion in seconds flat!

I have to say that if I honestly believed it was the truth, then I would have to go where ever it took me.

Thanks for the link and your thoughtful comments. There is also this, from The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law. Note #6:

So what does Islamic law say about this science and this philosophy? According to Reliance of the Traveller: The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law by Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri (d. 1368), they are unlawful, serious affronts to Islam, a form of apostasy. Apologists for Islam in the West brag about the "Islamic science" and "Islamic philosophy" that their accomplices in the Islamic world condemn.

Reliance of the Traveller lists the following sorts of "unlawful" knowledge:

(1) sorcery

(2) philosophy

(3) magic

(4) astrology

(5) the sciences of the materialists

(6) and anything that is a means to create doubts

I've never really studied Islam - just picked over some different teachings. Some of those I found appealing, like the strong emphasis on God, as opposed to Judaism which more emphasizes behavior (that's another discussion!). But it also seems to be pretty clear that things like we are talking about - the refusal or even categorization as sinful of rational discussion of doubts - that's really cult-like. My feeling is now that while Islam talks about God, focuses on God in the words that it preaches, in reality the way it is practiced now is mostly about directing behavior in perverse ways, and I mean that mostly in the sense of perverse to its own tenants, although the broader meaning applies as well, and probably is less successful in bringing its followers to any experience of the Divine in their life (probably also afterlife!) than any other religion.

[oldenuff2no]

I agree with most of what you said with one exception. These Muslim women shouted this lady down for stating her own opinion but when she asked the Islamic women to express their opinions she was met with total silence.
Muslim women are not stupid enough to venture forth an opinion that has not been vetted by Islam. they aren't stupid, but they are physically dominated and emotionally oppressed.
Islam is a male dominated world that ensures the sexual slavery of Muslim women. It also ensures the continued dominance of men for the conceivable future.
When head muzzy made the whole thing up it was his lower head he was thinking with. His way of thinking instantly insured that her would gather a large male following.

[oldenuff2no]

I agree with most of what you said with one exception. These Muslim women shouted this lady down for stating her own opinion but when she asked the Islamic women to express their opinions she was met with total silence.
Muslim women are not stupid enough to venture forth an opinion that has not been vetted by Islam. they aren't stupid, but they are physically dominated and emotionally oppressed.
Islam is a male dominated world that ensures the sexual slavery of Muslim women. It also ensures the continued dominance of men for the conceivable future.
When head muzzy made the whole thing up it was his lower head he was thinking with. His way of thinking instantly insured that her would gather a large male following.

[daviddennis]

So I guess if you're in an Islamic country and you have even the slightest curiosity about the world around you, you're pretty much doomed.

Furthermore, if you want to be in Islam and be logically consistent, the best thing for you to do is blow yourself up for the sake of Jihad.

And since you can never admit you're wrong, you're pretty much stuck.

I guess that's why they have so many restrictions on leaving the religion. I would think that if those did not exist, people would be streaming for the exits.

D