[lit-ideas] Re: Olivier Roy, Daniel Pipes and Oriana Fallaci

  • From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 23:47:33 -0800 (PST)


--- Andy Amago <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> It would be like blaming Christianity for the
> Inquisition, for witch
> burning, even for the death of Christopher Marlowe. 
> The problem isn't the
> religion; the problem is that the religion is
> co-opted as an excuse to hate
> women. 

*Yes, I think there will be some truth to this. Many
of the practices that are said to be "Islamic" are not
actually ordained by Islam but stem from the
pre-Islamic or medieval Arab culture. However, I doubt
that this can account for the Arab (generally
speaking) political or economic backwardness. Saddam's
Iraq had many women intellectuals and professionals
(apparently there were more women doctors than men),
the personal and family laws were quite liberal etc.
This did not prevent Iraq's political and economic
situation from being among the worst, perhaps the very
worst, in the Arab world. The causes of this are
complex but I don't think women's status will be among
the major ones. East Asian countries such as Japan,
South Korea etc. which are not known for their liberal
treatment of women seem to have solid modern economies
and reasonably functioning political systems. This
doesn't mean that feminist criticisms of the Arab
societies have no merit, but one doesn't want to jump
to judgements (see below).

 Picture (as an experiment) hating men
> instead of women, treating
> all Muslim men as nonentities, forcing them to cover
> their faces,
> controlling every move they make, keeping them
> illiterate, then giving
> these hated, illiterate, nonentity men the job of
> raising Muslim children. 

*I don't support covering the face, among other
reasons because it is not actually ordained in Islam.
However, I don't think that following this custom
would necessarily turn one into a "non-entity." The
issue is whether there is coercion. Personally I
oppose legislation mandating the wearing of nikab or
even of hijab, e.g. in Saudi Arabia or Iran, just as I
oppose legislation that prohibits, e.g. in France or
Turkey. That said, Western countries also have social
norms and even laws that seek to control dress and
appearance. 
As for being illiterate, the Taliban did ban women
from education, but most Arab and Muslim countries do
not (Iran certainly doesn't, I am not sure about Saudi
Arabia). Many Arab and Muslim women are not at all
"illiterate" and Islamic feminism is not actually some
rare bird. You can check out for example these two
websites if you are interested:

http://www.islamfortoday.com/women.htm

http://www.mwlusa.org/publications/essays/polirights.html


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html

Other related posts:

  1. Home
  2. lit-ideas
  3. Archive
  4. 03-2006