Hope For Women in the Middle East, An Illusion?
February 24, 2011
by Bruce Nahin
|The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
It was in Tahrir Square last Friday the time for Joyus celebration in Egypt ended and the truth revealed. It was here that reporter Lara Logan was sexually brutalized. It was here that my hopes for freedom for women after the fall of Mubark fell.
Lara was, so they say, attacked by some sort of mindless mob, a mob out of control…not the “mob” that ousted Mubark…a different “mob” I guess. Perhaps the type of “mob” we find in Madison Wisconsin, or at an NFL football game. But no it didn’t happen in Wisconsin or at the Superbowel it happend in Egypt.
It happens in Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia-it happens in the world controlled by Muslim men. It happens whenever men, followers of fundamental Islam are in control and where women are considered chattel.
A young girl was recently stoned for reporting a gang rape perpetrated against her, because she “ asked for it”. It is impossible for a woman to prove rape. She must have four male witnesses…if not she is guilty of fornication or adultery and as noted stoned
According to columnist Andrew McCarthy:
Should it be any surprise that the sexual abuse of women is Islam’s silent scandal? In Europe’s expanding Muslim enclaves, it is a terror tactic to extort women — Muslim and non-Muslim — into adopting the hijab and other Islamic sartorial standards. Rape has become so prevalent, and so identifiably a Muslim scourge, that embarrassed and hyper–politically correct Swedish authorities have discouraged police in cities such as heavily Muslim Malmo from collecting data that point to Islam as the common denominator in rape reports.
So much for the benefits of political correctness…ignore the problem and it doesn’t exist…
The Koran has certain telling signs as to how men should treat women. “Allah has made men superior to women” (Sura 4:34)., It is stated that women are inferior to men (Bukhari hadith 1.6.301), and that women will constitute the majority of those in Hell. (Bukahri 7.62.132).
The bottom line, is that although the attack on Ms Logan was horrendous, what it really ought to do for all of us is to be aware that she is in fact the rule not the exception in many Muslim countries
Thanks so much, Bruce, for speaking the truth about how Muslims use religion to justify controlling, discriminating, oppressing, raping and killing women and that this was not a “different mob” unrelated to those who ousted Mubarak.
I hope other men will follow your lead and start speaking out “publicly” against the systematic discrimination, brutilization and oppression of women by mysogynistic men of all faiths, but I won’t hold my breath.
If we don’t get a handle on “Political Correctness”, we will become another Sweden. It’s time to call Islam out for what it is.
Good points. I really think the Middle East is just in the process of changing old dictators out for young dictators. The men who are demonstrating in the streets have no intention of making any positive changes in the way women and girls are treated and they certainly are not going to allow women to participate in the political process. Rape is clearly one of their tools.
I was happy to see that two Muslim men in the United States were convicted of murder because of “honor killing” women they wanted to control but couldn’t. But I do worry that Sharia law could be accepted by the brain dead politically correct who coddle misogynists of all backgrounds. Recently Native American tribes have been asserting that they should have jurisdiction over some of their youths who were convicted in regular State courts and that has worked out well they have dealt with their kids in a culturally sensitive and effective manner. I think Amish are also allowed to opt out of established American legal boundaries. So there is precedent for organized groups in the United States opting out of the general law of the land and enforcing their own laws. In the case of Muslims, that legalizes murder of women you want to control, which is something the misogynists who slandered Hillary, Palin, ODonnell, Angle, and Bachmann could easily live with.
All of the Abrahamic religions are deeply misogynistic. Western men use the abuses of Islam to feel superior to Muslim men and to ignore and justify their own sexism.
It’s an age-old silencing tactic of the oppressor to convince the oppressed that there’s another oppressed group somewhere in the world who has it worse than they do, guilting them into gratitude for the few crumbs they’ve been granted by the Great White Father.
While I can sympathize with my middle eastern sisters, there is too much rape, violence, denial of reproductive freedom, employment discrimination and general misogyny right here in this country for me to expend my feminist energy anyplace else.
Last week, Bill Maher reminded all of us stupid ungrateful b*tches that while Muslim women were being stoned to death, the worst we US women faced was being called “sugar tits.” Fortunately Tavis Smiley (whose own record on sexism is not exactly stellar) was there to remind the clueless Maher that the discrimination faced by women every day goes far beyond sexist cat-calling. I have no use for men who call out the sexist behavior of “other” men while failing to acknowledge their own privilege – regardless of where I encounter them.
“While I can sympathize with my middle eastern sisters, there is too much rape, violence, denial of reproductive freedom, employment discrimination and general misogyny right here in this country for me to expend my feminist energy anyplace else.”
Nell, well said. We have our hands full here-I’m exhausted enough and feeling that it’s hopeless…
Nell and MaryL,
Good points regarding our own misogynistic country requiring too much of our time to expend energy helping our middle eaPstern sisterhood.
I think the answer for all of us is uniting in one voice against misogyny of every degree. Tavis Smiley made an excellent point that is overlooked all the time…”misogyny is not a matter of ‘degree’, it’s a matter of it being right or wrong to practice it.”
I would suggest some sort of conference where women from all countries, working to end the patriarchial oppression of women in their respective countires, come together at an agreed upon place for the purpose of speaking out against the misogyny, bringing with them photographic evidence of the horrors women must face at the hands of this misogyny, document the various exposes presented, interview the women who attend, develop it into a documentary film, send it to every woman who attended, engage those websites and blogs which speak out against misogyny every day and push the documentation of this meeting over the internet until it becomes viral.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. We must find a way to bring women together from inside and outside the U.S. and share our collective experiences, spirit, energy, support and passion among the women of the world in an all out effort to stop the insanity which is misogyny and NOT BACK DOWN.
Women should begin to take to heart the well-known edict expressed by George Bernard Shaw: “Some (women) see things as they are and say why? I dreams that never were and say, why not?”
If not now, when?
Good post, Bruce Nahin. Great comments, everybody.
Bruce I thank you for setting the record straight about how bad it is for women in the Muslim world or where ever they have Muslim men in their lives. I was a little concerned after I read yesturdays post by Rasha and I feared The New Agenda was being used to present a white washed version of marriage in Saudi Arabia. I have very real concerns about what is happening in the middle east and the world. I know that things have been getting seriously more dangerous for Chrisitans in Muslim countries and that Christians have been fleeing Muslim countries by the millions in recent years because of “democratic” choice of Islamic governments in countries like Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq and in Isreal’s Gaza. I also have very real concern because I am 100% certain that the American’s who have been instigating recent uprisings our the very same misogynic Marxists who defeated democratic process in the democrat presidential primaries. ACORN was exposed in America but the split and became Community Organizers International. My friend in Greece who was once an expatriot in America and was also a Carter loving liberal democrat like myself has seen what these community instigators have been up to in her country and it is nothing good. The liberal left is quite dilusional about Islam and has become increasingly anti-Isreal. America’s far left is absolutely involved in the Islamitization of countries from Kenya to Lebanon and has a long diturbing history of jumping into bed with America’s enemies. I see how they have more than tolerated misogyny in America but have elevated it to an art form. They don’t care about women in Muslim countries and the liberal media constantly dowm plays any news of honor killings happening right here in America. Things are going to get much worse for women Christians and Jews in Muslim countries. People should really look back to George Soro’s interview with 60 minutes’s Steve Kroft (1996) to see what evil is behind this global movement.
Powerful post, Bruce. Thanks for addressing not only the abuse of Logan, but also the daily abuses of Muslim women. I do have to agree with some of the above comments — we have so much rape here as well that is not addressed — Every two minutes, a rape occurs on our own soil — where we appently have freedoms and opportunities. If we can’t even control violence against girls and adult women here, how can we even begin to control them in the Middle East?
marina,
Like I said in my previous post, I believe the ONLY way we can bring the kind of change all women want is through our uniting.
I know it would not be an easy thing to do, but it is doable and it is the one thing women have not really tried to do in our ongoing fight for equality with men.
Men of all race, creeds and colors seem to have a united view on themselves and the world. Women don’t have that. We are constantly divided by our fight for power, which expresses itself in undermining another woman, in hopes that the patriarchy will welcome them into their club. That’s NEVER going to happen.
If women truly want change, I am convinced that we must find a way to bring the women feminist leaders from around the world together. Then we build from that core a commitment of sisterhood determined to have what is already our’s. Rights, endowed by our Creator to both women and men, the unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
When women can find the will to do something of this magnitude, that’s when, I believe, men will finally come to respect us as human being and as equals.
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