A Happy Tune
Time for some heavy-duty mocking and sneering. At the Guardian’s ‘Islam Awareness Week’, for a start.
Religious hate crime is on the increase in the UK, according to the latest Crown Prosecution Service statistics – a worrying trend that the government is attempting to tackle in its Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, which creates the new offence of incitement to religious hatred…Much of the Islamophobia experienced by young British Muslims is the result of a legacy of ignorance about the beliefs and practices of Islam.
No doubt. But, sadly, some of it – depending on how the Guardian is defining ‘Islamophobia,’ of course – could also be the result of knowledge about some of the beliefs and practices of Islam. Especially if by ‘Islamophobia’ the Guardian means simply dislike or disapprobation of some of the beliefs and practices of Islam, that could well be the result of knowledge rather than ignorance. This article seems to assume that more knowledge of beliefs and practices of Islam will necessarily lead to increased admiration of them. But that is merely an assumption.
The article points us toward this site where we find this lovely page on ‘Family Life’.
It is usual for the men to meet at cafes or meeting places and women to meet together at one of their homes. It is rare for men and women to meet publicly. In the home visitors will be met by the man of the house, women stay in the background.
Ah. In other words, it is usual for men to be able to go out in the world and to go wherever they like, and it is usual for women to be confined at home. Men act like grown-up people, women act like stupid frightened children. That is usual.
On the seventh day of a baby’s life his or her hair will be shaved off and the equivalent weight of gold given to the poor. An offering follows. Two sheep if it is a boy and one if it is a girl.
Because, of course, a boy is worth twice as much as a girl. Obviously.
They are expected to work hard in school, can be treated quite strictly, (especially the girls), and expected to spend time with their families.
A sinister note.
Arranged marriages are usual with in a muslim community. Most young people are happy that their parents will make a good choice for them.
Ah. Asked them, have you? Asked, especially, the women? Asked them with no men present? (No, of course not, because you can’t, so that’s out.) How exactly do you know, then? And why do you even think it’s likely?
It is very unusual for a Muslim man to have more than one wife. He is able to have up to four but he must be able to provide fairly and equally for all of them. Occasionally it might happen that if a Muslim man’s wife cannot have children or she becomes very ill and needs looking after, then the man will take a second wife but it is not common.
Oh is that how it works! Occasionally if a woman becomes very ill, her husband will take a second wife to look after the first one – I see! I didn’t realize that. What a charming custom. One wonders what the second wife gets out of it, but it’s certainly nice for the first one.
Once a Muslim lady become a wife her first responsibility is to look after the home and family.
And of course because of the arranged marriage thing, along with the being worth only one sheep instead of two thing, and the not being allowed to go out thing, a Muslim lady doesn’t really have the option of not marrying at all, so if she happens to be a person who doesn’t in fact want to look after a home and family, well that’s just too fucking bad, isn’t it.
Divorce is not really acceptable to Muslims. It is considered to be the worst possible occurrence, it is distasteful and only allowed only in extreme circumstances though of course it is a legal option even if not a cultural one. If she is divorced a woman becomes the responsibility of the men in her family.
And on those vanishingly rare occasions when divorce does happen, it is made beautifully easy because the man has only to recite the talaq three times and hey presto that is the divorce. (This rule does not apply to the woman.) The men in the family of a divorced woman are not always best pleased to see her, and are sometimes apt to kill her in a fit of temper when they think she might have done something to their honour by being a divorced woman. If she doesn’t have any men in her family, she starves, of course. And quite right too.
So there you are, children; now all your nasty Islamophobia will go away, won’t it. A little knowledge works wonders.
Scary, scary, scary. Why the hell doesn’t all this edification begin with still more basic issues, such as the ways in which one gets to be a Muslim and what choice one has in the matter and what happens if one is considered to be one but doesn’t want to be one anymore? Shouldn’t that really be taken care of properly before anything else is discussed? I see on their “Introduction to Islam” page that they say “A Muslim is a follower of the Islamic way of life…” That still leaves a few questions unanswered.
On the arranged marriages I have talked with a girl from a Christian Indian family who was at university in Australia. She was going to Singapore to enter an arranged marriage with a guy she met maybe twice before the match was agreed.
She told us that she was happy and trusted her parents to find her a good person.
More recently I met a girl from a Hindu family, a lawyer and Australian citizen who was travelling to Kenya to choose a husband from 10 young men lined up by her family. She agreed with the sentiment about trusting her family to choose a good person, and felt her most marketable asset was not her looks and intelligence, or even her law degree and articles finished, but her Australian passport…
These women… are they COMPLICIT in ‘oppression’?
I think one difference between the tribal muslim cases and these is that their families gave them the respect to have a choice.
Chris,
A lot of the Indian muslim arranged marriages do take place with some sort of consent/choice on the part of the women(technically such consent is mandatory in Islam) while quite a few hindu/sikh/christian arranged marriages involve coercion and emotional blackmail. You just have to be on the ‘inside’to know what really goes on.
Yes, it is very likely that in a social situation we would not hear if there was coercion even when the persons concerned are free to speak.
Well, I agree with a lot of this, but I guess is the Guardian’s executive have to consider circulation, and going forward, they have to satisfy the shareholders in the Guardian Media Group, who as the parent company have invested a hell of a lot of (too much) money in digital radio over the last four years, and who also continually oversee the sister paper the Observer losing about £1m per anum. All of which makes them focus a lot harder on regional markets. It’s not just pricking the guilt of white middle class lovies, media, public sector workers, and Brighton/Islington trendies that makes them money. It’s appealing to the ‘educated Asian’ that’s the safe bet – the Crescent-Pound.
And let’s not forget the constant attack on circulation from the Indy…
So a lot of it’s just bottom-line business considerations dressing up as conscience, non ?
Helpfully, one of the recommended links in that Guardian article leads to this bearded terrorist;
http://www.islamdenouncesterrorism.com/darwinism_materialism.html
Don. Wow – and have you been to
http://www.harunyahya.com/ ???
“The logic that nothing, but chance, is scientific is a flawed one. It is a logical dead-end.
If brand-new civilizations were discovered in outer space, would the logic of Darwinism and chance be employed in all of them? Would it be claimed that chance established civilizations everywhere? The portrayal of this miserable logic as scientific is the shame and disgrace of the current century.”
The guy’s a frikkin loonoid. Wonder of the web, eh ?
The first bit
“Religious hate crime is on the increase in the UK, according to the latest Crown Prosecution Service statistics – a worrying trend that the government is attempting to tackle in its Racial and Religious Hatred Bill which creates the new offence of incitement to religious hatred…”
-segues nicely into
“…Much of the Islamophobia experienced by young British Muslims is the result of a legacy of ignorance about the beliefs and practices of Islam.”
“Much of the increase is in the form of anti-semitism, ransacking of jewish graves, spraying of anti-semetic graffiti,” they left that bit out.
Is it cos dey is white ?
‘The Knights That Say Ni’ lobby, but to no avail.
Nick, you knights are not making enough trouble for the guardian to appease you – try blowing up a thing or two or at least terrorising Madeleine B with watchmacallits you lot carry, light sabres, cutlasses, broadswords???
“This article seems to assume that more knowledge of beliefs and practices of Islam will necessarily lead to increased admiration of them. But that is merely an assumption.”
It was J.L.Austin who warmly contradicted the old saw “To understand all is to forgive all.”
He asserted that there are times when understanding may simply heap contempt upon loathing.
Very good. Do you have the exact quotation and a citation, Elliott? I could add it to Quotations.
OB, I blush to say that I encountered this
in a footnote in some other philosopher’s
book, possibly in something by Dennett. So, it may have already been a precis of someone else’s anecdote. Sorry.
No need to blush, Elliott! Good grief, you’re allowed to quote things seen elsewhere than in original location. And very apposite it was.
Divorce is not all that rare in the society. It’s rare to be caused by a woman however.
And it’s not true totally he need only recite I divorce you three times. He still has to sever the contract legally so that his ex wife can marry again.
although it should be mentioned that since she is not a ‘virgin’ anymore she will have to become a 2nd, third, etc or be relagated to the care of her family as you mentioned.