Religion as boa constrictor
Things are humming in the Maghreb. Excellent.
Human rights activists from Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania attending a Tunisian seminar last week stressed the need to separate religion from state as “an essential approach to realizing gender equality.” The “Maghreb Women’s March towards Realizing Equality” seminar on November 24th and 25th addressed the marginalisation of the Maghreb woman and the gender gap in each country…Activist Malika Remaoun from Algeria complained about the concessions given to Islamists at the expense of women…Tunisian Balkis Mechri agreed, saying “the battle to realize equality is not only legal, but social as well.” Ourida Chouaki of Algeria, however, warned that secularism in Maghreb societies is mistakenly being perceived as a call to apostasy.
And doubtless also painted and framed and presented as a call to ‘apostasy’ which of course is not just disapproved but forbidden. That’s one hell of an obstacle to get around. Good luck Maghrebians.
Razi pointed out that family law still gives men the right to polygamy, compels the return of women to the matrimonial home and governs child custody…Rejectionists, she maintained, “are using religion as a means to swallow up women’s rights”.
It’s a good wheeze, isn’t it. It’s a capital crime to leave the religion, and the religion is used to forbid women’s rights. Heads I win tails you lose.
Good luck Maghrebians.
I have just discovered the meaning of “Magreb” (also rendered Maghrib (or rarely Moghreb), meaning “place of sunset” or “western” in Arabic) by looking up Wiki. Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco are countries that I would ordinarily associate with holidays in the sun.
We live and learn!
One of the evening prayers is also known as the azan magreb, MT, FYI.
These magrebi women have put their finger on the source of the problem in islamic societies.It is not individual muslim male attitudes, but the role of the sharia, even those bits that just pertain to family law rather than the full nasty criminal code, that sets women back very significantly. Muslim women’s groups like Sisters in Islam (Malaysia) have fought a losing battle in the last few years in trying to reform family sharia despite being ultra careful in giving the religion ‘full respect’ by dutifully wearing hijab or by gently decrying biased male interpretation of a ‘perfect religion’ rather than the religion itself. Their reconciliatory approach has not worked too well because SIS has been reviled for its lack of muslim scholarship, and it’s tainted by the perceived ‘feminism’ of its activists, their pious mien notwithstanding. The last revision a couple of years back to family law saw the bias against women and children actually being INCREASED, rather than reduced.
in singapore, sharia family law is discriminatory to women, especially converts, in child custody and alimony issues as well as inheritance. This is despite a wider social and political context (the nonmuslim Women’s Charter is very fair to women with the sole exception of not recognising marital rape) that has helped to monitor and moderate sharia. For example, polygamy requirements are stricter and men are often counselled against it by the sharia court and where the sharia court has not the resources or will to enforce alimony payments or other sharia rulings, the civil courts have stepped in with arrest warrants, court bailiffs and a few prison cells (never a shortage in a police state! thank heavens). Muslim women can quietly marry non-muslim partners under civil law despite there being family sharia that actually disallows this because the government turns a blind eye and thus the apostasy issues are avoided and we don;t have the spectre of religious ‘rehabilitation’ camps like in malaysia for wayward muslim women. Remember, Malaysia is the one of the most ‘progressive’ muslim countries globally, so the situation in the magreb or the middle east or Indian subcontinent is very much worse.
It will not get better until sharia is fully amputated from civil law. Only Turkey , to my knowledge, has done this :
“Although the majority of the Turkish population are Muslims of the Hanafi School of Islamic jurisprudence, the 1982 Turkish Constitution establishes Turkey as a secular republic. Therefore, family law is not based on Sharia principles and the present Turkish legal system has been greatly influenced by European laws. The Civil Code is based on Swiss law, whereas the Commercial Code was influenced by German law and administrative law by the French system. The Turkish Penal Code takes its influence from Italian law.”
It seems to me that social reform or gender justice in muslim societies is a non-starter until the most fundamental freedom and human right- the right to leave the religion- is achieved.
Yeah – which is why it won’t be any time soon. It’s a horrible little circle – the religion is special and irrevocable therefore its laws are binding therefore no one can fiddle with them therefore apostasy is and always will be forbidden therefore the religion is special and irrevocable therefore
etc.
Thanks immensely for the background material. (I wonder if Kenya is another exception? Is Kenya majority-Muslim? Or just large minority-Muslim.) (I wonder about Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines…) (I’m not asking you to find out! Just thinking aloud.)
I live in SE Asia afterall Ophelia, no research reqd!
Thailand and the Philippines both have a muslim minority population (5-9% of total pop) concentrated in the southern parts of the two countries and both minorities are waging insurgencies against their respective states. The one in southern Thailand is particularly brutal with over 2000 killed in the last 3 years, not that you’d hear about much about it in the western media. The Philippines has a sharia based civil code for its Muslims like India’s Muslim Personal Law Board.
Crazily, Thailand’s coup leaders – the present unelected government- want to introduce sharia law in the south to curb the insurgency! Fucking retards.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/254544/1/.html
Indonesia is 97% muslim and generally secular (there may be a few sharia provisions in family law). Parts of indonesia like Aceh province are enforcing a harsh form of sharia but Indonesians on the whole are still the most moderate muslims in SE Asia.
I feel very depressed when I consider the 4 countries above, my closest neighbours. The religious turmoil, disputes, kidnappings, beheadings, sharia warriors are all virtually on my doorstep. I have relatives who’ve migrated to australia or canada, citing the volatile neighbourhood as the main push factor. I used to think their fears were wildly exaggerated but obviously, that’s not quite the case now.
Link about Aceh :
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/09/13/opinion/edgomes.php
Less than 10% of kenya’s population is muslim.
Thanks (again) mirax! I did know about the insurgencies in Thailand and the Philippines, that’s why I was wondering about them. Also that Indonesia’s mostly Muslim – also that Islamism is creeping in there too.
I feel very depressed when I think about all this too. I keep hoping that the fashion will change. Islamism wasn’t fashionable a generation ago; maybe people will get sick of it soon. One, two, many Ed Husains.
The trouble is O.B all the evidence seems to point to the contary the radicals gain strength and numbers every day,things are also not helped when well meaning people bend over backwards to placate the radicals, I fear that there is a long battle ahead on all fronts although I hope that I am wrong.
Re: Kenya. I was surprised to learn from Wiki the following. “Religious affiliation Protestant 45%, Roman Catholic 33%, Muslim 10%, Traditional Religions 10%. Others include Hinduism, Jainism & the Bahá’í Faith.”
Azar Majedi in his B&W article, “A new charade by the Islamists,” says:
“The timing of this teddy bear show puzzles me greatly. Is the concurrent teddy bear saga and Annapolis conference merely a coincidence or does the timing tell us something?”
Andrew Heavens, African Path, say:
“A few mysteries remain. The main one is the timing. Gillian Gibbons let her little students name the toy Mohammad back in September. [It was part of a British National Curriculum project to encourage literacy – the children took turns taking the bear home at weekends, then wrote a diary about the visit.] Back then, none of the Muslim parents in the class raised an objection. A whole two months later, a school secretary suddenly felt offended enough to report the project to the Ministry of Education. At the moment, no one really knows why.”
Hmm, ‘the timing,’ to the former a puzzle – and to the latter a mystery!!
Sudan – in Arabic = “country of the blacks.”