Letters to the Editor
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respect where it's due
I was in Canada right after that happened; the leader of one of the national Islamic organizations went on a hunger strike to protest the presence of domestic violence in Islamic homes. At least that got some media attention, between all the questions of "where are all the moderate Muslims?"
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fave quote
When people speak of their honor, what they really mean is their anger. (approximate quote)
-NeoAddix
Jon Courtenay Grimwood
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@ Lynx
Neither. I think Islam is a concept and what matters is how the ideas therein are accepted, discarded and put into practice. Just like with any religion/philosophy. As I said earlier, I'm an atheist and find much to dislike in any organized religion. However, there are bits of wisdom in amongst all that folklore and fable. If you can dig them out, apply them to modern times and treat them as philosophy.
I disagree that Islam is not part of the problem, and I think it takes a tremendous amount of intellectual dishonesty to believe this, but fine. A certain level of self-satisfaction must be maintained, and if this is what keeps your cultural sensitivity meter running high, okay.
But saying there are bits of wisdom in these religions is the faintest possible praise, and it's praise exclusively designed to obscure the issue. It's like saying there are trace amounts of potassium in cooked heroin. A banana is still better.
There are "bits of wisdom" in my unemployed, drunken uncle. What the hell difference does that make?
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Uh, I am not terribly fond of capitalism, but I think it's batting average is quite a bit higher than communisms
Communism is currently batting 0.000. Vietnam and China are in pretty woeful shape and are digging out of their hole by adopting a _______ economy. A ________ economy.
Capitalism has certainly had more than its fair share of abuse, but come on declaring it to be the equal of communism? That's like saying Islam is equivalent to Christianity and Judaism because at sometime in the past they have all had honor killings. (Wait, you do that too.)
It's a bit too multi-culti politically correct for my reality base to handle.
Once more, a _________ economy. Submit your final answer.
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To the Symbol guy
I want to say something about your comment that American law didn't condone the rape, torture, etc of slaves. I'm pretty sure the rape part was an added bonus for slavemasters, since miscegantion was probably illegal at the time, but I'm betting there were laws on the books (probably still are)in the south which said how slave masters were supposed to treat their property. Or at least said they had discretion to treat their slaves A/K/A 3/5 of a person, as they saw fit.
As to the article:
Basically people like Tina and symbol guy are never going to beleive that there are moderate muslims out there. And Lynx and others are going to say, well, judge not lest ye be judged throw up the ills committed by Christians. I don't know what has made Tina so vehemently anti-Islam (or anti-Muslim, I can't tell) and I do have to say, what happens to women and gay men, and infidels, in those countries scares the hebejebus out of me, but I think the whole debate is ridiculous. But I've read the same friggin argument on countless message boards and to be honest, it's getting us nowhere.
I feel bad the girl was killed in an apparent honor killing, but I feel bad when any person gets killed. Short of wiping out everyone from countries that practice honor killings, I don't think there's much we can do to stop it until they stop it. I don't know what I'm saying...
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tina schrier
Islam advocates the death penalty for women who commit immoral acts.
So you buy the concept that sex is inherently immoral?
Or are you talking about from the Islamic point of view?
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Lynx
when you wrote that Sikhs were Muslims I had to pretty much stop reading your input.
I mean this not unkindly, but it really is no use arguing with someone who does not know a Sikh from a Muslim.
I would similarly propose that you aren't really trying to imagine how 1,400 years of Sharia law could shape a culture, rather than the other way around.
You're just haggling for the sake of it now.
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CAIR: "one of the foremost Western Muslim groups around"
It is one thing - and a proper thing - to rebut a charge that "Muslims" don't condemn conduct when they do.
But, to refer to CAIR as "one of the foremost Western Muslim groups around" is grotesque. CAIR has an undeniable gift for self-promotion, but it is a terrorist organization. See
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/ . Furthermore, the quoted statement blurs the issue. Domestic abuse and violence (including murder) against women is certainly not restricted to Muslims, but I do not recall reading about religiously motivated murders of women that were committed by members of any other religion.
The actual problem here is that honor killings, which are common in Muslim societies in the Middle East, are being exported to the West as Middle East emigrants settle in North America and Europe. And on that subject, CAIR has been - and remains - absolutely silent.
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FGM and Domestic Violence, etc. to Muslims
Domestic Violence, FGM, Women's Rights In General
Short version: Muslims did not give one shit about these issues, and did not even perceive them to BE issues, until they became issues in the Western world. Then they picked up on that. The condemnation made some defensive (and you can still hear that defensive tone from some fundies), but many others were anxious not to appear as horrible barbarians in the eyes of Europeans, and some small number may have objectively seen the problem once it was pointed out to them. Don't get me wrong; I don't think that's bad at all. I think it's great if some concept of protecting the rights of women has made it into the collective mindset of Muslims.
What DOES Islam have to say about women anyway? There are two ways to tell--we can see how Muslim women live, and we can see what the texts that Muslims follow have to say.
Let's be clear: after 1,400 years of Islam the status of women was where exactly? With small variations, from the Ottoman empire to Indonesia, women were living extremely constricted lives, such that in the late 1800s the Ottoman police force could not investigate the murder of women because women victims (found dumped in rivers and on the streets) had never been seen outside their homes and often could not even be identified by anyone (I challenge anyone to say that Europe was EVER that bad). In other words, very literal invisibility, almost a non-existence. The Arab world, the geographical and spiritual heart of Islam, was and is the worst offender (I'm sure the misogyny of Arab culture had a great deal to do with Islam's misogyny, but well--so Islam spread Arabic style misogyny through the world--not so great, even if you take the "it's only cultural" viewpoint). In the places where it has gotten better, like Turkey, there has been a great, conscious effort to purge religion from the culture, or at least from the workings of the state.
Islam never had anything to say about honor killings in 1,400 years.
Islam never had anything to say about FGM in 1,400 years.
This isn't because the religion is set in stone and unchanging. People sometimes think this, but it's not true at all. Islam has a scholarly class of religiously trained intellectuals and a long tradition of active theological debate. Honor killings, FGM, and the status of women generally were completely absent from this discourse, except for some rulings that restricted women's freedom still further--even further than Muhammad imagined it. Someone can correct me on this if they know of an exception--I've never seen any and I used to practice Islam (it was precisely this issue that drove me away from it).
Suddenly FGM and Honor Killings are condemned by Westerners, and Muslim Imams in the West start condemning them too, saying no, no, this is not Islamic, Islam is not in favor of this....
REALLY? Then pray tell how did all this go on for 1,400 years? If not for it, Islam was certainly not against it. And Islam is definitely FOR forcing women to live in purdah, etc. and so forth, and only by changing the traditional interpretation of texts and rulings do Muslims start to get away from these practices which are CLEARLY rooted in Islamic belief and unique to Muslim cultures. Again this departure, this loosening up ONLY happens with the advent of encroaching Westernization and fundies still get much purchase for their viewpoints by pointing this out (they are correct, which helps).
As for what the sacred texts of Islam say about women, I've posted about this again and again, because people just don't know. If someone is that interested they can read one of my other posts on the subject.
I don't hate Muslims or Islam, not any more than say, Southern Baptists or the Japanese imperial family. But I do not get this feminist double-think when it comes to Islam. When Southern Baptists or the Japanese imperial family treat their members like cattle and force them to live with sexist shit, we call it on the carpet. When it happens within Islam, AND Islam the religion is clearly playing an integral part, the liberal community suddenly uses all excuses and prevarications of the weirdest kind. I really really do not get it. Even political correctness cannot explain this to me.