The sixteen year old was “too modern” for her fundamentalist Muslim family. She craved forbidden North American freedoms which, if practiced, would shame her immigrant family. The struggle over this issue was hot and abusive. The girl was continually attacked and closely monitored. Her own sisters envied and hated her not only because she was allowed to attend school but because her choice of modern dress could harm their own young daughters’ future marriage chances.
I am not talking about Toronto’s Aqsa Parvez who was just slaughtered by her father (may she rest in peace), but about another sixteen year old: Palestina Isa, who was honor-murdered by her father and her mother in St. Louis Missouri on November 5, 1989. Palestina (“Tina”) was murdered with primal ferocity. The forensic pathologist reported “thirteen wounds, six of them mortal. The worst one plunged into her chest wall, breaking her sternum and ribs and piercing her heart. A second gash ripped her left lung. Her liver had been slashed five times fatally.” Her breasts had been punctured seven times.
Ellen Harris wrote an important book about this one case: Guarding the Secrets: Palestinian Terrorism and a Father’s Murder of His Too-American Daughter. Palestina was clearly being physically abused at home. She attended school with visible bruises. She asked for help. She got none. The only reason her parents were prosecuted and sentenced was this: Her father, Zein Isa, was under federal surveillance. Why? Because he was a member of the Palestinian Abu Nidal terrorist group. Thus, the jury got to hear the horrendous twenty minute murder on tape and convicted her parents.
In case anyone has forgotten: At one time, the Abu Nidal group had been classified by the American government as the “most vicious terrorist group in the world.” On Christmas Eve, 1985, they were responsible for the simultaneous attacks at the El Al counters in the airports in Rome and Vienna in which 18 people died and 101 were injured. In 1986, they attacked an Israeli bus on the West Bank; they also attacked a group of Sephardic Jews as they prayed in a synagogue in Istanbul, machine-gunning 22 worshippers to death and then killing themselves.
Back then–and even more so today–Islamist terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism means that women will be savagely restricted and even more savagely punished if they stray, even a millimeter, even by accident, from the laws and customs of Islamic gender apartheid.
Back to St Louis. Zein Isa’s second wife (a first wife lived on the West Bank), was Palestina’s mother. She held her daughter down while her husband slaughtered her as if she were an animal–as if she were a woman who had provoked her own murder. Indeed, her parents never showed any remorse. Zein Isa told the police that she “deserved it, that she attacked me.”
I wrote about this case in The Death of Feminism: What’s Next in the Struggle for Women’s Freedom (HERE and HERE). I also wrote about many other European- and North American based honor-murders.
In each instance, with a few exceptions, most western intellectuals, including liberals, leftists, and feminists, remained uneasily silent. They feared they would be viewed as “racists” or as “Islamophobes” if they criticized such Muslim customs. They said that such barbarism was mainly due to historical colonialism and imperialism; that the bikini is as exploitative as the burqua; that western moralism or intervention would only make things worse for women.
The West has not intervened in Iran–and yet as of yesterday, in addition to being stoned and publicly hung when they allege rape, Iranian women have just been forbidden to wear boots (!) and hats. (Not modest enough). The West has not intervened in Saudi Arabia–and yet a young woman who was gang-raped has also been stripped of her lawyer and sentenced to two hundred lashes. (Let’s not forget the awful case of the Saudi High School girls who were pushed back into their burning schoolhouse because, in their rush to escape, they had forgotten to put on their black sheets). The West has not intervened in Egypt–and yet, at the end of Ramadan, a mob of a thousand men indulged in an episode of “sexual wilding” in which they randomly attacked women on the street.
True, in Iraq, where the West has most definitely intervened, forty women were recently slaughtered and their bodies dumped because they refused to veil. And female police officers have just been ordered to turn over their guns to their male counterparts. But this might also be due to the Iranian and Saudi influence.
Just this morning, I was contacted by a young North American professor. When she spoke up for Muslim women, other feminists attacked her as “racist.” A kind friend slipped her The Death of Feminism. She wrote to thank me for writing it and to ask me for advice. Her quandary: She wants to assign the book to her class but fears that doing so might end her career. Here is what I wrote:
“While your career concerns are crucial, we are also talking about the end of western civilization and the mortal peril faced by Muslim women. I would suggest taking the risk–but perhaps you might talk about it to your superiors (not to your peers) and the way to present this book is in terms of the importance of tolerance and true intellectual diversity. We now have an opportunity to put our feminist ideals and analyses into vigorous practice when it comes to Muslim immigrants and to women in Muslim countries. In the name of this slaughtered Toronto sixteen year old–if for no other reason–the “good” people have got to take a stand against Islamic gender apartheid. ”
Below, please find an edited version of our correspondence which she has allowed me to publish.
Dear Dr. Chesler:
In January 2008 I will be teaching a Masters level course at X University. It is my first experience teaching in a university. In the course of developing my thoughts and syllabus a friend lent me The Death of Feminism. The book has expanded my thinking and given me words for another “problem with no name”. I feel it will be instrumental in my teaching students how to think.
I have had two recent experiences where I have been shut down by other feminists for launching a critique of Islam and of women wearing headscarves. I have been called naive, and racism has been implied, despite 22 yrs on the front line as a most outspoken feminist and defender of women’s rights and equality rights. So I thank you for your book. I have given it to the head of the X Department at my university; this dept used to be quite feminist in perspective and now it is LEFT LEFT LEFT.
Dear X:
Greetings! Thanks for your kind words about this book and for embarking on a personal campaign to spread some of its ideas. How did you learn about this book? There has been a concerted effort to bury news of it by the mainstream media and by feminists with major media connections.
All best,
Phyllis
Dear Phyllis,
Thank you for taking the time to respond.
I couldn’t agree more… (but) putting your book on my reading list would get me into big trouble. How powerful is this silencing and these accusations of racism. I am not sure, as a new teacher, I could handle the uproar that will ensue if I put your book on my list. Your book I worry would end my career before it’s started. I am not generally a wimp but I have to be strategic, don’t you think? I am thinking maybe I could use the ideas, or excerpts from the book…? Any thoughts? Is the book being used in any university? Do you think I am a coward? Isn’t this ridiculous, insane, intolerable, to even have this conversation, to have to fear for my career (and my life, let’s be clear) for putting a book on a course outline? Shades of Satanic Verses. This is how I feel. Like an infidel.
I’m sure you are following the case of the 16 yr old Toronto-area girl Aqsa Parvez who was strangled to death this week by her father for being “too western”. I wept reading this in yesterday’s paper. Talk about being martyred. Her death is causing a real stir here; a very brave woman from a Muslim women’s organization spoke on TV last night about how rampant this ideology is and how the Imaans here are feeding it.
(I was attacked and ostracized by other feminists when I challenged a very liberal approach to the problem of battering in the Muslim community. The speaker said that such batterers needed to be taught that Allah and the Koran do not demand the beating of women. I said it was more complicated than that). Well Phyllis you could hear a pin drop in that room. Not a single person, many of whom were feminists and long-time activists and have known me and my work for 22 years, agreed with me or came to my support. I was alone, felt I was being seen as racist and it was very traumatic. So I went for tea and moral support to a clear thinking feminist friend. She said, “This is exactly what Phyllis Chesler is talking about in The Death of Feminism” and went upstairs and got the book.
The Death of Feminism has affected me powerfully. Unfortunately it is rare that a book really moves one’s thinking along. I have never understood why people resist having their minds stretched. I am really appreciative of your hard work and hard thinking and gutsy writing t’ords a better world for women and for all. Clearly you have paid a heavy price. The price of leadership I guess, though one does not expect to be crucified by one’s own community. That hurts.
The following dialog, for all intents and purposes, is taking place between jihadists and the Left:
Jihadists: Kill the Jews.
The Left: We understand you. You want freedom of movement without checkpoints.
Jihadists: Kill the Jews.
The Left. Of course. You want an end to settlements in the West Bank.
Jihadists: Kill the Jews.
The Left: How poetic your language is. You want an independent state.
Jihadists: Kill the Jews.
How can Leftists be expected to worry about women’s rights as long as Israel still exists?
Phyllis
this woman needs to be in touch with the network of women besides yourself who are speaking out – you can put her in touch with those you know – there is my blog and Donna Hughes has a list of publications at http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/pubfund.htm
Elinor Burkett (So Many Enemies, So Little Time) has written on the issues related to Muslim women and did public speaking on those issues. Muslim women who call themselves feminists have been there, are there.She should contact Ayaan Ali Hersi and the other you know. I think the way we protect our self is to develop a list of those who identify as anti-Islamic feminists. I wish you would publish such a list of contacts for all of us. We are scattered in the wind and need each other. Maybe you could apply to Tides to fund a six month project. Maybe some woman in NY would fund you to do this.
There is strength in numbers – they don’t trash when they know an attack on one will be answered by all.
This is nothing short of the kind of “new McCarthyism” that you spoke about at Columbia University at the end of October. The fact that a professor has to fear for her academic career because she assigns your book as required reading is an absolute outrage and smacks of the kind of frightening Orwellian philosophy that these very same liberals and leftists have been decrying for decades. This type of intellectual hypocrisy all boils down to whose ox is being gored.
I do find it interesting that Palestina’s father was convicted because of his involvement in the Abu Nidal group. Is the government saying, “We don’t care what you do to your women, just don’t present a threat to our national security?” If so, this too must be brought before the light of day. The media blackout of thorough coverage of these honor killings on US soil is a cover-up of great and dangerous proportions.
One of the reasons so-called “moderate” moslems don’t speak out against the murder of innocents is that they fear for their own lives. I am convinced that this is also why so-called “feminists” refuse to stand up and be counted when innocent women are raped, burned, buried alive, lashed to death, and/or simply have a bullet put through their heads or a knife through their heart.
But their gutlessness — which takes various forms — from appeasement to fawning — should be exposed for what it is!
And women of courage should unite to confront them and the jihadists.
Sure would help those Muslim women suffering in silence if, unlike a few months ago, the next time Laura Bush visits Saudia Arabia or the UAE she refuses to don the hijab and makes an overt statement that freedom of choice is not a random cultural prerogative. Her husband always talks about the existential inherent right to freedom, yet he’s blinded by realo-politics & multicultural mush of not offending the intolerant Saudi misogynists.
Dear Fern,
Palestina’s father, according to what Phyllis wrote above, was caught because he was a member of Abu Nidal and therefore under surveillance. He was convicted because the jury heard the complete tape of the murder.
Dear Dr. Chesler:
On this issue, we have almost identical positions. I agree that human rights are universal. I agree that all real feminists should condemn honor killings, stoning, female genital mutilation and any other practices that violate the human rights of women.
In addition, in support of universal human rights for all, please join me in criticizing the human rights violations at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo; as well as the horrendous extraordinary renditions carried out with the explicit approval of high ranking officials in the Bush administration.
All real feminists owe a debt of gratitude to Rory Kennedy for her superb documentary, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib. Ms. Kennedy documents the complicity of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in horrific human rights abuses against Iraqi civilians.
Finally, all real feminists owe a debt of gratitude to organizations such as Equality Now, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Center for Constitutional Rights. These organizations are working tirelessly to end human rights abuses (those cited above and many more) against women, children and men all over the world.
So, Ms Chesler wants “feminists” to stand up for their sisters in Muslim countries, and in Muslim households, who are degraded and tortured and murdered every day. As one person has noted, the desert around Riyadh is crowded with the ghosts of women who have been killed by their fathers and brothers and mothers, for the sake of “family honor.”
But Ms Lipshutz does not consider these FACTS of any importance until Ms Chesler admits that she will be outraged at Donald Rumsfeld, Abu Ghraib, and – I suppose – she has in her back pocket a whole list of PC concerns… alongside which the issue of women’s position within Islam is – in the immortal word of that Great Pioneer Feminist, Germaine Greer… “tricky.”
Modern Feminists are nauseating.
I remember when this horrific case broke. That poor girl. I hope her murdering parents have nightmares every night for the rest of their lives at the very least.
It seems to me that honor killings have nothing at all to do with honor, but with control. In my view, the man does not derive honor from the chastity of his womenfolk, but rather from his ability to control them. If any of the women under his authority “stray,” then the smirch to his name is not because they did something shameful but because he failed to maintain his authority over them. (“What a wimp — can’t even control his women!”) Killing them is the ultimate reassertion of his control, and it is this reassertion that restores his “honor,” such as it is.
May the time come soon when this particular incarnation of Moloch becomes extinct.
The above comment of Marion Lipshutz is a typical Left ist maneuver of the kind described in your book, ostensibly sympathetic but in fact designed to divert attention (and smother it) from the terrible issues raised in your column to very different, anti-American, anti-Western propaganda issues — e.g., al Ghraib (where a small number of prisoners were humiliated but not physically harmed by a handful of out-of-control Army personnel in violation of U.S. military policy; or the rumored but not proven claims of violations at Guantanamo, which is open to ICRC observation and where accusations include such “abuses” as picking up a Koran (officially provided) with the wrong hand or flushing it down a toilet (mechanically impossible — try it).
In short, Lipshutz is using a time-honored Leftist technique to eliminate and sweep under the rug the issue of brutalization and murder of women in the Muslim world — exactly as Chesler and her correspondent claim.
Heather
What makes you think Lipshutz is a feminist? Real feminists don’t put women second or even equal to any other concern. We understand the connections but we work for women. I say to you Lipshutz, I may share your feelings but WOMEN are my priority and my total focus. The rising of women will affect all the other conditions positively. You cannot dilute our efforts with YOUR guilt tripping priorities which the media and the left women have given total attention at the expense of Muslim women. U.S. soldiers have done more for Muslim women than leftist women. See the “Spirit of America” website where our soldiers are collecting for widows and orphans.
When is the last time you read about the status of Muslim women in the New Yorker? Never, but every week there was a story about the prison abuses. Your post reminds me of the white response to blacks organizing in the 1960′s. No, actually you remind me of the male left which always tries to define the struggle instead of allowing the affected caste to do it.
Go back to the left Lipshutz and good luck. Feminists are organizing here.
To Ms.Marion J. Lipshitz
The egregious affront to truth portrayed in the Liberal Left’s obsession with the protection of terrorist agents bred to destroy Western democracy and whose starting point begins with attacks against the Jewish people’s very right to exist is represented in your response to Dr. Chesler’s brilliantly directed treatise clearly premised on concern with humanity and true justice.
Jews who escaped slavery from ancient Egypt, Jews who survived in ancient (part of which constitutes todays Iran) Jew-hater Haman’s manipulation of the then ruler in aim to destroy Jewry, Jews who escaped the reincarnation of Haman and his 12 sons in Germany under National Socialism, the Nazis and their master plan, resulting in the destruction of European Jewry, Jews who survived and rose Israel up from under the feet of those who had laid it waste for 2000 years ought not to support any reincarnation of those with continued ambition to destroy your fellow Jews.
The effort to tout the enemies of the Jewish people – and yours for that matter – as victims and enjoin in their indoctrination campaigns to lay waste to America and democracy, be conduits for efforts to complete the master plan of Hitler, represents a kidnapping and brainwashing indeed crying out for immediate rescue from the traps of your enemies into which you have – head first – tumbled. May the veil of darkness be lifted from your eyes – and may the gene pool presumably residing within you break from the shackles therein bound.
Dear Dr. Chesler: Thank you for the opportunity to exchange ideas on this blog, even when our perspectives differ.
To Heather: I will not apologize for criticizing the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo in addition to abuses that specifically target women. My perspective is consistent with feminist ethics and with an ethic of universal human rights. To imply otherwise imposes a false dichotomy on the work of feminists and of all human rights activists. For information on how to save womens’ lives, please see the websites of Equality Now, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Their efforts are invaluable. Modern feminism is not monolithic. It has room for Dr. Chesler and it has room for me. Far from inspiring nausea, I thank God for modern feminism and for the opportunities it has given me to seek peace and pursue justice.
To Ms. Klass: As Rory Kennedy’s documentary shows, prisoners endured severe physical and psychological abuse at Abu Ghraib. In addition, women relatives were imprisoned along with men as a tactic of intimidation. Children were also imprisoned. I think that is ample reason for feminists to be outraged by the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Rory Kennedy’s film is painful to watch, as it includes eye-witness accounts from some of the survivors. Still, I hope you do get to see Ghosts of Abu Ghraib. I saw it at my synagogue. Rabbis for Human Rights sponsored the screening. Perhaps Dr. Chesler’s synagogue will screen it too.
To Greenconsciousness/Heather:
I am not interested in displaying leftist credentials. I am interested in supporting universal human rights. In addition to kidnapping an innocent man and rendering him overseas to be tortured, the Bush administration colluded with two abusive governments – Jordan and Syria — in the extraordinary rendition of Maher Arar. Regarding your comment that I should “go back to the left”: Your attempt to write me out of the feminist “club” because my views are to the left of yours exemplifies the incivility and intolerance that Dr. Chesler has eloquently criticized.
Dear Mama Palama:
My parents raised me to believe that Jews are obligated to seek peace and pursue justice. That is what undergirds my support for universal human rights.
The abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are not protecting us from terrorism. They are supplying propaganda fodder to the terrorists.
I respectfully take issue with your assumption that support for human rights constitutes support for anti-American terrorists. Your reference to the “master plan of Hitler” is in extremely poor taste, and quite frankly, cruel; given that you know nothing about my own Jewish family background. Apparently, Dr. Chesler’s repeated calls for civility in public discourse have not made a great impression on you.
Dear Ms. Lipshutz:
Bravo. I may come here more often just to read you.
Lipshutz
What we are saying is that you do not belong here – if you want to write about men and their oppression go to move on. org. go to your amnesty international. Leftist women continually bring up mens problems because they do not get the oppression of women. You do not understand the billions of Muslim women are tortured everyday. Tortured as horribly as the men you cry about. Yet all the energy of these left groups you cite, goes to the few men who have also been tortured.
I am not talking about lip service. Just as you have done here, the left always makes sure they USE the oppression of women to pretend they are working on gender issues. It is a good fundraiser. But the money and the lawsuits go to men. The books they write are about males. The media they control ignores what Muslims do to women.
Here we are organizing for women. You come here with your sanctimony, lecturing us as if we are too ignorant to grasp the greater problems which you can teach us about.
Shaking your finger, how dare we speak of women,without speaking about Bush’s sins as well. How dare we maybe reach out for help to Bush and his state dept., speak to Republican women who want to organize with us. Horrors, maybe support these wars as kicking open the torture chambers of a patriarchal culture that still holds women as slaves of men.
That is the real point of your lecture. You want to make sure women don’t cross your Male defined lines to help our sisters.
Well we are doing it and we are going to keep on doing because we are not left or right. We we ask only, what is good for women. I say again, you are not a feminist until you can work for women with all other women and political parties who have that as their focus. But you want to divide women into Left and Right for the sake of MEN. HA! Doesn’t work with real feminists.
We here are feminists against sharia terrorism. Ask yourself why you cannot be part of this without lecturing us about the left’s priorities. It is because you are deathly afraid of being associated with the right. Working with right women. So you have to assert your political credentials inappropriately. That means you care more about your image than you do about the real everyday torture of women. Try to free yourself.
If you can’t stop giving lip service to your false concern about women then stay with the boys on the left whose respect means more to you. We are not your little dummies who you can use to get status with them.
I feel exactly as you do about the examples you cited (not the organizations) but never feel the need to bring it up with women who are organizing for women. I know that regardless of the crimes of the CIA, US intervention is good for Muslim women. The war is good for Muslim women. You had to preach because your identity is tied to the anti-war male left. It is like Feminists for Life, a contradiction that is just too transparent to be believed.
Some political tactics are just not feminist no matter how you self label. You could be a feminist if you actually did something to elevate the position of women, to bring freedom of choice to women. But organizing to tell feminists they are wrong is just a sickness. Start your recovery by joining with women without dragging in all your other divisive politics.
It turns out that I may not be sufficiently cynical. The situation within the walls of academe may be worst that even I thought possible. Race card intimidation is now the norm. There is little hope of saving most of the current schools. They must be abandoned and new ones started. The liberal arts Phd is also a total joke.
To DM: Thank you for the kind worlds of support.
To Greenconsciousness:
I belong exactly where I choose to be and I choose to be here. Please respect my First Amendment rights as I respect yours. Amnesty International (www.aiusa.org) is showing leadership in the struggle to end human rights violations against women. For example, Amnesty helped save the life of Amina Lawal, who was in danger of being stoned to death due to Sharia law in Nigeria. Please look at their website before you engage in more misinformed criticisms. You may also wish to consult http://www.equalitynow.org – the website of the international human rights organization Equality Now. You omit that I cited it previously as a human rights organization that focuses exclusively on ending abuses that specifically target women. Finally, let me repeat again that women, children and men were imprisoned at Abu Ghraib. Please see: http://www.ghostsofabughraib.org . Human Rights Watch – http://www.hrw.org – is also working to stop abuses against women. With all of your attempts to unfairly malign me, you have not provided any resources for further action. I have now provided several. Let’s see if you will have the courage to use these resources, even if it means that you will have to change your inaccurate assumptions about me and about other women with both feminist and democratic left affiliations.
Lipshutz,
You are a left woman hijacking this discussion and diverting it to your political preferences. I have worked in the feminist movement since 1968. I have seen and experienced the divisiveness of women like you from day one. First, it was that we were white middle class (most of us unemployed and working women had no idea what the socialist were talking about) Then we were racist. Over and over what we were doing was never enough for the left women. They broke up our meetings just as you are diverting this discussion. Women who volunteered precious time and had to go to work the next morning left and never came back. For a while I became one of them and was taught how to do this to grass root organizations. I know exactly what you are doing Lipshutz and it is despicable.
I contacted your pitiful organizations all during the war pleading for help and support for Muslim women. The silence was deafening. The hostility was like a gang rape. I was kicked off so called women’s blogs because I wasn’t anti war. When I tried to talk about Islamic Patriarchal Fascism, the progressives simply deleted my comments. If you doubt me go to my blog and read my entries since 2003-4. There are many of my ideas, left women called ridiculous that have become a shaky reality in Iraq and Afghanistan.
National NOW will not respond or take a stand against the Sharia patriarchs because those who control the national are leftists and democrats not feminists. These zombies take over people’s organizations and then use what other women built to further their anti woman agenda. No matter, the women in the state organizations who got the letter stating NOW would not take a position on the rape victim who is to be whipped in Saudi Arabia are angry – it will not be long before they kick butt and take back the organization.
Women like you, in NOW, in the feminist majority, in Goddess groups, at amnesty international told me Muslim women opposed the war, liked their submission and that I was a racist. Four years of this crap from left women. Not only did they not help, they stood in the way. So screw those opportunistic organizations. Now they have discovered they can fundraise off the plight of Muslim women and they are sending out fundraiser letters using these various examples of women being stoned. I get one a week especially from the new MS.
RAWA, a socialist Pastune group, raised money off the oppression of women under the Taliban in the US and then opposed the invasion as if magic was going to free them. So did Women helping Women. Now they raise money to “help” Muslim women but refuse to open their books or account for the donations they receive.
No, the women endangered at her University needs independent feminists not apologists for the left. She doesn’t need you and your guilt trip and your movies about prison abuses. Keep her identity secret from women like you who would attack her for not teaching your political beliefs and putting women second the way your organizations always have.
Now I am done with you. You have had enough attention from me.
I do not want anything to do with you or your groups. We will form our own groups and develop our own campaigns with Women Against Fundamentalism in Iran (WAFI).
To other feminists reading this, get ready if you want to become part of Feminists Against Sharia Terrorism (FAST). We FAST women are scattered now but we are organizing
Soon we will be asking for your names and addresses. We don’t care about your political beliefs aside from this purpose and we don’t want to hear about them. We are a diverse group politically. We all have other politics, animal rights, global warming, anti-poverty, union, dems and repubs. If you have feminist values (freedom, equality, choice, self-sufficiency )you are welcome. But only if unlike Lipshutz, you can keep your other passions confined to other groups. In FAST, we will focus solely on supporting women who are speaking out against Islamic Fascism. Soon we will be asking you to give us some info so we can put you on a list serve to support each other and women like the one Phyllis wrote about in her post above. Keep reading and let us know if you are interested.
Dear Dr Chesler -
I just re-read Geraldine Brooks’ Nine Parts of Desire: the Hidden World of Islamic Women. At the end, after describing the ‘honor’ murder of a Sudanese Muslim woman in Britain, by her Sudanese Muslim husband, she writes:
“at some point every religion, ESPECIALLY ONE [LIKE ISLAM] THAT PURPORTS TO ENCOMPASS A COMPLETE WAY OF LIFE AND SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT, has to be called to account for the kind of life it offers the people in the lands where it predominates.”, and she notes that Islam has proved “fertile ground for almost every antiwomen custom [e.g. FGM] it encountered in its great march out of Arabia”.
After identifying the treatment of women, in Saudi Arabia, for example, as nothing less than apartheid, she writes: “even if we decline to act on what goes on inside others’ borders, there is no excuse for not acting inside our own”, and she concludes:
“In an era of cultural sensitivity we need to say that certain cultural baggage is contraband in our [non-Muslim] countries and will not be admitted. We already draw a line at polygamy; we don’t recognise divorce by saying, ‘I divorce you’. We have banned these things even though the Koran approves them [Brooks could have mentioned, here, the Koranic injunction to beat wives whom the husband merely SUSPECTS of insubordination]. It should be easier to take a stand against practices that don’t even carry the sanction of the Koran. ‘HONOR” KILLINGS NEED TO BE IDENTIFIED IN COURT AND PUNISHED AS THE PREMEDITATED MURDERS THAT THEY ARE.”
Winter or no winter, come blizzard or ice storm, crowds of women of all faiths and none, who care about human freedom and womens’ lives, should be holding all-day and all-night candlelit protest vigils – NO TO SHARIA! NO TO HONOR MURDERS! SHARIA KILLS WOMEN! – outside the courthouse throughout the trial of Aqsa’s father and brother.
Go for it, Canadian women! This is your call! ROAR, in memory of Aqsa Parvez.
Phyllis: do you have a list of known previous ‘honor’ murders in USA, Canada, UK, Israel (including Gaza and Judean Hills), France, Germany, Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan?
Dear Greenconsciousness:
Thank you for calling my attention to WAFI and FAST. I will look for more information about them. Like you, I am horrified by the murder of Palestina Isa and by all other honor murders.
It is fascinating that you refuse to see our many points of agreement, simply because I am also opposed to the human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.
I did not mention any affiliation with NOW, the National Organization for Women. I mentioned Equality Now, (a separate organization) which focuses on human rights violations targeted at women.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) oppose stoning, honor killings and female genital mutilation. They helped save Amina Lawal’s life, and the lives of many other women. Please note that these are not leftist organizations. They are non-partisan human rights organizations.
I see nothing about memberships in Amnesty, HRW, and Equality Now that would preclude membership in WAFI and FAST as well. However, as I mentioned above, I will seek more information about WAFI and FAST before I decide to join.
Dear Greenconsciousness and Ms. Lipshutz:
To Greenconsciousness: I agree with much of what you say, understand why you are angry, and look forward to your posts and comments. But I take offense when you tell someone like Ms. Lipshutz that she does “not belong here.” As a reader of this blog I say she does indeed belong here, as does anyone interested in engaging the tough challenges confronting us. Ms. Lipshutz: I appreciate your posts! Thank you.
This is the latest news from the WAFI E=Zine which you can subscribe to here’ http://www.wfafi.org/
To bad no one ever makes a movie about the women denied their eye and other medications, raped and humiliated in the prisons of the religious police.
The Associated Press – December 9, 2007 At least 40 women have died this year at the hands of religious vigilantes in the southern city of Basra, the police chief said Sunday, describing the discovery of mutilated bodies accompanied by dire notes warning against “violating Islamic teachings.” Maj. Gen. Jalil Khalaf blamed sectarian groups he said were trying to impose a strict interpretation of Islam by dispatching patrols of motorbikes or unlicensed cars with tinted windows. They accost women who are not wearing traditional dress and head scarves, he said. Before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city, was known for its mixed population and night life. Now, in some areas, red graffiti warns of dire punishment for any woman who wears makeup and appears with her hair uncovered: “Your makeup and your decision to forgo the headscarf will bring you death.” Khalaf said bodies have been found in garbage dumps with bullet holes, decapitated or otherwise mutilated with a sheet of paper nearby saying, “she was killed for adultery,” or “she was killed for violating Islamic teachings.” In September, he said, the headless bodies of a woman and her 6-year-old son were among those found. He said a total of 40 deaths were reported this year. “We believe the number of murdered women is much higher, as cases go unreported by their families who fear reprisal from extremists,” he said.
Iran: Female Doctor’s Prison Death Causes Public Outcry
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
By Farangis Najibullah
November 19, 2007
Zahra Bani Yaghoub was a 27-year-old medical university graduate from Tehran who some two years ago volunteered to work in the western city of Hamadan. Bani Yaghoub was due to return to Tehran next year to complete her medical studies and become a specialist in urology. But instead she died in suspicious circumstances in Hamadan prison on October 13. Eyewitnesses said she was arrested by Iran’s morality police while walking with her fiance in a Hamadan city park. Her fiance was released an hour later, but she was kept in prison overnight.
The next day, her lifeless body was handed over to her parents with the police claiming she committed suicide by hanging herself.
“Now people see that even an ordinary person does not have basic security; and a person simply can get arrested on a street and, instead of returning home, their bodies are buried in a cemetery.” — journalist Isa Saharkhiz Bani Yagoub’s family, however, say they have no reason to believe that their daughter would take her own life.
http://www.wfafi.org/laws.pdf
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Another source of hard organizing to help theser women is in the US State Dept’s Office of International Womens Issues. Follow the links to the USSD OIWI newsletters to see the history of what the Office of International Women’s Issues has done – they have built women’s centers, started economic revovery programs for women in Iraq and Afghanistan. They trained women to be police and armed them but the Shia in Iraq are now disarming the women. Go here: http://www.state.gov/g/wi/
and here: http://www.state.gov/g/wi/rls/13241.htm
and to find the network of Muslim feminist women they have developed globally go here: http://www.state.gov/g/wi/c21757.htm
and here: http://www.state.gov/g/wi/c21693.htm
Dear Mr. Wisniewski: Thank you for your kind words of support.
Dear Greenconsciousness: I have been to the wfafi website and am now on the email list. I note with interest that much of the information posted to this website comes from Amnesty International. As a long time feminist member of Amnesty it is gratifying for me to see that WAFI, which focuses on human rights abuses specifically targeting Iranian women, apparently agrees with my assessment that Amnesty is a valuable resource and “sister organization” in the struggle to end these horrific abuses. I have seen a film documenting the mistreatment of women in Iran’s prisons. It was on cable. How unfortunate that our mainstream media does not pay sufficient attention to human rights issues.
I also participated in the email campaign that was part of the larger campaign that led to release of Haleh Esfandiari from the notorious Evin Prison in Iran. Perhaps you did as well. Amnesty International was very active in this campaign.
greenconsciousness and I have similar memories. Mine dates to 1970 in Seattle, when a ‘feminist’ lectured me on the ‘correct analysis’ as to feminism. During her monologue, she talked about her brother who was ‘organising’ the ‘workers’ at a car factory (the belly of the worker beast!) and then told me that she was going to go to London, to the British Museum, to study the words of Marx himself. At the time, I could not afford a one way ticket to Vancouver…
The feminist movement was – early on – transmogrified into nice jobs throughout the universities and then the government bureaucracies (ie, ‘affirmative programs’ anyone???). Now, of course, that first generation of ‘feminists’ are looking to plump pensions within the next 10 years.
As Germaine Greer, early ‘leader’ of the 60s womens lib movement, the whole Muslim/Aqsa situation is indeed, ‘tricky.’
How well I understand the anger of greenconsciousness.
The civil rights movement in the South which I joined in 1962 was co-opted by the marxists/leftists and the black panthers. The feminist movement I joined in Boston was taken over by the lesbian leftist man-haters. Back home in the South, I worked hard for a grassroots environmental group until six years ago when it was taken over by marxist/leftists, and as a board member, I was asked to participate in a workshop where we were to learn from Howard Zinn et al., how ignorant white southerns were bad racist bigots who should hate their white culture.
Mention the subjugation of women under Islam and most of my old friends from these movements either won’t discuss it or change the subject. They are in denial due to cowardice, ignorance and/or politically correct multiculturalism. It’s a shame and disgrace.
And what’s worse, many of my old and ex-friends don’t realize that they are swallowing poison propaganda, adhering to a ‘party line’ and exhibiting an intolerance that belies any shred of liberalism that they try to hide behind.
Ms. Lipshutz’ first post perfectly illustrates why Western feminists (apart from Dr. Chessler, Dr. Sultan, AHA and too few others) cannot bring themselves to draw a bead on Islamic misogyny. It’s simply too much fun and ever-so-comfortable to join with their “sisters” in the sheltered Academy, and engage in the tu quoque, the red herring, the straw man in vilifying Bush, dead white males, the patriarchy, etc., etc.
Acting as have Drs. Chessler and Sultan and AHA takes immense courage, tireless dedication and the absolute repudiation of cultural and moral relativism. Until these basic facts are admitted to by feminists, and acted upon decisively, the horrific murders of Palestina and Aqsa will continue unabated, both in the ME and (increasingly often) in the West.
Dear Earl:
I don’t mind honest disagreements, but I think you should read what I actually write.
In my first post I write:
“I agree that human rights are universal. I agree that all real feminists should condemn honor killings, stoning, female genital mutilation and any other practices that violate the human rights of women.” Therefore, it is inaccurate to imply that I do not condemn misogyny; whether Islamic or non-Islamic.
Criticizing the Bush administration is not “fun.” Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and extraordianry renditions are not fun. They are horrific human rights abuses.
I do not work in a “sheltered academy.” I work outside the academy. American universities are not perfect, but stereotypes about “the sheltered academy” do not advance the struggle against misogyny.
William Shakespeare, Sophocles, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and many other “dead white males” are major influences on my thinking. I honor their memories. Therefore, you err in assuming that I automatically dismiss the work of “dead white males.”
In future posts I will call myself Marion L. rather than using my full name. The hostility from some contributors to this blog is scary.
Dr. Chesler says that civility in public discourse is very important. I agree.
Dear Ms. Sidman:
Like you, I deplore McCarthyism and censorship, especially in higher education. No one should fear for their jobs because they assign controversial books, including Dr. Chesler’s. It follows that professors should also be free to assign books that differ from Dr. Chesler’s perspective.
Index on Censorship,
http://www.indexonline.org is an excellent resource for learning more about international campaigns for freedom of expression and against censorship.
I also like Martha Nussbaum’s book about contemporary academic life called Cultivating Humanity. She documents many examples of college classrooms that encourage wide-ranging discussions and intellectual freedom.
To M.I.Lipshitz
Your named organizations “Equality Now”, “Amnesty International” and “Human Rights Watch” implied as paragon guardians over human rights concerns have all too oft shown themselves as infiltrated, bought, bribed – politicized – by interests axis intent on the deligitimization of the Jewish State of Israel serving as incitement conduits for anti-Semitism.
Why not seek after truth instead of glorifying unfortunately compromised “human rights/interests” organizations by enemy agencies well served by left engineered mechanisms that do the Communist Manifesto proud and its anti-Semitic protocols.
Come home, Ms. Lipshitz from your wanderings in the desert covered in veils by oppressors and insurgents aimed against your Jewish soul. Unshackle from those who would steal your soul and destroy the world with clever manipulation of Western standards of humanity in all out effort to destroy that humanity and the bearers of light.
Come home, all is forgiven!
Heather
Helps me to know that you and the Poetess have similar experiences. It is hard to see our organizations destroyed by the Lipshutz’s of the world, yet presented to the world as if they were still focused on the original goals.
I actually had a dream last night where Hillary Clinton came and sat on the edge of my bathtub and talked to me when I was taking a bath. She was saying to defend as long as it is useful to defend but then to focus again on the original goal leaving your bitterness behind with the zombies. I woke up refreshed.
Something Heather said bothered me though – you said :
“The feminist movement was – early on – transmogrified into nice jobs throughout the universities and then the government bureaucracies (ie, ‘affirmative programs’ anyone???). Now, of course, that first generation of ‘feminists’ are looking to plump pensions within the next 10 years.”
I think you are forgetting about the anti violence movement. The feminist movement still was viable in WI through 1977 and the anti violence movement went beyond that to the 1980′s. I was director of Woman Against Rape from 1983 to 1985 and, as other anti violence groups did, we made serious institutional change.
I am glad the women I worked with got good jobs and now have big pensions. We wanted that to happen – needed it to happen. The women who entered the trades had it hard, went down in flames but are surging there again. We really have to support them. Same thing with women in the military. Professionals had it somewhat easier, lawyers, doctors, etc. The best success came for the women who obtained government jobs and we need them there. They are still sharing with me, even bringing food for me and my elderly mother, calling and working out strategy with me to force their employers, the state and the county, to do more for women (child support, school sexual harassment, child abuse prevention programs) 0
It is the other women I resent. The ones who never worked a day in the movement but who are now tenured in the women’s study departments at big universities, pretending they understand the women’s struggle, teaching girls that women in foreign countries love to be subservient. They love to be strangled because they do not want to wear the slave outfit.
These ‘ACADEMIC’ women need to be exposed for the phonies they are. We start by supporting the sister Ms. Chesler wrote about above. There women have to start a speak truth to power campaign.
Today, because of pressure from the west, the Saudi patriarchs “forgave” the rape victim who was to receive 200 lashes and she will not be whipped. Now to get her here in the US and fold her in our arms.
FAST women are on the move – gather three friends. Now you are a
cell. Engrave FAST Women on something you wear and now you are officially a Feminist Against Sharia Terrorism. We have the strength of dandelions.
MORE FAST LINKS
http://www.nosharia.com/
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-647233/IRAQ-Jan-14-Women-Against.html
There is a group called Muslims against Sharia but they spend A LOT of their time condemning Israel’s treatment of women which is almost laughable. But in fairness, they do mention their own atrocities occasionally. I say clean your own house first because there is a lot of cleaning to do there.
Lipshutz is “horrified.”
My yawn has just been classified as a hurricane.
Her comment… “I agree that human rights are universal,” is meaningless drivel.
Quite clearly so-called “human rights” ARE NOT universal. For instance, Mohammedans think it is their “human right” to murder their daughter/wife/mother/sister for offending THEIR religion.
She seems very confused. And rather imperialistic in wishing to impose her view of “human rights” on other cultures.
Me, I have no problem doing that, because I think our Judeo-Christian culture (and what we laughingly used to call Western Liberal Democracy) is superior to a religion stuck in the Dark Ages.
Coincidentally, that’s also where washed up 1960s feminists and their modern acolytes are stuck.
To David Smith:
re: “I think our Judeo-Christian culture (and what we laughingly used to call Western Liberal Democracy) is superior to a religion stuck in the Dark Ages.”
Please don’t insult the “Dark Ages” by comparing them to modern Islamo-SXXXs or the 1960s.
Islamic Medicine was way ahead of Western medicine, and influenced it to its benefit (including OB/Gyn techniques–look up Avicenna). In Modern Afghanistan under the Taliban, women were forbidden to consult male doctors, but since they were also forbidden to become doctors, women requiring obstetrical or gynecology care did not receive it and all-too-frequently sickened and/or died, as did their babies.
Medieval Arab culture gave us our numeric system, wich is a lot easier to compute with than Roman numeral–try it sometime. Having numeric digits is a real convenience. Modern Arab culture can’t even balance a goverment budget–somehow every regime ends up stealing from its own citizens, and on a far more massive scale than our frequently-blamed Western governments. We may whine about kickback schemes and goverment pork here, but most of us, even in the inner-city, live a hell of a lot better than citizens in countries where the leaders live in air-conditioned palaces and their people live in hovels without clean water.
As for the Judeo-Christian culture, during the “Dark Ages,” it preserved much of the literature, poetry, music, and art that make us civilized. Yeshivas, monastic scribes, and later, Scholasticism, all contributed to the University System where learning was once passed on and preserved. During the 1960s, the cultural canon was dismantled, and replaced with…well, look at the course offerings of your average undergraduate program.
I trust you see my point.
On the larger topic of so-called “honor killings,” this is murder, almost certainly preceded by Domestic Violence. The perpetrators should all be put in jail for wife-beating and kiddie-bashing, well before it reaches the murder point. This stuff doesn’t happen just suddenly out of nowhere: there are warning signs, and they ought to be heeded before the perps get the idea that since nobody’s stopped them so far, they can continue to do as they like. I refer you to the remarks of that famous 19th-century British official on the Hindu custom of suttee.
Violetta
Yeah, yeah, what have the Romans ever done for us? And the Persians invented chess — bet it was the Chinese really.
I was only using the Dark Ages as a loose cultural shorthand for barbarity, devolution, and lack of technological innovation.
Though how you insult a dead “epoch” is beyond me.
Isn’t that a pleasure one reserves for live people?
Seriously though, I have a theory that all that stuff which supposedly came from Islam — they probably stole most of it. Such as numerals. I always thought they were of Hindu origin?
You know how victors always end up writing the history of disputed events.
Churchill: “History shall be kind to me. For I intend to write it.”
Mama Palama thinks that I want to be “forgiven” by her. She is mistaken, as I have said nothing on this blog that needs forgiveness. Nor do I forgive the scurrilous reference to the “master plan of Hitler” in her first post directed at me.
Her criticisms of Equality Now, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch are so mired in lathered fantasies that they do not merit an extended reply. However, her reference to the Communist Manifesto does have a certain retro 1950s charm. It evokes images of elementary school shelter drills with teachers exhorting their pupils to hide under their desks. It appears that Mama Palama is still hiding under her desk. I hope someone lets her know that the Soviet empire has fallen.
To David Smith:
re: “I have a theory that all that stuff which supposedly came from Islam — they probably stole most of it.”
Stole? No, they “borrowed”–as Shakespeare borrowed from Chaucer, Chaucer borrowed from Boccaccio, Boccaccio borrowed from Petrarch, etc., *building* on what they borrowed. Avicenna and other Middle Eastern Physicians were indeed influenced by earlier Greek and Roman works of Hippocratus and Galen, and influenced Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus in their turn–but that’s my point about the “Dark” Ages: modern Islamic extremists are not willing to learn from *anybody*.
david smith says that I am confused because, like Dr. Chesler, I believe in the ideal of universal human rights; however far the world is from realizing that ideal.
After clicking on david smith’s name and seeing the crude and puerile image of Al Gore with a hitler mustache on the aptly named “hollycrud” blog,
I conclude that it is david smith who is confused. He exceeds mama palama in vulgarity and poor taste. see http://www.hollycrud.com, about halfway down the page.