Third: Do you realize that based on a handful of cases (the Pakistani case, others like it), you have concluded that Islam is good, and that Muslims are also good. In my view: Some are, some aren’t, the good guys have not yet begun to fight within their own religion–and those who ARE fighting are just killing each other and murdering their own and each others’ women–in the name of Islam.
Show me ten more examples like the Pakistani case. Show me eight more. I will study them and write about them as a model to follow.
Do you want to keep our dialogue private or might you want me to publish it? In part? I will not do so if you wish to remain private.
That’s it for now.
All best,
Phyllis
Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2009 3:35 PM
To: ‘Dorchen Leidholdt’
Subject: My dear, do you want to publish
our exchange? I am willing to do that. And, please confirm if you are (or are not) ready and willing for me to name Pakistan as the country from which, with Muslim assistance, you were able to rescue one woman. I will not do anything without your approval.
All best,
Phyllis
From: Dorchen Leidholdt
Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2009 4:26 PM
To: Phyllis Chesler
Dorchen responds:
Phyllis, coincidentally this client called me last night about another matter. She said that I could discuss her case with you. I should mention that after this, the young Muslim male lawyer and I together gave a presentation on domestic violence, with one of Sanctuary’s lawyers, a Muslim feminist, at the Islamic Cultural Center on domestic violence. Since then the Imams have referred domestic violence victims to our organization for shelter and other services.
My priority is working to create a world in which women enjoy fundamental human rights. I think that there are few things more dangerous to all of the civilizations of the world, Eastern and Western, Northern and Southern, than religious intolerance. Brutal, murderous violence against women in the name of men’s honor is not an Islamic creation that has penetrated the West. It has deep roots in patriarchies all over the world and has been justified in the name of Christianity (punishing the “whore”) as well as in the name of Islam. By the way, if we really want to hold a major religion accountable for atrocities I’d start with my own religious tradition, Christianity, which carried out some of the world’s most horrific, murderous genocidal campaigns, in the form of the Crusades and pogroms, not to mention the Holocaust and the recent genocide in Rwanda, which, of course, involved major complicity on the part of the Church.
I think that each of these religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) can be forces for good or evil, depending on who’s doing the interpreting. I don’t base my conclusions on a single case. As a lawyer representing domestic violence victims, I have worked with hundreds of Muslim women from the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Europe. I also have long (for decades) worked with Muslim feminists through the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women.
I am right now with a devout Bengali mother. We have just reunited her with her nine-year-old son after a separation of six months—her husband battered and abandoned her and abducted him. I wish I could say that this kind of abusive behavior involving the separation of mothers from children is peculiar to Muslims but we see it carried out by men of all faiths. Like my other client, this mother, a pillar of strength and courage, has turned to the Koran. I respect her doing so and am grateful that she can draw on her faith for strength. When we parted, she hugged me and said that God is working through me. She sees Sanctuary for Families, a feminist organization, as an instrument of God, her God, who is part of her Muslim faith. I took it as the highest compliment. Phyllis, you may publish it if you wish. If you choose to do so, please publish it in its entirety.
Warm regards, Dorchen
From: Phyllis Chesler
Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2009 4:47 PM
To: ‘Dorchen Leidholdt’
Dear Dorchen:
I appreciate your willingness to allow me to publish this dialogue. I will allow you to see what I might say in response to what you’ve just said. Let me think about how to do this right. It is already very long. Maybe we might break it up somehow. Don’t worry, that’s my problem and I will let you see it first.
This is rather exciting. We are agreeing and disagreeing without cutting each other off or out and without condemning each other either.
Happy Times.
Best,
Phyllis
Phyllis responds:
Dear Dorchen:
I must comment upon your focus on Christianity. As you know, I am a religious Jew and have been writing about the epidemic return of anti-Semitism, which is primarily now coming at us from the Muslim, not the Christian world. Yes, the Catholic Church has a bad record on women in terms of the alleged witch-burnings and I have written about this at length. And yes, the Catholic and Protestant Churches indoctrinated their followers into Jew-hatred which, arguably, paved the way for a national socialist and pagan Nazism which conducted the genocide of six millions Jews and of five million other human beings in the European Holocaust. However, Church doctrines have evolved. The attitude towards “whores” in our world, while reprehensible, is not quite the same as the Church’s former mass, public torture and immolation of women as “witches.” And, by the way, Jesus stood by Mary Magdalene, who was a prostitute. Perhaps the problem also lies in certain mens’ inability to practice the very doctrine they preach and which they insist that only women follow.
But, in addition, contrary to myth, the Crusades were actually a very belated response to the vicious, widespread imperialism of Arab Peninsula Muslims who were converting Christians by the swords, building mosques where once proud churches stood, and committing genocide against the Jews. Yes, genocide. Muhammed the Prophet began this awful Islamic practice which, to this day, has not been rescinded. Please read some serious books on this subject, not just the “Islam is a Peaceful Religion and the Jews had a Golden Age among Muslim rulers.” Read Bat Ye’or, Andrew Bostom, Nonie Darwish, Steve Emerson, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Daniel Pipes, and Robert Spencer for starters.
Christianity has evolved. So has Judaism. Alas, Islam has not. At least, not yet. I welcome the feminist wrestling with Islamic doctrine towards this end. For, Christianity and Judaism have, in large part, become more tolerant, more user-friendly. Islam, which once, in certain places may indeed have been gentler, has become more intolerant, and even more barbaric. Ask Algerian, Iranian, Afghan, Pakistani, Somali, Egyptian, Gaza/West Bank, Muslims who live in exile in the West.
Also please realize that what the holy text actually says may be less important than what people believe they say. Many Muslims interpret the Qu’ran as commanding wife-beating, the beheading of infidels, the forced conversion of infidels, a death sentence for Muslims who leave the faith, the importance of lying to non-Muslims, and the necessity to commit jihad. Not an inner, spiritual struggle but an outer, external, military onslaught.
According to my friend, Ibn Warraq, who is also from Pakistan:
“The root cause of Islamic fundamentalism is Islam. American foreign policy has nothing to do with the stoning to death of a woman for adultery in Nigeria. It has every thing to do with Islam, and Islamic Law. The theory and practice of Jihad – Bin Laden’s foreign policy -was not concocted in the Pentagon, it is directly derived from the Koran and Hadith, Islamic Tradition. But Western Liberals and Humanists find it hard to admit or accept or believe this. They simply lack the imagination to do so….The fact is Christianity has absorbed many principles of the Enlightenment, and Islam has not. Then there are the crimes of Western imperialism – some undoubtedly true and a disgrace to Western ideals, but which must be seen in comparison to Islamic Imperialism to put it all in perspective. Islamic Imperialism virtually destroyed several cultures – Eastern Christianity and the culture of Pre-Islamic Iran.”
Dorchen: I hope that we continue this conversation. Via email, on the phone, in person, even in public. As we both know: Womens’ lives depend upon what we come to understand. Mens’ lives too.
In loving sisterhood,
Phyllis
“Crusade” is the Christian analog of “jihad.” The first violent acts of the Crusaders took place in the Rhineland, before the Crusaders ever reached the Holy Land, and were directed against Jews (see Carroll’s CONSTANTINE’S SWORD, p. 237). Once the Crusaders got to Jerusalem, they drove all the Jews into a synagogue and set it on fire (see Carroll, p. 250).
As you wrote, Phyllis, Judaism and Christianity have evolved and are evolving. Blind faith, whether religious or atheistic, is a dangerous phenomenon. The only two doctrines that people nowadays believe with absolute faith are Marxism and Islam.
In Basra, in “the new” Iraq, honor killings against women happen almost every day.
Recently, for supposedly flirting with a British soldier (not even a kiss involved), a father killed his teenage daughter. He was in jail for about 2 hours, and no charges were filed against him. This is only one worthy news and the tip of the iceberg.
Dorchen et al ought to come down from their suave pedestal provided by the liberties bestowed by the US constitution. However important to always denounced any violence against women, let us not confuse oranges with apples.
This confusion is used by those who know about Islam as a deception, and those who don’t know as wishful thinking (like former president Bush). Wake up and smell the coffee, people, before it is too late!
And I add: si vis pacem, para bellum. (if you want peace, prepare for war.
I’m old enough to remember when “wife beating” became “spousal abuse”. I remember some feminists being upset about this because they thought the intent was to disappear violence against women by “universalizing” it. Feminists have been called “man-haters” for some time now, sometimes for merely pointing out women hatred. At other times the charge was correct, there where and still are some “man-haters” out there. But let’s get real regarding this beheading stuff. The common denominator here is that the majority of people committing violence against women as well as men -are men. Not politically correct? Horrible man hating feminist? Bite me Rush Limbough. But seriously, I think it’s good that feminists got out of that man-hating phase. I think it’s the same impulse that stops them-us from tarring Muslims with the same brush. If we can’t say that men are threats to “civilization” then where do we get off saying it about Muslims. If it’s “man-hating” to say that most rape, murders, child molestation, sex slavery, spousal abuse, most Wall Street ripoffs, most be-headings, most tortures, etc. etc.etc. are carried out by men then it’s likewise Muslim hating to say it of Muslims. It’s a tough fight that can’t be named.
The only way for someone to truely understand the intrinsic hatred that Muslims have for women is to live amoung them. Until this happens it is impossible to try to convince the average modern thinking person.
I am sure your friend who works with victims of violent men, thinks that this is just another typical tragedy. Men who abuse women in the West are scorned. They are seen as cowards who hurt the weak and there is no admiration for them. They are an anomoly. In Islamic society, the exact opposite is the case.
Is death by stoning “domestic violence” too? Your friend mentions how they were able to convince her client’s brother to testify for her. What brother in a Western society would need to be convinced? We also need to understand that she is dealing with “upper class” people who are educated. The vast majority of people in Islamic societies are only educated in the Koran(but, most women have only the bare minimum education needed to perform domestic chores).This is a culture that genitally mutilates women as we read this. Ask your friend to spend a month in any Islamic county and try to walk freely down the street without a man.I think she will come back with an entirely different opinion.
Civilized dialog from the New Agenda did not just spring out of the minds of middle class women. I and the WAMI founder have been arguing at the Reclusive Leftist and other feminist blogs all during the war and since about cultural relativism and the feminist attitude toward the Islamic theocracies. We have been called racist, shamed, banned and ridiculed on these blogs and censored on yours Phyllis while engaging women in what you might term uncivilized but I call frank and honest discussion. Now as the issue as we see it becomes acceptable with the women we have been educating you compliment them over our dead bodies. They have “civilized” discussion. What have we been doing then? This is the bitterness of Drowkin calling to you. Remember the Cassandra who were with you when it was not popular to be with you. Or we shall learn a lesson you did not mean to teach.
I typoed Dworkin but you know what I mean.
iammefrommiami: If we can’t say that men have contributed more to “civilization,” including fighting for and securing universal sufferage as well as fighting and dying to abolish slavery and free millions from brutal totalitarian regimes, then where do we get off saying it about the West. If it’s “man-loving” to say that most advances in health, standard of living, agriculture, production, conservation, art, etc. etc. etc. have been created by men then it’s likewise parochialism to say it of Western countries in general.
Recognizing and discussing real issues does not make one a “hater” of either men or Islam. Single minded obsession with what is wrong and broadbrush assumptions about millions based upon this limited focus does. Assertions that my posession of a penis makes me a potential murderer and rapist are just so much noise and akin to an assertion that posessin of a vagina makes one a potential whore and infanticide.
We’re all evolving. See Samuel 15:8. See Acts 8:1. Who knows what happened in the early years of our era when Jews dominated. We for sure know what happened later when they were not dominant culminating in the atrocities of teh 20th century that were led by pagans not Christians. (No denying Christian complicity but not significantly among the churched). Does any rational Jew now fear a Christian organized pogrom? What about a Muslim pogrom? On a scale of 1-10 rank your fear of either. If it is 10 for Muslim it has to be one for Christian. Yes and they ought to be at about a 5 on their fear that Rahm Emmanuel and George Soros will sell them down the river. Or would that be an eight or nine?