If I keep making posts of this nature - defending the idea that the wearing of the hijab or burqa can be a function of choice and independence - it's only because I continue to encounter arguments to the contrary, most commonly from within the feminist community.
Lending credence to my stance, Judith Sunderland, writing for Women's E-News, both defends the right to the veil, and points out how attempts to force Muslim women to "uncover" are in effect the same as the legal mandates in some Muslim countries that the hijab or burqa be worn at all times.
My favorite quote:
"Pro-ban arguments relating to women's rights have the greatest resonance. Yet denying women the right to cover themselves is as wrong as forcing them to do so. Muslim women, like all women, should have the right to dress as they choose and to make decisions about their lives and how to express their faith, identity and moral values. And they should not be forced to choose between their beliefs and their chosen profession.
"Generalizations about women's oppression do a disservice to one of the basic tenets of gender equality: the right to self-determination and autonomy, the right a woman has to make decisions about her life and her body without interference from the state or others."
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Some useful perspectives on the current unrest
Amidst the chaos of misunderstanding surrounding the riots in the Middle East, I feel compelled to sieze on every refreshing kernel I come across.
Fareed Zakaria, an author for CNN's Global Public Squares blog, urges readers not to allow the inevitably exacting imagery of the riots to distort their sense of scale. ". . . .keep in mind that these crowds number in the hundreds - perhaps thousands - in countries with tens of millions of people," he says. "They make for vivid images, but they do not tell the whole story."
He goes on to make an interesting argument on a related point: "In many of these countries - particularly those that have toppled dictatorships - the most important reality is not of bad government but of weak government. In Libya, Yemen and even Egypt, the state has lost its ability to control its public. In a sense this might be progress. Egypt didn't see protests like this before because Hosni Mubarak's regime would arrest or even shoot protesters. Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy is an elected politician, and he is trying to pander, appease, direct and guide people. I wish he were bolder and fought the extremist elements in his society head-on. But let's face it, he's behaving like an elected politician."
Elsewhere, in an Op-Ed for the New York Times, author Doug Saunders addresses Islamophobia in the U.S., and in particular the assertion that Muslims can't be trusted and pose a threat to national security. He compares this prejudice with a belief popularly held against Catholics in the early half of the 20th Century, one so ingrained that "as late as 1950, 240,000 Americans bought copies of 'American Freedom and Catholic Power,' a New York Times best seller. Its author, Paul Blanshard, a former diplomat and editor at The Nation, made the case that Catholicism was an ideology of conquest, and that its traditions constituted a form of 'medieval authoritarianism that has no rightful place in the democratic American environment.'"
Seeking to contextualize this prejudice:
"Then, as now, there seemed to be evidence supporting the charge. Majority-Catholic countries like Spain, Italy, Portugal and Austria, had fallen into fascism or extremism. Crime and educational failure were rife among the children of Catholic immigrants. In the years after World War I, Catholic radicals carried out a deadly wave of terrorist attacks in the United States.
These days, the same dark accusations are being leveled at American Muslims, many of whom are recent immigrants. And many otherwise reasonable Americans have greeted Muslims with fear and suspicion — in part because they came at a bad time. Their emigration to the United States, like that of many Catholics before them, has coincided with turmoil in their native countries and violence from a few extremists in their midst."
While Catholics can hardly be argued to be safe from prejudice in all corners of America, a nationally distributed hatred and mistrust of the community seems utterly bizarre, and the fact that it strikes us as such bodes well, I believe, for the future. It implies that future generations might respond with equal surprise to sweeping indictments against the Muslim community, at home and abroad.
Fareed Zakaria, an author for CNN's Global Public Squares blog, urges readers not to allow the inevitably exacting imagery of the riots to distort their sense of scale. ". . . .keep in mind that these crowds number in the hundreds - perhaps thousands - in countries with tens of millions of people," he says. "They make for vivid images, but they do not tell the whole story."
He goes on to make an interesting argument on a related point: "In many of these countries - particularly those that have toppled dictatorships - the most important reality is not of bad government but of weak government. In Libya, Yemen and even Egypt, the state has lost its ability to control its public. In a sense this might be progress. Egypt didn't see protests like this before because Hosni Mubarak's regime would arrest or even shoot protesters. Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy is an elected politician, and he is trying to pander, appease, direct and guide people. I wish he were bolder and fought the extremist elements in his society head-on. But let's face it, he's behaving like an elected politician."
Elsewhere, in an Op-Ed for the New York Times, author Doug Saunders addresses Islamophobia in the U.S., and in particular the assertion that Muslims can't be trusted and pose a threat to national security. He compares this prejudice with a belief popularly held against Catholics in the early half of the 20th Century, one so ingrained that "as late as 1950, 240,000 Americans bought copies of 'American Freedom and Catholic Power,' a New York Times best seller. Its author, Paul Blanshard, a former diplomat and editor at The Nation, made the case that Catholicism was an ideology of conquest, and that its traditions constituted a form of 'medieval authoritarianism that has no rightful place in the democratic American environment.'"
Seeking to contextualize this prejudice:
"Then, as now, there seemed to be evidence supporting the charge. Majority-Catholic countries like Spain, Italy, Portugal and Austria, had fallen into fascism or extremism. Crime and educational failure were rife among the children of Catholic immigrants. In the years after World War I, Catholic radicals carried out a deadly wave of terrorist attacks in the United States.
These days, the same dark accusations are being leveled at American Muslims, many of whom are recent immigrants. And many otherwise reasonable Americans have greeted Muslims with fear and suspicion — in part because they came at a bad time. Their emigration to the United States, like that of many Catholics before them, has coincided with turmoil in their native countries and violence from a few extremists in their midst."
While Catholics can hardly be argued to be safe from prejudice in all corners of America, a nationally distributed hatred and mistrust of the community seems utterly bizarre, and the fact that it strikes us as such bodes well, I believe, for the future. It implies that future generations might respond with equal surprise to sweeping indictments against the Muslim community, at home and abroad.
Friday, September 14, 2012
In solidarity with the Muslims of the world
I'm emerging from my blogging sabbatical to express my unwavering solidarity with Muslims across the world - an overwhelming preponderance of Muslims - who have condemned the violent protests unfolding in the Middle East.
Nothing really fancy to add.
Nothing really fancy to add.
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