Which politically correct lefty said that?
The answer is (drum roll) Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Ms. Ali is once again touring Australia, lapping up right-wing adulation at her public appearances and in the media. It is to be hoped that, whilst she is in this country, her robust advocacy of the republican democratic principle of universal secular public education (with which I wholeheartedly agree) gets something like the attention which has been focused on some of her other opinions.
Update: The correct answer is that it’s actually Ms. Ali’s supporter Frits Bolkestein who made the statement quoted in the title of this post. Thanks Dr. Cat for the correction. However it is a position which Ms. Ali can be assumed to endorse on the basis of her opposition to Section 23 of the Dutch Constitution.
A more democratically socialist ideal is adequate resourcing for all schools, public or private, Paul.
I kinda like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, even though she is a platitude machine. Maybe it’s because of that.
Splitter!
But a pro-secular-education stance is perfectly consistent with the life experience that made her famous in the first place. I’d be willing to bet that her mind works quite differently from the bundled Left or Right software that most people seem to be running in spite of themselves.
Paul, I just read that link (and very interesting it was) — sorry to be nitpicky but it was actually her supporter Frits Bolkestein who said that.
In all seriousness though, she’s pretty clearly a dogmatic reactionary. She even dared to question our Glorious Leader’s Christian-Marxist-Leninist-Maoist-Ruddist critique of the capitalist running dogs! I think she needs to be re-educated in the princples of the Variable Absolute and its relationship to Working Families (previously incorrectly described as Struggling Families or Class Struggle).
“Most people” don’t run such bundled Left or Right software, if the Australian Election Study and studies like it are any guide. Such bundled software tends to be heavily concentrated amongst the commentariat and (to invoke a Robert Manne-ism) the political class. The idea that (to take an example) one could be simultaneously pro-Solidarity in Poland and pro-ANC in South Africa in the 1980s would have been beyond the comprehension of many left and right partisans in that decade, yet would seem perfectly sensible and logical to ordinary people.
The attitude towards Ayaan Hirsi Ali is kind of odd. She’s a secularist…yeah, and she’s a very measured and interesting speaker.
Sure she’s been taken to the bosom of certain people (people who surely wouldn’t agree with a lot of what she says), and she’s cuddled up that bosom. That doesn’t diminish that she has some important things to say. If she was critiquing Christian fundamentalism, I’m sure the reaction would be different. It’s not her fault that the commentators only concentrate on some of what she says.
Her book (Infidel) is a very worthy work:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/14/books/14grim.html
“The idea that (to take an example) one could be simultaneously pro-Solidarity in Poland and pro-ANC in South Africa in the 1980s would have been beyond the comprehension”
According to the NYT
“In 1989 the Pope, seeking to point an accusing finger straight at Pretoria, had the Pontifical Commission for Peace and Justice issue a paper saying racism — even “harboring racist thoughts” — was a sin and singling out apartheid.”
It is not well known, but most Catholic priests in South Africa were/are black.
This is a quote from that New York Times review I linked to:
“Ms. Hirsi Ali’s provocative comments on Islam and on the need for Muslim women to reject their traditionally submissive role (the subject of a short film she made with Mr. van Gogh) channeled mounting Muslim anger directly at her.”
Interesting that they used the word “provocative”. That’s a word that’s been used against women for a very long time.
I came across something rather interesting while doing a bit of reading – an argument (in the context of the treatment of Jews) that states like the French are much more secularist than the British and American because they’re strong states which seek to govern far more of what are seen in the “Anglosphere” as private choices. Hence the relatively consistent opposition of the French state to any display of religious symbols of whatever nature, or any funding for religious education of any type, or recognition of religious marriage ceremonies in law. The implication is that the British and American states are more residually Christian.
I don’t know where the Dutch state would come in – because I don’t know enough about Dutch history and politics – though it may be that it tried to stand over and above the cleavage between Protestants and Catholics. But I could see more of where Ali is coming from. I also suspect that “the Enlightenment” in question that she supports might be a big disappointment to some of her Antipodean friends on the right because it would actually require them – if consistent – to abjure state support for some of their most sacred cows.
From what I know about Dutch policy, Mark, they’re not secularist at all in the French way. The Netherlands has an official policy of toleration between Christian denominations arising from their violently unique sectarian history, into which non-Christian immigrants fit with varying success, as Ali writes about.
For instance in the post-war period, broadcasting rights on Dutch radio and TV were divided up between the different Churches to allow fair treatment for each. It’s one solution, but not a secular one.
I have read that Dutch schools do have an equivalent of our state aid to religious schools.
Interesting Mark,
I heard that many centuries ago, Amsterdam took in refugees from Spain. Portugese Jews fleeing persecution by ramnpant Christians who not only threw out the Moors, but also wreaked havoc on considerable numbers of openly Jewish persons. I think many of the ‘conversos’ (public converts to Christinaity) may have been religious Jews. This snapshot from a proud descendant Portuguese Jewish lady in a diamond working company in Amstredam. Still grateful for being taken into safety.
So the famous liberalism of Amsterdam in the late 20th century I took to be a lineal descendant of earlier centuries. Rembrandt had an easier time of it than contemporaries working under Popish Kings?
Vague recollection that a large book published circa 15 years ago by an Israeli scholar argued that the Inquisition in Spain was as much a pogrom, as a search for heretics within families which had always been Christian.
But this is very old hat. London in the 19th century was known as a haven for political heretics. Ditto New York, Princeton, Chicago when Hitler was ravaging the academies and societies of western Europe.
cheers
She also believes that government should decide what women can wear on their heads, supports the banning of political parties that she disagrees with, and wants the state to intervene to stop Muslim parents providing their children with a religious education (even a moderate one). She even told Reason magazine in a recent interview that she thinks Western governments (and therefore taxpayers) should orchestrate and fund efforts to stop people in the Muslim world from burning flags or papermache effigies of George Bush, Tony Blair, et al.
Having read her writings and listened to her speak, I don’t think she’s the sharpest anti-Islamic tool in the shed. On the one hand, she has cast herself as a die-in-the-ditch defender of free speech and the right of every freeborn European to insult Muslims but, at the same time, she’s babbling on about why governments should be intervening to stop a bunch of rowdy protesters in Islamabad burning a flag. See http://www.reason.com/news/show/122457.html
Thanks for the link Amir. She actually comes across as quite unhinged in that interview, and not a little inconsistent. Almost like a cross between Janet and Miranda. Quite scary.
Upon checking the barest facts about Benzion Netanyahu’s book, “The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain” I find that I hadn’t even touched the surface of a huge subject. Here’s a review http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n1p-2_Chalmers.html
BTW, after detailed explanations, the reviewer writes, “In spite of the author’s intellectual dishonesty and ethical bankruptcy, this book is worthwhile.” Such courtesy!
Thanks, Liam. That does match with my vague recollection of a “pillar” state and society. Obviously a very different state form from the French universalist and secularist state. In some ways, then, it would be logical to suggest that the Dutch state might have as much if not greater difficulty governing difference as the British. The French way of course is to efface it – which is hardly ideal either.
At one time the “pillarisation” of Dutch society was so pronounced that it was characterised by one commentator in the following terms:
“In the 1950s, a typical Catholic would have been born of Catholic parents in a Catholic hospital, received a Catholic education, joined the Catholic Boy Scouts, played soccer for a Catholic team, married another Catholic, joined a Catholic trade union, read a Catholic newspaper, died in a Catholic home for the elderly and been buried in a Catholic graveyard by a Catholic undertaker.”
The phrasing of this statement raises some interesting questions, such as how typical Catholic girls were able to join the Catholic Boy Scouts, and how one could be born during the 1950s and die in a home for the elderly in the same decade, but you get the drift.
Yes, definitely. Though to give them credit, tolerance has meant that Dutch Christians have stopped murdering each other—after all sectarian rioting was more or less the national sport for hundreds of years.
Here’s the best part of the Reason interview.
Hirsi Ali: In Iran a nongovernmental organization has collected money, up to 150,000 British pounds, to kill Salman Rushdie. That’s a criminal act, but we are silent about that.
Reason: We are?
Hirsi Ali: Yes. What happened? Have you seen any political response to it?
Reason: The fatwa against Rushdie has been the subject of repeated official anger and protests since 1989.
Hirsi Ali: I don’t know.
In other words, she’s talking out of her backside, or some other orifice.
That raises the whole question about “loud denunciation”, which of course has raised its head in discussions regarding Ms Ali before. The logic appears to be that when the person who is claiming others are silent makes a loud denunciation, a loud denunciation in the approved form must immediately be made by “us”, “the West”, “the Left” or whoever, otherwise they are silent and thus condoning the outrage. Clearly this is dumb. And has very little to do with “The Enlightenment”.
I went to see Hirsi Ali speak at the CIS Big Ideas Forum. You can find out about my exchange with her here …
http://planetirf.blogspot.com/2008/08/comment-ayaan-hirsi-hilali.html
I really have no problem with Hirsi Ali attacking Islamic theology. What concerns me is that she speaks about things she has little or no understanding of. I can understand why she would resent a culture that caused her to suffer FGM at such a tender age. However, when she attributes that practice and other negative traits to all cultures practised in Muslim-majority states (and indeed to Islamic theologies), she ends up sounding like a bigot.
I put her in the same category as Margaret Marcus, a Jewish woman who converted to Islam and changed her name to Maryam Jameelah and then wrote all kinds of books attacking Judaism and Western cultures.
http://newmatilda.com/2007/07/25/unreliable-narrator
Her recent criticisms of Kevin Rudd for not understanding the neo-liberal philosophy of Hayek were just laughable.
http://newmatilda.com/2008/08/05/confederacy-dunces
Anyway, enough shameless self-promotion.
Um. Secular education is not necessarilly the same as public education. And vice versa. Just sayin’.
On Irfan’s points, in some way Ali’s comments reflect the fact that she is now paid by a right wing think tank to be an “intellectual”. She’s nothing of the sort – and that’s not a criticism, just an observation. She hasn’t had the training to speak authoritatively about history and philosophy. But that doesn’t seem to matter for her fan club.
None of us have Mark. But that doesn’t deprive us from having the right to do so, or having a fan club when we do so.
That’s the maddening problem with this free speech thing that she hangs on to but knows nothing about, and therefore isn’t trained to speak authoritively about, isn’t it?
What is her problem? When will she learn the limits of free speech and become respectful?
I think you’re misinterpreting my intent, GregM. I was thinking of all the adulation that’s heaped on her for being a “particularly clear thinker” etc. I don’t actually think she is. But in a way that’s not her fault – it’s the sales job that the think tank and the self same fan club encourage.
I don’t think free speech has anything to do with it, by the way. Anyone can offer their opinion on Hayek. Or on secularism. Whether or not that’s an informed opinion is a matter for critical judgement and, indeed, dialogue. There’s that “enlightenment” thing!
Incidentally, though I’m personally and philosophically sympathetic to arguments based on lived experience and suspicious of claims that arguments are made in vacuums, the latter position – which would be more closely associated with Enlightenment rationalism – seems to fade into the background when some of the pro-Ali positions are put.
I don’t know a single Muslim woman who likes Hirsi Ali or agrees with what she spews out.
And?
She’s not a Muslim. She has chosen not to be. What is the relevance of the opinion of any Muslim woman about her freely expressed opinion? They are entitled to their opinion just as she is entitled to hers. We are entitled to form our own opinions about her without thinking that their opinions are anything we have to have regard to. We will form those opinions on the basis of the merit we see in her arguments and not on the basis of what others with whom she has parted company, as is her right, are reported to think of her (no doubt on the basis of a careful, unbiased and and statistically valid survey- and not just your mates).
Welcome to the world of free opinion and free speech.
Err, GregM, a lot of what Hirsi Ali has to say is about her perception of the oppressiveness of Islam for Islamic women. Clearly whether Islamic women themselves agree with her is highly relevant. You’re displaying a very odd take on free speech in this thread.
Given her raison d’etre seems to be to free Muslim women from themselves, I think it’s highly relevant what those same Muslim women think of Hirsi Ali, her ideas and her ‘mission’.
In any case, I don’t think she should be silenced. In fact, I think she should be given as big a platform as possible and encouraged to pontificate on all these topics and more. Eventually, people will work it out for themselves and reach the conclusion that others have reached: that the fact that she can simultaneously present herself as a friend of liberty, freedom et al whilst also advocating some very severe limitations on personal freedom of others demonstrates that she probably doesn’t know what she is talking about and is just latching on to ideas and individuals that she thinks are fashionable in the circles that she now moves in.
At her essence, of course, it’s obvious that despite her quoting of Hayek, Mill and the like, she sees the state as being the agent to correct all of the perceived ills in society — stopping Muslim women wearing hijab, stopping Muslim parents putting their kids in Muslim schools, and even stopping protesters in Pakistan from behaving disrespectfully towards Western symbols and images like flags or effigies of the President of the United States.
The whole narrative of “free speech” in her case is weird, too. She’s not receiving any death threats in Australia. Every time she comes here, she has an echo chamber in the national press to transmit her views. There seems to be a parallel here with the risible claims that denialists on climate change are “silenced” whereas in fact the News Limited papers are full of their stuff.
Free speech doesn’t mean that anyone else is compelled to agree with Hirsi Ali, and it’s very relevant to examine the reasons for disagreement.
GregM:
Which has never meant freedom from criticism.
GregM@27
“What is the relevance of the opinion of any Muslim woman about her freely expressed opinion?”
Ditto to what the others have said. She pretends to speak ‘for’ us, when she is merely prattling — Uncle Tom style — the Orientalist stereotypes of Muslim women as the eternally oppressed, statically unchanging, silent victims.
None of us agree with her. If she were to prance around talking about her own victimisation that’s one thing. But Muslim women under a world fashioned by Hirsi Ali would be just as worse off, (if not more so) than many so-called ‘Muslim’ dictatorships around the world.
Hirsi Ali can say what she likes, but she is a very pedestrian intellect who is no authority on anything, apart from what has happened to her personally.
And let there be no doubt, for what happened to her, and continues to happen (the ongoing threat on her life) she deserves our sympathy and protection.
But unfortunately, on the big picture subjects of politics, philosophy and foreign policy, she just doesn’t know what she is talking about.
It’s as if a victim of Dr Death’s botched surgery in Bundaberg started marketing themselves as an expert on surgery.
Entirely agreed. But as you say, there’s no reason to extend that sympathy and protection to the point of hagiography and refusing to brook criticism of her opinions when they deserve criticism.
Muslim Youths
Muslim youths are angry, frustrated and extremist because they have been mis-educated and de-educated by the British schooling. Muslim children are confused because they are being educated in a wrong place at a wrong time in state schools with non-Muslim monolingual teachers. They face lots of problems of growing up in two distinctive cultural traditions and value systems, which may come into conflict over issues such as the role of women in the society, and adherence to religious and cultural traditions. The conflicting demands made by home and schools on behaviour, loyalties and obligations can be a source of psychological conflict and tension in Muslim youngsters. There are also the issues of racial prejudice and discrimination to deal with, in education and employment. They have been victim of racism and bullying in all walks of life. According to DCSF, 56% of Pakistanis and 54% of Bangladeshi children has been victims of bullies. The first wave of Muslim migrants were happy to send their children to state schools, thinking their children would get a much better education. Than little by little, the overt and covert discrimination in the system turned them off. There are fifteen areas where Muslim parents find themselves offended by state schools.
The right to education in one’s own comfort zone is a fundamental and inalienable human right that should be available to all people irrespective of their ethnicity or religious background. Schools do not belong to state, they belong to parents. It is the parents’ choice to have faith schools for their children. Bilingual Muslim children need state funded Muslim schools with bilingual Muslim teachers as role models during their developmental periods. There is no place for a non-Muslim teacher or a child in a Muslim school. There are hundreds of state schools where Muslim children are in majority. In my opinion, all such schools may be designated as Muslim community schools. An ICM Poll of British Muslims showed that nearly half wanted their children to attend Muslim schools. There are only 143 Muslim schools. A state funded Muslim school in Birmingham has 220 pupils and more than 1000 applicants chasing just 60.
Majority of anti-Muslim stories are not about terrorism but about Muslim
culture–the hijab, Muslim schools, family life and religiosity. Muslims in the west ought to be recognised as a western community, not as an alien culture.
Iftikhar Ahmad
http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk
The right to education in one’s own comfort zone is a fundamental and inalienable human right
I don’t remember seeing “in one’s own comfort zone”. Most of us here aren’t arguing against freedom to practice your own religion, but think that public education, where children can mix and get to know each other, or even just be aware of other cultures as not outer space aliens, is preferable to everyone holing up in their own religious
bunkerschool. This is not meant to be anti-Muslim, in fact, speaking for myself, I’m more concerned with some of the excesses of Christian “faith-based” schooling which occur in the US. Not to mention the disgraceful practices of scientologists and other fringe religions.Of course I would not support a public education system where bullying was tolerated and if that necessitated spending more and taxing me more, I’m happy to wear it.Costs less than private school fees!
As for learning about the role of women in society, well, they’ll have to get out of school sometime. If you’re against the equality of women, you have plenty to be happy about even in Western society, but we’re working on it.
I meant, I haven’t seen “in their comfort zone” in any bill of human rights. Seems a bit new age-y to me.
Iftikhar Ahmad writes:
Why not? Why couldn’t you have a non-Muslim teacher teaching maths, physics or some other secular subject?
I admire Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I admire her courage.
She has been subjected to death threats for her views.
She makes a valuable and interesting contribution to debate, particularly on issues associated with women’s freedom. This debate is relevant to ALL women and men, not just Muslim women.
Some women choose to follow and accept the constraints of various religions. Do all women have the freedom to choose?
I resent religion (any religion) being used as a means to keep women in a subordinate position, infringing freedom and life choices.
Umm Yasmin (# 32) resents women like Ayaan Hirsi Ali who she says “pretends to speak ‘for’ us”. It does indeed seem to be a thankless task. Perhaps that’s why Western sisters are failing the fight
Some might disagree, but I think Western society is preferable to Sharia law. It might not be perfect, but at least we’re free to challenge the status quo. Political correctness and cultural relativism permitting of course…
Jeez, does that comment fill in all the bingo card squares or what? Political correctness, the silence of the feminists, Sharia Law (who is saying that allowing Muslim schools = Sharia law, Elizabeth? What are you smoking? Has the incredibly powerful Catholic church introduced Canon law because of all the Catholic schools?) Dismissal of what actual Muslim women say. A-H-A subject to death threats = everything AHA says must be true. Please, go and do some reading, this topic has been covered in great detail here, including two detailed responses by Kim to the linked article.
Fifteen? I’d like to know what these fifteen areas of “offence” are.
And while you’re at it, tell us why Muslims should be offended by state hospitals.
Just to follow up Helen’s comment at 40, previous posts and (lengthy!) discussions of Hirsi Ali’s views can be accessed through this link:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/?s=hirsi+ali
I’ve done plenty of reading thanks Helen, outside the cosy confines of Larvatus Prodeo.
More than enough to appreciate the hard-won gains women have achieved in Western society. There’s still room for improvement. Fortunately our society allows scope for improvement.
As for your post, since it bears no relation to anything I actually said in mine, perhaps you are the one who should do some reading.
Also, I disagree with Pamela Bone’s statement that “feminism was a movement of the Left”.
Like all politics, feminism has many conflicting factions. And I’m not sure famous historical feminists like Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill would slot into a “Left” pigeonhole.
Indeed, I would suggest many thoughtful people have complex opinions and ideas which prevent them from settling comfortably into “Left” or “Right” pigeonholes.
By the way, can you answer this question?
Thanks for the links Mark.
I read your article in Online Opinion: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5990 and the article by Julie Szego: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6013
Some quotes from your article:
Agree.
Of course, ALL political thought AND religion deserves to be examined dispassionately, and in its own right.
And it might be worth clarifying that all citizens have the responsibility to respect the rights and freedom of all other citizens.
Christ on a bike! I’m a high functioning autistic, so my whole fucking life has been out of my comfort zone. Let’s just say that the socialisation at school in the 1950’s was … um … brutal but effective, but so what? We have to deal with the world as it is, not as we would like it to be.
Elizabeth Hart, addressing Helen in #43:
Seems rather a non-sequitur, but I’ll take a stab at it.
People, including women, have the freedom to choose all manner of follies. Respecting someone’s freedom of choice doesn’t make the choice itself immune from criticism.
“Some women choose to follow and accept the constraints of various religions. Do all women have the freedom to choose?”
If AHA had her way, they would not have the freedom to choose where to send their kids to school! Do you read what you write?
Elizabeth, I hear where you’re coming from. But we can’t talk about respecting the rights and freedom of all citizens and in the same breath talk about banning Muslim schools. I wouldn’t be happy for my children to go to one, but I’d be just as unhappy about my kids being taught at a Catholic school and “learn” that the mere act of using contraception is killing the unborn. Not to mention the happy-clappy Protestants who would have teachers teach creationism in science class. Without straying too far into Godwin territory, it’s somewhat dangerous to demonise one religious group and mark them out for social control, or so we have learned in the last century. That doesn’t mean I have to approve of them.
Tig Tog (# 46)
Non sequitur? I don’t think so. Perhaps you should think about it a little more.
Anyway, you have provided a response:
So, you think all women are free to choose? How about women who are born into a religion such as Islam? Are they free to challenge it? To leave it?
Ayaan Hirsi Ali felt it necessary to renounce her religion to obtain her freedom. Sadly she is still not completely free as she requires protection because of death threats.
Women in Western society are free. Free to argue for their freedom at least (non sequitur?) although there are still insidious means being deployed to control women (and men) in various cultural ways. However, if we have the courage, we are free to fight against the status quo and seek improvement.
Many women and men of various political hue have fought for women’s freedom. Back in the 19th century John Stuart Mill argued for women’s rights as individuals, for them to be recognised as “persons”. http://projects.vassar.edu/punch/lockwoodpaper.html
It’s thanks to the influence of people like Mill that many women got the vote early in the 20th century.
I appreciate the effort that has gone into achieving women’s political freedom and citizenship in Western society and I never take it for granted. “Western society” isn’t perfect and there are many things I disagree with, but I’m grateful for the freedom to argue.
In many countries Muslim women are not free to argue. Various “Western feminists” have come to their aid, but their assistance has not always been appreciated. Waleed Aly suggests that
In a more recent article, Aly argues that
I agree. Muslim women (and men) have to fight for Muslim women’s freedom, if they want it…
Those Muslim women who do want freedom might appreciate the trail-blazing efforts of Ayaan Hirsi Ali one day. Her bravery and outspokenness has brought attention to hidden problems.
On Aly and gender, see: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22321933-5001986,00.html
So, what is your solution, Elizabeth? If we ban Muslim schools, shouldn’t we ban orthodox Jewish, Catholic and fundamentalist protestant schools as well? I didn’t see much freedom in recent reports of FLDS and scientology communities. Ostracism from the community for apostasy is used as a weapon by many religions, and while they may not be threatened with death, many can’t get past the threat to lose their families.
Elizabeth Hart, you seem to have moved from a non-sequitur to a bait and switch.
Your full question was as follows: “Some women choose to follow and accept the constraints of various religions. Do all women have the freedom to choose?”
Silly me, I thought your second sentence there was only intended as a modifier of those women who are actually making a choice, and I thus responded only in terms of women for whom the word “choose” is a valid description of their actual options. But you responded as if only the second part of your question was relevant (in which case why have the first sentence at all?).
Of course I am against anyone being manipulated and coerced through the threat of ostracism and worse to “choose” to follow and accept the constraints of various religions. I also find your quotes from Waleed Aly regarding the need for Western feminists to step back so that Muslim feminists can find their own way quite compelling, as I did when I first read similar sentiments in this regard quite some years ago.
Yet you quote Waleed Aly while appearing to object to Umm Yasmin’s objections to Hirsi Ali. Sorry, but you are failing to understand something crucial: Hirsi Ali is seen as a Westernised apostate speaking from outside Islam, not as an internal Muslim critic. Hirsi Ali cannot be the Muslim feminist speaking for other Muslim women because of this – she has marginalised herself from any intra-Islam debate. Umm Yasmin, actually, is exactly the sort of Muslim feminist working for improved regard for women within Islam that Waheed Aly wants to see allowed more space to shape their own discourse, if people like you will allow it.
“Hirsi Ali cannot be the Muslim feminist speaking for other Muslim women because of this – she has marginalised herself from any intra-Islam debate. Umm Yasmin, actually, is exactly the sort of Muslim feminist working for improved regard for women within Islam that Waheed Aly wants to see allowed more space to shape their own discourse, if people like you will allow it.”
Nicely said.
I’d love to read a blog where Muslim women are doing exaclty this, as I feel abjectly ingnorant of how theses issues are talked about within Muslim communities. Can anyone recommend one? Or perhaps, Umm Yasmin could help out here.
I saw Waleed Aly speaking on Denton last night. He’sa really smart, interesting guy and I thought ‘Salam Cafe’ was pretty good. What really irritated me was that he got to sit on stage, whilst his wife Susan Carlin, only spoke from the audience. Strange decision from the producers, I thought. Why not interview them together? She’s at least as interesting as he is.
But he did say one thing which made my jaw drop. He said he probably wouldn’t have been able to marry Susan if she hadn’t been Muslim, because it would have made it to difficult to raise children together. Oh no, I thought . After years of Catholic/Protestant sectarianism I don’t want to see anymore.
Umm Yasmin’s blog is linked to in her comments, Fine, but I’ll give the link here as well. [link]
She’s been writing on Islam from an interfaith and feminist perspective online since 1999, although as a blogger “only” since 2003. There’s lots of links available through her posts, and many of her commentors are fellow Muslimas.
The animating assumption of some western liberal (and radical) feminist positions, when they attempt to speak about women from different contexts, is that women are basically the same, and exist prior to their social conditions and contexts. From such liberal (or radical) positions it is meaningful to speak of Muslim women (as, in a sense, being separable from their being Muslim) being basically oppressed by patriarchal Islam, and needing to be introduced to freedom along roughly the same lines as middle-class white women in the west. However, without the obvious precursors to such a ‘liberation’ existing in much of the Islamic world, such a position leads to the idea that – unlike Western feminism, which emerged immanently from the societies it addressed – feminism must be introduced to and against the Islamic world from without.
The problem with this is that Muslim women do not, by definition, exist outside of or in advance of their existence as Muslims, or their social conditions and contexts, or outside of the places that they are born and live. They are not an ahistorical version of ‘women’, but actual living people whose identities can’t be separated from the world in which they live.
To suggest otherwise is to pretty much cease to speak to Muslim women as such in a meaningful way, and thus attempting to represent their experiences or speak on their behalf becomes a dubious enterprise at best. Hirsi Ali cannot unproblematically, by virtue of her self-positioning, take on a politically representative role with respect to Muslim women in the third world (or elsewhere). I would also suggest that she can’t hope to represent their experiences to themselves or the world in a way that would gain their assent while continuing to imply that they are not, fundamentally, who they see themselves to be.
Muslim women’s blogs – I also recommend http://auratonline.com/
Aurat comments on issues concerning Islam, women, Australia, Pakistan writing, and various combinations thereof.
And try googling “shazia mirza” and read whatever comes up!
Thanks tigtog and muslimgirlpower. sorry, I didn’t see it before Umm Yasmin.
That’s nice.
.
My ideal is somewhat different. Little savages! Well it’s state funded innit? What more do want?
An ex-Catholic woman has every right to speak about the oppression of woman in that faith, as Hirsi Ali as every right to speak about the oppression of women in her former faith. There’s a feminist American blogger who regularly speaks of her experiences in a particular group (Quiverfull). The fact that she’s no longer part of that group doesn’t diminish the importance of what she says.
I appreciate Elizabeth’s position.
Of course, it probably does have much more impact in a community when people speak from within it. I do concede the problems that come from being a Western feminist applying Western feminist principles to non-Western situations. Remember, though, that Westernised women and women of the West are often accused of not caring at all about the plight of women in other parts of the world.
I suspect that spouses/other family members are usually placed in the audience during the Denton show. Fan of Denton may know better.
Earlier on in this thread somebody suggested that Hirsi Ali sounded unhinged in an interview. That raised my girl hackles. What next? Saying she sounded hysterical and over-emotional.
Good one, Adrian. Interesting picture that. In my utopian moments I think all kids should be in state schools. Thus, I’m as red as a monkey’s behind in that regard.
I think that it was I who used the word ‘unhinged’ and would use it equally to apply to the male of the species. I would have thought the term was gender neutral, but not having any ‘girl hackles’, maybe I should have run it by one of my female colleagues before using it so as not to offend you, Darlene.
I’ll look out for the use of that word being applied to a male commentator on this blog (by a male person commenting on this blog).
FFS Darlene, I think the word or similar has been used to describe a certain commentator with the initials JS.
I’ve used it a few times here Darlene. On Jack Strocchi, Graeme Bird, Harry Clark, Craig Mc, everyone from LastSuperpower… I actually don’t think I’ve ever called a woman unhinged though.
“Saying she sounded hysterical and over-emotional.”
Well, hysterical is etymologically specific to female biology, so I tend to substitute shrill or unhinged in the spirit of egalitarianism. Over-emotional… well, if you act that way then it matters not what gender you are. Not sure anyone would accuse AHA of that though.
I never said that she didn’t have the RIGHT to speak on Islam, Darlene. Of course she does, and to suggest that criticism of her speech implies a demand that she should not speak is a tired old trope that I thought you would be above.
My point remains that as a public apostate she is not at all a valid example of what Waleed Aly meant by a Muslim feminist working within Islam, which is how Elizabeth was trying to paint her.
Darlene you realize that was a jail right?
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Public/private I don’t any committment to either. I’d like two things. 1. An educated public is a Public Good let’s get one, and 2. Different kinda schools for different kinda kids. As I see it hardline Ejukayshun Waryers think of 1 and 2 as either/or propositions. They may or may not acknowledge this but that seems to be the way it breaks down to me.
A Catholic woman has a right to talk about the oppression of women in the Hare Krishna movement and a man in the Hare Krishna movement has the right to talk about homophobia in the Catholic Church (probably approvingly). Anyone’s got the right to talk about anything (sorta).
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Except what really happened in Roswell, New Mexico.
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Of course I s’pose if you’re coming from outsidewhatever group you’re dissing it’s probably polite to be diplomatic as you diss.
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But still (and I’m NOT suggesting Darlene or anyone else is doing this) we shouldn’t try and impose some kind of members-only essentialism where you can only point out that your own creed is batshit and hands off everyone else’s. (IMHO)
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We can criticize even if we do come from outside. And I think at times we must.
But, as tigtog said, Adrien, no one is cavilling with her right to speak. However, given the way this whole issue is usually framed, it’s legitimate to ask questions about whether that speech will have an effect if it’s actually directed to persuading Muslim women (and I think it’s fair to say that Ali’s remarks are also playing into a lot of other agendas). Clearly the best judge of that is Muslim women themselves. But I’d have thought it was obvious that loud denunciation of one’s former faith isn’t going to be the best method of communication with those who are continuing adherents of that faith.
I wasn’t suggesting any cavilling or cavailing oh vey!
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Just making a certain point, I guess in regards to essentialism. I know you people clap little girls in irons and make them plow fields as soon as they turn 5 but that’s your culture and I think it’s just as valid as mine.
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Well I wouldn’t wanna criticize a whole culture because of a single glitch but still.
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I think it polite to be respectful and diplomatic when speaking of comparative customs and so forth. And restrain ourselves from condemnation simply because we don’t care for or understand some otherworldly attribute.
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But at the same time some culture’s are better than others. It’s a better idea to wait in a que then form a mob outside the ticket office. It’s a better idea to eat anything at all apart from English food.
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And Western Civilization is the best idea ever!!!!!!
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Might even happen one day.
“It’s a better idea to eat anything at all apart from English food.”
Says a Scot.
Adrien – huh? Once again someone is importing stuff into an argument that hasn’t actually been referred to by anyone engaged in it, viz. cultural relativism and essentialism.
All I’m saying is that if Hirsi Ali and her defenders actually think:
(a) Muslim women are all oppressed;
(b) Muslim women should know this;
Then it does not follow that someone who’s constructed as an apostate in that faith culture is the best person to deliver the message.
However, I don’t believe premise (a).
Sorry should read: British food.
“My point remains that as a public apostate she is not at all a valid example of what Waleed Aly meant by a Muslim feminist working within Islam, which is how Elizabeth was trying to paint her.”
Thanks tigtog. Agree. Yes, she’s obviously not working within Islam, she’s working outside it. There are many feminists working from within, no doubt. I didn’t get the sense that Elizabeth was suggesting that Ms. Ali was working from within. I thought that perhaps Elizabeth was over-glorifying Ms Ali. She’s got some good things to say, but there are many women working for change in different ways and through different means.
“Darlene you realize that was a jail right?”
I know a jail when I see one, Adrien, after all I am in one at the moment (just joshing
). Just thought it was an interesting picture.
“Of course I s’pose if you’re coming from outsidewhatever group you’re dissing it’s probably polite to be diplomatic as you diss.”
Agree!!!
Well my point was that it is a question of representation. Anybody has the right to speak on any form of oppression – to represent that oppression in the sense of depicting it – but not just anybody can legitimately represent anybody else in the political sense. The problem with some sorts of depictions is that they also implicitly make claims on behalf of what they depict, claims that have real consequences. What has happened with Ms Ali is that she is taken as a representative by her current allies, but she is nothing of the sort, and that is because she rejects all of the assumptions of the constituency she purports to represent. She is not advocating a course of action that Muslim women necessarily endorse, and it would be a mistake to confuse her depiction of a particular society with a legitimation of action on behalf of some of its members, especially when those members speak against her assumptions.
My points about Western feminisms is not that they are wrong in caring about or advocating for women in the third world or in other contexts, but that they tend to say both too much and too little about those women and their contexts. There needs to be a much more detailed examination of the contexts, and possibilities for action within those contexts; there also needs to be much less willingness to speak on behalf of those women as women first and foremost, as though that were a category of experience that transcended all contexts. Patriarchy may be something of a universal, but it never exists independently of historical contexts. To assert otherwise is to assume it is ahistorical, and thus unchangeable.
I don’t think strictly speaking you can represent people unless they somehow appoint you or elect you to do it. I know that’s not precisely what you’re getting at Klaus. I’ve had conversations with people who seem to believe they speak for all [insert collective nomenclature here] because they happen to be one themselves. That’s very tiresome. I remember in particular one gay activist who seemed to think his sexual orientation – a. made him fascinating and b. granted him license to be an arsehole. He didn’t speak for all gay men (as many loudly declared) but I believe he was an ideal representative for arseholes: him and Sam Newman folks. And Ann Coulter.
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Naturally who one is will affect one’s perspectives. I’ve been working on a story based on an African dude who died over 200 years ago. I can’t represent him (that’s what you’re getting at?) and I have had quite a bit of difficulty finding his voice. But could anyone ‘represent’ him? Not really.
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It’s important to be aware of the limitations of one’s perspective. And there is a certain qualitative difference between the view of the ‘outsider’ vs that of the ‘insider’. It’s not the only qualitative indice however. There’s a graphic novel (sorry PC it’s all they’ve given me I cannae help it) in which Will Shakespeare at the end of his career is being berated by the by then much more fashionable Ben Jonson. Jonson extols his virtues as being those of someone with a broad life experience. Shakespeare he says has to pinch his tales because he hasn’t done that much.
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Shakespeare replies “I thought all you had to do to understand human beings is to be one”. True? Not? Maybe true if you’re Shakespeare?
Really? Me too. I shot a man in Reno (just to watch him die.) Me too? Perhaps the PM will be joining me soon.
Graphic novels are way cool….Will Eisner, Marjane Satrapi, Michelle Tea etc
“I’ve had conversations with people who seem to believe they speak for all [insert collective nomenclature here] because they happen to be one themselves. That’s very tiresome. I remember in particular one gay activist who seemed to think his sexual orientation – a. made him fascinating and b. granted him license to be an arsehole.”
Well, every movement needs its leaders, and there are jerks everywhere, including in political movements.
If people are being pricks and then turning around and saying they have a right to be pricks because they are this, that or the other, they should be called to account or just ignored. If people can’t treat people around them with respect all the progressive ideology in the world don’t matter a hill of beans. Having said that, some very important activists have been known to have had “difficult” personalities. Betty Friedan is one activist who seemed to antagonise a lot of other feminists.
From Walk hard: The Dewey Cox Story (for Adrien):
I don’t even care what anyone thinks
I stay up all night and I smoke and I drink
I’m a wanted man and I’m blowin town
Don’t even bother tryin’ to hunt me down
The cops are sayin I belong behind bars
And I’m Guilty
I’m Guilty as Charged
I ain’t ever lost a fight in my life
I’ll send you home crying to your fat and ugly wife (editorial note: I don’t endorse this lyric)
If you don’t believe me when I tell you this
Well let me introduce you to my rock hard fist
If you’re accusing me of living too hard
Then I’m Guilty
I’m Guilty as Charged
I ain’t asking God to forgive my sins
Take a Good Look and you’ll know where I’ve been
I’m dancing with the devil every night and everyday
People pay attention to the things that I say
I don’t need anybody’s help to rise above it
If you don’t like the way I’m livin
Buddy why don’t you shove it?
When you feel the ground shaking underneath your feet
Then that’s yours truly walkin down the street
Come a little closer, girl, I’ll show you my scars
Cause I’m Guilty
I’m Guilty as Charged
If you’re saying that my lovin’s too large
Then I’m Guilty
I’m Guilty as Charged
Oh I’m Guilty
I’m Guilty as Charged
You Got Me
I’m Guilty as Charged
Um kinda agree.
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Well, every movement needs its leaders, and there are jerks everywhere, most especially in political movements. There
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Haven’t read Satrapi yet. And hadna heard of Tea. In that neighbourhood there’s this very vanilla but cute. And ‘course the original and the best. In punk lesbian sci-fi Mex-American couples that is.
“I don’t think strictly speaking you can represent people unless they somehow appoint you or elect you to do it.”
I agree, but I think you can improve in a meaningful way the politically representative aspects of whatever work you’re engaging in. Lots of groups claim to speak for others, and I think those claims can be either more or less successful according to their reflection on these questions. What is certain is that the powerful will continue to speak for the powerless. One role for critical work is to try to evaluate those representative claims and push them towards what is better in terms of democracy, or empowerment, especially in contexts where meaningful democratic structures aren’t in place, or where they’re not recognised.
As to your African story, I guess to the extent that you are depicting a historical figure you are not necessarily engaging in an attempt at political representation with contemporary implications. The only question I would have is what, if any, implications does your story have for any particular groups of Africans in the present? Not that you should have to consider any and every potential use of your story for political purposes, either, mind you.
Um yeah actually it does. It’s implications (provided anyone gives a toss) are not principally for Africans but for us.
Thing is of course this dude is and is not an historical figure, is and isn’t really African. And there’s really no-one alive today that’s remotely like him. The ‘African’ bit’s easy.
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Have you read The Mission Song? White writer, very convincing African protagonist I thought.
No, I haven’t read that. I’ll have to take a look. I think fiction adds a whole lot of other aspects to these questions, and can have markedly different implications than other forms. Also, I don’t think good fiction, even political fiction, requires the same rigour around these questions as, say, activism or scholarly work. It would get in the way of the creative process, for one thing.
Klaus at 73 – word!
Since I get loudly denounced every time I write about Hirsi Ali, I may as well toss caution to the wind. The woman now makes her living from a right wing think tank. That must factor into what she feels obliged to say – Western Enlightenment and all that. Being incorporated into something which is a power structure – very closely linked to the US “foreign policy community” – is also hardly the best platform from which to work for change.
I’ve never questioned her sincerity in speaking to her own experiences, but I do think that the sort of stuff she’s saying now reflects – in part – the situation she finds herself in – backed into a corner with a limited scope for any other career than the one she’s got.
Of course, all the people making death threats against her, who are also part of the context, deserve loud condemnation.
“Of course, all the people making death threats against her, who are also part of the context, deserve loud condemnation.”
In a certain way, the two positions feed off of each other, and go a long way to legitimising each other. As long as the death threats get made, that Western interventionist position can play that to gain credibility. As long as there are Western interventions into the Islamic world of a particular kind, the jihadist position is attractive as a form of resistance. Needless to say, the third world Muslim woman has no real place from which to speak in either formulation.
We don’t have to ban them. We only have to stop giving them State Aid and they will die a natural death.
Helen # 48 and # 51
Helen, my previous posts were a general response to criticism of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I have not yet made any comment re schools. I’m still thinking about that. And it’s not up to me to come up with a “solution”, but I’m happy to contribute to the conversation.
As I have acknowledged, of course Hirsi Ali’s views should be examined and critiqued.
However, Islam and its impact on women should also be critiqued in a similarly rigorous fashion.
This criticism is often lacking. For example, in your post # 48 you provide explicit criticism of Catholic and Protestant schools, yet no explicit criticism of Islamic schools. Why the discrimination?
I have to say I am disappointed with some of the critiques of Ayaan Hirsi Ali which accuse her of denying “freedom to wear the hijab” and “freedom to attend muslim schools”. Yes, there does seem to be a serious contradiction here, but perhaps a more complex consideration and analysis of these issues is called for?
More broad and thoughtful analysis of the clash between Islam and Western society would also be appreciated, outside the prism of the domestic Australian left-wing / right-wing “culture wars”. After all, left-wing, right-wing and many other ideas, races, cultures, religions and genders make up Western society.
Australian society consists of both Muslim and non-Muslim men and women, so the influence of Islam is relevant to all of us. Ditto the influence of other religions.
The hard question is, how can secular society and religion comfortably co-exist?
muslimgirlpower # 50 and # 57
Thanks for the links. I’m beginning to follow up on these.
I remember reading Shakira Hussein’s review http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22321933-5001986,00.html of Waleed Aly’s book ‘People Like Us’ in The Australian last year.
Shakira provides a very valuable perspective as a Muslim woman who also sees herself as secular.
I’ve pulled out some quotes:
Elizabeth Hart, I believe that you have a rather disingenuous way of arguing that tends to undermine whatever point you are trying to make. For example when you accuse Helen of discrimination in not criticising Muslim schools, you fail to acknowledge that she was specifically responding to the idea of banning Muslim schools, by making the point that there are problems in all religious schools, so why single out one particular group.
It takes a particularly warped reading of her argument to use it as an example of discrimination.
Anyway, I’m with silkworm – the obvious solution is to eliminate public funding.
Adrian, silkworm, the “obvious” solution of eliminating public funding is not so obvious at all. I’ll post the Goulburn School Strike link again:
http://www.abc.net.au/time/episodes/ep7.htm
And Elizabeth Hart, for this:
You get the “Why Are People So Unkind” award for the most Kamahllish question of the thread. The prize is a reading of Matthew 22:15-22.
I wouldn’t ban private schools but I wouldn’t give them public funding either. This would cost the taxpayer more as demand for public schools would increase but it gives us an opportunity to create a more harmonious society.
“However, Islam and its impact on women should also be critiqued in a similarly rigorous fashion.”
I agree, but in a sense you’re answering your own question in stating it. You say that the ‘impact’ of Islam on women needs to be critiqued. But for Muslim women, Islam is not something that just turns up one day while they are having a cup of tea and starts oppressing them. Islam is part of who they are. The idea that inside every Muslim woman is a middle-class white woman waiting to get out is kind of insulting as much as anything.
If you invert it, you can maybe get a sense of that. If I were to say that deep inside Elizabeth Hart there is a veiled, devout Muslim woman who just wants to be given the chance to show herself, but can’t because of her family and her society, then I’m sure you agree that that is obviously ludicrous. Why is the inverse of this – which is equally ludicrous – taken as the starting point point for thinking about Muslim women?
Liam, I read your link before, but apart from being a fairly interesting historical account of the origins of public funding of non-government schools, it doesn’t shed much light on the current situation.
Most other comparable countries can maintain a more than adequate level of education for their citizens without the vast amounts of public money that we give to ‘private’ schools, both religous and non-religous. Are you saying that we are somehow unique in this area? If so why?
If all the public money given to these schools was directed to the public system, you would have a more equitable education system, an adequately funded public aeducation system, and a small but genuinely private school sector for those that could afford it. Seems obvious to me.
“If all the public money given to these schools was directed to the public system, you would have a more equitable education system, an adequately funded public aeducation system, and a small but genuinely private school sector for those that could afford it. Seems obvious to me.”
Actually you would have a much better public system because most of the articulate and assertive middle class would have a vested interested in making it thus.
The Goulburn school strike was an exercise in extortion, in which the NSW state government caved in to the demands of two Catholic schools. Would it work again if the NSW government threatened to defund Catholic schools? Of course it would. The NSW government recently caved in to the demands of the Catholic Church to fund World Youth Day, even to the extent of turning over several NSW public schools to accommodate Catholic pilgrims. If anything, State Aid to Catholic schools in NSW is even more locked in than it ever was.
And where does the Rudd government stand? As far as I can see, Gillard has no plans to change the funding arrangements of the previous Howard government.
Agreed Sir Snott!
And yes, the obvious element of this whole situation is that no government will dare to offend the various vested interests by decreasing funding, let alone eliminating it.
Here’s a link to an excellent essay http://auratonline.com/?p=30 on the website link Aurat, provided by muslimgirlpower # 57
I’ve pulled out one quote but the entire essay is very interesting and definitely worth a read:
klaus k # 91
Are you a Muslim woman?
Are you assuming that I am a “middle-class white woman”?
I’m away for a few days now. I’ll look in for your answer next week.
You’re rather good at shifting the goal-posts, or so it seems. I don’t disagree completely with seeking out ‘homeomorphic equivalents’ of a western human rights agenda, in fact such a project could be implied by my criticism (to the extent that it implies an agenda), although I think it could end up being another exercise in an idealistic quest for sameness in difference. Or even a strategic use of particular aspects of an Islamic tradition to suit a western political agenda. Assuming you haven’t changed your position from the earlier comments, but are seeking to bolster it, I rather think that is where will end up.
Your first question has no real bearing on this discussion, but clearly I am not a Muslim woman. One clue is that I’m not purporting to be one.
To answer your second: I assume that you have some idea of what a woman is and ought to be that your presume to be universal, but is in fact shaped by your context and experiences. It is more than likely from how you discuss these issues that your imagined ideal universal woman is, or is very much like, a ‘middle-class white woman’. It is less important who you are, than what shape this axiomatic woman is, and what priority you give her over actual women.
What a stupid statement. Unhinged is a common descriptor. It means crazy. Loopy. Irrational. It has no sexist connotations whatsoever. A lot of people referred to Heath Leger’s Joker using that word. Or is it just that any insult levelled at a woman by a man is sexist, in your eyes?
Klaus K #98
I didn’t realise there were any “goal-posts”.
I’m open to reading a wide variety of different opinions and considering them on their merit. I pulled out that quote (in my post #96) because I thought it was an interesting idea and might have tempted people to look at the entire essay. I wonder if you did?
While I’m intrigued by the idea of Mohammed being a feminist, my universal values tend towards this quote from the same essay on Aurat – Human Rights, Women and Islam: http://auratonline.com/?p=30
Klaus K #99 (and #56, #73, #79, #82, #84, #91, #98)
On the contrary, I think my first question has a lot of bearing on this discussion.
You say that “clearly I am not a Muslim woman”.
So who hides behind the nom de plume “Klaus K” I wonder? Are you a man? Or are you a woman pretending to be a man? This article http://viv.id.au/blog/?p=414 suggests women might feel the need to hide behind a male or neutral identity on the internet. And it’s not only women, many men also hide their real identity on internet blogs. ( George Megalogenis also touches on this issue on his blog).
It’s a sad indictment on our supposedly free and equal society that people might be afraid to stand by their views. We’ve obviously still got some way to go before we achieve the ideal state of free and virtuous citizens who are free to debate and challenge the status quo.
There are many brave women http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18119226 who stand by their views, not hiding behind pseudonyms.
Imagine how much more difficult it must be for women (and men) in more constrained societies to speak freely.
Going back to some of your responses to my posts, despite the fact you admit you are “not a Muslim woman”, you seem to consider yourself an expert on “Muslim women”. Who authorised you to speak on their behalf?
I suppose you think you’re also an expert on “middle-class white women” too? Let’s forget the simple defining and confining labels. There are billions of women in the world from many different backgrounds who no doubt share many things in common e.g. being born into a religion rather than choosing it. Indeed, if we look beyond the materialistic life, I suggest there is much more that unites people than divides them, if some people weren’t so keen to talk up the differences all the time. (But I suppose anthropologists have to make a living somehow).
I might now fall under that very broad generic term “middle-class white woman”, but my background as a “working-class, Irish Catholic, immigrant, state school educated woman” informs my opinion on many issues including justice, fairness, discrimination and education. And I am perfectly capable of empathising with other women, regardless of their race or creed.
John Stuart Mill was a man who was capable of empathising with women and that’s why he gave us the gift of his “The Subjection of Women” which played its part in the subsequently successful argument for women to gain citizenship.
In a recent interview with Rebecca Weisser, Ayaan Hirsi Ali mentioned her next book will explore the key differences between Islam and the West through imagined conversations in the New York Public Library between the prophet Mohammed and three of her favourite philosophers, John Stuart Mill, Karl Popper and Friedrich Hayek. In Hirsi Ali’s imagined conversation, Mill is going to argue that educated women are better for society, and why societies that free women from the shackles of tradition are more successful than societies that do not.
I think Ayaan Hirsi Ali, like me, appreciates John Stuart Mill and his valuable contribution to our freedom.
I’m sorry, Elizabeth, but you aren’t the arbiter of who can contribute to this blog and in what capacity. Introducing the ‘middle-class white woman thing’ obviously unsettled you, or you wouldn’t be using the tired idea that anonymity amounts to cowardice. If you are interested, I am a young, middle-class, white Australian male with an active interest in cultural politics.
I disagree with you about reading Mill’s contribution as a ‘gift’ to women. I’m not sure what the consequences are in terms of feminism in taking that view, actually.
As for the block quote from Aurat, I think that it is a more subtle point than you are suggesting, and it is also being posed within the context of a particular debate. For one thing, I’m not interested in endlessly reinterpreting the holy texts, but in addressing (third world) Muslim women’s rights from the assumption that they are, first and foremost, third world Muslim women, and not fundamentally some version of ‘everywoman’.
Isn’t Islam by its very nature misogynistic? Is it even possible to have a woman-friendly version of Islam other than Sufism?
I think idealists are coming at it from the wrong end with their debates about this enormous thing called ‘Islam’ and the viability of it’s ideas. Let’s start with lived experience in concrete circumstances, and with how people see and feel themselves to be. That’s where Islam exists – in actual people and institutions. It is an accomplished set of facts, not an abstract idea that we can consider in its abstraction.
Every week I go shopping in Bankstown where I see tons of women wearing burkas. I also see the occasional Talibani wearing head to toe black, with no part of the face visible. The Taliban make their women dress this way and it is a clear expression of how repressed the women are. The Taliban dress is of course the burka taken to extremes, so the burka is a more moserate form of repression, but it’s repression nevertheless. Islam is inherently misogynistic, and no reference to the “lived experience” of these women can change this.
Silkworm, “Taliban” is a catch-all term for a large number of political and social movements sin Afghanistan and Pakistan. None of their aims have to do with shopping in Bankstown.
I’m encouraged, I have to say, by the free-for-all, egalitarian nature of your sectarianism.
“Every week I go shopping in Bankstown where I see tons of women wearing burkas.”
Yeah, well I walked through the maternity ward and saw 218 babies wearing nylons, and you don’t see me putting that in a concept album.
Well if you’re gonna help explain the reference with your moniker, you might as well get it right.
*sigh*
Silkworm, the whole point about contesting misogyny (or more generally patriarchy) in any context is women’s lived experiences. What would it matter if a bunch of hypothetical misogynists were busily hating away in a vacuum somewhere all by themselves?
“…the whole point about contesting misogyny (or more generally patriarchy) in any context is women’s lived experiences.”
Bullshit. Talibani women are repressed whether they feel they are repressed or not.
Here’s a hint: “lived experiences” is not the same as “feeling repressed”.
Silkworm, you and Elizabeth H both seem to conflate “Muslim” with “extreme Wahabist or Taliban Muslim”. That’s as if I were to conflate “Christian” with “Exclusive Brethren or FLDS”. Many of the actual, you know, Muslim women in Australia have tertiary education, do not wear burquas etc. Women wearing burquas = unusual sight, make you take notice; Women not wearing burquas – not so much.
This thread has been TOTALLY derailed. I thought it was about the widespread acceptance of the idea that public, inclusive education is desirable as an antidote to the ghettoisation of religious people – something I would have thought you and EH would cheer. And it doesn’t mean, and is not predicated on, the banning of any religion. (I’m not about to approve of making people wear yellow crescents!)
Agreed on the thread derailment, Helen. If there are any more comments, they should be on topic.
“And it doesn’t mean, and is not predicated on, the banning of any religion.”
I have not called for the banning of any religion. I must repeat this – because you apparently are not paying attention – we only have to stop giving State Aid, and these religious schools will die a natural death. And even before we do this, we have to have a proper auditing of the moneys paid – even overpaid – to private schools under Howard’s deal.
“…wealthy church schools had been overpaid more than $2 billion under the SES formula.”
http://www.adogs.info/pr246.htm
I support the cessation of State aid to private schools of whatever (or no) religion, you very rude man.
Not sure this isn’t a total crock sorry. You must understand that, just like Christinaity, Islam had to accomodate itself to the local cultures which ranged from highly sophisticated places like Persia to fairly rustic places like Afghanistan. Islam is patriarchal as all Abrahamic faiths are. So are virtually all the creeds in the Levant. It tends to vary from place to place.
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It’s worth remembering that Turkey was one of the first places to give women the vote. It’s also worth noting that feminists in Egypt actually went back to traditional dress in the 1980s. In the 1970s when I lived there the veil wasn’t scene amongst urbane women much.
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The purpose of the veil – the burqua is not prescribed – is simply modesty. Men are supposed to wear beards pretty much for the same reason. It tempers the tyranny of beauty. Jews have followed the same codes and until the 14th century so did Christians.
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Of course as I said all of these faiths are sexist and misogynists groove on sexism.
Klaus K # 103
I think you are the one who is “unsettled” Klaus K, judging by your overbearing and patronising response. And yes, you sum it up very well, I do think “anonymity amounts to cowardice”, particularly when criticism is directed towards a person who has publicly stood up for his or her views.
As a woman I appreciate the works of John Stuart Mill, particularly The Subjection of Women, On Liberty and Considerations on Representative Government. Others may do as they please. Perhaps they would prefer to live in a world where these works hadn’t seen the light of day?
As for “third world Muslim women”, I wonder if they would be relieved to know that you are on the case? And I wonder how many “third world Muslim women” will ever have the opportunity to read Mill and decide for themselves?
When did you make that discovery Helen?
When I originally clicked on this thread, in the right-hand column, I did so because I was attracted by the title: My ideal is: all children in state schools. I guess this is my ideal too, that state education would be so good, parents wouldn’t even feel the need to enrol their children in private schools.
My ideal state school would provide an excellent education for students of all aptitudes, and prepare them to be “good citizens”. Students would be taught to aspire to an (updated and fully inclusive of all men and women) version of Aristotle’s concept of “the good life”, and endeavour to become virtuous citizens.
The quality of a state is dependent upon the quality of its citizens, and I have been influenced by John Stuart Mill’s idealistic views on democracy and its capacity to improve human society, i.e. his concept of “good government”, the principal element of which is “the improvement of the people themselves”. (John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government).
I was prepared to make a contribution along these lines, also wondering if “Good Citizenship” classes, including discussion on ethics and philosophy, are provided in schools? (Note: This article: School choice is ‘guesswork’: Julia Gillard is relevant.)
However on entering the thread, I discovered it was actually about Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s supposed beliefs about Muslim schools and had descended into an ad hominem attack on Hirsi Ali by some people who obviously think they are her intellectual superior.
In order to try and provide some balance, I have endeavoured to provide another perspective, on the general topic “women and freedom” including references and links. (I note Klaus K seems to think his opinion overrides my experience as a woman. Apparently, he thinks it is up to him to dictate which categories women fall into, and it seems the “lived experience in concrete circumstances” (# 105) of what he terms “middle-class white women” aren’t worthy of consideration.)
Women’s freedom is very pertinent to education, particularly if a religion (any religion) teaches the subordination of women – this would be at variance with a state where both men and women are equal before the law.
I’ve spent some time and thought preparing my posts in a spirit of contribution, but it is apparent that views that run counter to the prevailing LP “left of centre” perspective aren’t particularly welcome.
I understand where George Megalogenis and Christian Kerr are coming from.
One sided arguments are a bit of a bore to respond to, not to mention time-consuming in trying to balance against the weight of negative opinion, so I’ll take myself off now, and when I feel the need to express an opinion, I’ll try to find a civil blog which is prepared to consider all sides of an argument.
Here we see the Catch-22 – if Elizabeth’s comments were ignored, we’d all be snobs, yet if they are engaged and disagreed with, she’s being shouted down.
It appears that nothing less than kowtowing to Elizabeth’s opinions is sufficiently civil consideration of her side of an argument.
The Compass program on the ABC is currently running a series on religious education.
Tomorrow night’s program is on Christian education.
Last week’s program was on Muslim education.
Two muslim schools in Sydney were featured, Al Zahra College and Malek Fahd Islamic School.
The program was very positive and it was noted that “Australian values are identical to Islamic values. So we are learning Australian values every day. We’re practising Australian values every day.”
The founding principal of Al Zahra College, Ahmed Mokachar, said “Most of parents when they look at choices to schooling they want more values, more strict discipline. They want more qualified teachers. They also wanted a school to be able to cater for their cultural and religious and spiritual beliefs.”
It was great to see that this school has a civics program. The year sixes were shown learning about Australian parliamentary policy and practicing it in their school context.
Teacher Scott Williams noted: “I guess the idea is to help them develop leadership skills. They learn how to develop ideas, to debate, instead of just argue and shout at each other.”
The story then switched to the Malek Fahd Islamic School.
(It was interesting to hear that this school was founded with money from the Saudi royal family. It was noted that this was a “one-off grant” and the “school’s driving force” Dr Intaj Ali said “after that we have not received any money from Saudi Arabia.”).
Dr Ali described the ethos of the school: “What we do emphasise in the school is very high expectations of everybody and we try and push or encourage students to do better than what they had done previously. So that way everybody is trying to excel.”
Dr Ali also noted “We have taken steps to ensure that our children do not have this ghetto mentality that they are away from the mainstream. Right now in our schools about 50% of the staff is non muslim. This is a deliberate policy on our part. They are not just members of the staff. They are senior members of the staff.”
The Narrator noted that “In 2007 Malek Fahd ’s Year 12 results placed it in the top ten schools in NSW.”
Both schools certainly seemed impressive.
However, I was struck by the school uniforms. While the boys wore a conventional school uniform that didn’t set them too far apart from other school boys, the girls’ uniform was quite different from other girls in “the mainstream”.
At Malek Fahd, it was noted that “Islam is expressed to you at the school through dress. The girls wear hijab, long sleeves, long skirts.”
Here are some quotes from the female students about their uniform:
The narrator noted that in the high school it is compulsory to wear the headscarf… (My emphasis).
It was interesting to hear that girls were seen as representing Islam outside the school by their uniform, yet the boys weren’t similarly required to identify themselves in a “non-mainstream” way.
I recently came across an article by a Muslim woman, Zubia Malik, writing in the New Statesman – Hijab, the dress code for Muslim women?
A very interesting article…and the comments attached to the article are also worth a look…
Here are a few quotes from Ms Malik:
Even in our modern Western society, pockets of old-fashioned prejudice against women still lurk…
See for example this story in The Australian today: Gender tears Athenaeum gentleman’s club apart
Apparently the members of one of Melbourne’s most exclusive men’s clubs are “duelling over women and whether they should be allowed to grace the hallowed hallways of the Athenaeum Club, a leading gentleman’s club since 1866 and traditional home to the city’s power elite.”
Here are some more edited highlights:
I assume many of the privileged “younger members” of this exclusive men’s club were educated at elite private schools?
I wonder what sort of values are being taught at these elite private schools and are they compatible with modern society?
I also submitted another post today (which I assume is in the “spaminator”?)
This time it was only in the moderation queue, Elizabeth. Any post with 2 or more links goes into the mod queue, and posts with heaps of links will often trigger the spam filter and end up in the spam bucket.
Blame the evil spammers for their auto-commenting software – that’s who the filters are meant to catch, but unfortunately the software only gives us blacklist capability, not whitelisting.