[BRIEF NOTE] Religion(s) of Peace, Religion(s) of Hate
I'd like to call people's attention to an excellent post from Damelon Kimbrough, "Islam is a religion of peace." My translation of the introduction follows:
Islam is a religion of peace
Maybe yes, maybe no. As with all things, certainty on this question depends entirely on the people involved. Islam is a religion of peace and love when kind and loving people are involved, and a religion of murderous hate when hateful and murderous people are involved. Sorry guys, but a religion is composed of people, and a religion presents itself in the eyes of non-believers to non-believers through the individuals who practice it.
In a letter that I sent to the Toronto Star in limited defense of the French ban on the hijab, someone in the comments made the point that although an often extreme misogyny is present in many Muslim countries, this misogyny isn't intrinsic to Islam. That's a valid point, and I agree with it.
What I don't agree with, however, is the poster's statement that this misogyny has nothing to do with Islam. I'm sorry, but if people are saying that you as a woman must cover yourself with a hijab, forget about trying to be a free individual because Islamic religious traditions, say you must renounce any role apart from being the mother of new Muslims, then it's intimately connected. Certainly, these traditions are patriarchal; they can also be Islamic. Consider, for instance, the Front Islamique de Salut and its military branch, the Groupe Islamique Armée. Before the Algerian civil war began, the FIS consistently denied women any right to equality, or to a public life:
A cornerstone of the fundamentalist agenda is the imposition of gender-apartheid and the targeting of women who deviate in any way from their very restricted prescribed role within the fundamentalist framework. After legalization of the FIS and prior to the elections, Ali Belhadj stated that "the woman is a producer of men, she produces no material goods, but this essential thing which is the Muslim." Abassi Mandani also stated:
"Recent demonstrations of women against violence and intolerance are one of the greatest dangers threatening the destiny of Algeria...[they are] defying the conscience of the people and repudiating national values."
During that time when FIS legally controlled a substantial number of municipalities one of FIS's iman Abdelkhader Moghni stated:
"Women should go home and leave their jobs for the thousands of young unemployed men. They waste their time, spending their salaries on make-up and dresses."
This rhetoric was backed up by political action on the part of FIS elected officials as well as the threat of force.
Fundamentalist violence against women continued during the period between the legalization of FIS and the cancellation of the elections. In December of 1989, a female judo athlete was assaulted for violating fundamentalist dictates. From February through April of 1990, fundamentalists launched series of assaults on women students at various university residence halls. In one case, a young woman was whipped while on the way to a lecture. In many instances, over a period of months and without any police intervention, female students were driven back into the residence hall by fundamentalists with hatchets to impose a "curfew" on the female students.
The fundamentalist agenda to institutionalize extreme discrimination against women -- the beginning elements of gender apartheid -- became even clearer between 1991 and 1992 when the FIS exercised official power in a number of municipalities. While FIS often co-opts the language of human rights, even in relation to women, the programs they implemented that year through fiat and threat of violence to resisters -- sex segregation in the schools and on the buses, prohibiüng girls from sports, imposing the wearing of the veil, forced religious worship, and prohibition from certain employment -- clearly demonstrates the contrary.
In the civil war, the FIS and the GIA graduated to the wholesale rape, torture, and slaughter of women. (As in Iraq, I can think of worse people for a military to kill.) And, judging by the numerous statements both organizations have made claiming Islamic justifications for all of their actions--not only those aimed against women--it's safe to describe their actions as Islamic.
As Mr. Kimbrough also noted in his post (my translation again), "every place above where I wrote 'Islam' you can freely replace it with any religion (and its followers) of your choice." I'd go further and expand that to every ideology. To my mind, it's completely irresponsible for practitioners of any ideology to deny the legitimacy of extremists in their movement. Claiming that the misogynists of the FIS and GIA aren't Muslims, or that the numerous Christians who aide and abet anti-Semitism in its various forms aren't real Christians, or that the Hebron settlers aren't real Zionists, or that Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot aren't real Communists, or that the mobs who massacred thousands of Muslims in Gujarat last year aren't made up of real Hindus--all of these excuses are cheap ways to escape responsibility for your ideology's bad side-effects.
Perhaps your ideology is being debased. It's certainly possible--the Church, for instance, never condoned pogroms. One can certainly hope that your ideology is being debased in being made a tool for oppression, suffering, and death; if it isn't being debased, then it should be eliminated.
Perhaps there are things which are wrong with your ideology. The Church never condoned pogroms; it did, though, condone the reduction of Jews to permanent second-class status conditional only on their religious assimilation. If that's the case, then you should change it.
If there are many noble and good things in your ideology of choice, though, and if you think that your ideology should be known for these things instead of for horrible crimes, you can't simply ignore your ideology's connection to and responsibility for those crimes, for by so doing you passively collaborate in its bad marketing. And if you deny your ideology's connection outright, then you're either misinformed or lying.
I'm fond of honesty, in these matters as in others. It disturbs me that other people seem to disagree; or, perhaps more charitably, that other people don't think things through.
Islam is a religion of peace
Maybe yes, maybe no. As with all things, certainty on this question depends entirely on the people involved. Islam is a religion of peace and love when kind and loving people are involved, and a religion of murderous hate when hateful and murderous people are involved. Sorry guys, but a religion is composed of people, and a religion presents itself in the eyes of non-believers to non-believers through the individuals who practice it.
In a letter that I sent to the Toronto Star in limited defense of the French ban on the hijab, someone in the comments made the point that although an often extreme misogyny is present in many Muslim countries, this misogyny isn't intrinsic to Islam. That's a valid point, and I agree with it.
What I don't agree with, however, is the poster's statement that this misogyny has nothing to do with Islam. I'm sorry, but if people are saying that you as a woman must cover yourself with a hijab, forget about trying to be a free individual because Islamic religious traditions, say you must renounce any role apart from being the mother of new Muslims, then it's intimately connected. Certainly, these traditions are patriarchal; they can also be Islamic. Consider, for instance, the Front Islamique de Salut and its military branch, the Groupe Islamique Armée. Before the Algerian civil war began, the FIS consistently denied women any right to equality, or to a public life:
A cornerstone of the fundamentalist agenda is the imposition of gender-apartheid and the targeting of women who deviate in any way from their very restricted prescribed role within the fundamentalist framework. After legalization of the FIS and prior to the elections, Ali Belhadj stated that "the woman is a producer of men, she produces no material goods, but this essential thing which is the Muslim." Abassi Mandani also stated:
"Recent demonstrations of women against violence and intolerance are one of the greatest dangers threatening the destiny of Algeria...[they are] defying the conscience of the people and repudiating national values."
During that time when FIS legally controlled a substantial number of municipalities one of FIS's iman Abdelkhader Moghni stated:
"Women should go home and leave their jobs for the thousands of young unemployed men. They waste their time, spending their salaries on make-up and dresses."
This rhetoric was backed up by political action on the part of FIS elected officials as well as the threat of force.
Fundamentalist violence against women continued during the period between the legalization of FIS and the cancellation of the elections. In December of 1989, a female judo athlete was assaulted for violating fundamentalist dictates. From February through April of 1990, fundamentalists launched series of assaults on women students at various university residence halls. In one case, a young woman was whipped while on the way to a lecture. In many instances, over a period of months and without any police intervention, female students were driven back into the residence hall by fundamentalists with hatchets to impose a "curfew" on the female students.
The fundamentalist agenda to institutionalize extreme discrimination against women -- the beginning elements of gender apartheid -- became even clearer between 1991 and 1992 when the FIS exercised official power in a number of municipalities. While FIS often co-opts the language of human rights, even in relation to women, the programs they implemented that year through fiat and threat of violence to resisters -- sex segregation in the schools and on the buses, prohibiüng girls from sports, imposing the wearing of the veil, forced religious worship, and prohibition from certain employment -- clearly demonstrates the contrary.
In the civil war, the FIS and the GIA graduated to the wholesale rape, torture, and slaughter of women. (As in Iraq, I can think of worse people for a military to kill.) And, judging by the numerous statements both organizations have made claiming Islamic justifications for all of their actions--not only those aimed against women--it's safe to describe their actions as Islamic.
As Mr. Kimbrough also noted in his post (my translation again), "every place above where I wrote 'Islam' you can freely replace it with any religion (and its followers) of your choice." I'd go further and expand that to every ideology. To my mind, it's completely irresponsible for practitioners of any ideology to deny the legitimacy of extremists in their movement. Claiming that the misogynists of the FIS and GIA aren't Muslims, or that the numerous Christians who aide and abet anti-Semitism in its various forms aren't real Christians, or that the Hebron settlers aren't real Zionists, or that Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot aren't real Communists, or that the mobs who massacred thousands of Muslims in Gujarat last year aren't made up of real Hindus--all of these excuses are cheap ways to escape responsibility for your ideology's bad side-effects.
Perhaps your ideology is being debased. It's certainly possible--the Church, for instance, never condoned pogroms. One can certainly hope that your ideology is being debased in being made a tool for oppression, suffering, and death; if it isn't being debased, then it should be eliminated.
Perhaps there are things which are wrong with your ideology. The Church never condoned pogroms; it did, though, condone the reduction of Jews to permanent second-class status conditional only on their religious assimilation. If that's the case, then you should change it.
If there are many noble and good things in your ideology of choice, though, and if you think that your ideology should be known for these things instead of for horrible crimes, you can't simply ignore your ideology's connection to and responsibility for those crimes, for by so doing you passively collaborate in its bad marketing. And if you deny your ideology's connection outright, then you're either misinformed or lying.
I'm fond of honesty, in these matters as in others. It disturbs me that other people seem to disagree; or, perhaps more charitably, that other people don't think things through.