Here Are the Muslim Feminist Voices, Mr. Rushdie!

Welcome to CHOWK Fawzia Afzal-Khan.

I do have to say here that you beat me to this
reponse to Salman Rushdie (I had already gathered
up my research material to write an opinion
on the Rushdie`s piece in the NYT). I still may
write something but you have already touched on
some of the painful reality of where the moderates
in Islam stand.
Anyway, I enjoyed your writing here and hope that
we see a lot more of your material on CHOWK.

Ras

Dear Ms. Khan

Excellent rebuttal. It is so hard to add anything when one is in complete agreement. A very warm welcome to Chowk. I will contribute as the discussion progresses.

i was wondering whether your current project will include a look at the life and works of sheema kirmani, classical dancer and director.

shandana

dear professor afzal-khan

thank you very much for posting a critical view that takes us away from the binaries that are promoted by people like Bush, Osama and Rushdie.

thanks

As every body know Mr Rahadi is wrong. The greatest recent Living muslim(he was time magzine man of year) Imam Aytullah R. Khomeni has given judgement.Writing his nameis wrong as it make him important

Ras:

I couldn`t beat you to it here. Your `warm welcome to Chowk` was there before I could even hit the keyboard...and you have been doing it on the last four Boards, besides of course a veryyyyyy warm one to Benazir :)

PS: you can still give your version opposing Rushdie. It would be interesting to see two different counterpoints.

urstruly:

Ah, a warm welcome back!! And there are times you are in complete agreement with anyone? So, stay right here...

Dr. Fawzia Khan:

Obviously, I am more than likely to be with you on this one, though it is taking time to read. Your paragraphs are much too long and the content seems to be like a who`s who of Muslim feminism rather than the hows/whys. Anyway, I always wait in anticipation for someone to give Salman a rap. I have done it so often that now MY hands are aching. Hope you interact here...

Regards,

Farzana

[In a parenthetical aside, Mr. Rushdie sighs, ``(oh, for the voices of Muslim women to be heard!)``]

Dear Dr Khan

Many thanks for your article and the issue it raises. As you point out, there are many Muslim women who speak out against the external and internal domination of their societies by non-democratic (excuse the generalisation) forces.

Judging from the condition of many Muslim societies, however, these women do not seem to be heard and heeded by enough people (men and women) to cause perceptible improvements in these societies. It seems that some Muslim women are speaking sense, but most Muslim people are not paying them enough attention to benefit from it.

What would you say the reason for this general failure in Muslim society is?

Could it be related to the way we assign individuals worth based, at least in part, on their gender? And is this not caused, again at least in part, by our (faulty?) understanding of Islam?

Finally - apart from an individual commitment to listen to and evaluate each individual`s viewpoint on its own merits, what can we do to ensure that these women do not speak in vain? Is there anything?

Many thanks,

Zafar

PS Please note, I feel that what these women have to say is relevant to both the internal dynamics of power in a society, and also to how a society relates to external powers.

Reply Urstruly # 2

Dear Ms. Khan



Thats DOCTOR Khan toyou!!! budy

Fawzia,

A very erudite rebuttal...if there was any.

Rushdie is in the habit of a degree of cavalier disregard to details. His aside about Muslim women, is classic Rushdie. He did that earlier dismissing 20+ language literatures on India ..with a trite...``either nothing worthwhile was being written..or they have not been translated well enough.`` As if the grandiose idocy and abysmal ignorance of the first half of that sentence could be covered by the fig leaf of the later half.

I do have a question you might be qualified to answer, and I am asking you in all humility.

The kind of homogenuous globe-encompassing ``Islamist``...for the want of a better word... worldview that most sold-on-the-west find easy to attack...is not what I felt echoed in the telling examples you have quoted.

Whether Asma Jehangir, Dr. Nawal El Saadawi, or even the RAWA women...they are all dissidents within their societies/nations and essentially reacting creatively or through political activism to their own individual sitautions. They are NOT critiquing/condemning/condoning anything about the GLOBAL ORDER OR the religion of Islam. That they do take swipes at the US foregin policy is almost incidental to their primary concerns.

My question is...do you feel that these women...who are engaged in more immediate battles at homes... are as impacted by the Mid-East policy of the US...Palestine....and other such issues that is easy ammo for the ``Internationalist`` ``Islamists`` ?

Yes Sir . . . from rediff, Varsha Bhosale says . . .nevertheless, there does exist a country that has kept its 15 per cent Muslim population totally in line with the rest, believe it or not: In Singapore, there are no demands from Muslims for separate Islamic codes and other such inequities. The Government of Singapore appoints the mufti (the highest Muslim authority in the land); it vets all the Fridays sermons, which are required to be submitted to the authorities in advance; it monitors the sermons to ensure that there is no deviation from the approved text; and it steps in with the secular law of the land if the Muslim authorities do not police themselves . . .

+++

If there is one thing India and Pakistan agree on it is the apparent desire to be ``like Singapore``.

Right?

Dr Afzal-Khan:

You have engaged Rushdie very well, by pointing out that Muslim women have indeed spoken out against obscurantist versions of Islam-as-it-is-practised. Nevertheless, you have also vindicated Rushdie. You could mention only 4 women and one female organization who have taken on obscurantism.

The so-called male Islamists speak out with a tremendously louder volume: a few killings every week in the name of religion, routine bombings of civilian areas, over-powering of a country (Afghanistan), intensive suppression of religious equality in entire countries (Saudi Arabia, for instance), and now, ramming civilian aircraft into civilian structures.

Insha`allah, the voices of the brave Muslim women against obscurantism will rise to a level when they would begin to be heard against the roar of the male Islamists.

Dear Dr. Afzul-Khan,

Thank you for your article. It seems that women in progressive movements in the East and West, particularly in NGOs, or grassroots movements, are indeed ``marginalized`` by the various apparatuses of rigid religious and governmental institutions. The voices of groups like RAWA, of WAF(and its co-groups)are precisely the ones that should be utilized and never are in an integrated approach to policy making. What is the role of the NGO when it comes to informing domestic and international policy, in the US and in the international community? How do we work to give it the weight it deserves? How can various NGOs link on specific platforms?

As your piece correctly pointed out, the complexity of viewpoint and analysis of these voices makes packaging and appropriating them difficult (although I`d argue that our US govt. has come close in justifying their actions in Afghanistan in citing the collective and ``sudden`` realization of the oppression of Afghani women) and that to a greater extent these women and women groups resist attempts as such. Again, as you pointed out, they/we fight a war on two fronts; the assault of questionable international policy and the assault of extremely questionable domestic policy viz women, minorities and class.

In regards to Salman Rushdie; I am somewhat surprised to read that he is unaware of Muslim/South Asian/Arab/Asian/African women writers, or is participating in this exercise of marginalization. Could this be linked to his historically lukewarm engagement with this issue? It would be unwise to grant him or any other South Asian writer the agency to be representative of all writers, and his championing within the Western media/world of academia appears to be a somewhat different issue.

I am glad to hear that Dr. El-Saadaawi is teaching in the tri-state area. When I last had the opportunity to meet with her it was in conjunction to presenting the US bombing on Iraq through legal channels within the UN. Dr. El- Saadaawi is indeed, one of the many extraordinary women doing extraordinary work. Many of my friends had read her books and essays in our undergraduate years; they were indispensible to our politicization. Perhaps our mission now is to support the women who work within these fields wholeheartedly, by buying their work, and in demanding/sponsoring/organizing community events and venues that give women the space and safety to speak, create and work. In addition, there are many women esp., South Asian women who work with various communities in the legal sphere, particularly in protecting the rights of individuals who may not have such easy access to them. I think they are also an extremely important element in our self actualization. representation and determination and should be given much greater visibility.

I can speak to some grasroots organizations in NYC who embody work within the dichotomies that you describe. One is SAPTF, the South Asian Progressive Task Force. Their interrogations of many of the issues emerging within mainstream media, academia and the immigrant South Asian and Arab communities in NYC is startling and rigorous.

Once again, it was heartening to read your article. I will be looking for your academic work shortly! Thank you and welcome to Chowk!

regards

``The world should listen to these voices, the female voices allied with the ``secularist-humanist principles`` Rushdie seems to think don’t exist in the Islamic world.``

hogwash...these principles don`t exist in most of the Islamic world outside of India...where they do, they are an irrelevant grain of sand on a beach...

...why don`t you direct your wrath at the real culprits rather than at Mr. Rushdie, who is simply the messenger?

Talibanisation of Bangladesh

Bangladesh considered a secular country for all Bengalis Hindus and Muslim alike is slowly falling in the grips of Islamists. With Khaleda Zia and Jamaat parties in power who want to drive Hindus out of Bangladesh and make Bangladesh a pure Islamic country. Hindus are 14% of the Bangladesh population.

Bangladesh Hindus `will not go back`

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1670000/1670410.stm



Refugees face an uncertain future in India

By Moazzem Hossain in West Bengal

Hundreds of Bangladeshi Hindu families who have crossed the border into India to escape repression at home are refusing to return to their country.

They are now living with their relatives and friends in the border districts of West Bengal and intend to stay there permanently.

In the frontier town of Bongaon in West Bengal, I found several Bangladeshi Hindu families who fled following last month`s general elections.

The rise of Islamists worries minorities



To escape any possible move by the Indian authorities to send them back, these families were apparently hiding in a village near the Thakurnagar railway station.

All these families have horrific stories to tell.

Dipali Adhikari, who did not give out her real name for fear of reprisals against relatives in Bangladesh, related how she and seven other members of her family had managed to cross the border.

Horrific tales

Several days after the election, a group of armed men entered their house of and looted everything they had.

They poisoned the family`s fish pond, the main source of their income.

Then they turned to Dipali pointing a knife at her.

``They demanded 100,000 Taka [$1,770] as the fee if we wanted to live in that village,`` she said.

``Otherwise, they threatened me, we had to leave the country``.

Some families have broken up



``It was not just me, other Hindu families in our village too were subjected to similar torture.``

``We also heard stories of Hindu women being raped and murdered by armed hoodlums in neighbouring villages`` Dipali said.

After this incident, Dipali`s family decided to migrate to India.

They contacted a man in the border area who arranged their safe passage to India in exchange of money.

We ran through jungles and over ditches the whole night and didn`t stop until we crossed the border



Mita Rani

Dipali left behind her old parents to look after their ancestral home.

Mita Rani Roy was not so lucky.

I met Mita in a village in Malda, in northern West Bengal.

Mita Rani fled her home carrying her one-year old baby with a group of Hindu families when their village came under attack at midnight.

``We ran through jungles and over ditches the whole night and didn`t stop until we crossed the border``, Mita said.

Her husband Anil Chandra Roy was not at home the day Mita fled the country.

``I have lost contact with my husband since then.``

Refugee children don`t know what to expect



``I don`t know if he knows that we are in India.``

Neither Dipali nor Mita Rani wants to return to Bangladesh after their horrifying experience since the government of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia came to power in Bangladesh.

Political divisions

In Bangladesh, Hindus are generally perceived as supporters of the Awami League party of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Hindus believe the League holds secular ideals.

Shiekh Hasina`s party experienced a humiliating defeat in the elections and she accused her opponents of rigging the polls and intimidating minority voters.

Since the elections, many reports of widespread violence against the Hindu community and destruction of their property have appeared in the Bangladeshi press.

Back in Bangladesh, I visited Dipali`s village in the southern Bagerhat district, where her parents are among the few remaining inhabitants.

Border guards told to stop migrants



The Hindu-majority village looked deserted.

Dipali`s father Ganesh Boiragi told me nearly half of the 250 families in the village had left for unknown destination.

Mr Boiragi said he also intended to leave the country as Hindus were no longer safe in that area.

There are confusing reports of the number of Hindus who have left Bangladesh since the elections.

Bangladesh Refugee Welfare Council, a Calcutta- based group representing Bangladeshi Hindu immigrants in India, claims nearly 100,000 people entered India over the last month-and-a-half.

The Council`s Secretary, Bimal Majumdar, says many Bangaldeshi Hindus conceal their identity fearing deportation.

However, West Bengal`s Left Front government has dismissed the figures as highly exaggerated.

The Front`s Chairman, Biman Bose, says the recent migration of Bangladeshi Hindus to India has not reached that alarming level.

``But whatever is the case, we have requested the government to take up the issue with Bangladesh to ensure the safety and security for minority Hindus in their country, Mr Bose told the BBC.

Refugees want to stay in India



The Bangladeshi Government consistently denies any case of Hindu migration to India.

A government inquiry has found most media reports of alleged repression of Hindus as exaggerated.

A senior Bangladeshi minister, Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, says there was very little truth in what the media have been reporting on the issue.

``In only a few cases have we found instances of repression of minority Hindus.``

``In those cases we are taking action against officials who failed to protect the lives of the minorities.``

But civil rights groups are unhappy with the way the government is dealing with the issue.

Ain O Salish Kendro, a human rights organisation in Dhaka, has filed a petition in the High Court asking for an independent inquiry of the alleged repression of Hindus.

Chowkies,

Just a post script.

Dr. Afzal-Khan writes that women esp. in the Muslim world have been writing on the two fronts they live in. If we agree that it is imperative that women writers be given the space and respect they deserve, how is it that certain interactors on Chowk who accumulate several nicknames are permitted to post obscene and harrassing messages aimed at women who interact on Chowk? How can we demand that the words, opinions and ideas of women who are interrogating the issues of their lives individually and collectively be respected and safeguarded, when women are continually targetted for invective or online sexual harrassment by an interactor who is unable to read a diversity of viewpoints esp. penned by women of all faiths? Does it say something when this interactor has identified himself as a ``muslim`` and that his purported ``faith`` gives him license to spew his harrassing posts on every Chowk board?

regards

So where did women fail? Why were their voices not heard, even though they were screaming injustices? The answer is quite simple. It was because of the failure of the international media to air the opinions of the women who were and are speaking out. The international media is too busy portraying women as victims instead of activists.

We need to lobby for more positive media coverage.

Why is ``Behind the Veil`` aired again and again on CNN? Where are the voices of RAWA and other Muslim female activists? Why are Benazir Bhutto and Maleeha Lodhi being interviewed on Larry King Live for their ideas on politics only? Why is Asma Jehangir non-existent to the western media?

Did you send this to the NY Times? And if so, did it get published?