Focus more on the behaviour of men

Aug 06, 2008 Letters

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Dear Editor,
In his SN letter (“Western clothes dehumanise women into sex objects” – Aug 5th) Mujtaba Nasir claims people are mounting unwarranted attacks on Islam. This is the first of several wrong-headed notions he spreads throughout his letter.

To begin with, no one is assailing Islam; I had made clear my opposition to radical religious fundamentalism.  If Mr. Nasir, the General Secretary of the CIOG, is involved in the fundamentalist brand of Islam, a practice the world now condemns as “Islamo-fascism”, only then should he feel himself under attack. If that’s the case, then Nasir’s got bigger problems than me.

I want to keep this letter short so I’ll stick to what is generally known as cognitive dissonance, or Mr. Nasir’s insufficient grasp of the modern social realities in which he lives. It is this lack of understanding that causes religious fundamentalist to insert their God into areas of life where their own intellect fails.

Nasir is offended by my charge that certain beliefs are “archaic”.  At the same time he declares that diseases are sent by his God. Today, even primary school children, in fact even people without any formal education, are aware of the germ theory of disease. Only an archaic mentality would believe that diseases are caused by supernatural or Godly curses.

General Secretary Nasir declares, “Islam allows freedom of belief” then he goes on to explain what makes a person an “infidel”.  Apparently the contradiction escapes him; you cannot label a person an infidel, one deserving of punishment according to Sharia law, while in the same breath you say he is free. If he is really free, then you should not be lambasting him as an infidel for his beliefs.

But the laugh out loud self-contradiction came when Nasir tells us that Islam regarded women as property, infant girls were buried alive, men coveted everything that women owned and so on, then he added, quite sagely, that this same Islam “conferred on women the honour and dignity that was rightfully theirs as human beings.”

“Ayaan Hirsi is probably not a good person to quote with her record of conviction for visa fraud,” Mr. Nasir says innocently. He neglected to mention that Ms. Hirsi committed visa fraud to escape Muslim men who had cut away at her vagina and later forced her into marriage as part of her Islamic faith.

There is a serious and hidden danger buried in Nasir’s letter. I am surprised and disappointed that women’s groups in Guyana have not rejected the concept that women are somehow responsible for the violence meted out against them, particularly rape.

Nasir insinuates it repeatedly in his letter:
“The extensive coverage of the female body is specified to preserve morality in the society.” In other words, he is saying that women’s dress and not some men’s lack of integrity causes immorality in society.

“The hijab indicates to the people on the street that the wearer is a decent person and should not be molested,” Nasir declares. So if a woman is not wearing a hijab what does that tell a person on the street? That the woman is indecent and is open to being “molested”?

“On a broader scale Islam saves women from being viewed and acting as sex objects,” Nasir says. To me, what Islam needs to do is teach their men to think and act less like sex-starved, lecherous perverts. The sexual objectification of women happens in the minds of Islamic men.

It is man’s inability to exercise mental discipline and physical self-control that is the issue here. A woman who needs to cover herself with a “bee-hive” looking burkha as defence against a man’s unwanted sexual advances is living in a society where the male is morally defunct and intellectually inferior to the cave-dwelling Neanderthal.

Nasir seems to endorse Sharia law which he claims will allow citizens to live fully in peace and obtain justice. The only country to have lived by the rules of Sharia was Afghanistan under the Taliban.

Here we learned that childhood ends at age 11 for some Afghan girls when they are married off to old men and that many such girls sought to escape their fate through suicide. We hear of Anisa, a 12-year old schoolgirl who was gang-raped by five Muslim gunmen in Sarpul province in the northern region of the country.

Afghanistan, under Sharia law had the highest srate of violence against women in the world. Suicides committed by Afghan women were higher than that of men.

The International Telegraph wrote that “AID workers in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan have reported a dramatic increase in the number of women committing suicide because they can no longer bear the country’s all-pervasive Islamic code. In the worst cases, women have taken their own lives by swallowing caustic soda – an agonising and lingering death. In addition, the number of women admitted to mental hospitals with severe depression has more than doubled since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, and forbade women to work.”

Space constraints prevent me from further exploring the immoral male chauvinism imposed by the Sharia code that Nasir endorses.  It is somewhat embarrassing that in modern day Guyana there are men who would try to slip by sexual bigotry and gender prejudice as being a higher moral code. It is alarming (and bodes ill for the future) that such men are teachers in our society.

Finally, Mr. Nasir wanted to know what’s the connection between homosexuality and Afghan and Iraqi children. Letter writer Sheik Mustapha understood. He said: “Muslims are generally silent on matters of major significance . . . but are vociferous on matters which are of little or no significance to the Muslims generally.” So, the link is you Mr. Nasir, and your reluctance to shift your attention away from men’s bedrooms to real issues that affect Muslims spiritually.

 Justin de Freitas

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