The Islamic culture and
the way it impacts on the mental and physical development of women
I was only ten and playing joyfully a game of volleyball with my
brother and a cousin, when one of our neighbours came into our
garden and saw me jumping up and down. She launched a glaring look
at me and told me not to jump up and down like that. “You are a big
girl now, I can see your breasts under your dress. You should not
jump up and down. People might see them.” Her words had a
reproachable connotation to them. She left me terribly embarrassed.
After that encounter I watched my bosoms growing in horror. From
that day on I had to bend my shoulders forward as much as possible
in order to hide my bosoms. Now after 25 years I am reminding
myself everyday (as advised by my physiotherapist) to keep my
shoulders and my back straight. But it is too late, an abnormal
posture and constant neck and back pains are what I and many other
women like me have inherited from the Islamic culture.
Girls in Islamic communities are brought up in a way that they would
clearly know their place in the family and in society. They must be
taught from the very young age that they are inferior; that they
must obey their male guardians and that they must preserve their
beauties, hidden behind the veil, until a man buys the license to
use them. The most effective and visual way of doing this is by
forcing young girls to wear the Islamic Hijab (veil) which is not
only conveying the required message, but also hinders physical
movements and naturally calms the young girl down and teaches them
to behave like proper Muslim women.
Veil is not just a sort of dress, it is not only a different kind of
clothing, it is not a strange and ugly fashion, and it is not even
an issue concerning only women. Veil is a social issue that affects
both women and men. It is part and parcel of a culture that
advocates and reinforces certain values propagated by the Islamic
teachings in the society.
The veil is a way of life, a specific kind of behaviour, an
expression of what society expects from a woman and her sexuality.
In short, veiling a woman determines her psychological, social and
physical developments. It will determine the way she speaks, walks,
looks, and even mixes with other people.
For those living in multi-cultural, western societies it is easy to
compare the differences between ordinary young girls and those
brought up among Islamist families. In comparison with girls who
have grown in a free environment and have never worn veil, those
coming from the Islamic culture, are more modest, soft spoken, and
quieter and have less confidence and self–esteem. They avoid eye
contacts with men, sit shrivelled in a far corner of the trains and
public areas looking out of the window or watching their own feet.
They try to move around in groups, are constantly worried and scared
of their surroundings. They are encouraged to stay indoors as much
as possible and so are less experienced in the social skills and
will remain dependant on men to do the tough outdoor business for
them.
The physical impact
Physically, the Islamic dresses, with its head to toe cover, hinder
and act as barriers for girls from playing, jumping, running and
most activities. A girl in a long dress will not be able to do most
activities conducive to a healthy physical development. This will
result in premature weariness and aging. A reason why the life
expectancy is very low among women in the Islam-Stricken countries.
The long dresses and head covers deprive the skin and hair from the
sun and air and will cause skin problems and hair damage. Alopecia
and skull itch is very common among women and girls who have to wear
veil for long hours. Wearing scarf is particularly uncomfortable for
young girls as it pulls the hair with each movement of the head and
irritates the child. In the hot summer days wearing a scarf means
loads of sweating and uneasiness. Children will loose their
interest in playing after a short while as it is not fun running
around in heavy long clothing and sweating under a scarf. Grown
women under the pressure of being caged inside a moving prison day
after day, will grow depressed and unnerved.
In addition to the above it is the fact that the Islamic teachings
discourages girls and women to laugh loudly and to dance in public
and listen to music and to sing. A girl’s giggle or laughter may
arouse a man and lead him astray, make him commit a sin. So a proper
Muslim girl is taught to cover her mouth when laughing and try hard
not to be heard. Laughing and playing and listening to music and
dancing are all the elements of a happy and cheerful life and
without them or with such restrictions for having them, life would
be a dull, depressing and gloomy affair. Depression is rife amongst
many young girls, who live under such restrictions. In Iran, the
percentage of suicides among young girls is very high. Each year
many teenage girls, who cannot see a way out of their misery, resort
to suicide through burning themselves. Those who do not kill
themselves and reach middle ages will usually become very bitter and
unhappy. Mourning ceremonies are full of women who are looking for a
place to gather around and cry their problems out.
The Islamic culture and
women’s sex life
As far as Islamic culture is concerned, sex has always been
considered men’s affair. Something that men are desperately after
and women are desperately trying to avoid. It is a monster that
might get you if you are not careful. A young girl is brought up
dreading sex. They put veil on her to (in their own view) save her
from rape and sexual harassment. They tell her to be careful, to
cover herself and not to do anything to attract men’s attention. Sex
is considered a sin and women are usually held responsible in rape
cases. Women’s feelings in this respect are completely ignored, they
are not allowed to talk about their feelings, and they are not asked
if they want to have sex or not. They are not told in many cases
what is sex and how a human’s sexual system works. Purity and
modesty discourages young women to talk about it.
According to Islamic culture a man is the one who seeks and gets
pleasure from sex. Women are told by Qoran and the Islamic Hadith to
obey their husbands and go to him whenever he wishes so. There are
several verses in Qoran about women who will go to hell for not
fulfiling their husband’s sexual needs.
Young women, who have hardly experienced any pleasure from their
sexual intercourse, do grow weary, disappointed, bitter and unhappy
about sexual experience. Frequent lower abdomen pain after none
pleasurable sexual intercourse I common amongst these women and they
develop constant back problems. They will soon loose any interest in
sex and try to suppress their sexual desires from a very young age.
They look for excuses like, children and housework, to get away with
sex. One of the main reasons given by the Islamic writers in favour
of men polygamy in Islam is that women grow old much sooner than men
and they loose their sexual interest because of child rearing, and
will not be able to provide for their husbands sexual needs. This is
a reactionary and anti-women argument, yet it reflects one true
facts and that is women’s active sexual life period in the Islamic
communities is much shorter than women in any other community.
This must end
Despite strict Islamic rules and traditions and despite the might of
the Islamic government, it is worth noting that there has always
been a strong resistance against such degrading practices. People
and in particular women have always been forced to observe Islamic
dress code and wear the veil and to behave in the Islamic way. Women
have worn the Islamic veil either due to traditional restrictions or
laws or due to patriarchal beliefs. Young girls if left to their own
devices would hardly ever opt for wearing hejab voluntarily. Maybe
it’s the force of nature; maybe it is the natural desire of human
beings for happiness, music, dance, beauty and laughter that rejects
the Islamic rules. Whatever the reason there is and always have been
a natural desire to oppose the inhuman, degrading and unhealthy
traditions of the veiling and sexual apartheid.
The Iranian society of the past 24 years is a typical example of
such a resistance. Every single day of the past 24 years has been
the scene of arrests, floggings, fines and harassments against women
for flouting Islamic veil and wearing make up. Women have rejected
such restrictions time and again. Countless amount of resources are
spent on moral squad to keep women out of sight and making sure that
they are properly dressed in public but to no avail. Only last year
on the international women’s day, women set fire to their
headscarves to show their strong protest against compulsory Islamic
veiling.
The only way out of this dark prison for women is the scraping of
the Islamic laws, the end of the Islamic rules and fighting against
all forms of sexual apartheid. Stopping the political Islam
worldwide is the first step towards equality for millions of women
across the world.
The tragic death of Heshu Younes, has once more stirred the old
issues of honour, faith, community, racism and cultural relativism
in multicultural society of Britain. (Rohila
Gupta and Rebecca Alison’s articles’ in The Guardian 03 October).
Once again we are allowed (for whatever reason) to see and think
about the complexity of these issues and to ask ourselves who is to
blame for the lost of 12 lives in a course of only one year.
It is certainly a step forward that everybody seems to think honour
killing is murder and no cultural and religious excuses will make it
less tolerable. And unlike Ms Gupta I am not concern that giving
honour killing publicity would promote racism in the society. On the
contrary I do believe that putting the issues of forced marriages
and honour killing and other discriminatory cultural and religious
values to open discussion will bring more understanding between
people and reduces the hatred and prejudices created by racism and
cultural relativism. It will also bring more security for young
girls and women, like Heshu to break away before it is too late.
For so many years western governments have poured money and support
into religious schools, mosques, churches, temples and other
community causes, in the name of respecting people’s cultures.
Anyone criticising these policies has been marked raciest and
victims have been left without any protection. Forced and under age
marriages have been tolerated, female genital circumcision has been
known and ignored, veiling young girls has been seen and accepted
all as facts of multi cultural society.
It theory these policies have been ways to welcome immigrants and
refugees into the country and to make life easier for them. But in
reality they have reinforced and supported the growth of values that
are clearly violation of international human and children’s rights.
Religious schools seem to be set up for people to bring up their
children the way they prefer, but it is forgotten that we live in a
secular society and those children have the same rights as anybody
else to grow up in a secular and none religious environment, free of
prejudice and be allowed to think and choose their own faith. It is
forgotten that in those schools and in particular in Islamic schools
inequality and inferiority of women is thought and children grow up
having discriminatory and prejudiced ideas.
Another damage done by these policies is that a huge number of
modern, secular and none religious foreigner who live in these
societies have been significantly under represented. They have not
been given the chance to prove that most or at least many of
immigrants and refugees have fled religious governments and values
and are here to build themselves free and secular lives. (My own
writings have been repeatedly rejected as being offensive to Islam)
While there are several mosques built every year in different cities
of Britain, where religious leaders will be preaching hatred and
anti women thoughts, there is far less done to hear voices of
victims in those communities and to protect women who dare break
away. Honour is something that comes from those places like
mosques, temples, churches and religious schools.
Unlike domestic violence honour killing is a collective action.
Honour is a religious value and unfortunately women are considered
the ones responsible for this value. And so they fall prey in the
hands of their male relative who think they have stained the honour
of the family. That is why we see attempts to justify and protect
those who have killed for honour. In the cases of domestic murders,
(as implied by the name) more personal motives are involved. A man,
who kills his wife either because of jealousy or to maintain his
power statues in the family, is acting according to his own personal
benefits (although these personal benefits have their roots in
expanded social values). But a man killing his wife or daughter for
honour is protecting his family’s honour. He acts as representative
of his faith group or his family. He is doing this because he wants
to protect his faith and his believes and because he knows his God
and his religious leaders will approve of what he has done.
In the eyes of the law, however a murderer is an individual murderer
and has to be punished for his deed accordingly, (Mr Younes’
sentence is welcomed). At the same time there are steps that must be
taken by the government and the society. The tragedy of Heshu Younes
must result in new resolutions and policies to protect future
victims. Only when people are respected and treated equally as human
beings, can we fight racism and any form of prejudice effectively.
Political Islam the main
obstacle on the way of secularism and equality
Medusa’s editor Azar Majedi was supposed to be
here and talk to you today, but unfortunately she was not able to
do so. But I would like to start my speech with a quotation from
her first editorial, in which Azar Majedi highlights our aims in
lunching our magazine. The paragraph reads:
“Medusa believes women rights are universal,
that equality and women’s emancipation are in strong contradiction
with religious powers and reactionary, patriarchal values. In
order to guarantee women’s liberation, religion must be separated
from the state and education.”
And this we have been loyal to since our
establishment. During these years we have established the fact
that we are strictly against political Islam and sexual apartheid
that rules in Iran and the Middle East countries. We have always
treated political religion and in particular the Islamic laws as
the first and main obstacle in the way of women’s freedom and
equality. While feminist organisations had been busy finding and
supporting milder factions of Islamists, while the international
media and the western governments tried to introduce less hairy
mullahs as reformist and liberal, we
insisted that there was no progressive side as far as Islam is
concerned.
We have frequently been
criticised and asked why Islam?
What is it about Islam that makes it stand out among other
religions? Surly other faiths don’t treat women any better than
Islam? Aren’t there faith schools for many other religions as well
as Islam? Isn’t it true that Jewish man thank God every day for
not being a dog and a woman?
I do not dispute the fact that other religions
do not treat women equally. In fact all religions are based on
inequality and treat women as inferiors. But Islam is a political
power, which for the past 30 years thanks to the western
governments’ support has grown and made a hell of a life for women
in the countries it has any power or influence. It has even
managed to effect people’s lives in the western countries. (Take a
look at the number of honour killings and forced marriages in
Britain to see my point)
The Islamic governments have clearly and
shamelessly defined women as inferiors in their laws. Women are
imprisoned in a dark, mobile prison cell called the veil,
paedophile is legalised as the age of marriage is reduced to nine
for girls. Women have been stoned to death under Islamic rule for
adultery. Women have been arrested and flogged for wearing make
up. ……….
We women right activist are left with no choice
but to fight Islam, as every step we take requires breaking a wall
of Islamic rule that is built in front of any civilisation.
Islam and political Islam is indeed a power
that has to be defeated in order to go forward and bring changes
about women’s lives.
The myth of better factions of Islam, only
misguides the women’s’ movement and astray it in a completely
wrong direction. There is never possible to have an Islamic
government in which women do not have to wear the veil or their
rights would be protected. The history of Islam and especially its
last thirty years of influence and rule have clearly illustrated
an era of terror, fear, and sexual apartheid, sexual segregation
and inhumane laws for women.
We are living in the 21 century in a very
increasingly globalised world. What is happening in Afghanistan
and Iran affects us here and we have no choice but to unite and
defeat our most dangerous and appalling enemy. Political Islam
must be defeated and pushed back to the backrooms of individual
people, it has to be withdrawn from the government, taken out of
the schools and cleared from the streets, or we will not witness
any improvement in the women’s lives.
When Maryam Ayoobi a
32-year old Iranian woman was told of the high court’s final
decision on her sentence, she fainted. The magistrate court had
sentenced her to death by stoning for adultery. Mrs Ayoobi had
appealed against the decision and waited with hope for the
outcome. On the beginning of March 2001, The
high court approved the previous sentence adding that her body
should be burned after her death. This means the most extreme form
of punishment in the Islamic law.
Stoning is a form of
Islamic punishment for adultery, which had been legislated by the
Iranian government in the penal code of the country and ever since
the establishment of the Islamic republic of Iran, many women and
some men had been executed in such fashion. The Penal code
referring to civil laws and social behaviours comes in five books
and is called ‘Hodoud’ in which the sexual acts outside marriage
are defined as serious crime and punishable by law. According to
article 84, married women and men who commit adultery will be
stoned to death, while unmarried couples involved in unlawful
sexual acts might get away by milder punishments such as flogging.
The procedures of stoning and even the size of the stones have
been clearly codified by the law.
Fortunately the
International Committee against stoning took up her case and a
campaign was lunched world-wide to save her. So far her sentence
has not been carried out and she is still in jail.
There are however,
others who are less lucky and the thunderstruck of their fate
would not give them any chance to cry out for help. So was an
un-named woman who according to the daily newspaper Entekhab, was
stoned to death early morning on Monday
21st May 2001by the security forces and the guards of
the infamous Evin prison, where she had spent the past eight years
of her life. The news reported by Entekhab and some of Iranian
radio stations did not even reveal her identity. She had been
imprisoned many years for playing in pornographic films and having
unlawful sexual relationships, crimes serious enough to make one
deserve such an agonising death.
Even though men and
women are equally guilty in front of law when they commit
adultery, the law is unquestionably harsher on women. The
fraction of men being stoned to death in the recent years is much
lower. Mrs Ayoobi’s lover is to be executed possibly by gun shot
and the 24-year-old allegedly lover of Shahla (another woman
sentenced to death) is to be hanged in public. Even the way
stoning is performed gives men more (not many but more anyway)
chances to escape. The victim is to be buried in a ditch as stated
in the law and stoned to death. Women must be buried up to their
necks, while the ditch for men is up to their waist. If a man or
woman manages to pull her-himself up of
the ditch and run away he/she must be pardoned. Logically speaking
the chances a woman who is buried all the way to her neck to be
able to pull herself up are really rare.
“In Iran stoning
someone to death is not a crime choosing the wrong stone is” read
a banner hanged by the International Campaign for the Defence of
Women’s Rights in Iran, in the Trafalgar Square for the
International Women’s Day demonstration. There is a legal base for
this statement. According to article 104 of the penal code stones
used in stoning must be of proper size that is “not so large that
the offender would die by receiving one or two hits, nor too small
to be defined as pebbles”
Although there are some
Muslims who do not approve of this punishment, stoning has always
been associated with Islam and has been carried out in the
Islamist societies throughout the history. Those who are against
stoning argue that there are no clear instructions in the Qoran
(the holly book) about stoning one to death. They believe that the
book has been interpreted inaccurately and stoning has never been
mentioned in it. The majority of Muslim Ulema’s however, appear to
have found bases for stoning both in the Qoran and Hadith (Sayings
and stories about prophet Mohammed’s
behaviours told by his close followers.). The following narration
could be found in many versions of the Hadith books and is an
example used frequently by those supporting stoning.
“
Narrated
Jabir: A man from the tribe of Aslam came to the prophet and
confessed that he had committed an illegal sexual intercourse.
The prophet turned away from him, until the man bore witness
against himself four times. Then the prophet said, ‘are you mad?’
the man said ‘no’. The prophet asked ‘are you married?’ the man
replied ‘yes’. The prophet ordered Muslims to stone him to
death. He was stoned to death in Musalla. When the stones
troubled him he fled, but he was cough and stoned till he died.
The prophet spoke well of him and offered his funeral prayers.”
(Hadith, volume 8, book 82, number 810)
They might disagree on
the forms of punishment, but it is widely accepted among Muslims
that fornication is a major crime and deserves sever punishment.
Sexual acts in the Muslim thinking are not private matters of
individuals; they are measure of honour for the whole society. A
married man or woman having sexual intercourse outside marriage,
do not only commit a crime against one or two individuals (their
husband or wife) but they will transgress the honour of their
society as a whole and therefore they must be punished in public
and in a very painful way. Taqteel is the word used in the
Quran for painful executions. At the time of the prophet Mohammed
Rajem, (stoning) had been such a method and it seems that Muslim
leaders had followed the tradition for 1500 years.
There have been some
attempts to put an end to stoning in the countries it is
administered. A very recent organisation as such is the
International Committee against stoning, which is a network of
many individual, groups and human right bodies world-wide.
According to Mina Ahadi the co-ordinator of this committee,
stoning is not a simple cultural practice carried out among
certain nationalities, it is an open
crime against humanity and must not be tolerated by the world. Ms
Ahadi an Iranian woman activist living in
exile, believes that those administering stoning and making
laws about it are the real criminals and must be put on trail for
it.
The organisation has
taken the issue to European commission on Human rights and has
demanded official action against Iranian government.
On the 17 April 2001
the EU tabled a resolution on the situation of human rights in
Iran at the 57th session of commission of human
rights. It is stated in this resolution that
“ The commission deplores the continued executions in the
apparent absence of respect for internationally recognised
safeguards in particular public and especially cruel executions
and urges that the capital punishment will not be imposed for
crimes other than the most serious and will not be pronounced in
disregard of the obligations it has assumed under the
international convenant on civil and political rights.”
In the last two years
the number of public stoning in Iran has reduced or as some
newspapers stated have become rare. Perhaps a lesson had been
learnt when in 1997 residents of Bookan rioted against the police
forces trying to stone a woman called Zolaikha Kadkhda in public.
She was rescued by the angry crowd and was sent to hospital. The
authorities had difficulty in calming the situation down again.
Masoma Sadeqiyan another woman sentenced to death in Marivan was
pardoned as the government received thousands of protest letters
from all over the world. The sentence of Maryam Ayoobi had been
delayed due to an international outcry and the very recent case of
stoning have been carried out in the backyard of a prison by only
the security forces and prison guards.
The cases of stoning
might be only few a year, they might be very rare indeed, but that
dose not justify the fact that in some parts of the world stoning
has been codified and perfectly acceptable by law. If a single
case of witch burning is acceptable in the modern world, maybe one
can digest rare numbers of stoning too. But
lets face it, one case of stoning is too many and it is our
responsibility to stop it.