Feminists of other faiths, such as Christianity, weren't the dominant influences when they began reinterpreting their faiths in feminist fashions, and it took a lot of time from the first female disciples of Jesus to early feminist theologians to The Woman's Bible by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Revising Committee (1898, <http://www.sacred-texts.com/wmn/wb/index.htm>) to, for instance, the Rev. Joan S. Gray, elected moderator, who today leads the 2.3 million-member Presbyterian Church USA (elected by its 217th General Assembly on 15 June 2006). Cultural struggles are necessary, and only through such struggles in all relevant social institutions, from religion, education, politics, employment, military service to personal life, can progress be made.
On 4/11/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Here are some excerpts from an essay on the status of women in Islam
> from what purports to be the MB's official English-language site.
> It's problematic, to put it gently; you personally wouldn't last five
> minutes under such a regime.
Maybe you are forgetting the true state of women in Japan and the USA, both of which are in some ways more conservative than Iran when it comes to women's rights and lives, even though both are _a lot_ richer than it: more Iranian women study engineering and other traditionally male-dominated disciplines than Japanese or American women do, e.g., "In the applied physics department of Azad University 70% of the graduates are women -- a statistic which would make many universities in the West proud" (Frances Harrison, "Women graduates challenge Iran," 19 September 2006, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5359672.stm>); modern contraceptives are available "free and at-will in public clinics" in Iran (Population Action International, "The Shape of Things to Come: Why Age Structure Matters to a Safer, More Equitable World," p. 38, <http://www.populationaction.org/SOTC/>), whereas such things are not free here and the Pill was not even legalized in Japan until 1999 (not that many women in Japan had wanted the Pill, it turns out: "Japanese Women Shun the Pill: Condoms Account for About 80 Percent of the Birth Control Market," 20 August 2004, <http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/08/20/health/main637523.shtml>); etc.
To be sure, Japan doesn't have the sort of legal and social restrictions on abortion and homosexuality common now in the Middle East (or the global South in general for that matter), and in that sense it's better for women and GLBTQ people than the latter, but then again it has never had sodomy law in its entire history, even when homosexuality was illegal in the USA and other Western countries, and after the first criminalization of abortion in Japan in 1880, abortion was first partially legalized not because of a feminist movement but because of the Eugenic Protection Law (which, "amended in 1949 and 1952, was in effect with largely the same wording until 1996," now known as the Maternal Protection Law minus references to eugenics <http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/abortion/doc/japan.doc>).
All in all, I'd enjoy living in Iran or Egypt (I have yet to learn Arabic -- that comes after Persian -- but a good local friend of mine, originally from East Germany, is married to an Egyptian, and she and her husband visit Alexandria just about every year, and it would be fun to join them). But whether I'd enjoy living there isn't the yardstick. The peoples of Iran, Egypt, etc. must decide on their own how they want to live, regardless of my preferences or anyone else's.
> Doug
> ----
> <http://204.10.105.180/Home.asp?
> zPage=Systems&System=PressR&Press=Show&Lang=E&ID=4193>
I cut and pasted the link to get to the Web site (as the link was broken), and the site says that this article was authored by Dr. Yusuf Al Qaradawy of Qatar. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood in Qatar are not the same thing (in the latter the Brotherhood more or less dissolved itself).
Besides, why a man's voice counts more than a woman's voice? One thing that fundamentalists and many secular leftists agree on is that religious women's voices matter less -- and _will always matter less_ -- than religious men's. The former say that to assert men's authority, the latter to say that women have no business concerning themselves with religion, but they reinforce each other to define what religion -- in this case Islam -- is all about only according to men's points of view.
And there are a variety of voices among religious women, too, from very feminist to very conservative, just as there are among religious men. Whose voice will prevail in the end can be only proven by struggle, but it is usually the case that voices more in line with the standards of modernity will eventually come to predominate, formally or informally, mainly because they fit actual lives of people better.
On 4/11/07, Dennis Claxton <ddclaxton at earthlink.net> wrote:
<snip>
> I might read that because I read every prison memoir I can get my
> hands on. As for the Muslim Brotherhood, and the whole question of
> Islamic anti-imperialism, I trust Tariq Ali on that more than I do
> your new found interest:
>
> From a May 2003 interview by Harry Kreisler at the Institute of
> International Studies, Berkeley
>
> >You write about the Muslim Brotherhood and its founder, "What Hasan
> >al-Banna, the Brothers and their numerous successors today can never
> >accept is materialism
<snip>
> Biology can't be taught in many
> >Muslim countries, because to teach it means you give people other
> >ideas. When I was growing up, the one subject we were not taught,
> >even in those missionary schools, was biology.
<snip>
> http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/Elberg/Ali/ali-con4.html
Perhaps it's not a great idea to generalize from Tariq Ali's own school years -- how long ago was _that_? -- in Pakistan to Muslim countries in general today. In Iran the education of biology has expanded after the Iranian Revolution: "Regarding biology, botany and geology, the textbooks had progressed and developed gradually since 1970. Comparing the pre- and post-revolutionary timetable for these subjects, the time given to them increased after the revolution. For example, year-twelve students had eight hours a week for these courses between 1970 and 1975. Then, by eliminating the section on Botany from the Biology textbook and the section on Evolution from the Geology textbook, the hours were reduced to six by 1978. But after 1978, by increasing the Biology hours from four to six and a half, re-establishing the Botany course for two hours a week, and increasing Geology from two to three hours, the time devoted to these subjects in the weekly timetable almost doubled. . . . It was interesting that besides the increase in time for studying biology in the weekly timetable, for the first time, there was a separate laboratory hour in the schedule" ("Islamic Ideology and Its Formative Influence on Education in Contemporary," Economía, Sociedad y Territorio, vol. III, núm. 10, 2001, <http://www.cmq.edu.mx/documentos/Revista/revista10/est10d.pdf>).
The Gulf states do have a problem of scientific education in the spending department: "The monarchies of the Gulf are the richest of all Muslim nations, but little of that wealth is spent on research. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait spend about 0.2% of their gross domestic product (GDP) on science — less than one-tenth of the developed-country average of 2.3% and about a third of that spent by less wealthy Iran" (Jim Giles, "Islam and Science: Oil Rich, Science Poor," 1 November 2006, <http://www.nature.com/news/2006/061030/full/444028a.html>).
On 4/11/07, Seth Ackerman <sethackerman1 at verizon.net> wrote:
> Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> >The united front is more on the agenda today than before, because both
> >sides -- Islamists and socialists -- are more focused on the overall
> >question of democracy, less focused narrowly on ownership of means of
> >production, than before, the trend you can observe beyond the Middle
> >East, from Nepal to Venezuela.
> >
> >
> I actually go part of the way with Yoshie - but really, Yoshie, you go
> too far.
>
> I think there are signs - more like little glimmers, actually - that
> some Islamist movements like the MB contain germinal elements that could
> allow these groups one day to evolve into something along the lines of
> the postwar German Christian Democrats.
I understand the intent of comparison here, but the Muslim Brotherhood being in (pretty poor) Egypt, not in (very rich) Germany, its past and present evolution will probably be more like the change that other movements, secular or religious, have undergone in the global South. In terms of economic practice, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, if it ever comes into power, may become like, say, the (basically neoliberal and EU-oriented) Justice and Development Party of Turkey*, though their current struggles, ongoing cooperation with leftists, etc. may very well push them far more to the Left than that.
Even though all the Muslim Brotherhood will ever do is to help end Mubarak's dictatorship and make Cairo less reflexively pro-Tel Aviv & Washington, though, that will be an improvement over the present sad state of affairs in Egypt. It's like helping end the ancient regime of monarchical dictatorship was a big enough achievement for the CPN(Maoist), even though its economic program may not take Nepal anywhere.
* The possibility that the MB may become just like the AKP (or, worse, potentially become merely an Islamist battering ram to be used for ascendancy of the economic liberals even more neolilberal than the Mubarak regime) is probably the reason why some liberals are arguing that it makes sense to engage the MB in Egypt. E.g.
<http://www.harpers.org/PartiesOfGod.html> Thursday, March 1, 2007 Parties of God The Bush Doctrine and the rise of Islamic democracy By Ken Silverstein
<http://www.merip.org/newspaper_opeds/oped032507.html> Hear out Muslim Brotherhood Joshua Stacher and Samer Shehata The Boston Globe (3/25/07)
<http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=18100&prog=zch> Press Release: Ambiguity of 'Gray Zones' in Islamist Thinking
New Carnegie Paper Assesses Six Gray Areas Crucial to Democracy Development
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 8, 2006 CONTACT: Jennifer Linker, 202/939-2372, jlinker at CarnegieEndowment.org
Three experts on democracy promotion in the Middle East, Nathan J. Brown, Amr Hamzawy, and Marina Ottaway, have coauthored a new Carnegie Paper entitled, Islamist Movements and the Democratic Process in the Arab World: Exploring the Gray Zones. The paper seeks to move beyond stark views of the Islamist challenge as either a democratizing force or an extreme threat to democracy and to present a nuanced view of the position of Islamist parties. The authors consider mainstream movements in Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, and Bahrain, analyzing not only where the movements stand but also where they have yet to develop clear positions. In view of Hamas' recent victory in Palestine and the electoral success of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Egyptian elections, understanding the thinking of Islamist movements is more important than ever. To read and download online go to: http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/CP67.Brown.FINAL.pdf
<http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070301faessay86208/robert-s-leiken-steven-brooke/the-moderate-muslim-brotherhood.html>
The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood
Robert S. Leiken and Steven Brooke
>From Foreign Affairs, March/April 2007
Summary: Even as Western commentators condemn the Muslim Brotherhood for its Islamism, radicals in the Middle East condemn it for rejecting jihad and embracing democracy. Such relative moderation offers Washington a notable opportunity for engagement -- as long as policymakers recognize the considerable variation between the group's different branches and tendencies.
Robert S. Leiken is Director of the Immigration and National Security Programs at the Nixon Center and the author of the forthcoming "Europe's Angry Muslims". Steven Brooke is a Research Associate at the Nixon Center.
On 4/11/07, Seth Ackerman <sethackerman1 at verizon.net> wrote:
> If the "left" is to have any position at all toward groups like the MB,
> it should be to *hope* that this evolution happens and to criticially
> engage with those elements (if they exist) who are actively trying to
> push forward in this direction. But to wholeheartedly embrace Islamists
> *before* that transition happens makes no sense. Put aside the ethical
> question of solidarising with people who are militantly opposed to
> womens' equality.
The Muslim Brotherhood's view on women's rights isn't my view, nor is it Egyptian socialists' to my knowledge, but if the Muslim Brotherhood were _militantly_ opposed to women's equality like the Wahhabis, it wouldn't run women political candidates -- it would be opposed to that, too. The efforts it made to try to field as many as 25 women candidates, though unsuccessful, counts as progressive relative to the political status quo in Egypt.* Those potential women MB candidates (only one of whom agreed to run -- she won, but her victory was overturned) are conservative on their view on gender relations, but if we are serious about democracy, women's active participation in democratic politics is more important than, say, egalitarian laws handed down from state feminist men at the top with little initiative from women.
Similarly, when it comes to women's rights, Chavez's view is not mine.
But most Venezuelan women, including most female Chavez supporters, don't share mine either: read Gioconda Espina's "Beyond Polarization: Organized Venezuelan Women Promote Their Minimum Agenda" in the current issue of NACLA, and you'll see. Nevertheless, regardless of my own preferences or anyone else's, women in Venezuela are working out what change they want and how they want to achieve it, and that's what democracy is all about.
This focus on democracy is a trade-off. It may be the case that the Venezuelan Revolution won't socialize means of production or diminish poverty very much, not even to the extent that the Iranian Revolution has, let alone to the degree that the October Revolution did. But democracy, if it is protagonistic (not merely representative), is valuable in itself, and that's the choice an increasing number of peoples are making today.
* <http://www.islamonline.net/English/Views/2006/04/article02.shtml> Arab Women in Politics: Between Repression and Islamism? By Shahnaz Taplin-Chinoy** April 9, 2006
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Egypt has not been progressive on women's involvement in politics — the new Egyptian parliament has only nine women members.
Members of the Muslim Brotherhood are often represented as "saints" by Islamist supporters and as "sinners" or "suspects" by the media and young, educated women. An article published in Al Ahram on January 5, 2006 states that many moderates fear the gains of the Muslim Brotherhood "will mean an end to democracy...and the suppression of women."
So, perhaps unsurprisingly, only one woman — Makarem El Deiry — ran in November's election with the support of the Brotherhood.
El-Deiry initially won, but a judge later overturned her victory in favor of her opponent. But, El-Deiry's short-lived victory is only half the story. The other half involves 24 other women from the Brotherhood who declined to run. The Brotherhood's effort might have changed the gender composition of Egyptian politics significantly had the Mubarak regime allowed.
Amany Aboul Fadl, a professor of English literature and a mother of four, was one of the 24 who declined the chance to run on the Brotherhood slate. Involved with the Brotherhood since the 1970s, Fadl speaks bluntly: "The Muslim Brotherhood was pushing all 25 of us and pushing us hard. All but one refused to enter the political arena because [opposition] candidates are imprisoned and treated badly, including sexual assault. What dignified woman wants to subject herself to this kind of humiliation?" -- Yoshie