A Past Letter to Bedier

Dear Mr. Bedier,

Yesterday, I listened to the radio program on WMNF called True Talk. You and your co-host, Samar Jarrah, spoke with a journalist who had written a book about second generation Muslims in America. One of the first comments that caught my attention was made be Samar; she said that when she hears that Irshad Manji is “being promoted as the champion of women’s rights …as a Muslim myself, when I hear that, I just want to disappear…” Why would she want to disappear? Then Genève responds that she [Manji] is not a representative of Muslims anywhere and that it is unfortunate that this personality has emerged because a lot of damage has been done. Genève continues to say that it is unfortunate that she [Manji] is promoted by certain interest groups.
Such disdain! Such discrimination of a woman that is highly embraced by intellectuals and people worldwide. Manji is also a lesbian. Wow, imagine that, an outspoken feminist Muslim lesbian. Such diversity does really exist within Islamic culture, and you do wrong to not embrace this. Like all societies, people are not uniform, nor will they conform to a single idea. This is a notion highly praised in Democratic societies for which Muslim societies must learn. Your responsibility should lie in supporting such diverse opinions and personalities. Do not express your blatant intolerance of them. Irshad Manji was born in Uganda and went to Islamic madressa; it is not that she is without first hand experience of a Muslim culture nor is she ignorant of the Koran, she obviously bases her writing and beliefs on what is written and can be interpreted in the Koran.

I am utterly flabbergasted at how the host Samar and this author discredit Irshad Manji in a manner that is haughty and with such scorn. That Irshad is a not a good representative of Muslims is a subjective utterance and undermines what you claim Islam to be: a religion of peace and tolerance. Irshad Manji is critical of Islam, and rightly so, because the Koran describes how women’s natural biological make-up dictate their role in life. Obviously some women (many) will rebel against such a notion. As you know religious doctrines within Christianity, Judaism and Islam are subject to a variety of interpretations and that it is virtually impossible to claim be a representative Islam. Consider how Islam stretches from Africa to Indonesia. Islam is practiced differently due to cultural geography. In addition to this, Islam is practiced differently in the various Western nations and American Muslims differ from Euro Muslims.
The discussion and politics that you and your co-host have of “explaining how Islam really is” is totally uninteresting. Like Marxism, yes, it may be all fine on paper but in reality that is not what is being practiced. Issues within Islamic cultures such as honor killings, genital mutilation, (forced) arranged marriages, and the unequal treatment of many women in Islamic countries needs to be addressed and something must be done. That Islam does not encourage such practices is beside the point; the real issue is what is being perpetrated today by Muslims. Not only are these issues not exclusive for Muslim countries but in Europe as well! Every year hundreds of Muslim children disappear from European schools because they are sent off to their home country to be married to a family member, or a friend of the family. Many Muslim women are subjected to genital mutilation and they are literally prisoners of their own home because many Muslim husbands fear that their women will become “westernized.”
I believe you and your co-host do a great disservice to yourselves by dissociating yourselves from voices [“these people” as you both say] like: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Chahla Chafiq, Caroline Fourest, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Irshad Manji, Mehdi Mozaffari, Maryam Namazie, Taslima Nasreen, Salman Rushdie, Antoine Sfeir, Philippe Val, and Ibn Warraq. These people are highly analytical, self-reflected, intelligent, and educated people who believe that we must struggle for universal values such as freedom of expression and secularist views. They appeal to the weapon of rational rhetoric and the written word, espoused so dearly by Enlightenment advocate Hirsi.
Yesterday, your show discredited some of these voices like Manji and Hirsi and you also mentioned Bridget Gabriel. These are outstanding, educated and strong women, who have personal experiences that express occurrences and beliefs in the Muslim world that are dangerous and not something that is only embraced by a small minority. These women confirm that their experiences are not unique! These are of course the famous voices; consider those that are not heard. Consider the statistics in Muslim countries of people who support the ideology of Bin Laden or the number (70%) of Muslims in England that support the installment of Sharia law in England. Many second and third generation English Muslim men and other Muslims throughout Europe seek wives in Islamic countries only to bring them back and keep them as domestic help, making sure that they are kept isolated from western culture by refusing them access through that culture via acquiring the language. This is a growing problem and it propagates an undignified treatment of women under the auspices of supposedly educated people who proclaim to be devout Muslims. So, we are not only talking about fundamental Islamists who blow up people but about an extreme form of religiosity that is embraced by a large part of the Muslim community.
The author mentions Dr Ingrid Mattson to provide proof against stereotypes of Muslim women; that women of Islam can be educated, outspoken and independent as well as be neotradtional and wear a hijab. Sure, they can as long as they are born in Western country where women of all ranks in society will have the opportunity to receive an education like Dr Mattson. Equality of the sexes was fought for in the Western World for ages and the fruit of that success is what Dr. Mattson has thrived on. I am not saying that Muslim countries do not have such female types as Dr Mattson but the proportion of them is very low, too low. Geneve says “Islam does not oppress women.” How is it that the vast majority of Muslim nations could go so astray as to interpret the Koran in such a way as to demote women as second class citizens? Can it be that there does exist verse (hadith) in the Koran that taken out of historical context (as the defenders would argue) can seem hostile and discriminatory of women? What about the general incessant pounding of the references in the Koran that supports killing infidels? You might say then; oh, but Islam supports Christianity and Judaism. Yes, this is all good but what about the rest of the religions? Should they not share equal protection from discrimination? And why is it that when I speak with Muslims they do not know of or recognize the existence of Islamic jurisprudence of dhimma- a rule of law that has in instances of Islamic Imperial rule maintained Christians and Jews as second rate citizens. Among the various actions supported by dhimma was the occasional slap on the neck by Muslims of their Jewish and Christian neighbors in order to remind them of their lower rank in society. And although dhimma did not force conversions upon the dhimmis, leaders did resort to forced conversions- again a discrepancy between religion and practice.
Moving forward. You find it difficult to understand the Syrian woman’s claim of being an atheist and at the same time being a reformer of Islam. I understand this to be a perfect symbiosis of ideas. I myself, view myself as a Christian atheist- culturally I am of Christian origin however I do not believe the spiritual and non scientific claims that Christianity has about humanity’s origins. This Syrian woman was obviously speaking in a tongue that is not her own, something this interviewer took advantage of by trying to deconstruct her whole viewpoint by pointing out discrepancies in what she says. Again, I understand this because I myself come from a multi lingual background. However, most importantly Ahmed you again discredit this women’s utterances and personal experiences with Islam. The author Geneve does so as well by claiming that this woman from Syria is pandering to the very same ideas the Western world so wrongly does in a post 9/11 world of islamophobia. She includes the representatives of these ideas to include “these people” such as Manji and Hirsi. Hirsi’s book Infidel is a very personal story about her life experiences within a Muslim culture which she found out is common among many Muslim women! Hence her film “Submission” which also lead to the murder of Theo van Gogh. This surgence of fear of radical Islam is not a ploy of neoconservative agenda it is a reality not only among Western countries but also in Muslim nations.
The cartoon controversy is an example of the gravity of the situation. The point of the cartoons was not to insult Muslims. But first, to practice a European tradition of mixing critique and humor in order to express a concern or idea. The cartoons were launched by the Danish newspaper in order to prove that there exists in European society a self imposed censorship when it comes to discussing Islam, and Muslims. In this particular case, the author of a children’s book on the Koran and Muhammad found it difficult to find illustrators for his book. Illustrators feared reprisals from the Muslim community if they drew Muhammad’s image. Again, this fear is not without basis in reality. This is why these Danish cartoons emerged; they were a reaction to people’s self censorship on issues concerning Islam that stem out of fear.
These critics of Islam represent many Muslims but not the Islamic community in its entirety. Ahmed, you ask if these people have any support within the Muslim community, isn’t that rather naïve to ask this question when we know the effects of questioning Islam publicly? From Salman Rushdie to Hirsi the fatwas have been many and very serious. In addition to this the burning of Danish and Norwegian embassies in Muslim countries stands as an example of the severity of the reaction of Muslims towards opposing views. I have a hunch though that these reactions are not spontaneous but arranged by political forces with specific agendas. The center of information for many Muslims in the Muslim world are mosques and the imams. Lack of educational institutions and large gaps between the classes helps maintain the order of ignorance in Muslim societies. Hirsi only supports that all these people receive an education and the possibility to think and act freely. Is this so threatening to you?
CB