Issue No. 609
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24 - 30 October 2002 Issue No. 609 Living |
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Mood Swings: Who's afraid of Islamic feminism?
It seems quite a few people. They include non-Muslims who fear Islam and Muslims who fear feminism. And, what is feared is usually slammed. So we find strange bedfellows joining in decrying Islamic feminism.
Often fear and condescension, and worse, hatred, go hand in hand, to say nothing of ignorance. Some think Islam is so benighted that feminism is beyond its reach. Islam -- as religion and culture -- is resolutely patriarchal, anti-equality, justice, and that is that. This view comes in handy if you want to denigrate or hate Islam since after at least two waves of heavy-duty feminism in the US and other parts of the West we have (finally) learned that gender oppression is bad and those who do it are bad -- or bad if they are blatant. It was much easier to hit the Taliban because they did gender oppression openly and in spades. Would there have been a war without the chadoor? If it is dandy to strike gender oppressors it is not nice to bulldoze feminists. No, Islamic feminism is not useful -- even if the imagination does stretch that far, the thought is to be resisted.
All religions have their patriarchalists (we are not talking goddess cults) and here who would like to exceptionalise Islam? No one. So these patriarchalists of the Muslim variety, like their co-patriarchalists of other religions, are shy about coming forward and admitting straight out that they like patriarchy. When you ask them to stand up and be counted they won't; they won't take credit where credit is due. Instead, they repeat the mantra. Islam grants rights to women. Agreed. So what about the practice? At that point there is a swift switch to tarring feminism with the colonial brush. We cannot get to the subject of gender oppression and the handing over of gender rights and gender justice on the spot because we are deflected by the decrying of colonialism (their plots to undermine our culture and authenticity -- authentic patriarchy?). Then we have to be told that feminism is a Western word -- and when we hear this from those who love to speak English and are not bothered that the entire language they mouth is Western, it starts to sound weird. We waste time. So, why can we use some English words and not others, or is feminism a swear word? Are we into linguistic cleansing?
In my movements in liberal and so-called progressive circles, and mais oui, well-educated, I have observed that it is men who are usually more vexed about Islamic feminism, revealing that the issue is gendered. Ah, the gendering of gender. Such men do not want to say they like patriarchy but do like to say they dislike feminism. Read my lips and read my silence. If you suggest that Islamic feminism is a way to jump-start the activation of the women's rights they boast Islam affirms, and that that might just well be a way of behaving religiously, this sends the conversation skittering back to colonialism. So out goes Islamic feminism with the colonial bath-water.
Now that the neon lights of terrorism are before us, fundamentalism (only theirs, of course) is on the front burner, and Islamophobia is carte du jour, what do we do? We collapse terrorism and Islam. Then to prevent over-heating we decouple the engine and the caboos. For awhile. We say Islam is nice. But not that nice. Then back to Islamophobia. Here again exceptionalism is a must, for this is just about the last publicly allowed phobia. Over the past 370 days or so there have been roundtables, panels, workshops, conferences, you name it, on Islam and Islamic fundamentalism, the more blurred the better. (Now don't get me wrong, I am not blind to the good work being done out there.) Why do they hate us? Yes, we discuss that. But why do we hate them? We don't ask because we know.
Now if you have spent your life doing Islam and feminism (yes, hard labour) and more recently observing the increasingly fast ascent of the Islamic feminist star you see that (Islamic) feminism isn't just a pain to patriarchalists but it is a burr in the craw of Islamophobes. Since Islamic feminism is about gender equality and social justice it may make Islam look too good. And them too much like us. Good grief! Then it would not be p.c. to dump on Islam. Worse still, if they are too much like us then we might have to treat them like us. It all becomes too onerous. As for our die-hard patriarchalists of Muslim stripe, Islamic feminism might cause their roof to collapse. It might even put an end once and for all to colonialism. Then what?
Alas, the bedfellows who love to hate Islamic feminism have no love lost for each other. And, the Islamic feminists are not too sanguine about it either. You can't stick with the brothers, and you can't stick with the others. So what to do? Maybe while the bedfellows are obsessed with terror and territory Islamic feminists can score a victory. Then everyone would have to like each other. They would have to live with equality and justice. So how could we have a war on terror? Beats me.
* The writer is senior fellow at the Centre for Muslim- Christian Understanding, Georgetown, and presently a visiting professor at the Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World.
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