Is the West to blame for Islamic patriarchy? Let us count the ways.
Is the West to blame for Islamic patriarchy? Let us count the ways.
Is Islamic
patriarchy actually less violent overall than Western romance culture patriarchy?
Quote:" It was the West that created the Taliban. Chesler says the Taliban is worsethan what she encountered in Afghanistan in 1961, but if so what should weconclude? The reason for that is that the CIA aided the mullahs against thesocial-fascist Soviet Union... Even Osama Bin Laden indirectly admitted being a creation of the West'
Is the West to blame for Islamic patriarchy? Let us count the ways.
"Afghanistan had never been colonized. My Afghan relatives were very proud of
this fact. 'Not even the British could occupy us,' they told me, not once but
many times. I was ultimately forced to conclude that Afghan barbarism, tyranny,
and misogyny were entirely of their own making, and not attributable to
colonialism or imperialism."--Phyllis Chesler(1)
Over and over, white nationalist Phyllis Chesler tells readers that Western
imperialism is not responsible for Islam's patriarchy. Because those who
attempted to colonize Afghanistan came to such ignominious ends, Chesler says
that it was a lack of colonialism that made Afghanistan susceptible to a worse
form of patriarchy. Obviously her stupid propaganda enriches arms and security
contractors in Afghanistan and David Horowitz finds that useful for his party's
campaign coffers, but MIM will now show that there is no factual basis for
Chesler's theory.
Culture war not the right way to frame question
In the Middle East and Central Asia, a close examination reveals that the whole
question is framed the wrong way. Listening to Liberal warmongers Chesler and
Paul Berman, one would never know that Christian Georgia and Armenia(2) also had
the veil for wimmin. In other words, they do not even have the right theory of
culture, and culture war is the wrong way to frame the question.
Then again, Chesler at least knows that she outright surrendered the question
scientifically.(3) She admits she has no overall measure of whether romance
culture violence is higher in the West or Islamic patriarchy.
She also
consciously waffles the question of whether she has given up science entirely.
To know the truth about what Chesler is talking about we would have to look at
suicide and murder rates. Stonings are only one kind of patriarchal killing, and
a very rare one in Iran lately.
MIM took a look at this, and we can see why
Chesler dropped the topic. Qatar and Saudi Arabia are the two lowest countries
for homicide according to UN statistics from 2000 for 64 countries.(4) With the
united $tates at 24th and infamous for romance related murders being the leading
cause of murder in most years, it's going to be hard for Chesler to come up with
any statistical argument that there is less patriarchal murder in the united
$tates than in her most hated countries.
Quite the contrary, it looks like
serious analysis will end up proving the opposite-- that Amerikan decadence
means more violence in patriarchy than more orderly and role-restricted
patriarchy. Chesler will have to pin her cause on the Liberal freedom of
individuals to kill each other.
The only Islamic country with a higher reported murder rate than the united
$tates is Kyrgyzstan. The other 22 countries are non- Muslim. (By the way, in
2003, 5 out of the top 10 countries for murder were former Soviet countries,(5)
but none were Muslim-- truly another great victory for the West's great
"lifestyle.")
Kyrgzyzstan is worth looking into further for sex slave trafficking.
Research in Kyrgyzstan has estimated that around 4000 people were sold out of
the country, with their principal destinations being China, Germany, Turkey
and the United Arab Emirates. Of the victims of trafficking, 62% reported
being forced to work without pay, while over 50% reported being physically
abused or tortured by their employers.(6)
Uh, Chesler, that is the West's fault. Anti-communism created the situation
where that Muslim republic left the Soviet Union and found itself in utter
poverty contrary to ridiculous Western theories of economic development,
including the one put forward by Harvard's leading lights and the Russian
government that 18 months of free markets would vault Russia into Macy's and
Bloomingdale's.
We followers of Marx uphold the labor theory of value, and we said that Western
wealth comes from exploitation of colonies and neo-colonies-- so if there are no
neo-colonies, there will be no fancy living standard except for small
minorities. We said that is what explains the increasing global gap between rich
and poor, but stupid Liberals never had a good explanation for the unevenness of
economic development. The State Department encouraged the opposite fantasy, that
all that was holding down the economy of the former Soviet Union was a lack of a
legalized free market as opposed to the actual black market and state capitalism
that existed before the dissolution of the USSR. Now we can see a huge increase
in the oppression of wimmin across the ex-Soviet Union thanks in part to the
West and the collapse of economic conditions.
How many of these prostitutes recently sold out of Kyrgyzstan are later killed
by pimps or johns in unsafe situations? Yet warmongers like Chesler are busy
talking about three stonings in Iran in 2005. Perhaps Chesler would prefer that
Iran export all Iranian wimmin as sex slaves.
If Chesler would like to offer every Iranian and Afghan womyn a green card
simultaneously (and not in dribs and drabs every week so as to create a
neo-colonialist war climate through lurid newspaper stories), we are with her.
That's as far as her complaining should go. Third World wimmin should have
"choice" where to live. As far as we can see, none of Chesler's Western
pseudo-feminist organizations are working on that: it's too radical.
For that matter, we also have to look at whether some ghastly killings do not
have counterparts in the West. For if we see a pattern in romance culture
killings it stands to reason that the spread of Western culture through
Hollywood and mass media generally increased patriarchal violence in Islamic
countries.
When MIM reads the news about Amerikan teenage girls chopping up
their romantic competitors into bits and burying them in the backyard, it's hard
to see that Islam came up with anything particularly grueling in its patriarchy.
We should rather suspect that it could be U.$. television exports at the root of
global patriarchal violence problems. Chesler's long lists of individual grisly
stories from the Islamic countries are demagogic war propaganda. We could
construct longer ones from the united $tates.
MIM looked at the suicide question too. It's not very convincing. Maybe the
World Health Organization botched it, but it reports a total of 20 female
suicides in Iran in 1991.(7) In 2005 there were stories about 220 female
suicides in just one province of Iran.(8) Another Amerikan organization says
that Iran has one of the highest female suicide rates in the world, but its
facts are unreferenced.(9)
Regardless, after we total up romance culture murders and suicides, it's going
to be ranging from difficult to perverse to argue that Islam is somehow worse
for wimmin on a general factual basis. The only remaining argument will be the
one Chesler does make, that the form of oppression is "particular," in other
words, one she does not subjectively like, one that white nationalists will
oppose on a mystical fascist basis.
Equality for wimmin and where it came about
MIM is not going to allow an argument that Islam is somehow more violently
patriarchal than other patriarchies. We would suspect it's true, only because
Islamic countries tend to be disproportionately Third World countries needing
revolution against semi-feudalism. However, looking at the facts does not bear
out our suspicion because Western imperialism is so decadent that it has gone so
far backward that it passes the Islamic countries for romance culture barbarism
in some ways.
There is no comparative factual basis for Chesler's attack. What we can do
instead is look at wimmin's equality in terms of access to education, careers
and property. When we do that, we can see that wimmin benefitted only when the
world's Cheslers failed.
Many of the first Muslims including wimmin Muslims to fight for equality for
wimmin gained their experience in Russia including Russia-identified Georgia.
Kicked out of the Reagan administration for being too anti-Soviet, Richard Pipes
put it this way regarding the May 1st 1917 All-Russian Moslem Congress:
"Resolutions proclaiming equal rights for women were passed. This was an event
of great historic significance. Russian Moslems were the first in the world to
free women from the restrictions to which they had been traditionally
subjected in Islamic societies."(10)
MIM is not aware if that is actually true in Islam's centuries- long history,
but we see no contradiction of that statement of Pipes for recent times. There
was even an All-Russian Moslem Communist Party for a brief period of time and
Muslim Communist Sultan-Galiev has received credit as the original author of
MIM's third cardinal principle; although MIM is uncertain on that point, as
others may have arrived at it first, including W.E.B. Du Bois. (Certainly
Sultan-Galiev's interpretation was much purer than W.E.B. Du Bois's in terms of
fidelity to Marxism-Leninism of that day.)
The Bolsheviks did not have an easy
relationship with Muslims, but there was enough interaction that some
interesting social experiments occurred.
In Christian Georgia, someone appeared who Chesler derided practically every
other page in her book The Death of Feminism--Stalin. Stalin got his start
organizing Baku oil workers after studying in a Christian seminary in nearby
Georgia.
If wimmin in the ex-Soviet Union have any reason to fear Islamic patriarchy, we
can again thank the West for ramping up the arms race and destroying the Soviet
economy and causing the separation of Islamic republics from Russia and the
other republics--not to mention the Chechen war, which is a training ground for
Islamic militants. (We can also thank Khruschev for being a traitor.)
That is a digression though, because today Azerbaijan where Stalin organized the
oil workers is an Islamic republic.
On the whole, Azerbaijan looks up to Turkey,
which has a better economy and more visas to Europe. Had White Studies expert
Chesler and her supposed nemesis Robin Morgan looked around a bit, they would
have realized that "demon" Stalin came to power and the West was stymied.
Simultaneously, the veil came to an end in both Christian and Muslim territories
of the Soviet Union. What a coincidence, huh gender bureaucrats?
The "demon"
came to power and the veil, stoning and honor killings culture collapsed.
Though Turkey is better off than Azerbaijan, it is Turkey where we have "Yol"
conditions for wimmin, which Chesler thinks of as more Liberal than those in
Afghanistan. Conditions for wimmin as wimmin in Azerbaijan (not wimmin as
consumers) are even better than in Turkey. Turkey, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan
have no death penalty at all according to Amnesty International, never mind
stoning. In relatively impoverished but Muslim Azerbaijan, we do not hear about
the veil, honor killings or stonings. Those are only in places where the West
succeeded in stopping communism, especially that evil "demon" Stalin.
In somewhat more difficult conditions regarding Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, MIM
did a Google search and found to this day still no evidence of stoning. The
Google search for the phrases "stoning in Iran" and "stoning in Nigeria" turn up
web pages, notso for the Muslim republics of the ex-USSR--thanks to Stalin.
The blame for patriarchal inequality goes on the Western imperialists
1. It was the West that created the Taliban. Chesler says the Taliban is worse
than what she encountered in Afghanistan in 1961, but if so what should we
conclude? The reason for that is that the CIA aided the mullahs against the
social-fascist Soviet Union. (As a result Democrat Jimmy Carter instituted draft
registration and provided major impetus to the formation of our party.)
Afghanistan was militarised by two imperialist powers. Even Osama Bin Laden
indirectly admitted being a creation of the West by recommending Blum's book
Rogue State, which details how it happened. None of this is to mention the
hundreds of millions in U.$. aid to the Taliban before 9/11.
This is the most famous way that Western imperialism is responsible for Islamic
patriarchy, but there are other much more important ways.
2. One way the West is to blame is something the West already knows at least
partially. Number three in aiding the Taliban after the United $tates and
Pakistan was Saudi Arabia. Yet who was it that installed the government there
and made it rich? Was it the Soviet Union importing oil? Was it China or India?
No, it was the West again.
Were the socialists who wanted new Western spending on alternative energy
production from solar and wind power to blame or the stupid capitalists who
already had big businesses set up to pump oil? The question answers itself:
capitalism is to blame again. By capitalism's calculations, the war in Iraq is
"worth it" instead of being a huge drain of resources that could have gone into
very exotic forms of energy production, given how expensive the Iraq War has
turned out.
It was neo-colonialism that put in all the regimes in the richest oil states. A
former intelligence agent from the united $tates has already explained his role
in installing the u.$. puppet regimes of the Arab peninsula. Claiming the united
$tates is not to blame for Saudi backwardness is white nationalist coverup.
When secular revolutionary forces threatened all Arab states in the late 1960s,
I$rael played the role it originally came into existence for. U.$. client state
Jordan crushed the revolution in 1970 in "Black September." U.$. lackey Saddam
Hussein pulled out 12,000 troops that could have helped revolutionary
Palestinian fedayeen. Instead, I$rael and the United $tates intervened on
Jordan's side. Jordanian lackeys wiped out the fedayeen in Black September.
Subsequently, the degree of Marxism in the Palestinian struggle decreased.
I$rael then aided the rise of Hamas, an Islamic group, as even the New York
Times never tires of pointing out. Aid to Muslims in both Palestine and Algeria
seemed at the time to the imperialists a good choice relative to
Marxism(11)--and why not? Imperialism as an economic system has no way of
discerning beyond what is profitable at the moment. Phyllis Chesler's faith in
capitalism is misplaced even in her crusade against Islam.
3. Britain's greatest colony was India. India had for thousands of years in its
own scriptures the elements of modern day Western Liberalism suitable to please
Chesler. Yet today, India is locked in communal hatreds. What elements of
Hinduism and Indian history came to the fore and which ones receded? That had
everything to do with English colonialism.
Sapped of its wealth, India became a much less attractive place than it would
have been without colonial rule. That is relevant because India has had more
influence on more Muslims than any other country.
England left behind a poor country in a mess. Pakistan broke away and it did not
exist before British colonialism. It was Pakistan's intelligence agency that did
the most for the Taliban in its heyday.
From Pakistan's perspective, Islam as an
organizing principle makes perfect sense only because India "didn't work."
Perhaps if England had not been in the way, India would have been Sovietized
anyway.
Even after England departed, it left a legacy and schemes instigating a
disastrous border war of India with China the history of which is in a book by
Neville Maxwell. The war was based on previous colonial land-grabbing and fear
of communism. It's little wonder that India's influence on Muslims declined,
since India was saddled with the usually disastrous British geopolitics. This
was another factor in how Afghanistan became more militantly Islamic since 1961.
Imperialism was ruinous for both India and Pakistan. To this day, we see
communal hatreds of the poor wrack the region. Where the West was kicked out
completely and exploitation ended in neighboring China, the economy improved to
surpass India's and the position of wimmin became more advanced than in
industrialized Japan.
4. That brings us to the next most populous region of Muslim
influence--Indonesia. Chinese communism was so popular in Indonesia that
President Sukarno allied himself with the pro-Maoist party of Indonesia, the
PKI--the largest communist party in the world not in power. That was before the
CIA organized Muslims to massacre 500,000 people.(12)
What a surprise, Islam became more influential afterwards as Indonesia's most
modern element perished. After the military dictatorship responsible for the
massacre of communists, progressive nationalists, people of East Timor and
various other random people ended, a Muslim party came to power through a
bourgeois democratic process.
Liberal warmonger of the "Dissent" social-democratic sort and comrade-in-arms of
Phyllis Chesler, Paul Berman fully admitted the recent history:
Reagan aided the mujahadeen in their war against the Soviet occupation,and the
Bush the Elder continued the aid, and even Bill Clinton continued the aid. . .
. American policy in Afghanistan during those many years does offer one more
example of America's willingness to support the world's far-flung Muslims in
their struggles. . . and we might as well claim the credit, given that we have
had to endure the consequences.(13)
Applying the gender aristocracy thesis of MIM
Phyllis Chesler went to Afghanistan in 1961, already a man in the global
hierarchy. The proof is her zoology-based complaint against Islam that wearing a
bikini and being stopped from doing so was a "routine crime" of Islam.(14)
Chesler would tell the world that her biology is what resulted in
discrimination. As such, Chesler sees patriarchy as something entirely
biological. For MIM, biology is only one component of gender, and mostly because
biology is wrapped up with age and development that makes children vulnerable.
So to think about an adult female wearing a bikini in Afghanistan, there are two
contrasting views. MIM admits that Chesler faced biology-based discrimination.
As such, Chesler's argument belongs in the same category as animal rights.
What MIM will not admit is that the repression of Chesler's bikini was gender
hierarchy. Quite the contrary, it is men who like bikinis.
It is fully adult and
privileged people who enjoy bikinis. Ditto lipstick, miniskirts, pornography,
prostitution and yes, even adultery, which is a pleasure of adults.
Chesler was comfortable lying down in a bikini where other Afghan people saw
her, because she was socially-speaking a man in her home country.
Likewise, as
MIM pointed out about Brandi Chastain's disrobing in her moment of victory in an
international soccer game, it is only gender privileged people who are
comfortable disrobing in public. Most countries in the world--not just
Afghanistan-- are not ready to export their females for naked viewing by the
world. Only recently for example, did Japanese females start travelling abroad
by themselves in large numbers--and that's not naked!
In countries like the united $tates where females actually own more assets than
males, have more college degrees than males, live longer than males, find
themselves above 90% of the world's females and generally face no starvation
conditions, it becomes common for adult females to adopt the social condition of
men. In contrast, in Belarus, they are trying to form a gender aristocracy by
not allowing foreign models into the country or letting wimmin out of the
country, because they recognize that ex-Soviet females are being sexploited in
other republics that allow wimmin out of the country.
When Brandi Chastain takes off her clothes in public, no one from her culture
thinks, "oh, that poor girl is starving and now faces sexploitation." There is
no knife of pain that enters the heart in Western culture regarding that, just
some moderate complaints from a portion of Western society. In fact, there are
about as many complaints about males wearing skimpy bathing suits--mostly as a
matter of taste, not a searing condition of oppression.
How different the situation in Kyrgyzstan is. When 4000 wimmin have been
exported as sex slaves recently, how can we expect the people of that Islamic
republic to think lightly of even the slightest exposure of their wimmin?
Western Liberals are attacked with a passion, as if Liberals were delivering a
burning knife right to the heart.
Liberal pseudo-feminism works fine for people who are men in the gender
hierarchy. Their zoological complaint about females not being allowed to become
men is true. There is such discrimination and they don't like it. While we
recognize the complaint of the gender aristocracy, MIM does not work for the
gender aristocracy and animal rights is also on the backburner.
Liberal pseudo-feminism is absolutely backwards for the truly gender oppressed
of the world. CNN ran an expose of how Italian gay men pay for sex with Romanian
boys, brought to market by fathers bankrupted with the collapse of the Soviet
bloc. The Liberal response is that "sex is fun" and it should be permitted. If
we do not permit the sex, then we are being anti-gay according to Western
Liberalism.
For MIM, this is another problem with the zoological approach to feminism. The
Romanian boys sexploited by imperialist country adults and the Abu Ghraib boys
raped by U.$. soldiers are extremely sharply gender oppressed. A biology-based
approach--the zoological approach--is not going to cover that, but it is going
to cover the "crime" of repressing Chesler's bikini-wearing. That's why MIM has
the "gender aristocracy" thesis. There can be no compromise with the zoological
approach.
MIM does not have to defend Islam to see why Muslims of Third World countries
hate Western Liberalism, including pseudo- feminism. Just as trade Liberalism
makes sense to the rich countries, so too does sexual Liberalism make sense to
men. Defenders of Islam are going to boil down pseudo-feminism to "sluts." The
kernel of truth there is that Islam finds itself disproportionately located in
poor countries where the condition of womyn is under constant threat of
sexploitation, including by Western tourists at Western hotels. The outlook of
the "slut" in such a situation really is degradation. Any ideology defending the
"slut" is suitable to sex slave traffickers, pornographers and pimps. At the
same time, even Islamic people know that sex slave traffickers, pornographers
and pimps do not generally pose any threat to adult males--men.
Western females
are not threatened enough by sex slave traffickers, pornographers or pimps to
give up their zoological quest to be free of discrimination. The interaction of
Western females with pornographers and pimps involves much higher pay than the
interaction Third World wimmin are familiar with. In the case of the imperialist
country female, the "slut" outlook is normal fun free of degradation or
containing moderate or debateable degradation.
The troglodytes of pseudo-feminism are stuck in a zoological view of the "slut"
question. They want for females to have the right to be men, but they do not
understand that without the prerequisite social conditions, the animal rights
position clears the way for sexploitation. For people already highly privileged
it is a kind of discrimination to deprive them of their leisure, but for people
with low gender privilege, the "slut" outlook is a justification for oppression.
In the Third World, there is also a zoological position. Most Muslims cannot
imagine the pseudo-feminist at all, because most Muslims come from different
social conditions. Yet patriarchy is not a biological condition mostly. If
historically one could become king only by having 1000 experiences of selling
one's body for sex, then society would not know to consider prostitution as
degradation. Quite the contrary, there would be legends about the wisdom of
prostitution in class society. There is nothing about zoology that is ever going
to tell people that prostitution is inherently degrading. Unconscious of this,
the Third World Muslim cannot imagine that adult Western society is almost
entirely men. Hence there is the big global gender disconnect.
We have to distinguish the ordinary Third World view of "sluts" from misogyny.
The ideologue of sexual pleasure is a man's advocate. Truly gender oppressed
people are rightly threatened by bikinis, miniskirts, adultery, pornography and
prostitution. Western Liberalism works fine for Western females, because they
are men, but the Third World is right to oppose it.
Allowing pornography, prostitution and sex slave trafficking is not liberation
for wimmin. Even abortion "choice" is a jaundiced outlook in the eyes of Third
World wimmin. Again it appears as the Western female attending to her fun. She
seems to have no obligations of motherhood. That in turn means an ideology that
is still threatening to gender oppressed people. Third World wimmin are looking
to be free from sterilization abuse by Western population control planners and
for their children to survive. Paul Berman pointed out that recent Islamic
ideologue Sayyid Qutb said that womyn oriented toward flirtation, pleasure and
even material production is ungodly, because she is not taking advantage of her
natural gift for motherhood.(15)
MIM believes this view would have no popularity
if it were not for the fact that most of the world does not enjoy a high level
of gender privilege. Ultimately, Qutb's point rests on a zoological proposition
just as Chesler's position does. Because zoological aspects of life appear
permanent, they stand in place of a real reason for supporting God. In actual
fact, Qutb's argument is materialist, just more crudely materialist than ours.
Even the act of allowing wimmin out of a country can be seen as oppressive,
since that is what allows sex slave trafficking to occur. That is something that
the comfortable Western Liberal of any biology just does not understand.
Authoritarian repression may be necessary to advance the conditions of wimmin.
Conclusion
In territories ranging from Turkey to Turkmenistan, particular forms of Islamic
patriarchy only exist because their competitors were sapped by the West. Though
Phyllis Chesler and Robin Morgan supposedly attack each other from opposite
sides in NOW, neither was thinking of wimmin in the Mideast and Central Asia
when they bad-mouthed Stalin.
Whenever there were forces that arose in Islamic countries to implement secular
change, the West made sure they failed. Saddam Hussein being the most secular
ruler in the Mideast, naturally he was on the hitlist first in the 21st century.
Islam derives its strength as a nationalist response to Western exploitation.
There could hardly be a better ally of Islamic patriarchy than Phyllis
Chesler--patriot of the largest oil- consuming nation, fan of the Amerikan
lifestyle, anti-communist and Zionist enemy of secular revolution in the Arab
world.
Notes:
1. Phyllis Chesler, The Death of Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle for
Women's Freedom (NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 81.
2. Paintings of Armenians in the veil:
http://www.imagesofeyes.com/armenia.htm
3. "Western intellectuals and Islamic apologists tend to conflate Muslim honor
murders with all forms of domestic violence. . . . There are important cultural
and psychological differences between a Muslim honor murder and wife-murder in
the West." Phyllis Chesler, The Death of Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle
for Women's Freedom (NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 158.
MIM would respond that if there are important psychological differences, they
must be of the kind that ameliorate patriarchy under Islam. Instead of speaking
of patriarchy as a whole by country or religion, Chesler breaks it down into
arbitrary categories. She should have said patriarchy is "six of one, half dozen
of another," but instead she left herself open to the attack that Islamic
patriarchy is actually less violent overall than Western patriarchy.
Honor
killings may be the price of admission to a less violent society for wimmin,
relative to the united $tates.
4. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_mur_percap&int=-1
5. http://www.benbest.com/lifeext/murder.html
6. Fact Sheet, World Health Organization (10/02)
http://www.euro.who.int/mediacentre/FactSheets/20021003_1.
7. http://www.who.int/mental_health/media/en/322.pdf
8. http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1494
9. "International Women's Day in Iran"
http://storiesinamerica.blogspot.com/2006/03/international-
womens-day-in-iran.html
10. Richard Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1997), p. 77.
11. Again, MIM says nothing Phyllis Chesler comrade-in-arms Paul Berman goes out
of his way to admit. Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism (NY: W.W. Norton & Co,
2003), p. 105.
12. William Blum, The CIA: A Forgotten History (London: Zed Books, 1986), pp.
217-221. This point also admitted by Berman, Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism
(NY: W.W. Norton & Co, 2003), p. 53.
13. Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism (NY: W.W. Norton & Co, 2003), pp. 16-7.
14. Phyllis Chesler, The Death of Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle for
Women's Freedom (NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 83. 15. Paul Berman, Terror
and Liberalism (NY: W.W. Norton & Co, 2003), p. 88.
http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/gender/islamicpatriarchy06.html
source Revolutionary
feminist page.
http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/gender/index.html













What a load of codswallop
Islam apologetics. Honour killings the price to pay for admission to a less violent society?
Islam is a damn dangerous religion - and it's not the only one.
Re: What a load of codswallop
An Important bit missing from your idealist critisism .
Namely the real world .
In this way you can post a liberal defence of imperialist society and its on the surface “Judeo-christian values” dressed up as leading to "sexual liberation" that are being used to attack ‘Muslims”as justification for imperialist aggressive wars.
You say :
“Islam apologetics.
Honour killings the price to pay for admission to a less
violent society?
”’relative to the United $tates” and” may.”, have been omitted as in the original aricle.
“…she left herself open to the attack that Islamic
patriarchy is actually less violent overall than Western patriarchy.
Honor killings may be the price of admission to a less violent society for wimmin,
relative to the united $tates.”
In this way, all kinds of pro -imperialist system codswallop as criticism can be posted as superior liberal ideas ,without the need for dealing with actual practice ,history and reality and the violent romance culture in the western imperialist societies and the different forms of patriachal sexual oppression existing in western societies .
Capitalist/imperialism is a most dangerous system, it uses and promotes all kinds of strange religions and patriarchal nonsense , including as the article above shows ,it bears the most responsibly for propping up the most anti-secular reactionary varieties of Islam that suited its purposes.
Now it pretends to support a more "reasonable" ,moderate ,pacifist ,puppet form of Islam ,perhaps like that existing In Saudi?
Bin Laden says Israel is the 'problem'
Osama Bin Laden has stated in a new tape that the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the heart of the Muslim battle with
the West and an 'inspiration' to the 19 bombers who carried out the
September 11 attacks.
He says "We will continue, Allah
permitting, the fight against the Israelis and their allies...and will
not give up a single inch of Palestine as long as there is one true
Muslim on earth."
So it is not the invasion by the U.S. of Iraq
that is so much the problem as far as he is concerned - it is the
West's support of Israel.
It's a bit of a worry for us - given
the recent trial of a group of Muslim terrorists who were planning an
attack on the Melbourne Cricket Ground which has a capacity of 90,000
people - that these attacks on our civilization are going to continue,
apparently, even if the U.S. withdraws from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Looking at the history of attacks on western civilization they go back to before the Iraq debacle and before 9/11.
Re: Is the West to blame for Islamic patriarchy?
You are changing the subject on who is responsible for promoting and propping up Muslim fundementalism .(And oil wars)
You are turning historical reality on its head to promote a paranoid right wing world view typical of Zionist colonialists ,that “Muslims have actually historically and unreasonably been persecuting us . Promoting a “necessary” war between civilizations” with us as the good guys and the poor victims.
You say .“Looking at the history of attacks on “western civilization “they go back to before the Iraq debacle and before 9/11”.
But, looking at the attacks and colonialism BY “western civilisation” they also go way back a long way before 9/11 and on a larger scale Who has been the aggressor against whole populations here ?
Still, what you seem to worry about is that some “chickens may have come home to roost for the amerikans” ,not the vast numbers killed and turned into refugees by the Americans in Iraq. After all that has just a continuation of ”western civilizations” colonialism, and oil wars , its normal role in the middle east and these people should just grin and bear it.
Perhaps there has been enough war-crimes and attacks to even promote a few stupid nut cases to join some agent provocateur organisation for another alleged Hilton bomb type scam plot, even in Australia against Australians and “western civilization”.
The FBI itself admits it has no charges or evidence connecting Bin Laden with 9/11.
These taped statements from a still healthy, and free “Bin laden” often simply confirm .US fears and threats to Israel ,are always very convenient, but of increasingly doubtful provenance.
But, Pyewacket, with his his persecuted paranoia, believes everything and it has been said ,doesn’t want even Leichhardt people to be confronted with such “crap” history on colonialism?
Re: Is the West to blame for Islamic patriarchy?
Racist bastard, you say you are not Moslem, you say you are atheist (and most atheists I have known were very decent people)....yet you are full of praise and sympathy for those of the Moslem religion. You are racist against the Jews. In fact I believe you hate them, going by some of the things you have said, including labelling them 'greedy' and 'slimy'. Fuck you. You are a wolf parading in sheeps' clothing.
Re: Is the West to blame for Islamic patriarchy?
that's some fine word in mouth insertion.
all religions are equally BS. its like a debate between star wars and star trek fanatics. only for some reason your all hellbent on killing each other.
at the end of the day your worshiping an invisible monster in the sky.
peace, love and good times.
Invisible monster in the sky
Snort!!
Never heard it called that before.
Re: Is the West to blame for Islamic patriarchy?
This is just slimy lies ,and paranoia ,nowhere are Jews referred to above either in the article or comments (made by the atheist )or even any hidden comment as far as I know refering to the Jewish people as "slimy" ,or "greedy"
Nowhere is the Muslim religion as a religion praised -as a religion - but its progressive and reactionary practices are differentiated .
The same as can be done with Judaism and the practices of Jewish peoples Christians and christian peoples. Many of whom are indeed greedy too.
What is pointed out that the most reactionary feudal ruling classes that practice that islamic religion, have been propped up armed and supported by colonialism and imperialism.for example in Sauddi or bin laden and the taliban by the CIA.
that life for women ,for example ,have got better and a lot of progress made in Iran since national independance from US imperialist Shah puppet control was acheived.
Yet ,clearly they still have a long way to go.
So whats your real beef?
I beleive you are just using this as a chance to wave about those labels yourself about jewish people as cover to justify an anti - moslem attack'
Otherwise why introduce these terms coupled to the Jewish people?
You stand corrected!
I just checked the offensive hidden comment. It is written in the
same style as your posts funnily enough. And this is what was written:
"The stereotype of greedy and conniving Jews is proven."
This
was in response to something Hymie wrote. Now do you remember? The word
'slimy' was not mentioned, but the above comment was bad enough!
Re: You stand corrected!
You have to do better than that Pyewacket. Putting direct ‘quotes” out like that to prove your bullshit ad hominen attacks and accusations of racism.
Search results on indemedia. Using your direct “quote”--
Is the West to blame for Islamic patriarchy? Let us count the ways.
... funnily enough. And this is what was written: "The stereotype of greedy
and conniving Jews is proven." This was in ...
Story - Anonymous - 14/05/2008 - 19:22 - 9 comments - 0 attachments
The ONLY result from a search using your direct ‘quote”was yor ‘quote”
Perhaps something similar was posted.?
In any case any comment must be seen in its context .
In particular the use of the critical phrase “Racial stereotypes” not” racial “realities “ was perhaps used.
So what was the real “Quote”and in what context was it used?
Who proved what?
”slimy” has already disappeared.
Now Take for example your use of the label “Hymie “ in referring to “hyguy”?
Racial stereotype” Hymie”?
Is that use of “Hymie” like a reference to a ‘Yid”, The type of language found on racist websites?
Pants on fire
Hymie is the name he often uses himself in his messages. His nickname is 'HYGUY' so he doesn't find 'Hymie' offensive. And you did, indeed, write 'The stereotype of greedy and conniving Jews is proven'.
Re: Pants on fire
no never .
i make posts on religion that consistantly defend muslims or any body else fighting back against colonialism and imperialist wars . including posts against those who justify imperialist wars ,as if they were going to liberate women. Critising say" kill em all" poetry artistic or not .
Some of these posts have been long and wordy none of them have been racist ,if they were racist it would be evident in the content and you would have something to go on about.its all pretty consistant in its semi literate style
isnt it strange you can find no racism in those articles.
you are aparently accusing me on reasons of proven "style "for racial comments I have never made.
You may be confusing my anti Zionism with being "anti- jew" .In fact one reason i am anti-zionist is because i am anti -racist, that does not make me "anti-Jew" or anti Muslim Arab either.
Zionism is a racist ,colonialist, ideology and practice that poses as nationalist Judaism .
it is racist colonialism ,because it claims the all land of Palestine was given by God as a 'gift" to The Jewish people thousands of years ago and that claimed genetic descent from these ancient jewish peoples, entitles any modern Jew ,or The jewish people as a whole on the basis a claimed genetic and superior right to "reclaim " that land by force ,without any consideration of the rights of its inhabitants.
The zionists claim to speak for all the Jewish people.
yet Most jewish people have voted with their feet and still live in NY or elswhere inluding many born in israel. As they realise, zionist israel like the old apatrtheid south africa,has a limited future ,a limited ability to alow their children to live in peace in a non racist environment.
As the state of Israel is still dominated by Zionists ,so it is still unwilling to make a just two state solution , as this conflicts with its idealigical claim to ALL the lands once held by the ancient Jewish people.
so it is caught on the horns of a dilemma.
Re: Pants on fire
OK, it wasn't you, it was someone else. But to be fair, one of HYGUY's comments was also hidden due to racism.
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