The obvious moral high ground is that it isn’t the 7th century.
The problem with this plan is that religious extremists simply will not listen to you. You’re an atheist. To them, you’re profoundly misguided at best, and downright evil at worst. Do you really think they’re going to take your criticisms on board? They’ve got God on their side. As far as they’re concerned, you’re just a heretic, so why should they care what you have to say about their religion? Honestly, it’d be like playing tennis with a wall.
I’m not expecting to change their mind. As you say, that won’t happen. But we can shame and embarrass them into keeping their mouth shut. Then they die off and the next generation is free of their influence.
Let me try that again.
If we want to free women from the social pressure that they need to wear a hijab. We are talking about in large Muslim communities in the USA or Europe.
Which is going to be more successful? Trying to change the mind, with debate, with people who, according to your own description, are not going to listen to ungodly people? Or, do we concentrate our efforts on pointing out that the Hijab is a sexist double standard and to be eliminated. Not by state sanction, but by social pressure.
Why?
I have never said that many Muslims do not support an orthodox view of Islam. I simply note that your view of what is orthodox, (as opposed to Wahhabist), Islam has no resemblance to what exists.
And yet, not only do Muslims both nowadays and back the still consider him to be a Muslim, al-Khawarizmi was able to publish the above right in the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, and yet still managed to stay not just alive, but a scholar at the Bayt al-Hikma until his death 30 years later, at the age of 70.
Quote them.
What?
Please, let’s not parse definitions and hide behind semantics.
The numbers in the Pew Polls are alarming. Focus on the numbers.
Do you have any memory of what happened in the U.S. after the WTC/Pentagon attacks? How the Congressional cafe renamed French Fries to Freedom Fries, simply because France did not support our illegal invasion of Iraq? How the Dixie Chicks were booted off many radio stations simply for saying they though Bush was wrong? Now apply your plan to outright condemnation of the religion of millions of Muslims. Do you actually think that that sort of attack on their beliefs is going to change their minds?
And wearing a headscarf is some horrible burden?
No semantics here. You accuse Islam of being evil. You point to the worst examples of Wahhabist belief, rather than the beliefs held by the majority of Muslims, and declare it to be orthodoxy when you, (actually Beecher), can only find one loony Muslim to agree with the definitions you use.
:rolleyes:
Right. A Moderator telling everyone to refrain from hijacking a thread is a serious abuse of power.
Well, Tom, you are talking to someone who has opposed the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
So perhaps you could stop making implications about my condemnation of religion that go beyond the scope of what I actually say.
Really? I’d define your response as myopic. Of course it is a burden, if, you are expected to wear one and would prefer not to.
No, telling me I can’t define murder, slavery, theft and oppression of women as evil is an abuse of power.
Firstly, we need to establish that there is a strong social pressure for muslim women in the US to wear the hijab. A hijab, after all, is just a headscarf. There’s nothing particularly oppressive about headscarves. My mum wears a headscarf. She just likes them. And many hijabs are quite decorative and look very nice. I would imagine that quite a lot of muslim women in the US wear the hijab because they want to wear them, in which case telling them they should stop because they’re making themselves complicit in their own sexual oppression is probably just going to piss them off. Frankly, I doubt you’d be able to muster much popular support for a campaign against hijabs. Most people simply don’t care about them.
Let’s look at an easier case. The niqab. The niqab is a very different garment, which conveys a very different message. It is an explicit attempt to equate piety with the complete and total invisibility of women. It’s much easier to argue that the niqab is sexist. Moreover, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that some, perhaps many, women who wear the niqab do so under duress. For instance:
The niqab seems to be a much easier target for the “social pressure” that you are advocating. What would be the likely consequences of such social pressure? Well, firstly, those women who actually choose to wear the niqab would probably feel like you were attacking them. This is likely to make them less receptive, not more. It might even make them more likely to impose the niqab on their own daughters.
Secondly, those women who are coerced into wearing it by their male relatives would likely feel trapped between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, they would suddenly feel like they were facing greater social disapproval from non-muslims. On the other hand, they would still have to contend with the social disapproval they would face from their male relatives.
Now, you might think that the social pressure you’re prescribing might make these men change their minds about the niqab, but that is far from certain. It’s important to understand why these men coerce their wives and daughters into wearing the niqab. They believe that by doing so they’re safeguarding the honour and modesty of “their” women. This is obviously going to be far more important to them than your opinion of what women should be allowed to wear, and they might well just end up doubling down.
The women in question, being tied to these men by blood or community, would probably find it much harder to resist pressure from them than they would to resist pressure from people like yourself. The social pressure you’re recommending probably wouldn’t be strong enough to entice them to abandon the niqab and would only succeed in making them feel more uncomfortable in their own skin.
Personally, I despise the niqab, but I don’t think social pressure is the way to go here. If I were in charge, I’d be far more draconian. I’d just ban the fucking thing. That way, those women who are forced to wear it have a valid reason not to (like the medical students referenced above). As for those women who do want to wear it? Well, they can vote with their feet and emigrate any time they like.
Edit: I should note that, while the niqab might be an extremely uncommon sight in America, I’m from England, and I work in the Whitechapel area of Central London so I see women in niqabs all the time, hence the strength of my feelings on the matter.
Again, with the semantics.
The Pew Poll is defining the beliefs of majority of muslims in muslim majority countries.
What is your opinion of the poll, Tom? They weren’t polling ISIS members, they were polling average muslims.
Can you deal with, facts, Tom, without spinning it into what “people don’t understand”. Pew is not a biased source. We are dealing with facts. Can you stick to the facts at hand, or will your whole defense be to ignore the facts, Tom, and talk about how ignornat me and the other poster are:
95% of the people in Egypt say that it is good that Islam plays a large role in their laws. Indonesia 95%, Pakistan 88%, Nigeria 88%, Lebanon 72%.
Favorable view of Hezbollah: Jordan 55%, Lebanon 52%, Nigeria 45%, Indonesia 43%.
Role of Islam in politics, Large: Indonesia 89%, Nigeria 88%, Turkey 69%.
Those are just a few of the many findings from the pew poll.
Yes, when you look at the reasoning behind it. Just as it’s a burden for men to be be able to take multiple wives. or the need for a woman to be accompanied by a male family member.
See, this is the problem with having a discussion with people who defend religion. I specifically choose the Hijab and avoided the Burka.
If we are not even going to agree with me that the Hijab is a tacit indicator of second class citizen status, then we are not going to be able to have a discussion.
And all of that that you typed and thought out and expressed is a, no offense, waste of your time. If we can not agree on a basic premise, the we have no hope for a real discussion. The basic premise being that even “progressive” Islam treats women as second class to men. Not, as bad as they do in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan, but still, second to men.
Sure, all of that is true, and unfortunate. But what do you suggest? Ignoring the situation?
But what if your basic premise is wrong? What if the majority of American muslim women who wear a hijab do so because they truly feel better for wearing it? What if they like the way it looks? What if they’re not being coerced into wearing it in any way and see it as merely one aspect of practising their religion properly? If that’s true, then the social pressure you’re advocating would just be a total waste of time and effort.
The impression that I get, living and working in areas with high muslim populations, is that, for most people, muslims and non-muslims alike, the hijab is just not perceived as being a particularly oppressive garment. Many of the women who wear it simply do not feel as though it makes them “second class citizens” and they would likely view your proposed attempts to convince them otherwise as nothing more than projection from a man who doesn’t understand what they’re about. As I said, you’re just as likely to piss them off as you are to convince them to stop wearing it, in which case, what’s the point?
The niqab is different. As I said in my previous post, the niqab is an explicit attempt to equate piety with the invisibility of women, and those women who don’t think it makes them second class citizens are simply self-deluded. The same can’t be said of the hijab. Therefore, before I grant your premise that “the Hijab is a tacit indicator of second class citizen status” I’d need to see some evidence that a significant percentage of American muslim women who wear the hijab agree with you.
No. As I said, I suggest banning the niqab. I wouldn’t suggest banning the hijab because it simply doesn’t send anything like the same sort of misogynistic message.
So what? You appear to be opposed to democracy. Majorities in several countries would like their religion to be entwined with their government. The fact that you do not like their religion is irrelevant.
Do you really think that condemning their religion is going to make it easier to get them to change?