Blowing off steam
Relax. Islam is not taking over Canada
January 11, 2005
iranian.com
We members of the Iranian Diaspora have come a long way in our
ability to make relevant and insightful observations about issues
affecting our community. I have seen tirades and polemics (once
the majority of online dialogue) diminish, and I've watched
intellectual arguments and discussions begin to take precedence,
at least among some; this goes for opinions that I am both for
and against.
However, I just finished reading "Is
Canada next?" and as much as I am inclined to agree with the gist
of what the author is writing about, I feel there are serious
problems with Azar Majedi's arguments that are symptomatic of our
old tendency to blow off steam rather than speak judiciously
about
an issue.
If her primary concern as a feminist is women's
mental and physical emancipation, then I wonder why she chose
to ignore the real issue that is going to make or break this
Islamic court proposal and instead launch into nothing more than
an articulate
outburst against political Islam.
This debate, as well as the larger one of women's rights,
goes deeper than just one religion, and what weakens Azar's
argument is her determination to attack political Islam over
and over again throughout her piece in preference to addressing
the
bigger picture.
This is not purely a matter of political
Islam. Journalist Paul Weinberg cited in an IPS news article that "... after [my emphasis] religious Jews began using the process
to
arbitrate
internal disputes under the Judaic Halacha process, the leaders
of the Canadian Muslim community decided to establish a similar
system."
 Thus there already existed a judicial process based
on religion in Canada. Given this kernel of information,
the
debate grapples with another important problem: would it
not then be discriminatory
at this point to deny the conservative Muslim community
the right to have access to a similar process based on Islamic
law?
Majedi
never acknowledges what would be the inherent discrimination
in allowing Jews to have their own legal options on certain
matters and denying this right to Muslims, which would
only fan the flames
of political Islam.
The choice at hand is to either revise the Arbitration
Act in Canada to exclude religious law, or allow every religious/cultural
community
to form its own channels for the resolution of certain legal
concerns. This, I believe, should become the real issue in the
debate: should
institutions that violate Canada's Charter of Rights be allowed
to coexist alongside federal and state Canadian law? I don't
think so, and this is where I agree with Majedi.
Also, although
women would technically have the option of going along with
Canadian courts or choosing the Islamic legal system, it's true
that
there would be enormous spousal, familial, and community
pressures to deal with in the vast majority of cases, and these
pressures
would make it a great deal harder for many Muslim women to
choose the court that would best serve their own interests; Majedi
is
right in saying that the implementation of an Islamic legal
system in Canada would be a step backward for women's rights
worldwide.
However, she also says: "To recognize two or more sets of
values, laws and rights in a single society is a discriminatory
practice.
By
doing
this,
we
are, in
fact, defining different categories of citizens, and to do that
on the basis of different ethnicity, religion and culture is
nothing but racism, pure and simple."
I'm not so sure that I agree with
this statement. In fact, I think that it is rather contradictory
to say that recognition
of various values, laws, and rights is discriminatory. In fact,
it is a sign of pluralism and democracy, not discrimination.
Furthermore, recognition of "different categories of citizens",
such as Latino, Black, Iranian, Muslim, or Buddhist falls far
short
of racism: it's what is done with that recognition that determines
its nature.
Racism can be defined as the systematic implementation
of the belief that race accounts for differences in human character
or ability and that a particular race is superior to others,
and while I'm sure that Azar is aware of this, her use of the
word in the citation above demonstrates carelessness, at the
very least.
Two final points: first, secularism does not own feminism.
Secondly, religion is not the sole oppressor of women. Many feminist
movements have sprung up and have been driven within the context
of a specific
culture, religion, or political belief, from the wives of
Bolivian tin miners to Sojourner Truth. Libertarians of the past
few
decades are but a part of an ongoing universal struggle, probably
as
old as civilization itself.
 Getting to my last assertion,
the reasons
for women's oppression range are economic, cultural, educational,
religious, sexual, and historical; in short, oppression
dominates almost every aspect of a woman's life, and while it is
extremely
difficult to attack the issue holistically, that doesn't
mean that we should single out one aspect and make it the
face of misogynism. Otherwise, it was a great article.
P.S. Buy Siamack
Baniameri's new
book.
About
Maziar Shirazi is a junior at Rutgers University, New Brunswick,
New Jersey. Features in iranian.com
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