PATRIARCHY

Ari

Thank you, I just got from you the answer I was looking for, all the best.

For sz

Yes, I seem to be missing the context of your question. I thought “motivating force” would count towards the “utility” score.

Do you mean to discuss the utility of the label, “Islamic culture” as compared with, say, the utility of the label “Iranian culture?” Or do you wish to question the utility of labels in general? Or…

Perhaps if you wrote a few paragraphs on your own point of view I would get a better idea of how to respond appropriately.

Ari

Thank you Ari. It seems we are going off on a tangent. The original question on the utility of “Islamic Culture” label has now lead to a discussion on the motivating factor for 600,000 to defend Iranian borders. Even in this context I like to put the following for your consideration. Whenever the Islamic republic gets into a bind, as in the waning days of Iraqi imposed war and the current nuke stand off, it invariably harps on not the Islamic values/culture rather the Iranian nationalistic tendencies. The referencing one or the other Imam, hidden or not, on a white horse or the Anjezeh Anjezeh are quickly replaced by fond remembrances of national icons, nationalistic tunes and Iran in place of the Islamic republic of Iran. Since through your writings I’ve come to know you as a rational humanist, what I am still hoping to solicit from you, should you care to, is a cool headed logical reasoning in support of the utility of the “Islamic culture(s)” label.

For sz

I agree on the need to weaken Islam’s hold on Iran so that a secular native culture can flourish. Bottom-line though, what do you propose as the mechanism for safely doing this? Even if the IRI were to voluntarily resign from its position of power, what do you find in the tool chest of Iran’s native heritage—or its current collection of resistance ideologies-- that can motivate 600,000 people to give up their lives to defend her borders?

Please explain

WomenAgainstPatriarchy,

Your idea that white should leave black alone and male should leave female alone is a severe form of segregation. In my limited understanding of feminism, the segregation you so fervently demand is a primary characteristic of Patriarchy. White, black, Male and female are not separate species; we have daughters, sons, wives, husbands, mothers, and fathers, interracial or otherwise. Kindly explain how your attitude should not be taken as Patriarchy internalized into your particular school of feminism.

Ari Siletz, why don't you form your Men Againt Sexism?

We are millions of Iranian women; we are not promoting any ideology. We simply believe that defending patriarchy in the name of opposing it, as YOU are doing Ari Siletz, is against our interests. You are a man, you know nothing about our LIVED conditions and experiences. Go and teach at a college and leave us women alone! You are a white man speaking for the black, that doesn't rub well on us. Isn't there any WOMAN to write reactionary articles like yours? For some reason, it would feel much less painful to read!

By the way, what happened to Golnaz Amin who was so vehemently protecting the Iranian Women’s Studies Foundation from falling into the hands of the Islamists / post-modernists? Is she alive, is she dead?

Islam, Christianity and Judaism are patriarchal religions. Period! This is not a slogan; it's a historical fact! That Shirin Ebadi is a Muslim does not change this fact, that some misguided people believe in Islamic feminism, does not change the fact that Islam and feminism are inherently opposites, as are other male fabricated religions.

Please leave us alone with your academic rants. Women are not children to be looking for their sugar-daddy to save them.

Hearts and minds

WomenAgainstPatriarchy, If the women in Iran weren’t suffering so much under the IRI, your style of discourse would make me nostalgic for the days when we used to show up at the student cafeteria to play “Label Your Opponent.” Back then coffee was a quarter; about what it used to cost to play a game of “Tank” on the then fashionable video arcades. Looking back, I should have spent my quarter in the arcade; it would have been more constructive.

But, feeling as disheartened as I am about the abysmal human rights condition under the IRI, you will forgive me if I decline your invitation to play “Label, 3D.” Like it or not, many Iranian women—Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi, for example—don’t like to have their Muslim faith humiliated in the name of feminism, or their country threatened with destruction in the name of freedom. Have a heart!

If you wish to constructively critique “postmodernism,” “functionalism,” “Patriarchy,” “Islamism,” or any other ideology you feel is relevant to understanding and solving the problem, I would be delighted to hear your criticisms. For example, you may ask, “ OK, Ari, you say that societies are biological organisms, but biological organisms have neural systems that interpret sensory data and formulate appropriate action. What is the equivalent of this intelligent system in societies?” That would have sent me scurrying for research and data on the latest works in the evolutionary theory of group selection. As it is, I’m finding myself critiquing my own discourse. This doesn’t look good for whatever ideology it is your are promoting. Have a mind!

Ari

While I have some reservations about your contention of biological nature of societies, an entirely separate subject that as a layperson I know little about, I still am puzzled by the insistence to fit a square peg into a round hole. What you mention about Arabic language is a good exemplar. We can clearly see the nations in the Steppe and Indian subcontinent that were Islamized through the Persian funnel did not lose their historical identity as the case is for example in Non Arab Egypt and Morocco that now consider themselves quintessentially Arab. Even the Arabic words that have entered into Persian language that you refer to, as you must know, have for the most part changed their pronunciations and definitions making them unrecognizable to the native Arabian Peninsula residents. There are many many other anomalies that point away from a cultural source and rather affirm societal struggles to keep alive local cultures within the imposed religious strictures. And the passing reference you make about keeping the systems in competition and waiting for better solutions to arise is a clever remark. But aren’t we suppressing the opportunities that might present themselves were the one fit all Islamic culture label which necessitate a whole slew of boundaries was to be removed and the flourishing uninhibited ancient local cultures encouraged to compete for that better solution? In all walks of everyday life, the way I see it, an enormous amount of energy and talent is being used up just to fit the square, local culture, in to the round, "Islamic culture", hole, and I just do not understand the utility of it when it is championed by learned secularists.

Postmodernism=Islamism=Patriarchy

Why aren't we surprized by Ari's comment below. "the view that societies are biological organisms in their own right" is a functionalist view - one of the most conservative, even backward, schools of thought in sociology. Post-modernism is as patriarchal and anti-feminist as Islam (and other organized religions.)

For sz

Once we adopt the view that societies are biological organisms in their own right, straightforward analogies become possible. The human body is a system where individual cells have found an evolutionary advantage to cooperate as a unit, in the process giving up their individual identities. Each cell is itself a cooperative unit, where individual genes have found it advantageous to work in unison as chromosomes, in the process giving up their individual identities. At higher levels of hierarchy we eventually find the nations you mentioned, Berbers, Chechens…

Islam is one level higher in the order--its “non-self” being Christianity in pre-colonial times and now its extension, the modern West. And as you have noted, this religion follows the pattern of suppressing the identities of the social organism lower in the hierarchy. One of the comments below shows how anxiously aware we Iranians are of this.

Despite the secessionist tendencies you mention regarding the Ottoman Empire, Islamic cultures do exhibit a considerable uniformity that can be regarded as a universal Islamic culture. For example the Koran (one of the binding signals) established the Arabic language throughout a significant part of the Middle East, overriding native languages as far away as Libya, hugely impacting the Persian language, and elsewhere becoming the language of discourse in scholarly circles. Artistically, the taboo on portraiture (another signal), ties the tile works in Alhambra with the calligraphies in Isfahan. Politically, the Jerusalem issue (a signal using holy sites) explains the uniformity of Islamic opinion on the Palestine-Israel issue.

This finally brings me to the heart of the argument in my article. Does the Western concept of individualism and freedom rescue us from being absorbed as mere cells into larger organisms? My answer is “no.” The 9-11 argument and the accompanying link to Nazi Germany, argues that the Western system is prone to fascism. It just looks good for the moment by accidental circumstance. Meanwhile as individuals we should keep these systems in competition, keeping our options open for better solutions, or at least maintain a leverage as we bargain for as much freedom as the biology of societies allows us to slavage.

Ari

Thank you so very much for the response Ari. I understand what you so lucidly state which forms the main supporting argument for the usage of the Islamic culture(s). Your response goes to the heart of ambiguity that I have. Where you say: “Identifying labels are necessary in complex societies because, unlike small tribal communities, the members are not in close contact with each other and need more abstract signals to distinguish “self” from “non-self.” Doesn’t that Islamic culture label rather than providing abstract signals for distinction between self and others abolishes them all in place of an arbitrary cover all blanket. When you have Berbers, Chechens, Uighurs, Arabs, East European, Persians and others all labeled under the Moslem culture doesn’t it render the label useless and misleading. What I do not comprehend is what benefit is derived at by foregoing the distinctly different cultures? It could not be an attempt in soliciting unity for being in the thick of it and knowing the irreconcilable historical differences it has and will not happen. Even the Ottomans couldn’t make it work within their "moslem" empire let alone now. I feel like I’m babbling, but that is because of the problem I have in understanding the issue.

Iranian Women’s Studies Foundation Hijacked by Islamists

Islamism and postmodernism are reactionary forces of unreason and against the Iranian women's interests. The idea of Enlightenment is vitally important, as it can help us achieve a democratic politics, in which we have a say in the decisions that are taken on our behalf. Period!

Review of Phyllis Chesler’s The Death of Feminism

By: Alyssa A. Lappen

Full disclosure: I helped research the contents of chapter 7, concerning the effects of Islamic treatment of women in the West. I will confine my comments to the rest of this book.

In chapter four, Phyllis Chesler tells the story of her captivity in Kabul as the wife of an Afghan national. Although an Orthodox Jewish American girl, she married her college sweetheart in the summer of 1961 in New York state. He just happened to be a Muslim. In telling her story, she hopes to "help other westerners understand and empathize with Muslim and Arab women (and men) who are increasingly being held hostage to barbarous and reactionary customs."

This is not only a laudable feminist goal, the story that Chesler tells is a compelling one. When she returned from her captivity in Afghanistan on December 21, 1961, she literally kissed the ground at Idewild (now Kennedy) Airport. When she had landed in Kabul as Ali's new foreign, American and Jewish bride, officials confiscated her passport, which she never saw again. Upon her arrival, her westernized husband "simply became another person." He barely spoke to her, and treated her with annoyed embarrassment, coldness and distance.

Ali had never mentioned that his father was polygamous. But upon arrival in Kabul, Chesler was consigned to live with Ali's mother Aishah, or "Beebee Jan" (Dear Lady), whom his father had long since abandoned for his third wife. There came a time when Chesler was no longer allowed to slip out of her house unattended. She immediately went to the American Embassy, right next to the family compound. When she could not produce her passport, the Marines would escort her home, telling her that as "the wife of an Afghan national" she was no longer entitled to American protection.

Beebee Jan stopped the servants from boiling Chesler's drinking water and washing all the fruits and vegetables. She allowed the cooks to use only rancid ghee (animal fat). Chesler lost weight rapidly. She began to starve. She contracted hepatitis, turned yellow and vomited continuously. She kept demanding to see an American doctor. At last, she was sent to the new Tom Dooley hospital, where the English-speaking doctor told her "you are very sick and you have to get out of here." Her mother-in-law tried to pull out the IV prescribed to deliver vitamins and nutrients.

At last, her father-in-law was summoned. Seeing that her illness and departure would be a victory over his westernized son Ali, Agha Jan (Dear Master) told her he knew of her plans to escape with the help of a German wife. But he thought it best if she left with the family's approval, on an Afghan passport, which he handed her on the spot, along with a plane ticket. She flew via Aeroflot, via Tashkent, to Moscow, and finally on to New York. She survived, she now thinks, in part so she could "tell other westerners something about what it's like for a woman and an infidel to live under Islam." Islamists insist on religious freedom for themselves in the West but refuse it to westerners living in the East. And Islamists are now in "an accelerated jihad mode and are exercising all their trans-cultural options."

In effect, Chesler is concerned that while Islamists are beheading Jews and American civilians, stoning Muslim women to death, jailing Muslim dissidents and bombing civilians on every continent, feminists are stuck in a rut that blames all this violence on Israel and U.S. imperialism. For that, she should not be faulted, but applauded.

She also bemoans the Islamization of the West. This ongoing process "involves profound cultural, religious and class differences" that severely imperil "a pluralist, democratic, and modern but class-based and historically racist civilization." She worries what will happen to feminists, and indeed all of us, when "anti-modern, anti-western, and anti-tolerant class-based and historically racist cultures come to live among" us.

In one especially fine chapter, Chesler details what Arab, Muslim and Middle Eastern women have to say about their lives today. She writes of Merry Merrell, a Syrian-American feminist, a poet and counselor who lives in Boston and London. According to Merrell, "It is vital for western feminists to say the truth about women living under Islam because of the new ways in which the Left's sympathies with Islamist perpetrators has confused and silenced to many." Chesler also discusses Egyptian-American Nonie Darwish, raised as a Muslim, whose father trained Palestinians to kill Israelis. Writes Darwish, "this graceful country allowed me to practice any religion and gave me human rights I could only [have] dreamed of under Islam." And she praises Homa Arjmand, who (subsequent to publication) defeated the adoption of Sharia law in Ontario family courts.

Many heart-rending stories of Muslim women elucidate these points. But where, Chesler asks, are western feminists in this fight against radical Islam? For the most part, she mourns, no where to be found.

This accurate, albeit at times personal, account of the current ills of the feminist movement is a critical study that cries out to be read, and read again.

Alyssa A. Lappen

For sz

Thanks sz. Your second question first. Islam—or Christianity for that matter—is not a vessel for ideas or a set of rules. It is an arbitrary label; the ideas and rules are simply there to differentiate the label, much like a Coke can is different from a Pepsi can.

Identifying labels are necessary in complex societies because, unlike small tribal communities, the members are not in close contact with each other and need more abstract signals to distinguish “self” from “non-self.” The material for these signals was already present in small societies in the form of spirituality or “primitive religions,” perhaps useful as a psychological coping mechanism. This raw material came in handy when it was needed for constructing binding instruments for larger societies. Each subgroup coincidentally found it convenient to piggyback its local customs or politics on the main signal. The tangled interaction is a source of confusion about what any religion is, or could become. To start along this flavor of analysis of religion, here is one-hour lecture by evolutionary sociologist David Sloan Wilson, the author of Darwin’s Cathedral. [Note, Wilson does not discuss Islam specifically, just the evoultionary theory of religion]

Your second question regarding propaganda is easier but would take longer to answer due to the enormous amount of supporting material that goes with it. For now, let me mention that the history of Western negativity about Islamic societies begins long before the movie Not Without My Daughter about which Roger Ebert says, "If a movie of such a vitriolic and spiteful nature were to be made in America about any other ethnic group, it would be denounced as racist and prejudiced."

Islamic culture? Unbelievable!

Since when we Iranians identify ourselves as an Islamic culture? It is sad to see the Iranian Women’s Studies Foundation has deteriorated into a postmodern, anti-feminist Islamic abyss, represented by a man! Shame! Shame!

Explanation requested

Ari, in a response to a commenter you said: “please don't allow feminism to be used as a propaganda tool against Islamic cultures”. I do understand and like most your writings, should you care to, would you expand on the “propaganda tool against Islamic cultures”. I constantly read and hear this and can’t really grasp the concept. In all sincerity, I also don’t get the Islamic culture or cultures is it the vessel containing Islamic human rights, economy, and chemistry? Or is it the collection of mandatory rules of the Islamic religion? or,..

For Iranian Feminist

For Ari

Not believing that Clinton made "a major mistake in enabling the Iraq war" is very different than PROMOTING "the foreign policies of Western Patriarchy". Please don’t allow anti-feminist ideas settle into your mind via anti-imperialist ones.

Carmen The Beloved

Your descriptions of democracy as a Western ‘condition’ and of the workings of the Western concept of ‘freedom’ as a puzzle are brilliant and open the path to a deeper and more meaningful discussion about the conflicting ideological forces of our time, symbolically that of Don Jose imposing himself on the Carmen’s of the world so as to secure his own ambiguous idea of ‘freedom’. Carmen, the opera, might have been formulated as a prophecy for our time. One hopes that Don Jose seeks some therapy and medication before it is too late.

For Iranian Feminist

Ari, may I ask

who these "mainstream feminists who promote the foreign policies of Western Patriarchy" are?

This cat must become intelligent tiger

"The bird call for world justice, composed of the will of all conscious beings, is still waiting to be discovered, and the search is still wide open to all cultures. This is why Carmen must be protected from Don Jose."