Here Are The Muslim Feminist Voices, Mr. Rushdie!

Salman Rushdie tells us in his Op-Ed essay in the New York Times(Friday, Nov 2, 2001), that "highly motivated organizations of Muslimmen"-whom he labels "Islamists"-have been "engaged over thelast 30 years or so in growing radical political movements" all over theIslamic world, movements that have produced the terrorists who not onlydestroyed the symbols of the freedom-loving West and killed 6000 innocent peoplein the process on 9/11, but who have been systematically destroying the verysocieties of which they are a part, with much of their savage venom focused onthe female citizenry. In a parenthetical aside, Mr. Rushdie sighs, "(oh,for the voices of Muslim women to be heard!)"

Well, I have news for Mr. Rushdie. Muslim women have been speaking outagainst the obscurantist Islam he decries in his essay, for years and years andyears, although clearly Mr. Rushdie, and many others, have not paid them muchheed. There are Muslim women who are feminists, theologians, writers, lawyers,activists, scholars both in the "Islamist" societies he paints with abroad brush, as well as in the "west," who have been engaged in atwo-pronged struggle against both Islamic extremism as well as-and thisis where their difference from Mr. Rushdie arises-the unjust foreign policies ofthe United States that have contributed, and continue to contribute, to the"hijacking" of Islam for terrorist ends.

Shall I name a few? Dr. Nawal El Saadawi is one, a dear friend and mycolleague these days at Montclair State University, who has written over 20novels exposing the hypocrisy of Egypt's rulers in their cynical use and abuseof Islam to whip up public support for their repressive policies againstfree-thinking writers and intellectuals like herself. For her criticism ofEgyptian state repression (aided and abetted by the foreign intervention of theUnited States), she got thrown into jail by Anwar Sadat, a so-called anti-Islamist!She is currently in self-imposed exile here after having suffered an attempt bythe Egyptian authorities last summer to have her declared a heretic, ablasphemer against Islam and the holy Prophet.

But she--like her many counterparts all over the Muslim world, such as AsmaJahangir of Pakistan, Fatema Mernissi of Morocco, or the women of RAWA, theRevolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan, to name but a few--is notwilling, unlike Mr. Rushdie, to comprehend what happened on 9/11 merely in termsof Islam and its regressive politics of blame directed at the West, andparticularly at the United States. In a conversation I had with her shortlyafter the attacks on the WTC and Pentagon, she expressed the hope that theattacks, devastating as they undoubtedly were, might, in the long run, promptthe U.S. to rethink its foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East.

While I think Rushdie is correct in asking Muslim societies to look inward,to take "responsibility for many of our own problems" so that we canthen begin to "solve them for ourselves," he is disingenuous inimplying that such "problems" can be "fixed" in isolationfrom global politics and economics.

In an essay entitled, "At Critical Crossroads," published in Dawn,the largest circulating English-language daily of Pakistan , Asma Jahangir,leading advocate of Human and Women's Rights and President of the Human RightsCommission of Pakistan, (who has herself had to face innumerable death threatsfrom "Islamists" for her courageous defense of women victims of themost hideous "crimes of honor"), writes from a"both/and"perspective regarding the 9/11 catastrophe, in contradistinction to Rushdie'sunivocal analysis. She observes that while the people of Pakistan, familiar withacts of terrorism and their consequences, have almost unanimously condemned thekilling of innocent people in New York and Washington, and that while"there can be no justification for, nor rationale behind such acts,"nevertheless, such a terrible deed does call for reflection by the entire worldleadership.

Like Rushdie, she exhorts the "Muslim world to correct its rhetoricagainst 'infidels' and promote a culture of democracy and tolerance within theirown countries," yet, she simultaneously-and in contradistinction to Rushdie-insiststhat "The North needs to change its policies toward the South." Shegoes on to tell us that while the majority of Pakistanis do NOT support theTaliban regime, their lack of support for them "is not because they respectthe U.S.-whom they closely associate with the Israeli atrocities against thePalestinians-but because there is growing resentment against domestic jihadigroups and disrespect for the Taliban style of government." Should herreporting of Pakistani sentiment against unjust Israeli policies toward thePalestinians be read as evidence of Pakistani "anti-Semitism" and"Islamic slander against Jews" as Rushdie seems to suggest? That wouldhardly seem justified here.

What about the statements we have seen in recent weeks from RAWA,posted on the internet? In these, we are hearing the voices of revolutionaryAfghani women who have been speaking out against the atrocities of the Talibanregime for the past twenty years at grave risk to their own lives, yet, who hasbeen listening? In a statement that began circulating on September 14th, thesewomen express their "deep sorrow and condemnation for this barbaric act ofviolence and terror" that was committed against the innocent people of theUnited States, yet they also wish to remind the world that, unfortunately, itwas "the government of the United States who supported Pakistani dictatorGeneral Zia-ul-Haq in creating thousands of religious schools from which thegerms of the Taliban emerged." They also point out that Osama Bin Ladenhad, at one time, been the "blue-eyed boy of the CIA." What isscariest of all, perhaps is the following observation, that "Americanpoliticians have not drawn [sic] a lesson from their pro-fundamentalist policiesin our country and are still supporting this or that fundamentalist band orleader."

They are, ofcourse, referring to the U.S support of the so-called NorthernAlliance, which, according to a spokeswoman of RAWA I heard just a few days agoat Judson Memorial church in Greenwich Village, has committed worse atrocitiesthan even the Taliban, including the rape of 70 year old women. Do all of theseobservations of the Revolutionary Women of Afghanistan amount to an unfair andcrippling "politics of blame" against the U.S. as Rushdie would haveit? And if so, what does it mean that such a misguided view of world politics isheld and being propagated here NOT by fundamentalist "Islamists," butby their victims and staunchest critics, the ordinary Muslim (not Islamist)women of Afghanistan?

Perhaps we should consider carefully the bone-chilling consequencesforeshadowed by RAWA in the following statement: "The U.S. governmentshould consider the root cause of this terrible event, which has not been thefirst, and will not be the last one too." Perhaps we should read thisstatement juxtaposed next to a statement issued by the Joint Action Committeefor Citizens Rights and Peace, a committee comprised of the Institute of Women'sStudies , Lahore (IWSL), as well as several other women's groups and NGOs inPakistan, and issued on October 3rd, 2001.

"Civilization," note the JAC members, "is not synonymous withcapitalism or global political and economic power." Hence, the members ofthis coalition committee strongly believe that forms other than the use ofviolence can, and must, be worked out for conflict resolution, and they aretherefore, unequivocally (like RAWA), against the U.S waging war on the innocentpeople of Afghanistan.

They are quick to point out that in the current crisis in which the worldfinds itself, America has played no small role, to say the least; such ananalysis leads them to the inevitable conclusion that echoes RAWA's warning:

In this context the international community must note the resentment generated by insensitive and unjust policies of the United States, particularly in their unconditional support to the aggressive policies of Israel towards the people of Palestine and in their sustained campaign against the people of Iraq. It should be remembered that much of the terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan stems from international interventions in the region including by the United States for its own political ends in which Osama Bin Laden himself was originally an ally of the U.S.

Lest we be led into agreeing with Rushdie's thesis that such an analysissmacks of a "paranoic" Islamism that wishes to "blame all itstroubles on the West and, in particular, the United States," we would dowell to remind ourselves that the statement was issued by largely secular,certainly anti-Islamist women's groups and NGOs of Pakistan, who make explicitlyclear that they have, in keeping with the "both/and" imperative Ireferred to earlier, "persistently called upon the authorities in Pakistanto take a firm stand against those groups that have promoted violence,sectarianism, and extremism in our country."

Thus, it is indeed possible, I would say crucially important, to comprehendthe current world crisis not in a simplistic way as "this is aboutIslam" or "no it is not about Islam," but in the complex waysthat the women of the Muslim world have been seeing and describing it evenbefore T-Day 9/11. The world should listen to these voices, the female voicesallied with the "secularist-humanist principles" Rushdie seems tothink don't exist in the Islamic world.

(Fawzia Afzal-Khan is a professor in the Department of English atMontclair State University. The above appeared first in Counterpunch)