Intercultural Iftar on 9/26, San Francisco, US

[sephodwyrm]

I helped out at an Intercultural Dinner organized by the Bay CC - Bay Area Cultural Connections. Many leaders of various religious communities were invited and we were seated in a good sitting plan that ensures every table at least has a Jew, a Christian and a Muslim (men and women as well). We talked about many things (including marriage). The atmosphere is lively and everyone had a good time.

There was also a demonstration of traditional Turkish Paper Marbling in the end. It was fantastic.

But there are a few things I have learnt.
Politics wise, Muslim countries were viewed as intolerant of women etc etc.
But hey, these Muslim countries had female presidents:
1. Pakistan
2. Bangladesh
3. Indonesia
Three of the most populous Muslim countries in the world had female presidents, and at the same time they're also some of the poorer ones.

When is the warrior beacon of light and democracy and Christianity and greatest wealth going to supersede the backwards and tyrannical Muslim nations that beats and whips and oppresses women?

[Denny Crane!]

I would rather live in a country that had never had a female president than one where your freedoms are severely curtailed on a cultural basis and where there are second class citizens. Did you also happen to discuss waziristan where the taliban have set up shop again meting out justice for crimes real, imagined and for the purposes of securing power.

I am really not a big fan of the USA politically (nor Britain) but they are shining beacons of light when placed in comparison to Pakistan.

Peter

[sephodwyrm]

The problem with most Muslim countries is not really religion per se.
That is the point I'm trying to get across.
A society that oppresses women on every scale would not elect a female president, FYI.

I would rather live in a country that had never had a female president than one where your freedoms are severely curtailed on a cultural basis and where there are second class citizens.

And oh, btw, what's wrong with living under a female president?
I have lived in Indonesia for 4 years and have never been oppressed despite being a non-Muslim at that time. The most I have been through is having our car mobbed by a bunch of vagrants. And this has an equal chance of happening in poor neighborhoods.

And the president was male at that time.

[Denny Crane!]

The problem with most Muslim countries is not really religion per se.
That is the point I'm trying to get across.
A society that oppresses women on every scale would not elect a female president, FYI.

Is there or is there not a cultural bias against women, I am not sure whether it is geographical or reasons peculiar to religion but amongst muslim communities even in the UK women are a second class group without the same rights or priveleges as the man. Not limited strictly to muslims as the sikh community I am familiar with displays attitudes which while not reaching the levels displayed in other places is still completely unnacceptable.

Pakistan has a serious problem in this respect not just failing to lower domestic abuse but actually facing growing abuse despite recent legislation to try and curb it. This just simply addresses the abuse issue, what about the woman who is told to walk five paces behind her man and not to look up from the ground. What is abuse and what is not?

Perhaps you can offer an opinion as to where this curious attitude comes from. Geographical, cultural or religious. Perhaps a mix of all three?

Peter

[AngryTitusPullo]

The problem with most Muslim countries is not really religion per se.
That is the point I'm trying to get across.
A society that oppresses women on every scale would not elect a female president, FYI.

And oh, btw, what's wrong with living under a female president?
I have lived in Indonesia for 4 years and have never been oppressed despite being a non-Muslim at that time. The most I have been through is having our car mobbed by a bunch of vagrants. And this has an equal chance of happening in poor neighborhoods.

And the president was male at that time.

The oppression of women are difinately not a religious thing but strictly a cultural thing. That's why with the coming of Islam there were so many rights granted to women which didn't exist during Jahiliyah in Arabia (and probably much the rest of the world).

O/T: You've live in Indonesia sephodwyrm ? You can still speak Indo / Malay ? :tooth:

[sephodwyrm]

amongst muslim communities even in the UK women are a second class group without the same rights or priveleges as the man.

Something's wrong with the UK. I don't see US Muslim women being a second class group, or Indonesian Muslim women for that matter.

Pakistan has a serious problem in this respect not just failing to lower domestic abuse but actually facing growing abuse despite recent legislation to try and curb it. This just simply addresses the abuse issue, what about the woman who is told to walk five paces behind her man and not to look up from the ground. What is abuse and what is not?

That's the problem with certain Pakistani communities. In Bandung, Indonesia, I see female students in trendy clothing and shopping. In some regions people inherit their mother's surnames. I see women picking tea and working alongside men and giving us guidance when we got lost trekking around in the mountains.

Geographical, cultural or religious. Perhaps a mix of all three?

Or simply being stuck in the times that the Western World have seen less than 200 years ago, or else, very bad press and smear.

[Denny Crane!]

Something's wrong with the UK. I don't see US Muslim women being a second class group, or Indonesian Muslim women for that matter.

I find the more westernised the less prevalent it becomes, in another words the more they adopt the UK culture and ideology (education to) it is less.

Maybe not true for Indonesia or the US I have no experience of that but is it true for India and Pakistan, the UK? Well I certainly believe so. Quite a hard thing to prove if we are discussing anything short of domestic abuse, most of the impressions I have formed are through interaction in these communities and with these people, generated quite a lot by having muslim friends (not just in the UK either) so this is not a line of conversation I can back up with hard evidence. After all it is not a reportable crime to treat a woman like crap unless you are doing something physical. Its not a crime or something easily observed to have and identify chauvanistic attitudes.

If though it is as you seem to think a construct of the UK or possibly in my mind then why in October of last year was there a gender jihad launched by islamic feminists with the sole intent of addressing and reversing the chauvanistic attitudes and biased and wrong interpretations of the Koran that are responsible for a lot of the suffering throughout the muslim female world. Not only is it to try and reverse attitudes that have prevailed for centuries but also to try and reverse the growing trend for even more conservative ideas grounded in Saudi Arabia and gaining popularity throughout the muslim world.

Here are two links, one about the gender Jihad and the second about interpretations of the Koran and the fiqh that have caused the state of affairs.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4384512.stm

http://www.sistersinislam.org.my/IFL...20SIS%2006.doc

That's the problem with certain Pakistani communities. In Bandung, Indonesia, I see female students in trendy clothing and shopping. In some regions people inherit their mother's surnames. I see women picking tea and working alongside men and giving us guidance when we got lost trekking around in the mountains.

I refer to the above post where I believe it most certainly is not isolated to certain communities.

Or simply being stuck in the times that the Western World have seen less than 200 years ago, or else, very bad press and smear.

You think so? Domestic abuse has been around in every culture around the world but this hasn't:

(Was supposed to be a picture of a woman in head to foot black garb but never mind its not working)



And in actual fact women while not having had suffrage or true equality have not faced oppression in the UK that would ever resemble anything seen in the muslim worlds. Read up on the history of UK women, I googled a time period at random settling on the 1500's http://www.r3.org/life/articles/women.html



They have not been threatened with death for not wearing a head to foot costume or even asked to wear one at all, they have not suffered gender mutilation In Pakistan, current penal laws stipulate stoning to death as the maximum penalty for murder. Unlike man, however, an accused woman is not allowed to testify on her own behalf. Women who claim to have been raped are often imprisoned for committing 'zina', sex outside marriage. In maximum-sentence rape cases, women's testimonies carry no weight. They must produce four adult, pious, male Muslims who actually witnessed the crime. An estimated 2000 women languish in Pakistani jails under ordinances governing such crimes as 'zina'. - There is the culture of honour killings and its lesser degrees where control is exerted over the females in a family.

The most baffling thing is, is that it is all in complete contradiction from what I understand the Koran stipulates yet it happens and the koran for the most part is cited as the justification.

EDIT: If its a myth in the media then it is a fantastic conspiracy that muslim friends who I speak to regularly on the internet just make things up when I ask questions about there culture and the lifestyles they have. The stories I read are complete lies and the Islamic women who launched the feminist jihad on chauvanism in Spain representing many many countries have been taken in hook line and sinker haven't they.



Peter

[sephodwyrm]

Yes, I have lived in Indonesia when I was 8-11 (1992-1996).
I can still speak a bit of Indonesian (and hence Malaysian since the two languages are so similar with each other).

What I'm trying to get across is that oppression of women in Islam is a myth that is perpetrated as a fact in world media.

[MasterAdnin]

Very good Sephodwrym. I hope that there are more Iftars like this to bring the religions closer together.

Salaam,
Adnan

P.S.-Why is it that people Generalize Muslims by the standards of the smallest group? Namely extremists....

[AngryTitusPullo]

P.S.-Why is it that people Generalize Muslims by the standards of the smallest group? Namely extremists....

Well 20 years ago people in the west (maybe even in my country ) thinks of Russians/Soviets (communists) as creatures with horn on their heads. Blame it on Hollywood and the media.....

Yes, I have lived in Indonesia when I was 8-11 (1992-1996).
I can still speak a bit of Indonesian (and hence Malaysian since the two languages are so similar with each other).

Who knows maybe someday we can get together drinking teh tarik and eating roti canai... :tooth:

[sephodwyrm]

Because extremists are fun to watch and learn from
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6noMC2ZOKbg

I thought HAMAS was bad enough having children camps to make future martyrs with paramilitary training. OK, that's cheap. But I bet there are definitely more Palestinian children seeing some form of government sponsored destruction of their parents', uncles', aunts', brothers', sisters' or neighbors' property and life compared to the US...but still, learn from extremists:
JESUS CAMP!
and
LEFT BEHIND VIDEO GAME!
(I must confess that we're making a similar game, albeit in a historical context of historical actions...I really want to incorporate multi-cultural elements into the game)

[sephodwyrm]

The gender Jihad you mentioned has their roots in the Qur'an.
They're against male chauvinism, not Islam. States with a majority of Muslims are fully capable of bringing a society that has equal roles for men and women as well as electing female leaders.
Get that straight.

If its a myth in the media then it is a fantastic conspiracy that muslim friends who I speak to regularly on the internet just make things up when I ask questions about there culture and the lifestyles they have. The stories I read are complete lies and the Islamic women who launched the feminist jihad on chauvanism in Spain representing many many countries have been taken in hook line and sinker haven't they.

Wrong and True.
First thing first is that I did not say that all Muslim states have equal gender rights.
Some, like Indonesia, has more while othres like Saudi Arabia has less.

But the media makes it look as if that any Muslim state is incapable of achieving equal gender rights, or liberal politics per se. That is the myth I'm debunking.

[Denny Crane!]

Yes but if you read what I wrote you would see that I was attacking chauvanistic interpretations of the Koran which like it or not is a big part of the popular conservative movement sweeping Islam at the moment.

It has become the norm in many areas as islamism becomes more popular and all the (quite possibly completely wrong) teachings with it, or in the states where these have been used for so long that it is embedded into that society. These places I talk about are swathes of the middle east, pakistan and India. Not just neccessarily amongst Muslims especially in Indias case and in the eastern population in countries like the UK.

It does exist though. In some cases in a more extreme form then anything the west or far east has ever had throughout its history. I would hazard a guess and say Indonesia's liberal attitudes stem from the fact that it is an oriental culture and is not as heavily influenced by the Arab culture and so has not taken on the popular saudi arabian interpretations of the Koran.

Peter