An organization called Advocates for Civil Liberties conducted a panel Monday night in Toronto's tony Yorkvile neighborhood dealing with the suppression of women's rights under Islamic rule. Raheel Raza and Nsatasha Fatah are both Canadian Muslims of Pakistani origin who have seen the way threat Islamism has creeped into Muslim cultures in the last three decades. They attribute the phenomenon to the aggressive agenda of Wahhabi Islam that originates in Saudi Arabia and whose spread has been funded by that country's oil wealth which has skyrocketed since the 1970's.
Fatah, a writer who is the daughter of renowned author and human rights activist Tarek Fatah and Raza, who is a former head of the Muslim Canadian Congress, both noted that in their native Pakistan, only a couple of decades ago, it was extremely rare to see women dressed in the body casing of the burkah or niqab, whereas now it is commonplace there. The practice has no basis in religion, but is an Arab tradition that Saudi influence has spread to Muslim countries outside the middle east and even to pockets of Muslim communities in western countries like Canada.
The most harrowing accounts came not from a Muslim woman but a Catholic who lived under Islamist rule in Iran. Marina Nemat grew up in Iran under the Shah, where despite repressive activities directed at political dissenters by his secret police, the Savak, the average citizen enjoyed the same rights and individual liberties as citizens of western countries. With the exception of Turkey, women's rights in pre-Revolutionary Iran were unrivaled in the Islamic Middle East. Nemat spoke of a childhood with dancing to Bee Gees music, mini-skirts, swimming at the cottage in her bikini, dating and a life that would be indistinguishable from that of a girl in places like France or Austria. The changes that the Khomeini regime brought about seemed gradual, but were horrific in the end result. First, behaviour like singing and dancing were banned, then women were prohibited from wearing bright colors and short skirts. Then they were forced to cover themselves and not allowed to show their hair in public.
Political repression magnified, and as a teenager, Nemat was arrested for participating in an anti-government demonstration and what happened after that was horrifying and irreversible. She, along with hundreds of others, were jailed in in Iran's Evin prison, the most disreputable torture centre in the world whose abuses exceed that of the USSR's Lubyanka. Canadians may recognize that name as the place where Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi was murdered after being raped and tortured by her jailers. That fate befell many of Nemat's friends. The Iranians believed that a virgin was guaranteed a place in heaven and not wanting an enemy of the Islamic Republic to receive that privilege in the afterlife, they raped young girls and teenagers like Nemat was at the time. She was also subjected to brutal torture like having the soles of her feet lashed repeatedly by guards who would shout "Allahu Akbar!" with each vicious stroke.
Eventually, Nemat was able to escape Iran to warn of the breed of Islamicism that Iran wants to spread throughout the middle east, but tragically it is often falling on deaf ears. Shockingly, much of that deafness comes from western so-called "feminists" who have provided ideological support for some of the most brutally misogynistic regimes in the world.
The trio of Raza, Fatah and Nemat al decried the hypocrisy among many in the west as a tacit form of racism that accepts Islamist mistreatment of women as being to to an inate inferiority, whereas they would never accept such behaviour from white Christians. The phenomenon of making Muslim women, or Muslim Divas such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji who speak out against Islamism into heroes was counterproductive as far as they were concerned. Such discourse needs to be part of the general conversation and it speaks poorly of Muslim society that there are so few. All three called upon people of every religious, national and cultural background to speak out against the abuses occurring in the name of Islamist radicalism. They said that Muslim women cannot do it on their own and every free citizen should take whatever action they could, including making elected representatives aware of concerns about the erosion of women’s human rights wherever Sharia Law is imposed or people propose its implementation.
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