Women's Situation in the Muslim World

2007-06-16T15:57:00.000-07:00

How can I ever get over my heritage, my history, the history of a nation which is tattooed on my face and runs in my veins? A very strange mixture of hatred and love within me!
When Robert Killroy-Silk insulted the Arab nation using the women’s situation in his statement, I hated him for it.
The women’s situation in the Muslim world, in the eyes of the West is not an issue to be resolved. It is instead the hump on the back of an unwanted man, an ugly birth mark that no laser would ever erase. The West has never had any sympathy for my liking. It has never genuinely asked to understand or to help. The only incentive the West could have to interfere in the affairs of other nations’ has always been self interest. Though resolving women’s situation in the Muslim world does not provide such interest.

As a women from a Muslim country, I cannot deny the fact that I have a problem with the Muslim nation. The seriousness of this problem varies from one country to another. From birth, we are told that we are an issue because we are females. By the age of four or five, we are told that we have to get married as soon as possible and conceive. Education is a decoration in a respectable family front window. No education or job would ever make a women a first class citizen in a Muslim country. We are brought up in fear in a world that does not belong to us. We are not expected to make decisions. Maturity and freedom are two concepts associated with manhood only. Single women need to have a next of kin who is usually the father, the brother or any other male blood relative until they are married and after that their husbands become the head of the family. The ideal Muslim women is a slave-like female who always does as she is told. This would include giving up the right of inheritance for the male, signing a ‘bargain marriage contract’ or simply serving the husbands new wife who shares the same household. We are enslaved from birth sometimes by our own blood relations and some other time by the tradition and backward laws. No slavery had been more powerful than ours throughout history.

Yet, had we won the worlds’ sympathy in the way the black slaves did, we would have been freed a long time ago.

Six years ago, I was a proof reader in ‘The Middle East’ newspaper. I read countless articles which spoke about honour killings in the Middle East and especially in Jordan; a very good friend of Britain. There, honour killing had very little to do with honour and was used on most occasions to hide financial greed in order to take the women’s portion of the inheritance. The killers used honour as an excuse to get a lower sentence and gain respect from their community.

Two years ago, Manchester United football captain; David Beckham at that time, a married man with two children and a wife who was expecting the third, was caught red handed in an affair with his Spanish PA who sold her story to the papers revealing her secret relationship with the captain. The whole British nation turned to her with a big cheer and a ‘so what’? Only six months later, Farias Alaama, of Bangladashi origin had an affair with the England football manager, Sven-Goran Eriksson, on 2004. The whole British nation turned to her with all their disdain and rage; “how dare she?” Said some of them “and how can a girl from a Muslim background do such thing?!” Every body thought it was disgusting!

But the worst example came when the London Police Force dismissed Ms Banaz Mahmod’s claim that she feared for her life. 20 years old Iraqui Banaz told police officers she had grounds to believe that her father was plotting to kill her. Ms Hahmod went to the South London Police force about four times to make a formal allegation against her family. Her claims were not only dismissed but also turned against her. Ms Cornes, one of the police officers, tried to have Ms Mahmod charged with criminal damage for breaking her grandmother’s window while she was trying to escape her father!
The Iraqi young women was pushed by her father into an arranged marriage in which she suffered domestic violence. In 2005, Ms Mahmod fell in love with Rahmat Sulemani who comes from a different village in Iraq. The date was considered unsuitable for that reason. Banaz’s father, Mahmod Mahmod, beat her repeatedly, imprisoned her and tried to kidnap her boyfriend. Ms Mahmod knew every thing about her father’s murder plot and gave the police a list with her future killers’ names. The police called her claims a fantasy. Three days later, Banza was killed and found after three months in a suitcase in a back garden.

Until when will the world continue to watch our women enslaved, tortured and killed in their own homes without doing a thing about it?
Is it fair that not only are we denied freedom by our own violent culture, but also get persecuted by the western world for trying to fight for our freedom?

Whey should we remain tattooed with shame either resigned to our fate or rebellious?!!!

The Muslim World - Identity and Consequences

Women's Situation in the Muslim World