Religion of Peace: Killing Women to Keep Woman Subjugated
Women ultimately have less liberty and autonomy in their lives now than they did before, which suggests strongly that the direction which Iraqi society is taking is only for the worse. There is just one source for this development: Islam, the "religion of peace." Women are being tyrannized, murdered, and forced to commit suicide because Muslim men in Iraq are learning from their religion that a good, godly, religious, and Islamic society requires oppressing women.
In Basra alone, police acknowledge that 15 women a month are murdered for breaching Islamic dress codes. Campaigners insist it is a conservative figure. Violence against women is rampant, rising every day with the power of the militias. Beheadings, rapes, beatings, suicides through self-immolation, genital mutilation, trafficking and child abuse masquerading as marriage of girls as young as nine are all on the increase. ...
Despite the outrage, recent calls by the Kurdish MP Narmin Osman to outlaw honour killings have been blocked by fundamentalists. "Honour killings are not actually a crime in the eyes of the government," said Houzan Mahmoud, who has had a fatwa on her head since raising a petition against the introduction of sharia law in Kurdistan. "If before there was one dictator persecuting people, now almost everyone is persecuting women.
"In the past five years it is has got [much] worse. It is difficult to described how terrible it is, how badly we have been pushed back to the dark ages. Women are being beheaded for taking their veil off. Self immolation is rising – women are left with no choice. There is no government body or institution to provide any sort of support. Sharia law is being used to underpin government rule, denying women their most basic human rights."
Source: The Independent
Every authoritarian society or government requires as a foundation an entire system of authoritarian relationships in which certain classes of people are tyrannized by others who are, in turn, often tyrannized by still others. People must be accustomed to authoritarian relationships in every aspect of their lives, and generally throughout their lives. The less they know of equality, liberty, and autonomy, the less likely they are to demand it from those who want to be in control of others.
This is why we should pay close attention to how a society treats those who are traditionally at the bottom of repressive systems: women, gays, Jews, atheists, etc. However free a society tries to portray itself, it isn't free so long a class of people like women live in fear and under oppression. Even worse, such a situation suggests very strongly that this is where the rest of society is ultimately going. When has oppression or tyranny ever just stopped at one vulnerable group? Women and gays are often the first, but they surely won't be the last.
What this indicates is that, in the long term, Iraq may end up worse off after America's invasion than it was under Saddam Hussein. However bad he was — and it would be hard to underestimate how bad he was — he still ruled over a secular society in which women could lead relatively free and autonomous lives. Now they can't, and their lives are getting worse. The responsibility for this lies squarely at the feet of the American invaders and George W. Bush in particular. What can Bush possibly do to make up for the damage he's done to so many women's lives?
Comments
Death to those who deny that Islam is the Religion of Peace.
It’s a sad state of affairs. I would think that such principles as outlined here in your article would be denounced as primitive, anti-humanistic, and barbaric.
…yet they still thrive in these parts of the world. One would think that our mission in these countries, by introducing democracy, would be to instill the principles of freedom, not utterly destroy them.
Reading this kind of thing makes me sad and furious at the same time.
Islam has to go, and we need to kill it.
When you give democracy to a nation where the majority are a bunch of fanatical savages, of course they’ll use it to undermine any sense of equality or justice.
But I disagree with RRM, Islam doesn’t been to be abolished, it just needs a reform. Early Judaism and Christianity were no better, but they (for the most part) have kept up with the times and allowed women a lot more equality then they did in the past.
Of course, any kind of reform will be met with bitter hostility from those who like things just the way they are. A reform will be bloody, very bloody.
Firstly, in response to the previous comments, I wouldn’t assume “bringing democracy” was the purpose of the invasion of Iraq. There were many dictatorships in the world back in 2003. It’s also a bit simplistic to assume that Democracy is something which can simply needs to be given rather than encouraged and developed.
Joseph,
On what basis do you claim that Iraq is “a nation where the majority are a bunch of fanatical savages”? Sounds a bit “White Man Burden(ish)” to me.
It is not Democracy but Religious authority that is being used to undermine justice and equality. Whilst you are right in saying that women once suffered similarly under Christianity and Judaism, it should be noted that progress in this regard is due to religious authority’s loss of power, brought about by increasing secularization of civil society, not through their own initiative. It will be the same with Islam. Muslims that support secular society are not rare in secular societies. And this is why secularization needs to be encouraged.
I wasn’t necessarily saying Iraq was a nation that had fanatics as their majority, I was just making a generalization. Democracy isn’t a magic cure to instantly turn a war-torn region into a bastion of freedom. Just because you democratize a nation does not mean it will be more free. As I said, if the majority feel it’s a good idea to persecute the minority, and there are no checks and balances in place, things will quickly turn bad.
Islam cannot be reformed. It it could have, it would have already. It has stayed the same for over 1400 years. While Christianity and Judiasm has, for the most part, evolved. Islam cannot evolve, it’s stated in the most dangerous book ever to be created, the koran.
This is a false statement.
Every bad aspect of the Qur’an has a parallel problem in the Bible.
To Austin, exactly how much studying have you done on Islam? On the koran? Apprarently not much. The koran cannot evolve. Read the websites dedicated by those that are former muslims and you will see that islam cannot be reformed. It is stated in the koran that this is the word of g-d and cannot be changed. therefore, it cannot change because changing it would mean changing the word of g-d.
Quite a lot.
I know. Neither can the Bible.
Interpretations, however, can evolve.
The Bible is the Word of God, so therefore Christianity cannot evolve either, right? Wrong.
Now that you have actually tried to support your assertion that Islam cannot be reformed, we see that your false assertion was based on false beliefs.
You ask me how much studying I have done on Islam and assumed that it must not be much, but entirely on the basis of me not believing falsehoods which you uncritically accept. How about yourself? What sort of scholarly research have you done on Islamic theology and history? Given that even a cursory familiarity with Islamic history reveals a great deal of variation, changes, and reforms, I can’t see how you could have possible done much study at all and continue to believe that reform in Islam is impossible.
If I’m wrong and you have done a lot of study, please do explain how you reconcile all the variation, change, and reform in Muslim history with your assertion here that reform in Islam is impossible.