C L O S E R

Protected: Trouw, deVerdieping| podium – Moslimbroeder, wees goed voor uw vrouw

Posted on January 14th, 2006 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues.

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Protected: nu.nl/algemeen | Caissière supermarkt weigert bedrijfshoofddoek

Posted on January 3rd, 2006 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues.

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Protected: nu.nl/algemeen | Caissière supermarkt weigert bedrijfshoofddoek

Posted on January 3rd, 2006 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues.

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Protected: NRC Handelsblad – Lezers over solliciteren met een hoofddoek

Posted on December 31st, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Multiculti Issues.

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Protected: Nederlands Dagblad – Europese vrouwen vallen voor de islam

Posted on December 29th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues.

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Protected: Reformatorisch Dagblad – Veldwerk onder islamitische hogescholen

Posted on December 28th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Important Publications.

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Protected: NRC Handelsblad – Binnenland: Ramazan Keskin ging ‘winkelen in Baku’

Posted on December 28th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Young Muslims.

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Protected: NRC Handelsblad – Binnenland: Ramazan Keskin ging 'winkelen in Baku'

Posted on December 28th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Young Muslims.

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Pickled Politics » Women in Islam – veils of the mind

Posted on December 22nd, 2005 by .
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Internal Debates.

Saw the item on Gary Bunt’s Virtuallyislamic: Pickled Politics » Women in Islam – veils of the mind
Women in Islam – veils of the mind

While Imams tainted the message of Islam and used it for their own diverted interests, West carved it’s own picture of Muslim women.

For them, we are one of those sad creatures, whose husbands go and marry four times. Who carries her ugly existence under heavy drapes of veil and lives a life determined by men. The moment the image of veils comes, suddenly western world puts all in question in one pre-determined bracket.

But is it a true picture? But the women I know, even under the veil are not such typecasts.

My sister writes from Saudi Arab: “Have you ever wondered why all the western designers flock to Saudia? I have yet to meet a Saudi woman who does not know how to carry her Gucci or Versaci under her veil.

“An average westerner can hardly afford new designer underwear every day, but the rich Shiekh’s daughters, wives and sisters change them three times a day. Veils can be very misleading.”

Still, Muslim women are feeling like pawns in a political game: jihadists portray them as ignorant lambs who need to be protected from outside forces, while the United States considers them helpless victims of a backward society to be saved through military intervention. “Our empowerment is being exploited by men,” says Palestinian Muslim Rima Barakat. “It’s a policy of hiding behind the skirts of women. It’s dishonorable no matter who’s doing it.”

And these misinterpretations and misrepresentations of women are practiced every day.

What I find excruciating is plain and blatant assumption by everyone and anyone determined by the way someone dresses.

A person who forces a veil on a woman is no less evil than the one who orders her to take it off. The balance is achieved only when you give the woman the choice.

The way a blonde is not always stupid; a woman in veil is also not always an oppressed woman. I have met brilliant, smart and empowering women who do live in these veils, and I have also met some stupid ones. The problem is not in the veil, it’s in the prejudice!

Oppression does not come from what you wear; it comes from social attitudes and norms. Isn’t it time we got out of these centuries old, long obsolete attitudes?

See also the discussion at that blog.

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Talking about marrying / Over het huwelijk gesproken

Posted on October 7th, 2005 by .
Categories: [Online] Publications, Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues.

Samen met dr. Edien Bartels van de VU heb ik een onderzoek verricht ten dienste van de
ACVZ :: Adviescommisie voor Vreemdelingenzaken en hun advies: Tot het huwelijk gedwongen.

Het heeft even geduurd maar nu staat het dus ook op een site.

Centraal in deze onderzoeksnotitie staat de vraag: Welke plaats nemen gedwongen huwelijken in, in het proces van partnerkeuze bij Turken, Marokkanen en Hindostanen in Nederland? In deze onderzoeksnotitie gaat het om een vergelijking tussen de drie genoemde groepen.
Als onderzoeksvragen komen aan de orde:

1. Welke opvattingen bestaan er over het huwelijk, het belang daarvan en de invulling ervan (in het bijzonder de plaats van vrije keuze en dwang daarbinnen)
2. Welke strategie�n hanteren beoogde huwelijkspartners?
3. Binnen welke context past het verschijnsel huwelijk?
4. Hoe vaak verloopt het proces van partnerkeuze tegen de wil van de beoogde partners?
5. Welke visie hebben de betrokken groepen op de rol van de overheid met betrekking tot gedwongen huwelijken?

Door middel van gesprekken met jongeren, ouders, sleutelfiguren en wetenschappers in combinatie met een analyse van websites en literatuurstudie, is dit onderzoek in twee maanden uitgevoerd. Dit betekent dat het onderzoek geen representatief beeld kan bieden over aantallen en trends. In deze onderzoeksnotitie richten we ons vooral op het beschrijven van het proces van partnerkeuze en de plaats die gedwongen huwelijken daarin spelen. Onder een gedwongen huwelijk verstaan we: een huwelijk waarbij de huwelijkspartners, of ��n van hen, geen zeggenschap hebben (heeft) en niet instemmen (instemt) met het huwelijk.
Op basis van ons onderzoek concluderen we dat gedwongen huwelijken onder de drie onderzochte groepen voorkomen. De dwang komt soms tot uiting in fysieke dwang (in verschillende vormen). Meestal gaat het om veel subtielere vormen van dwang en drang. De dalende huwelijksmigratie, het opgroeien van Turkse, Marokkaanse en Hindostaanse Nederlandse jongeren in een omgeving waarin autonomie belangrijk is, de toenemende nadruk op sociale autonomie in Marokkaanse gezinnen, doen ons veronderstellen dat het aantal gedwongen huwelijken afneemt en dat het verschijnsel van gedwongen huwelijken zowel onder jongeren als onder ouders steeds minder gewaardeerd wordt.

Het is niet zo dat �de� Marokkaanse, Turkse of Hindostaanse �cultuur� automatisch leidt tot gedwongen huwelijken. Evenmin is in �de� Nederlandse �cultuur� ieder huwelijk alleen gebaseerd op vrije keuze. De keuzes die men maakt binnen het proces van partnerkeuze, komen tot stand onder invloed van diverse persoonlijke, economische, sociale, politieke, culturele en demografische factoren zoals transnationale netwerken, voorkeur voor endogamie en idealen als familieloyaliteit en het huwelijk. Naar onze mening is de conclusie gerechtvaardigd dat gedwongen huwelijken een verschijnsel is dat langzaam maar zeker afneemt onder de drie onderzochte groepen. Toch wordt de druk om te trouwen (met een specifieke kandidaat) soms als groot ervaren door jongeren. Die ervaring berust mede op gebrekkige communicatie met de ouders en hoeft derhalve niet altijd terecht te zijn.

Dit wil niet zeggen dat er niks gedaan moet worden. We verwerpen echter de link die bestaat tussen integratie en gedwongen huwelijken.

**********************************
Together with my colleague from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Edien Bartels, I have done a research on forced marriages.

The focal point of this research paper is the question: What place do forced marriages
occupy in the process of choosing a spouse among Turks, Moroccans and Hindustani in the
Netherlands? This research paper focuses on a comparison between the three groups named.
The following research questions are posed:
1. What views are held with respect to marriage, the importance of marriage and how
it is brought about (especially the place given to freedom of choice, on the one hand,
and coercion, on the other, with respect who one is to marry)
2. What strategies do marriage partners use?
3. Within what societal context does the phenomenon of marriage fit?
4. How often does the process of choosing a partner go against the will of the partners?
5. What views do the groups involved have of the role of the government with respect
to forced marriages?

Forced marriages among Turks, Moroccans and Hindustanis is an issue but one that is not as clear cut as you might think. There are not that many examples anymore of parents forcing their daughter (or son!) into a marriages with someone they don’t want. There is considerable pressure however among parents and children to get married at some point in time. With family in for example Morocco this pressure can be to tough to resist for many people.

In the debate on social integration, the manner in which partners are chosen is seen as an
indicator of this integration. Force and freedom of choice are juxtaposed. Studies have
shown that force and freedom of choice in marriage actually represent the extremities of
a continuum with a large grey area in between. Arranged marriages can be placed in this
grey area.
In our research, parents seem to place great value on family relations and they see the
question of whether or not the families of potential partners suit one another as being
vitally important. In other words: they focus on the importance of familial relations and
mutual support. This concerns more than the situation in the Netherlands alone and can
involve the family living in Turkey and Morocco, respectively. The loyalties to, identification
with, and commitment to the family there and the mutual obligations that ensue
from this commitment mean that these can weigh more heavily than other aspects. In
addition, a marriage is still seen as a way in which to solve problems. The woman then
becomes the responsibility of her husband. And for the husband, it is the principal time
at which he demonstrates his sense of responsibility. Another view is the one concerning
the happiness of the children � parents are viewed as the ones that know what is
best for their children.
With respect to children, there are two main views that can clash. On the one side there
is the ideal of freedom of choice (children determine for themselves as to what will make
them happy and what is best for them). On the other hand, they feel a sense of loyalty
to their parents. Sometimes there is also the view that the parents are only looking after
their best interests. Based on the first view, they could marry whom they choose, but
loyalty to their parents means that they will take their parents� views into consideration
and usually ask for their parents� consent. They would not usually present a candidate to
their parents that they think would likely be rejected by them.
Although parents are increasingly shifting their position and favouring the romantic
ideal and although young people have grown up with this ideal, there is still a gap between
the generations in this respect. The idea that this is due to a lack of social integration
or even to unsuccessful integration into Dutch society does not do justice to the
great turnaround that parents in particular have made and ignores the fact that loyalty
to the family and identification with one�s own ethnic group cannot simply be ignored.
The speed at which these changes are taking place differs for the two generations. As a
result, parents and children are making different choices. In other words, parents and
young people are changing, but not in the same manner and at the same speed, which
means they see and interpret the world differently and therefore can act differently. This
causes problems with respect to the choice of a marriage partner within and outside the
group itself. It also explains why parents do not always recognise and acknowledge the
pressure that they put on their children as coercion or force. At the same time, it is also
easy to see why young people sometimes consider any interference by their parents as
a form of coercion. The problem of �forced marriages�, for these groups, is therefore not
so much the result of a lack of integration or of unsuccessful integration. It is rather the
result of a process of strong integration that the two generations are experiencing at different
speeds.

The report (in Dutch with an English summary) / Het rapport kan hier worden gevonden: Over het huwelijk gesproken (PDF-file)

1 comment.

Gedwongen Huwelijk

Posted on September 8th, 2005 by .
Categories: [Online] Publications, Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues.

Vorig jaar heb ik met studenten Inge de Jong, Danielle Koning, Siela Jethoe, Warsha Mangre en antropologe Sharita Rampertap een onderzoek uitgevoerd voor de ACVZ naar gedwongen huwelijken onder Turkse, Marokkaanse en Hindostaanse Nederlanders.

Vandaag is dit gepubliceerd als onderdeel van het advies over gedwongen huwelijken dat is gepresenteerd aan mevrouw Verdonk.

Nieuws.nl – Binnenland

Over huwelijksdwang is in Nederland nog weinig bekend.

Over de omvang van gedwongen huwelijken geven de onderzoeken geen duidelijkheid. Probleemgevallen komen volgens secretaris Hans van Miert van de ACVZ ‘alleen boven water als het vreselijk fout gaat’. Hij kan daarom geen cijfers geven. Het college meent op basis van de rapporten en ‘de signalen uit bepaalde groepen en belangenorganisaties’ echter dat het om een ‘serieus maatschappelijk probleem’ gaat.

Het uiteindelijk advies omvat een juridische voorstudie en mijn onderzoek. Dat overigens vermeld wordt als ‘De Koning’. Erg aardig van hen, maar als mede-auteur moet er bij staan dr. E. Bartels van de VU.

De conclusie van het advies luidt dat gedwongen huwelijken strafbaar gesteld moeten worden. In het onderzoek dat wij gedaan hebben, geven we daar geen advies over maar we maken wel duidelijk dat dat erg lastig is, onvoldoende (als er alleen een verbod komt) en waarschijnlijk ineffectief.

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Girl Rejects Marriage Proposal Over Porn

Posted on August 23rd, 2005 by .
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Misc. News.

This is actually quite funny: Girl Rejects Marriage Proposal Over Porn
Girl Rejects Marriage Proposal Over Porn
Arab News

AHSA, 23 August 2005 — A young girl found a unique way to turn down a marriage proposal, Okaz daily reported. The young woman put the groom to the test in front of his father and her father. The girl said that she would accept the marriage on the condition that his mobile phone was free of indecent photos. The groom was hesitant but in the end handed over his phone. She found enough indecent photos and video clips to easily reject the potential groom. The man tried to justify his position by saying they were not his photos, but she refused to listen to his excuses and turned his offer down.

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Protected: de Volkskrant – Weglopen zonder eer te verliezen

Posted on July 21st, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Young Muslims.

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Protected: de Volkskrant – Over uithuwelijking wordt vooral gezwegen

Posted on July 21st, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Young Muslims.

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right to decide | it is impossible to disentangle religion from culture or tradition

Posted on July 7th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Young Muslims.

An interview with my ISIM-colleague Linda Herrera on right to decide

Some parts of it:

In the context of the Muslim world the bad practices, such as female genital mutilation (FGM), honour killings, forced marriages, homophobia, and a range of other oppressive patriarchal practices and attitudes get so much media and scholarly attention that I do not need to go into those topics here. What I can point out is that things are not always as they appear. The Islamic Republic of Iran which represents a fairly conservative theocracy, for example, has one of the most efficient and perhaps even progressive approaches to sexual and reproductive health in the region. A number of scholars including Soraya Tremayne (Oxford University) and Homa Hoodfar (Concordia University) have shown that due largely to a vibrant grassroots and mainly female based civil society working in the fields of health and sexuality, a range of services and programs by both governmental and non-governmental agencies have had a vast impact on curbing population growth and providing much needed services in areas of reproductive health. Such programs include condom distribution, sex education, abortion services, sex change operations, in-vitro fertilization, and services for teen pregnancy. These types of services get justified through religious rulings and testify to how practices and attitudes change according to dynamic process that involve the agency of activists, clergy, government and non-governmental organizations.

[…]

The Quran, a seventh century sacred text in Arabic verse believed by Muslims to represent the actual words of God (transmitted to the Prophet Mohammed by the Angel Gabriel), in its very reading, reciting, or hearing, necessitate interpretation. Whether one approaches the Quran as divine communication, sublime poetry, or historic document, it is not a how-to manual from a certain ideological orientation with straight forward instructions on how to deal with specific issues (such as sexual and reproductive rights and health issues). My understanding of these debates, therefore, is that the Quran, like any other holy book, body of thought, philosophy, transcendental guidance, is neither inherently traditional nor progressive; it is what the reader, reciter, or listener, situated in a specific historic moment with a certain social positioning and ethical inclination, makes of it.

[…]

In addition to changes that might occur through international influence and pressure, Muslim societies and individuals within transnational Muslim communities are also contributing to the advancement of more rights-based movements. Countries such as Egypt have seen the growth of organizations dealing with sexuality and rights such as Al-Nadim Centre for Human Rights and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. Iran, as mentioned above, has long been witnessing a vibrant civil society movement in arenas of gender and sexuality. Proponents of a progressive Islam, such as Zeina Anwar of the Sisters of Islam in Malaysia and Scott Kugle, a fellow at the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM), are working in movements with colleagues and like-minded reformers towards greater social justice as it pertains to gender and sexuality. Change, I believe, is not only inevitable, but a force of nature. But change towards greater social justice will need not only support from many constituents, but continuous commitment, courage, and creativity.

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right to decide | it is impossible to disentangle religion from culture or tradition

Posted on July 7th, 2005 by .
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Young Muslims.

An interview with my ISIM-colleague Linda Herrera on right to decide

Some parts of it:

In the context of the Muslim world the bad practices, such as female genital mutilation (FGM), honour killings, forced marriages, homophobia, and a range of other oppressive patriarchal practices and attitudes get so much media and scholarly attention that I do not need to go into those topics here. What I can point out is that things are not always as they appear. The Islamic Republic of Iran which represents a fairly conservative theocracy, for example, has one of the most efficient and perhaps even progressive approaches to sexual and reproductive health in the region. A number of scholars including Soraya Tremayne (Oxford University) and Homa Hoodfar (Concordia University) have shown that due largely to a vibrant grassroots and mainly female based civil society working in the fields of health and sexuality, a range of services and programs by both governmental and non-governmental agencies have had a vast impact on curbing population growth and providing much needed services in areas of reproductive health. Such programs include condom distribution, sex education, abortion services, sex change operations, in-vitro fertilization, and services for teen pregnancy. These types of services get justified through religious rulings and testify to how practices and attitudes change according to dynamic process that involve the agency of activists, clergy, government and non-governmental organizations.

[…]

The Quran, a seventh century sacred text in Arabic verse believed by Muslims to represent the actual words of God (transmitted to the Prophet Mohammed by the Angel Gabriel), in its very reading, reciting, or hearing, necessitate interpretation. Whether one approaches the Quran as divine communication, sublime poetry, or historic document, it is not a how-to manual from a certain ideological orientation with straight forward instructions on how to deal with specific issues (such as sexual and reproductive rights and health issues). My understanding of these debates, therefore, is that the Quran, like any other holy book, body of thought, philosophy, transcendental guidance, is neither inherently traditional nor progressive; it is what the reader, reciter, or listener, situated in a specific historic moment with a certain social positioning and ethical inclination, makes of it.

[…]

In addition to changes that might occur through international influence and pressure, Muslim societies and individuals within transnational Muslim communities are also contributing to the advancement of more rights-based movements. Countries such as Egypt have seen the growth of organizations dealing with sexuality and rights such as Al-Nadim Centre for Human Rights and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. Iran, as mentioned above, has long been witnessing a vibrant civil society movement in arenas of gender and sexuality. Proponents of a progressive Islam, such as Zeina Anwar of the Sisters of Islam in Malaysia and Scott Kugle, a fellow at the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM), are working in movements with colleagues and like-minded reformers towards greater social justice as it pertains to gender and sexuality. Change, I believe, is not only inevitable, but a force of nature. But change towards greater social justice will need not only support from many constituents, but continuous commitment, courage, and creativity.

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Protected: Nederlandse GezinsRaad: Signalement 3: Allochtone gezinnen

Posted on June 27th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Multiculti Issues.

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Protected: NRC: Een traditioneel huwelijk uit rebellie

Posted on June 15th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

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Liefde op maat: partnerkeuze van Turkse en Marokkaanse jongeren

Posted on June 15th, 2005 by .
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

Leen Sterckx en Carolien Bouw van SISWO hebben hun rapport Liefde op maat: partnerkeuze van Turkse en Marokkaanse jongeren gereed.

�Ik heb een keer zomaar gechat en verder niks bijzonders, toen gaf hij zijn emailadres. Ik vraag gewoon waar kom je vandaan, wat doe je en zo. Gewoon van die kleine verhaaltjes, het gaat helemaal nergens over. Maar op een gegeven moment hebben we echt lang gemaild. En toen bleken we echt veel gemeen te hebben. Hij studeerde aan dezelfde universiteit. Hij is ook alevitisch. Onze families kenden elkaar indirect. Zijn ouders kwamen toevallig uit hetzelfde dorp als mijn ouders. Dat paste allemaal in het plaatje.�
Turkse vrouw, 21 jaar, 1 jaar verloofd

Op dinsdagavond 14 juni debatteren Turkse en Marokkaanse jongeren over de vraag, hoe het komt dat zoveel van hen nog steeds hun bruid of bruidegom uit het land van hun ouders halen. Waarom blijft het trouwen met iemand uit het land van herkomst zo populair?
Om op deze vraag een antwoord te geven, hebben de Turkse moskeekoepel Milli G�r�ş-Nederland en haar Marokaanse tegenhangers de moslimorganisatie UMMON en de moskeeorganisatie UMMAO opdracht gegeven voor een onderzoek aan SISWO/Social Policy Research. Socioloog Leen Sterckx en antropoloog Carolien Bouw hebben gesproken met tientallen jongeren en hun ouders en daarvan verslag gedaan in het boek �Liefde op maat. Partnerkeuze van Turkse en Marokkaanse jongeren�. Het boek is uitgegeven bij het Spinhuis.

Driekwart van de Turken en Marokkanen in Nederland is getrouwd met een partner die hij of zij uit Turkije of Marokko liet overkomen. Naarmate migranten zich meer aanpassen aan en wortelen in de samenleving waar zij zich vestigen, zou de partnerkeuze zich als vanzelf meer moeten richten op het nieuwe land. Dat nog steeds zoveel Turkse en Marokkaanse jongeren hun bruid en bruidegom uit het land van hun ouders halen, wekt verbazing en bezorgdheid.
Gezinsvormende migratie is een probleem als dat leidt tot een voortdurende instroom van migranten met dezelfde aanpassingsproblemen als de voormalige gastarbeiders. Want dan staat niet alleen de integratie van de nieuwkomer zelf maar ook die van de kinderen op het spel.
Ook belangenorganisaties van Turken en Marokkanen in Nederland hebben problemen met de populariteit van deze huwelijken. Zij zien de voortdurende instroom van nieuwkomers als rem op de sociale mobiliteit van hun achterban.
Sterckx en Bouw gingen na wat er schuil gaat achter het transnationaal trouwen. Waarom komen jonge Turken en Marokkanen op zoek naar een levenspartner tot nu toe vaker uit in het land van herkomst dan in Nederland? Hoe verloopt het proces van partnerkeuze, welke ontwikkelingen zijn daarin te ontdekken en welke factoren hebben daarop invloed? Zij ontrafelen dat complexe proces, komen tot een typologie van huwelijken en signaleren de trends.

Het onderzoek sluit aardig aan bij het onderzoek van mij en Edien Bartels naar gedwongen huwelijken onder Turken, Marokkanen en Hindostanen dat binnenkort uitkomt via de ACVZ (Adviescommissie Vreemdelingenzaken) van minister Verdonk.

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The Dutch-Muslim Culture War – Yahoo! News

Posted on June 12th, 2005 by .
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Internal Debates, Islam in the Netherlands, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, My Research, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

In The Nation an article of Deborah Scroggins (placed on Yahoo! News) on The Dutch-Muslim Culture War

It has become a nice article that centres around Hirsi Ali. I have a small contribution in it (in italics) and for the record, no I do not investigate jihadi-groups. And I also do not work at Leiden University but at ISIM in Leiden.

Meanwhile, Hirsi Ali focused her broadsides more and more plainly on Islam itself. She wrote that the Prophet Mohammed was a “despicable” individual who had married “the 9-year-old daughter of his best friend.” “Mohammed is, by our Western standards, a perverse man,” she wrote. “A tyrant. He is against free speech. If you do not do what he says, then you will have an unhappy ending. It makes me think of all those megalomaniac rulers in the Middle East: bin Laden, Khomeini, Saddam.” By this point, Hirsi Ali had gravitated further to the right; she left the Labor Party for the center-right Liberal VVD Party and won a parliamentary seat in 2003.

Hirsi Ali’s many critics contend that far from being a revolutionary, she brings a message that the West is all too willing to hear. They say that in calling for European governments to protect Muslim women from Muslim men, she and her admirers recycle the same Orientalist tropes that the West has used since colonial times as an excuse to control and subjugate Muslims. “White men saving black women from black men–it’s a very old fantasy that is always popular,” Annelies Moors, a University of Amsterdam anthropologist who writes about Islamic gender relations, said dryly. “But I don’t think male violence against women, a phenomenon known to every society in history, can be explained by a few Koranic verses.”

Moors and others don’t dispute the existence of the social problems Hirsi Ali identifies. Many Dutch Muslim women do live in segregated “parallel cities” where Islamic social codes are enforced. Muslims make up only 5.5 percent of the Dutch population, but they account for more than half the women in battered women’s shelters and more than half of those seeking abortions. Muslim girls have far higher suicide rates than non-Muslim girls. Some Muslim girls, mostly African, are genitally mutilated. But in putting all the blame on Islam, they say, Hirsi Ali ignores the influence of patriarchal custom as well as the work of a generation of Muslim feminists. They point to thinkers like Fatima Mernissi and Amina Wadud, who have shown that Islam’s sacred texts can be interpreted in a more female-friendly way. And they say Hirsi Ali avoids mention of the role the West has played and continues to play in assisting the rise of the Islamist movements. “The rightist forces and the radical Islamists feed on each other, and she contributes to that,” Moors said.

Karima Belhaj is the director of the largest women’s shelter in Amsterdam. She’s also one of the organizers of the “Stop the Witchhunt!” campaign against what she sees as anti-Muslim hysteria. On the day we talked, she was despondent. Arsonists had set fire for the second time to an Islamic school in the town of Uden. A few days later a regional police unit warned that the rise of right-wing Dutch youth gangs potentially presents a more dangerous threat to the country than Islamist terrorism. “The rise of Islamism is not the problem,” Belhaj said. “The problem is that hatred against Arabs and Muslims is shown in this country without any shame.” With her message that Muslim women must give up their faith and their families if they want to be liberated, Hirsi Ali is actually driving women into the arms of the fundamentalists, said Belhaj: “She attacks their values, so they are wearing more and more veils. It frightens me. I’m losing my country. I’m losing my people.”

If Belhaj was sad, another “Stop the Witchhunt!” organizer was angry. Like Belhaj, Miriyam Aouragh is a second-generation immigrant of Moroccan background. A self-described peace and women’s activist, Aouragh was the first in her family to attend university. She’s now studying for a PhD in anthropology. She scoffs at the idea that Hirsi Ali is a champion of oppressed Muslim women. “She’s nothing but an Uncle Tom,” Aouragh said. “She has never fought for the oppressed. In fact, she’s done the opposite. She uses these problems as a cover to attack Islam. She insults me and she makes my life as a feminist ten times harder because she forces me to be associated with anti-Muslim attacks.”

Aouragh accuses Hirsi Ali and her political allies of deliberately fostering the hostility that has led to the attacks on Islamic institutions and to police brutality against young Muslim men. “I’m surprised the Arab-Muslim community isn’t more angry with her,” Aouragh said. “When she talks about Muslims as violent people, and Muslim men as rapists, this is very insulting. She calls the Prophet a pedophile. Theo van Gogh called the Prophet a pimp, a goat-fucker. Well, no, we don’t accept that.”

Although the press has focused on the threats against critics of Islam like Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders, Aouragh says that there have been many more attacks on Dutch Muslims than on non-Muslims. She suspects that what the Dutch really fear is not Islamic fundamentalism but the prospect of having to deal with a new generation of highly educated young Muslims who demand a fair hearing for their values. “We are telling them, ‘We have rights, too. You have to change your idea about freedom or face the consequences.'”

Whatever happens to Hirsi Ali, the debate she helped polarize over women and Islam is sure to spread and intensify all over Europe in the next few years. As Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris have argued in their book Rising Tide, the true clash of opinions between Islam and the West is not about democracy but sex. Successive World Values Surveys, in which social scientists polled public opinion in more than eighty countries between 1981 and 2001, have shown that people in Muslim countries share broadly the same views on political participation as people in the West. What they disagree strongly about is gender equality and sexual liberalization.

In the United States the distinction is not as sharply drawn. Conservative Muslims are not the only religious group here opposed to what they see as sexual license; it’s their opposition to Israel and US foreign policy, not their sexual politics, that sets American Muslims apart from the rest of the right. But in Europe, acceptance of gender equality and homosexuality have become core values across the political spectrum, said Jocelyne Cesari, a Harvard research associate and the author of When Islam and Democracy Meet. “Here it is part of a national debate that doesn’t involve immigrants only,” Cesari said. “In Europe, this is seen as proof that Muslims are still outsiders whose values are in contradiction to ours.”

Islamist thinkers have often argued that women are the key to culture, since they have the responsibility of raising children. An emerging coalition of European feminist and anti-immigration forces seems to be adopting the same view. In France, Belgium, Germany and Scandinavia, as in the Netherlands, the “woman question” is at the center of the debate over how to integrate the Muslim community. “I know most of my Muslim friends will disagree with me, but in my opinion the gender issue is the most important issue,” says Martijn de Koning, an anthropologist at Leiden University who studies jihadi groups. “The head scarf, the Islamic schools, the policy of family reunification–every debate here more or less concerns the position of women.”

Hirsi Ali is only the most prominent of a number of young Muslim women who have lately begun to criticize their own communities for their treatment of women. In Sweden, Fadime Sahindal campaigned against forced marriages before her father killed her in 2002 for having a relationship with a Swedish man. In France, Fadela Amara heads the Ni Putes ni Soumises (“Neither Whores nor Submissives”) movement against Islamist groups she calls “the green fascists.” In Germany, where six honor killings have taken place just this year, Seyran Ates, a Berlin-based lawyer, has charged the government with allowing Islamic fundamentalism to flourish under a policy of false tolerance.

I really do think the gender-issues is the key-issue, at least in Europe (as Cesari also acknowledges in this article) It is for Muslims as well as for non-Muslims. That is not very surprisingly. Gender-issues are often the most important boundary-markers between insiders and outsiders for all groups. Of course it is more than a boundary marker. There are some real issues like domestic violence. It isn’t true however that half of the women in women’s shelters are Muslim. It is probably about one third; still too much of course. I don’t know exactly about the suicide rates, but they are higher among most of the immigrant girls compared to native dutch. Also all these statistics don’t include Muslims but ethnicity and nationality. So it is implied that every Turk or Moroccan woman is also a (practising) Muslim.

(more…)

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Protected: Balkenende: Arabisch cultureel instituut helpt integratie – telegraaf.nl [Binnenland]

Posted on June 9th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Multiculti Issues.

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Protected: Trouw, opvoeding & onderwijs – ‘Vader als autoriteit verdwijnt in rap tempo’

Posted on June 1st, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Important Publications, Young Muslims.

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Protected: Trouw, opvoeding & onderwijs – 'Vader als autoriteit verdwijnt in rap tempo'

Posted on June 1st, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Important Publications, Young Muslims.

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The Daily Star – Arts & Culture – Muslim women combine tradition and trendy fashion

Posted on May 25th, 2005 by .
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

In the Daily Start in article on Muslim women who combine tradition and trendy fashion

Dr. Hassan Hammoud, associate professor of sociology at the Lebanese American University, explains that women in Lebanon are bombarded by messages and images of how fashionable a woman ought to be in terms of outfit and physical shape. “Young girls try to fit into this model,” he says. “They build an image of themselves made out of what they hear, see and expect themselves to be.”

And if veiled women come from an immediate environment that values fashion, then their clothes will be fashionable, too. “A veiled woman, like any other woman, holds an image of what is acceptable versus what is unacceptable, based on the values of her peer group, her family, her community,” Hammoud explains.

Sheikh Abdel-Aziz Shafii, assistant to the judge at the Sunni Sharia Court, gave the trendy veil phenomenon an even more significant denotation, affirming that it indicates a religious revival among liberal Muslim circles. “The veil is not limited to traditional communities anymore,” he explains. “It is now being embraced by liberal people who were originally trendy.”

Such religious revival among new social circles is all the more important because it isn’t only manifested in non-traditional veiling but also in more liberal viewpoints, politics and approach to religion among Muslim societies, Shafii adds.

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The Daily Star – Arts & Culture – Muslim women combine tradition and trendy fashion

Posted on May 25th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

In the Daily Start in article on Muslim women who combine tradition and trendy fashion

Dr. Hassan Hammoud, associate professor of sociology at the Lebanese American University, explains that women in Lebanon are bombarded by messages and images of how fashionable a woman ought to be in terms of outfit and physical shape. “Young girls try to fit into this model,” he says. “They build an image of themselves made out of what they hear, see and expect themselves to be.”

And if veiled women come from an immediate environment that values fashion, then their clothes will be fashionable, too. “A veiled woman, like any other woman, holds an image of what is acceptable versus what is unacceptable, based on the values of her peer group, her family, her community,” Hammoud explains.

Sheikh Abdel-Aziz Shafii, assistant to the judge at the Sunni Sharia Court, gave the trendy veil phenomenon an even more significant denotation, affirming that it indicates a religious revival among liberal Muslim circles. “The veil is not limited to traditional communities anymore,” he explains. “It is now being embraced by liberal people who were originally trendy.”

Such religious revival among new social circles is all the more important because it isn’t only manifested in non-traditional veiling but also in more liberal viewpoints, politics and approach to religion among Muslim societies, Shafii adds.

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