C L O S E R

Protest tegen mogelijk verbod gezichtssluiers

Posted on September 27th, 2011 by martijn.
Categories: Activism, Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, ISIM/RU Research, Notes from the Field, Public Islam.

Over de recente plannen voor een verbod op gezichtssluier in het openbaar:

Op Facebook is een pagina geopend naar aanleiding van de recente plannen voor een verbod op gezichtssluiers dat in zou moeten gaan op 1 januari 2013. Op deze pagina wordt opgeroepen tot een protest actie tegen de plannen:
PROTEST ACTIE TEGEN NIQAAB VERBOD BIJ 2de KAMER!

Time
07 October · 16:00 – 18:30
Location
Den Haag

Met de wil en toestemming van Allaah zullen wij op vrijdag 7 oktober van 16.00 – 18.30 een actie houden. Daarin zullen wij onze ongenoegen uiten en dit verwerpen. Wij attenderen onze geliefde achterban dan ook om een gaatje vrij te houden op deze mooie vrijdag.

De protestactie zal plaatsvinden bij het Binnenhof.

Daarnaast is er een petitie opgesteld tegen de plannen:
Nee tegen boerkaverbod | petities.nl

Nee tegen boerkaverbod
4udta

Minister Donner wil het boerkaverbod gaan invoeren. Hij is van mening dat de boerka niet past in onze open samenleving en dat vrouwen met de gezichtssluier niet volwaardig mee kunnen doen.

Voor een papieren versie mail naar tegenboerkaverbod@hotmail.nl en wij sturen u zo snel mogelijk een pdf.

VERGEET UW ONDERTEKENING NIET TE BEVESTIGEN VIA EMAIL

PETITIE
Wij

willen dat moslima’s die hiervoor kiezen de vrijheid hebben de gezichtssluier te dragen.
constateren

Wij constateren dat moslima’s met dit verbod fundamenteel in hun vrijheid worden beperkt. Wij willen erop wijzen dat een groot deel van deze vrouwen Nederlandse bekeerlingen zijn (en dus niet gedwongen zijn door familie).
Wij denken dat een verbod deze vrouwen zal stigmatiseren en hen buiten de maatschappij zal plaatsen.
Wij willen wijzen op Groot Brittannië waar vrouwen met de gezichtssluier gewoon meedraaien in de samenleving.
en verzoeken

Wij wensen dat het boerkaverbod niet door de kamer wordt aangenomen.
Wij willen de religieuze vrijheid om de gezichtssluier in Nederland te dragen zonder hiervoor boetes te ontvangen.

 
Zie ook het KRO-programma De Wandeling waarin Shaista Khan aan het woord komt die een niqab draagt.:

In tegenstelling tot minister Donner volgens wie de gezichtssluier geen religieus gebruik is, stelt Shaista Khan in die uitzending het tegendeel. Op Wijblijvenhier.nl benadrukt Malika Mouhdi het belang van keuzevrijheid voor vrouwen:
De keuze is aan mij alleen | Wijblijvenhier.nl

Hoewel ik ‘verleidelijke’ kleding absoluut niet iets vind dat je buitenshuis zou moeten dragen, is het niet aan mannen of andere vrouwen zoals ik om besluiten te maken over wat iemand moet dragen. Of het nou gaat om een kort rokje of een niqaab, het is en blijft eenieders eigen keuze. Het is immers mijn lichaam en er is niemand die er iets over te zeggen heeft behalve ikzelf. Zeker niet een of andere gouverneur, een minister Donner of een groep zogenaamde feministen die zo verbitterd zijn dat ze niet kunnen inzien waarom iemand zichzelf wel wil bedekken. It’s my body and my choice, deal with it!

Ik zal de verschillende vormen van activisme blijven volgen. Reacties en tips zijn welkom natuurlijk.

3 comments.

‘Burqa ban’ in Europe

Posted on September 26th, 2011 by martijn.
Categories: Activism, Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Public Islam.

France’s Burqa Ban: Two Women Fined for Covering Faces – ABC News

“The problem is not the fine,” their lawyer told the German news agency DPA on Thursday. “The problem is that these women are effectively under house arrest. That’s the real punishment.”

The French proceedings were closely followed by governments around Europe. Italy and Belgium have passed similar legislation, while Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany have debated them. A number of nations already forbid face-covering garments for state employees while they’re on the job — including teachers — but a full ban has never been tested by modern European democracies.

“(The ban) simply violates my individual freedom, my freedom of thought, of religious expression and practice,” Ahmas told the Daily Telegraph, “and I have absolutely no intention of applying it.”

The French law has popular support, and some politicians claim they want to save Muslim women from the backward influence of religiously conservative men.

“There are extremist gurus out there and we must stop their influence and barbaric ideologies,” a Communist Party lawmaker named André Gerin told reporters last year, according to USA Today. “Covering one’s face undermines one’s identity, a woman’s femininity and gender equality.”

But the French law makes no reference to religion or gender. It forbids face coverings but makes a number of exceptions — for motorcycle helmets, for example, or fencing and ski masks.

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'Burqa ban' in Europe

Posted on September 26th, 2011 by martijn.
Categories: Activism, Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Public Islam.

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player
France’s Burqa Ban: Two Women Fined for Covering Faces – ABC News

“The problem is not the fine,” their lawyer told the German news agency DPA on Thursday. “The problem is that these women are effectively under house arrest. That’s the real punishment.”

The French proceedings were closely followed by governments around Europe. Italy and Belgium have passed similar legislation, while Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany have debated them. A number of nations already forbid face-covering garments for state employees while they’re on the job — including teachers — but a full ban has never been tested by modern European democracies.

“(The ban) simply violates my individual freedom, my freedom of thought, of religious expression and practice,” Ahmas told the Daily Telegraph, “and I have absolutely no intention of applying it.”

The French law has popular support, and some politicians claim they want to save Muslim women from the backward influence of religiously conservative men.

“There are extremist gurus out there and we must stop their influence and barbaric ideologies,” a Communist Party lawmaker named André Gerin told reporters last year, according to USA Today. “Covering one’s face undermines one’s identity, a woman’s femininity and gender equality.”

But the French law makes no reference to religion or gender. It forbids face coverings but makes a number of exceptions — for motorcycle helmets, for example, or fencing and ski masks.

0 comments.

Minister Donner as Mufti: New developments in the Dutch ‘burqa debates’

Posted on September 21st, 2011 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Guest authors, Headline, Multiculti Issues, Public Islam.

Guest Author: Annelies Moors
Minister Donner as Mufti: New developments in the Dutch ‘burqa debates’

Following in the footsteps of France and Belgium, on Friday 16 September the Dutch Council of Ministers agreed to prohibit covering the face in public space. Although the headlines already consider it a run race, the draft Bill still needs to be sent to the Council of State, the government’s legal advisory body, before parliament will vote on it. One of the questions the Council of State needs to answer is its compatibility with the Constitution.

This is not the first time an attempt is made to implement a ban on face-veiling in the Netherlands. In December 2005, the Netherlands was the first country in Europe where a parliamentary majority voted in favour of a resolution to ban the burqa (and the niqab) from all public space. Geert Wilders, who tabled the resolution, specifically targeted Muslim women, by proposing a ban of ‘the burqa’ rather than of face-coverings more generally.* His main argument was that the burqa is a sign of Muslim women’s oppression and an obstacle to their emancipation. As it turned out, it was not easy to implement such a ban. A commission installed by the then Minister for Integration stated that a general ban of the burqa would be an infringement of the freedom of religion, whereas a general ban of face-coverings would only be possible for reasons of security. However, the police, public transport, and the security sector all stated that face-veiling was not a security issue. The next Center-Left coalition government no longer aimed for a general ban, but instead worked towards a number of functional bans (in education, health, public transport and for civil servants) using the argument of the need for open communication to maintain the rule of law. It only succeeded in implementing the ban for civil servants.

The recent attempts to ‘ban the burqa’ do not come as a surprise. The new Center-Right minority government has concluded an agreement of support with Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV). A general ban on face-coverings was not only included in the coalition agreement, but the issue was also taken up in the Memorandum on Integration presented by the Minister of the Interior, Piet Hein Donner, a few months ago. This document officially declared the end of Dutch multicultural society. It considers Dutch society as a community of citizens with a shared language, values and beliefs, that is grounded in a fundamental continuity of values, beliefs, institutions, and habits, which shape ‘the leading culture’, and to which those who settle in the Netherlands need to adapt. Government needs to ‘confront citizens with behaviour that is contrary to notions of cohesion and citizenship’, if necessary through legal obligations. The document then explicitly mentions face-veiling as a cause of discomfort and hence an issue where the legislature needs to act normatively. The intention is to prohibit covering the face in public from 1 January 2013 as a matter of public order.

Commenting on the decision of the Council of Ministers to move forward with the ban, Minister Donner underlined that face-veiling is contrary to the character and customs of public life in the Netherland where we should be able to recognize each others’ faces. This rather ambiguous formulation seems to hint both at the need to be identifiable and to participate in open communication. This raises the question on which legal grounds this can be demanded from citizens who simply step outside their door. Moreover, if one were to take this seriously, there is a far wider range of forms of public presence that could be taken into account, such as wearing sunglasses (especially reflecting ones that make it impossible to ‘look each other into the eye’) and the use of iPods, cellphones and similar ‘obstacles to open communication’. Perhaps Donner was referring to the sense of discomfort or intimidation people may experience when confronted with someone who wears a face-veil. However, the actual chance to find oneself in such a situation is rather slim, as, on average, less than 3 in 100.000 people wear a face-veil (100-400 persons in the whole country). And again, there is a host of other dressing styles and accompanying behaviour that may cause fear or discomfort. Men in army boots and bomber jackets as well as men in expensively tailored suits and other forms of power dressing can be quite intimidating to particular publics. Whereas legislating against such styles of dress, worn by far larger numbers, would be considered ridiculous (as well as an infringement of the freedom of expression), women wearing face-veils, an extremely small minority, are an easy target.

Donner also used two more specific arguments to legitimize a ban of face-veiling. First, he argues that face-veiling can be considered as contrary to the principle of equality between men and women as only women are required to don a face-veil. The intention here seems to be to protect women against gender discrimination. Resonating strongly with Wilders’ earlier 2005 resolution to ban ‘the burqa’ as a sign of women’s oppression and an obstacle to their emancipation, this reference to gender discrimination implies that wearing a face-veil is considered as a form of gender oppression. However, the women concerned – a considerable number of whom are Dutch converts – underline that they do so by choice, often to the dismay of their families. What then are the grounds to consider face-veiling as a form of gender discrimination the state needs to legislate against? And if it were the case that these women are pressured to wear a face-veil, on what ethical grounds should the state then exclude them – the victims – from education, health care, public transport and public space? It makes, in fact, more sense to consider the ban itself, which disproportionately affects women, as an infringement of the equality of men and women. Moreover, if we are to take Donner’s line of argumentation seriously, this also raises the more general issue of gender difference in dress. Amongst strictly orthodox Protestants some object to women wearing pants. Does this then mean that wearing skirts, as a sartorial practice only affecting women, is also an infringement of the equality of men and women? Should this then also be banned? And what about secular gendered styles of dress, such as wearing high heels, a potential health and safety risk, which also mainly women engage in?

But the most remarkable is Donner’s second argument. Whereas Geert Wilders considers the prohibition of ‘the burqa’ important to stop ‘the Islamization of Europe’, according to Donner face-veiling is a cultural or regional style of dress, rather than one related to Islam. Here he follows the French president Sarkozy who in his speech to parliament in 2009, stated that the burqa is ‘not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience’. Obviously, when face-veiling is only considered as a regional style, rather than an Islamic practice, banning face-veils can no longer be considered as an infringement of the constitutional right of the freedom of religion. Whereas it is true that some Muslims who oppose face-veiling follow a similar line of argumentation – it is not really an Islamic practice -, there are also Islamic scholars who support face-veiling. In any case, the face-veiling women themselves strongly underline that they do so for religious reasons. What matters here is that Donner – a practicing Protestant – does not simply express his personal opinion about what is Islamic and what is not, but that he does so in the function of Minister of the Interior. Such a form of direct state interference in the substance of a religion goes against the grain of Dutch secularism. It is ironic that a Minister who strongly underlines the importance of the continuity of Dutch values and institutions, produces such a fundamental break with Dutch ways of organizing the relation between the state and religion. In essence, he proposes that the state acts as theologian. A discussion whether face-veiling is or is not an Islamic practice is an internal Muslim affair and should not be a Dutch governmental concern. It is helpful here to go back to 1985 when the municipal council of Alphen aan de Rijn attempted to ban headscarves in public schools using the argument that wearing a headscarf is not a Quranic obligation. In response to parliamentary questions, the then Minister of Education, also a Christian Democrat, stated that it is not up to public authorities to decide about the correct interpretation of the Quran, and the ban was withdrawn. In a similar vein, it also is not the task of the Minister of the Interior to judge whether face-veiling is Islamic or not, unless he wants to claim the position of ‘state mufti’. In that case, it is, however, unlikely that his views will be considered authoritative in the circles of the women concerned.

* The term burqa is highly problematic. It refers to the Afghani style of full covering (with a grid in front of the eyes), which evokes the Taliban regime and women’s oppression. The women who face-veil in the Netherlands usually wear the Arab style niqab, a thin, mostly black piece of cloth that covers the face, but often leaves the eyes uncovered.

Annelies Moors studied Arabic at the University of Damascus and Arabic and anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. She holds the chair for contemporary Muslim societies at the department of sociology and anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. She is co-director of the research programme group ‘Globalizing Culture and the Quest for Belonging: Ethnographies of the Everyday’, and director of the research programme Muslim Cultural Politics at the AiSSR (Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research). Annelies Moors is the primary investigator of a NWO Cultural Dynamics programme on ‘Islamic cultural practices and performances: New youth cultures in Europe’. She has published widely on gender, nation and religion in such fields as Muslim family law and Islamic marriages, wearing gold, the visual media (postcards of Palestine), migrant domestic labor, Islamic fashion, and wearing face-veils.

UPDATES BY Martijn
27 January 2011: Despite a negative advise the Dutch government persists in banning the face-veil.

7 comments.

Partnerkeuze en integratie bij autochtonen en allochtonen

Posted on August 25th, 2011 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Multiculti Issues.

In de Volkskrant van vandaag een stuk over autochtone Nederlandse ouders die liever niet willen dat hun dochter trouwt met een allochtone Nederlander (ik ga er even vanuit dat men hartstikke heteronormatief is en dat het niet bij hen is opgekomen dat tegenwoordig ook homo’s mogen trouwen).Volgens het onderzoek van het tijdschrift J/M zou 43 procent het (heel) erg vinden als een dochter zou thuiskomen met een allochtoon vriendje. 38 procent heeft er moeite mee als een zoon kiest voor een allochtone vriendin.

Ik ben wel benieuwd naar de overige cijfers, want betekent dit dan dat meer dan de helft van de ouders er geen problemen mee heeft? Op zich is de uitkomst dat ouders bepaalde voorkeuren hebben natuurlijk niet zo bijzonder. Opvattingen over huwelijken en het belang van vrije keuze daarin, zijn voortdurend aan verandering onderhevig; er bestaat niet één universeel huwelijksideaal. Het vooral westerse idee dat een huwelijk gesloten moet worden op basis van liefde tussen twee personen is vooral opgekomen in de achttiende eeuw en vond haar hoogtepunt in de jaren vijftig. Daarvoor was het huwelijk vooral een aangelegenheid tussen families en diende dan ook te voorzien in de sociale en economische behoeften van de betrokken families. Sinds de jaren vijftig is er met betrekking tot relaties veel veranderd maar het idee dat partnerkeuze gebaseerd moet zijn op liefde is gebleven. De belangrijkste veranderingen zijn het idee dat liefde buiten het huwelijk ook mogelijk wordt geacht en wordt erkend. De vraag is opgekomen of mensen van hetzelfde geslacht met elkaar kunnen trouwen. In het huidige westerse model dient het huwelijk tal van sociale, psychologische en seksuele behoeften van individuen te vervullen en vrij te zijn van dwang,geweld en ongelijkheid.

Ouders zouden zich dus eigenlijk daarin afzijdig moeten houden, maar dat gebeurt natuurlijk niet. Paradoxaal genoeg is het de nadruk op vrije keuze, afwezigheid van dwang waarschijnlijk een reden van de ouders om hun voorkeur, zeker met betrekking tot dochters uit te spreken. Dat in Nederland partnerkeuze wordt opgevat als een proces van vrije keuze op basis van liefde tussen twee individuen, laat niet onverlet dat het in de praktijk eerder gaat om het resultaat van een complex proces dat bestaat uit een samenspel van individuele voorkeuren en omgevingsfactoren. We zijn ons hier niet altijd van bewust. Meestal kiest men een partner die op één of meerdere kenmerken sterk overeenkomt met de eigen kenmerken; dit noemen we homogamie.

In Nederland heeft er een verschuiving plaatsgevonden van herkomsthomogamie naar opleidingshomogamie en in mindere mate ook naar leefstijlhomogamie. En veel ouders vrezen natuurlijk dat de leefstijl van allochtone Nederlanders en autochtone Nederlanders teveel van elkaar verschilt en dat, gezien het stereotype van de onderdrukte allochtone Nederlandse vrouw, vooral een dochter daar de dupe van zou worden. En dan komen herkomstfactoren toch nog opeens terug in de voorkeuren die ouders hebben. Dat daarbij vrouwen een centrale plek innemen in de vooroordelen, stereotypen en voorkeuren is evenmin verwonderlijk. Het gedrag en het lichaam van vrouwen vormen belangrijke symbolische grenzen tussen de ‘eigen’ etnische groep en buitenstaanders. De positie van de vrouw heeft te maken met de integriteit van de eigen groep zoals men die ziet en die gebaseerd zou zijn (in dit geval) op seksuele vrijheden, vrije partnerkeuze en gelijkwaardigheid, waarbij bij een huwelijk met een allochtone Nederlandse man de vrouw vrijheden zou verliezen en een ondergeschikte positie zou innemen.

Eén van de meest geziene reacties op het web betreft denk ik ‘En allochtonen (moslims) dan’? Die zouden ook liever geen autochtone partner voor hun kinderen willen. Met name columnist van de Elsevier, Paul Lieben, maakt het wel erg bont:

Toch of voor de zoveelste keer, wordt een veel interessanter vraag in dit onderzoek niet gesteld. Dat is de regel in Nederlandse onderzoeken; we vragen alleen naar de politiek-correcte, bekende weg. Dus wel vragen die autochtonen eventueel in een minder goed daglicht stellen, maar niet het omgekeerde.

De veel interessantere vraag, ook vanuit het oogpunt van integratie, is wat mij betreft: ‘Hoeveel procent van de allochtonen wil een autochtone, Nederlandse schoonzoon?’.

Lieben kletst hier dus gewoon een eind weg. Hij stelt dat dit type vragen niet gesteld worden aan allochtone Nederlanders want aan hen stellen we alleen politiek-correcte vragen. Aha, vandaar waarschijnlijk al die onderzoeken naar radicalisering, de relatie tussen etniciteit en criminaliteit, huiselijk geweld, eerwraak, gedwongen huwelijken, vrouwenbesnijdenis enzovoorts.

Paul Lieben weet overigens ook zonder onderzoek wel het antwoord op zijn vraag want hij is maar liefst één keer bij een bijeenkomst geweest met, volgens hem, bijna alleen maar allochtone Nederlanders. Het ging over discriminatie, voornamelijk van allochtone door autochtone Nederlanders dus besloot hij (heel taboedoorbrekend) maar eens te vragen hoe het zit met de partnervoorkeuren die de ouders erop na houden voor de kinderen. En daaruit bleek dat niemand (!) dacht dat hun ouders hen zouden vrijlaten in de keuze. Niemand. En dus is Mohammed (de moslim?) onverdraagzamer dan Geert (de autochtone Nederlander?). Enorme flauwekul dus en gezien het enorme gemak waarmee de berg aan publicaties over allochtone Nederlanders en partnerkeuze op te duiken is via Google mag je rustig uitgaan een combinatie van scoringsdrift en publicatiedwang over de ruggen van allochtone Nederlanders heen.

Uit een onderzoek van Demos uit 2008 blijkt dat onder Turkse mannen in 2006 10% met een autochtone partner was getrouwd, Turkse Nederlandse vrouwen 9%, onder Marokkaans-Nederlandse mannen 11% en onder Marokkaans-Nederlandse vrouwen 9%. (Zie HIER, HIER en HIER voor CBS cijfers.) Daarbij is een lichte stijging te zien bij de mannen en een lichte daling bij de vrouwen. Tegelijkertijd lijkt (althans onder Turkse en Marokkaanse Nederlanders) de keuze voor een andere allochtone Nederlander (buiten de ‘eigen’ etnische groep) te groeien (meestal waarschijnlijk wel op voorwaarde dat die ander dan moslim is). Nu sluit ik niet uit dat dit alles voor Lieben nog niet genoeg is. Gemengde huwelijken worden voor allochtone Nederlanders vaak gezien als een teken van integratie; men overschrijdt immers de grens van de eigen groep naar die van de ander; de autochtone groep. Wat het J/M onderzoek in ieder geval duidelijk maakt is dat integratie dus ook een proces van toelaten is; de autochtone groep moet wel allochtonen toelaten (en vice versa) want anders wordt integratie via het huwelijk moeilijk.

Er is dus meer dan genoeg te vinden over partnerkeuze onder allochtone Nederlanders. Misschien kan Paul Lieben even beginnen met het rapport Partnerkeuze onder groepen Amsterdammers van Bartels en Storms en dan vervolgens alle stukken uit de literatuurlijst lezen. Misschien dat we de volgende keer dan een wat beter onderbouwde column krijgen dan dit flutstuk.

0 comments.

Conflict, human rights and male rape

Posted on August 9th, 2011 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues.

I warn you, the next fragment is too gruesome to read:
The rape of men | Society | The Observer

I’ve come to Kampala to hear the stories of the few brave men who have agreed to speak to me: a rare opportunity to find out about a controversial and deeply taboo issue. In Uganda, survivors are at risk of arrest by police, as they are likely to assume that they’re gay – a crime in this country and in 38 of the 53 African nations. They will probably be ostracised by friends, rejected by family and turned away by the UN and the myriad international NGOs that are equipped, trained and ready to help women. They are wounded, isolated and in danger. In the words of Owiny: “They are despised.”

But they are willing to talk, thanks largely to the RLP’s British director, Dr Chris Dolan. Dolan first heard of wartime sexual violence against men in the late 1990s while researching his PhD in northern Uganda, and he sensed that the problem might be dramatically underestimated. Keen to gain a fuller grasp of its depth and nature, he put up posters throughout Kampala in June 2009 announcing a “workshop” on the issue in a local school. On the day, 150 men arrived. In a burst of candour, one attendee admitted: “It’s happened to all of us here.” It soon became known among Uganda’s 200,000-strong refugee population that the RLP were helping men who had been raped during conflict. Slowly, more victims began to come forward.

I meet Jean Paul on the hot, dusty roof of the RLP’s HQ in Old Kampala. He wears a scarlet high-buttoned shirt and holds himself with his neck lowered, his eyes cast towards the ground, as if in apology for his impressive height. He has a prominent upper lip that shakes continually – a nervous condition that makes him appear as if he’s on the verge of tears.

Jean Paul was at university in Congo, studying electronic engineering, when his father – a wealthy businessman – was accused by the army of aiding the enemy and shot dead. Jean Paul fled in January 2009, only to be abducted by rebels. Along with six other men and six women he was marched to a forest in the Virunga National Park.

Later that day, the rebels and their prisoners met up with their cohorts who were camped out in the woods. Small camp fires could be seen here and there between the shadowy ranks of trees. While the women were sent off to prepare food and coffee, 12 armed fighters surrounded the men. From his place on the ground, Jean Paul looked up to see the commander leaning over them. In his 50s, he was bald, fat and in military uniform. He wore a red bandana around his neck and had strings of leaves tied around his elbows.

“You are all spies,” the commander said. “I will show you how we punish spies.” He pointed to Jean Paul. “Remove your clothes and take a position like a Muslim man.”

Jean Paul thought he was joking. He shook his head and said: “I cannot do these things.”

The commander called a rebel over. Jean Paul could see that he was only about nine years old. He was told, “Beat this man and remove this clothes.” The boy attacked him with his gun butt. Eventually, Jean Paul begged: “Okay, okay. I will take off my clothes.” Once naked, two rebels held him in a kneeling position with his head pushed towards the earth.

At this point, Jean Paul breaks off. The shaking in his lip more pronounced than ever, he lowers his head a little further and says: “I am sorry for the things I am going to say now.” The commander put his left hand on the back of his skull and used his right to beat him on the backside “like a horse”. Singing a witch doctor song, and with everybody watching, the commander then began. The moment he started, Jean Paul vomited.

Eleven rebels waited in a queue and raped Jean Paul in turn. When he was too exhausted to hold himself up, the next attacker would wrap his arm under Jean Paul’s hips and lift him by the stomach. He bled freely: “Many, many, many bleeding,” he says, “I could feel it like water.” Each of the male prisoners was raped 11 times that night and every night that followed.

The excerpt of the article above is just too gruesome to read, as is the whole article in fact. But it points to a underreported issue in many conflicts; that of male rape.
The rape of men | Society | The Observer

t’s not just in East Africa that these stories remain unheard. One of the few academics to have looked into the issue in any detail is Lara Stemple, of the University of California’s Health and Human Rights Law Project. Her study Male Rape and Human Rights notes incidents of male sexual violence as a weapon of wartime or political aggression in countries such as Chile, Greece, Croatia, Iran, Kuwait, the former Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia. Twenty-one per cent of Sri Lankan males who were seen at a London torture treatment centre reported sexual abuse while in detention. In El Salvador, 76% of male political prisoners surveyed in the 1980s described at least one incidence of sexual torture. A study of 6,000 concentration-camp inmates in Sarajevo found that 80% of men reported having been raped.

Stemple, I think rightly so, does not argue for a separate protection in human rights against male rape since that would not only be conceptually problematic but would also mean that the whole issue falls into the trap of identity politics and relegating gender as something that only pertains to women. In the article linked above she states:

Definitions of rape and other forms of sexual abuse must always leave room for male victims. Any gender analysis of sexual violence must tease out the ways in which harmful masculinity norms serve to render certain groups of men (men who are perceived to be gay, weak, small, or effeminate)
vulnerable to such violence.

Furthermore, she concludes (and I have nothing to add to that):

In a world in which, one hopes, compassion is not a finite resource, new concern for one type of victim, in this case, men and boys, need not signify the lessening of concern for women and girls. It is not a zero-sum game. Indeed, the total undoing of women’s sexual subordination must include an accurate understanding of rape and a thorough critique of gender assumptions—and should not and cannot come at the expense of failing to account for other victims.

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Vechten met roze bokshandschoenen – Gender, religie en kickboksen

Posted on August 6th, 2011 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Guest authors, Multiculti Issues, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

Vechten met roze bokshandschoenen
Gender en religie bij Marokkaans-Nederlandse kickboksters

Guest Author: Jasmijn Rana

In 2008 ontmoette ik Halima. Halima is 16 jaar en heeft Marokkaanse ouders. Ze is zelf in Nederland geboren en heeft twee nationaliteiten. Ze spreekt voornamelijk de Nederlandse taal, ook thuis, tegelijkertijd voelt ze zich ook Marokkaanse. Halima is praktiserend moslima, hetgeen zich onder meer uit in het dragen van een hoofddoek. Ze participeert sinds anderhalf jaar in kickbokstrainingen en heeft de ambitie om ook wedstrijden te vechten. Ze traint liever niet met jongens samen en volgt daarom ‘ladies-only’ trainingen. Toch draagt ze ook in de les een hoofddoek. Als ze eenmaal in een kickboksgala meedoet, waar altijd mannen aanwezig zijn, zal ze namelijk ook een hoofddoek willen dragen. Op deze manier oefent ze er alvast mee. Tijdens de trainingen draagt ze roze handschoenen, roze scheenbeschermers en een roze broekje. Onder haar zwarte hoofddoek draagt ze een roze onderdoek, waarvan je het voorste stukje op haar voorhoofd ziet. Bovendien draagt ze onder haar roze broekje een zwarte legging, zodat ook daar geen bloot te zien is. In haar uiterlijk, maar zeker ook in haar gedrag, draagt zij ideeën uit over vrouwelijkheid, etniciteit en religie.

Halima is geen uitzondering. In haar buurt is een groei te zien van het aantal meisjes dat kickbokst, een groei in het aantal lessen dat wordt gegeven en het aantal settings waar de sport werd aangeboden. Ook in andere buurten (in verschillende steden) waar veel migranten(kinderen) wonen, is een groei van het aantal kickboksscholen zichtbaar, terwijl ook buurthuizen vaker vechtsporten aanbieden. Vooral allochtone jongens en meisjes en autochtone jongens kiezen vaak voor vecht/verdedigingssporten. Opvallend is vooral de toename van de lessen waar ook, of uitsluitend, dames welkom zijn. Vooral jonge meiden zijn vaak actief betrokken bij deze activiteiten. Ze nemen deel aan zelfverdedigingssporten zoals karate en taekwondo, maar ook aan vechtsporten zoals kickboksen. Dat een vrij groot aantal meiden van Marokkaanse achtergrond kickbokst, gaat in tegen de gangbare beeldvorming. Dat roept de vraag op wat de achtergronden van deze meisjes zijn en vooral wat hen beweegt om voor deze sport te kiezen. De dagelijkse praktijken van deze meisjes laten zien hoe zij omgaan met thema’s als vrouwelijkheid, lichamelijkheid en religie. Hoe motiveer je als vrouw je keuze voor een ‘mannelijke’ sport? En hoe beargumenteer je deze sportkeuze tegenover je ouders en je religie?

Ladies Only
Er is in de geschiedenis een scheidslijn te zien tussen sporten voor mannen, en sporten voor vrouwen. De vraag of een sport geschikt was voor vrouwen lag aan de (wel of niet gracieuze) bewegingen van de sport. Kickboksen staat niet bekend om zijn gracieuze bewegingen, maar juist om zijn ruwe en gewelddadige schoppen en stoten. Net als andere vechtsporten wordt kickboksen daarom altijd al gezien als een typische mannensport. Deze stereotypering bestaat (nog steeds) bij veel mannen en vrouwen, van verschillende achtergronden en generaties. Het gewelddadige karakter van de sport wordt vooral als mannelijk gezien, omdat het voor vrouwen niet gepast zou zijn om een ander moedwillend pijn te willen doen. Veel meisjes zijn het eens met deze stelling en kiezen ervoor om alleen te trainen, en geen wedstrijden te doen. Toch wordt ook vaak expliciet benadrukt hoe heerlijk het is om al je agressie en frustratie op een bokszak los te laten. En ook ouders geven aan dat ze blij zijn dat hun dochter is gaan trainen, omdat ze nu minder agressief zijn in huis.

Kickboksende meisjes zijn zich er van bewust dat ze een ‘mannelijke sport’ doen en kennen de vooroordelen die ermee gepaard gaan. Ondanks de vaak stoere reacties hierop zijn sommigen ook bang voor ‘manwijf’ of lesbienne uitgemaakt te worden. Als kickboksende vrouw tussen de mannen moet je behalve over een lichamelijke conditie en kracht dus over behoorlijk wat zelfvertrouwen beschikken. Hoewel de vrouwen die niet in gemengde lessen trainen, zich niet direct hoeven te bewijzen tegenover mannelijke tegenstanders, hebben ook zij te maken met de stereotyperingen omtrent vechtsport. Op school, thuis en op straat worden ze hiermee geconfronteerd. Vechtsporten heeft de reputatie, net zoals voetbal bijvoorbeeld, mannelijke lichaamskenmerken op te leveren. Meer dan zwemmen of tennis, terwijl die ook vaak vergelijkbare fysieke effecten hebben. De sport wordt voor vrouwen daardoor vaak gepromoot met andere kenmerken van de sport, zoals dat je jezelf leert verdedigen. Door de collectieve ideeën die bestaan over mannelijkheid en vrouwelijkheid, en sporten die daarbij zouden passen, bieden sportscholen aangepaste lessen aan zoals ‘ladies-only’ lessen en Boks & Fun. Het ruwe karakter van de sport wordt zo afgezwakt. Veel meisjes kiezen deze aangepaste lessen juist uit vanwege deze ‘vrouwelijke touch’. De dames willen graag afvallen en ‘gezellig een uurtje bewegen’, en niet per se hun agressie kwijt of kunnen vechten. Ze behouden bij het sporten graag hun vrouwelijke karakter en bijbehorende lichaamskenmerken. Ook de posters en flyers voor damestrainingen promoten juist de vrouwelijke voordelen van het kickboksen. Als we de dames op kickboksposters en flyers moeten geloven, krijg je van kickboksen een slanker en strakker lichaam. De vrouwen kijken wel altijd stoer en alsof ze ieder moment kunnen aanvallen. Veel meiden vallen voor het ideaal van de slanke dame in roze op het affiche. Zo wordt in de kleedkamer het gewicht veelvuldig besproken. Elke week een kilo erbij of eraf, of weer een nieuw dieet uitgeprobeerd, iedereen is van elkaars vorderingen op de hoogte. Veel van de meisjes noemen ‘gewichtsverlies’ als reden dat ze zijn gaan kickboksen. Ze doen heel erg hun best om zo vrouwelijk mogelijk over te komen. Dit gebeurt in verschillende ‘mannelijke’ sporten, en vooral jonge vrouwen houden zich hier veel mee bezig. Dit merk je vooral in gemengde lessen. Als een meisje samen met een jongen traint, dan doet het meisje alsof ze heel hard is, maar zodra de oefening over is, lacht ze vriendelijk en maakt een speels grapje. Een bijkomende reactie hierop is het tonen van vrouwelijkheid via het uiterlijk. Ook dit heeft al een lange traditie. In sporten voor mannen wordt ‘mannelijkheid’ historisch gezien gepromoot en ‘gevierd’ door de media en overheid. Vrouwelijke sporten werden door deze tendens ook op hun vrouwelijkheid beoordeeld.

Zowel de meisjes die ik heb gesproken in de gemengde lessen als in de ‘ladies-only’ lessen doen hun best om een vrouwelijk uiterlijk te creëren. Roze is bijvoorbeeld een erg populaire kleur als het om kleding, handschoenen en scheenbeschermers gaat. En hoewel lang haar onpraktisch is, zijn er maar weinig meisje die het voor hun sport afknippen. Ook zorgen de meeste dames ervoor dat ze goed gekleed en gekapt de sportschool in en uitlopen, vooral als het mooi weer is. Toen er in Amsterdam een professionele fotograaf langs kwam, riep een van de meisjes: ‘Wacht ik doe nog even wat lipgloss op!’ Dit wordt ook wel ‘the feminine apologetic’ genoemd: het idee dat vrouwelijke sporters aantrekkelijk moeten zijn voor mannen om hun participatie in bepaalde sporten te legitimeren. Dit fenomeen is niet uniek in de sport, maar wordt bijvoorbeeld ook gesignaleerd in de zakenwereld.

De meiden zijn wel ook trots dat ze een ruwe sport beoefenen, omdat je je mannetje staat, je laat niet over je heen lopen. Ook zijn ze trots op de blauwe plekken, zoals blijkt uit dit stukje dialoog dat plaatsvond na een training in de kleedkamer:

Halima: Ah lekker! Ik ben kapot!
Aziza: Zo, anders ik wel. Die elleboog van jou was echt niet normaal hoor?
Halima: Elleboog?
Aziza: Ja elleboog ja! Je blokte mijn knie met je elleboog! Dat wordt zéker een blauwe plek. Hier kijk.
(Aziza stroopt haar legging omhoog en laat haar knie zien, die een beetje rood is.)
Halima: Ach man, dat is niks. Kijk, dit zijn blauwe plekken. Dit (laat haar bovenarm zien), dit (laat haar dijbeen zien).
(Trainster Mounia komt binnenlopen en lacht om het gesprek. Ze tilt haar knie op en wijst op haar scheenbeen.)
Mounia: Kijk, zo kan het ook. Geen blauwe plekken. Jullie moeten nog hard worden. En gewoon beter verdedigen.

Dit citaat laat zien dat het de kickboksters niet alleen gaat om de vrouwelijke aspecten van de sport. Ook het hard worden spreekt ze aan. Er wordt niet gezeurd over de pijn, maar eerder opgeschept over hoeveel pijn iemand kan verdragen.

Bescheidenheid en ingetogenheid
De vrouwelijkheid die gepromoot wordt op de posters voor ‘ladies-only’ trainingen, wordt op zodanige manier toegepast op het lichaam dat het nog strookt met wat er binnen de kring van de meisjes acceptabel is. Je hoeft niet per se een topje aan te trekken om je vrouwelijkheid te accentueren. Halima bijvoorbeeld, bedekt haar hele lichaam, maar accentueert het wel met roze elementen. De meeste meisjes dragen een T-shirt dat de schouders bedekt. Vaak zit daar zelfs nog een hemdje onder, dat in de broek gestopt wordt om een blote rug te voorkomen. Het is te kort door de bocht gezegd dat de meisjes dit doen omdát ze islamitisch zijn. We kunnen dit beter beschouwen als een habituele handeling die terug is te voeren op religie. Ook Marokkaans-Nederlandse meisjes die zich niet sterk identificeren met de islam hebben vaak deze gewoontes. Zo ook Souad, een 21-jarige hbo-studente. Ze is moslim, maar praktiseert haar geloof, naar eigen zeggen, niet ‘100%’. Ze draagt geen hoofddoek, bidt niet dagelijks en doet ‘wel eens dingen die God verboden heeft, zeg maar’. Op een dag zag ik haar naar de gymzaal toe lopen met een sjaal om haar bovenlijf gewikkeld. Om bij de gymzaal te komen moest ze door een korte gang waar de (mannelijke) eigenaar van de gym nog stond te praten met de trainster. Achteraf legde ze uit dat ze een sjaal omsloeg omdat ze het ‘niet zo netjes’ vond om langs hem te lopen met ‘zo’n strak truitje’. Bescheidenheid en ingetogenheid zijn voor haar een vanzelfsprekend onderdeel van lichamelijk handelen. Deze bescheidenheid en ingetogenheid zijn volgens velen voor vrouwen ook door de islam voorgeschreven. Deze modesty is een veel bestudeerd onderwerp op het gebied van gender en islam. Het gaat hierbij behalve om het dragen van (in een bepaalde mate) bedekkende kleding bijvoorbeeld ook om het niet in de ogen kijken van mannen. Ook dit zijn habituele handelingen, die vaak worden teruggevoerd op religie.

De eerste sociaal-wetenschappelijke studies naar sport en sportparticipatie hadden vaak een etnocentrische invalshoek. Daar zijn vooral stereotyperingen uit naar voren gekomen zoals ‘Aziaten zijn niet geïnteresseerd in sport’ of ‘islamitische meisjes mogen van hun ouders niet sporten. De identiteitsvorming van islamitische meisjes moet echter breder onderzocht worden. Zij zijn soms minder geneigd zich te identificeren met de etnische groep, maar in eerste plaats vaak met religie, dus in dit geval als moslima. De ouders van bijvoorbeeld Marokkaans-Nederlandse meisjes zijn bijvoorbeeld niet gewend te sporten. De islam biedt deze meisjes echter juist handvatten om te sporten, omdat de religie voorschrijft dat lichamelijke beweging gezondheidsvoordelen oplevert. Vooral in Iran is dit goed te zien, waar vrouwen steeds vaker (gescheiden) sporten, en dit zelfs gestimuleerd wordt met verwijzing naar de Koran. Paardrijden is om die reden een populaire sport in Iran. Ook op verschillende webfora wordt de discussie naar voren gehaald of vrouwen wel of niet zouden mogen sporten volgens de islam. Vaak gaat het daarbij of het toegestaan is om gemengd te sporten of dat het beter is alleen met vrouwen te sporten. Vaak zijn deze gesprekken praktisch van aard, en worden er tips over kleding uitgewisseld en adressen waar je lange kickboksbroeken kan kopen. Een ander punt dat vaak terugkomt in discussies is de vraag hoe om te gaan met muziek tijdens een sportles. Sommige discussies gaan dieper en verwijzen naar de teksten. Een veel gehoord voorbeeld is de beschreven hardloopwedstrijden tussen profeet Mohammed en zijn vrouw Aicha. Een discussie waar zowel vrouwen als mannen zich in bevinden gaat over de vraag of kickboksen überhaupt wel toegestaan is in de islam. De antwoorden variëren van persoonlijke meningen en ervaringen tot citaten uit de koran en hadith. Volgens de overleveringen zou het niet toegestaan zijn om andere of jezelf letsel aan te brengen, en al helemaal niet om iemand in het gezicht te slaan. Veel mensen kiezen er daardoor voor om alleen te trainen, en geen wedstrijden te vechten. Veel trainingen voor beginners en ook sommige gevorderde ladies-only lessen, gaan uit van oefeningen zonder in het gezicht te slaan. Ook het sparren gebeurd zonder het gezicht te raken. De meisjes die dit wel doen, beargumenteren hun keuze door te wijzen op het feit dat beide personen in het gevecht hier vrijwillig voor gekozen hebben.

Opvallend is echter dat de sportende meisjes zelf, ook als ze zich nadrukkelijk als moslima identificeren, deze discussies niet vaak voeren in en rondom de sportschool. Ze hebben de keuze al gemaakt, voordat ze de eerste training begonnen. Wel gaan er heel veel gesprekken over het sporten als moslima. Dus als je sport, hoe doe je dat dan? Sommige meiden laten daarmee heel bewust zien dat het goed mogelijk is om tegelijkertijd te kickboksen én moslima te zijn.

Tot slot
Kickboksende dames, met verschillende etnische of religieuze achtergronden, hebben te maken met de stereotypering van kickboksen als mannensport. Zij moeten zich derhalve verdedigen voor de sport die ze uitoefenen. Daarbij bevinden de meisjes zich in een levensfase waarbij zij hun vrouwelijkheid ontwikkelen en tegelijkertijd de grenzen van het gezag van ouders opzoeken. De meiden identificeren zich soms met het harde karakter van de sport, maar hopen tegelijkertijd ‘vrouwelijke’ lichaamskenmerken te verkrijgen met de sport en benadrukken deze vrouwelijkheid juist via gedrag en kleding. Tegelijkertijd performen zij deze vrouwelijkheid zodanig dat het strookt met de normen en waarden die ze van huis uit hebben meegekregen. Daarbij komt dat Marokkaans-Nederlandse meisjes en hun islamitische ouders vaak minder moeite hebben met kickboksen, omdat het een sport is waar meisjes gescheiden kunnen trainen en geen (niet-bedekkende) kleding hoeven te dragen die de vrouwelijke vormen accentueert. De populariteit van kickboksen onder Marokkaans-Nederlandse meisjes, en ladies-only lessen in het bijzonder, maken duidelijk dat deze groep meisjes de bestaande stereotyperingen kunnen weerleggen.

Jasmijn Rana voerde in opdracht van Forum onderzoek uit naar kickboksende Marokkaans-Nederlandse meisjes. Onlangs verscheen bij Boom Lemma Uitgevers ‘Chicks, Kicks & Glory. De betekenis van kickboksen voor Marokkaans-Nederlandse meisjes’.
Zij begint in oktober 2011 aan haar promotieonderzoek Young Muslim women in combat sports: Tensions and connections, aan de Berlin Graduate School for Muslim Cultures and Societies, Freie Unviersität Berlin.

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Closing the week 20 – Featuring Women2Drive

Posted on May 22nd, 2011 by martijn.
Categories: Blogosphere, Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Society & Politics in the Middle East.

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Featuring Women2Drive Saudi Arabia
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During an interview with Al-Masry Al-Youm, Banna said that most Muslims today are Salafis, a fact that he attributes to the closure of the door to ijtihad (the process of making a jurisprudential decision by interpretation of the sources of the Islamic law), and people’s blind following of Salafi interpretations of Islam.

Where do gay rights come in the Arab protests? – Ahwaa.org

The revolutionary protests sweeping across the Arab world has left me wondering if this is one step closer to gay rights or if we have yet to reach that stage of tolerance, open mindedness and acceptance in our lifetime

The Associated Press: Israel’s religious gays battle for acceptance

A once unimaginable movement is emerging from within Israel’s insular Orthodox Jewish community: homosexuals demanding to be accepted and embraced, no matter what the Bible says.

Egyptian Chronicles: Nakba Revolution : The people want to return back to Palestine and Golan

I do not remember that the anniversary of Nakba was as hot and as intense as today seriously. The people want the right of the return , the people want to return back to Palestine.

Thirteen killed as Israeli troops open fire on Nakba Day border protests | World news | guardian.co.uk

Israeli troops opened fire on pro-Palestinian demonstrators attempting to breach its borders on three fronts, killing at least 13 people. Scores more were wounded at Israel’s borders with Syria, Lebanon and Gaza.

On Salafism
Salafis 101: 5 key facts – What does ‘Salafi’ mean? – CSMonitor.com

Salafi Muslims are often associated with militant Islam and violent groups such as Al Qaeda, though most Salafis disavow violent jihad. Repressed for decades by secular dictators such as Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Zine Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, Salafis may find new breathing room now that the Arab Spring has ousted such leaders. Here are five facts to help you understand them.

Rise of Salafism in political sphere is muffled by media – The National

The Salafis have been accused of inciting recent violence, although there is no conclusive proof to that effect. The group did not initially support the Tahrir Square protests, but have gained great power in its aftermath.

Al-Ahram Weekly | Egypt | Salafism: The unknown quantity

Sectarian incidents like the burning of churches in Imbaba have put the spotlight on Salafis. Who are they, and what do they espouse, asks Amani Maged

Rape, sex and race
The DSK arrest could be bad news for French Muslims | FP Passport

That said, the arrest would seem to be bad news for one constituency: immigrants. If the scandal cripples the Socialists, the far-right may come to be seen as Sarkozy’s primary competition in the race, meaning the president will have to pander even more to anti-immigrant sentiment. As Jonathan Laurence and Justin Vaisse wrote in March about Sarkozy’s recent denunciations of “multiculturalism” — which hasn’t, in any case, been official policy in France for years — as a transparent ploy to appeal to supporters of the Le Pen family’s brand of right-wing politics:

The Media’s Aggressive Groping Problem | | AlterNet

There’s a very big difference between consensual sex and assault. Our media’s screwed up coverage of DSK’s rape charges and Schwarzenegger’s groping would suggest otherwise.

Schwarzenegger, Strauss-Kahn, and Why Isn’t Anyone Talking About Race? | Feminist Law Professors

The questions of class and power dynamics are real, important and significant ones in any conversation about either of these cases. Noticeably absent from the conversations I’ve read so far, however, is an acknowledgment of complex racial issues that may be involved.

The alleged victim in the Strauss-Kahn case is an African immigrant to the United States.

The mother of Mr. Schwarzenegger’s non-marital child is speculated by some to be Latina.

Misc.
What Obama did say – Blog – The Arabist

As with previous speeches, it’s well written and was well delivered. There is a certain consistency with the Cairo speech, as Obama highlights. There is an endorsement of the idea of freedom and democratization (not that any US president has ever delivered a speech in praise of dictatorship — it’s an easy score.) There was an admission of US interests in the region that would have otherwise made this speech simply too hypocritical (it’s going to be attacked for that anyway). I’m just not sure why those interests should include concern for one state’s security (Israel’s) and not others. Nor why self-determination in the pursuit of liberty is something that doesn’t apply for Palestinians. But here we tread old ground.

People believe subway maps over reality – Greater Greater Washington

Maps matter. Metro’s and London’s transit maps present distorted geographies in order to make the system’s organization clearer. They have become iconic, but the way they present distances shapes people’s understanding of space and distance in their region.

Explaining Islam to the public « The Immanent Frame

The expectation that Islamic studies scholars were prepared to “cover” the Islamic tradition and speak to its beliefs and practices on a normative, global basis was stressful for many of us. The idea that we could speak with authority about the practices of 1.4 billion people who speak dozens of languages and have inhabited the planet for the last 1400 years is absurd, of course. Like other academics, Islamic studies scholars are trained in certain fields of knowledge; in the best of programs, they are trained to be exceedingly careful about claiming too much. The pressures to become the academic voice of Islam both on campus and in the media frequently led scholars to abandon caution. We reached for our copies of the Encyclopedia of Islam and sent out queries, sometimes quite urgently, to the AAR Study of Islam listserv. “What does Islam say about x?” was the way questions were often framed. We were not allowed to answer, “It depends.” What was generally desired, it seems, was a fatwa, an authoritative ruling on what the Qur’an, the Sunna, and the ulama say about “x,” not a lecture on how the historical practices of real people refuse easy generalization.

Anonymous: peering behind the mask | Technology | guardian.co.uk

Are members of the ‘hacktivist group’ Anonymous defenders of truth and seekers of knowledge, or simply a bunch of cyber terrorists? Jana Herwig investigates

Getting Past the Enlightenment » Sociological Images

In this 11 minute animated talk, Matthew Taylor argues that scientific study of humans in the tradition of the Enlightenment has taught us, ironically, that Enlightenment values alone cannot be trusted to usher humanity into a better future.

To fight the xenophobic populists, we need more free speech, not less | Timothy Garton Ash | Comment is free | The Guardian

Geert Wilders should not be on trial for his words on Islam. But mainstream politicians must confront and not appease him

Seeing “Bridesmaids” is a social responsibility – Bridesmaids – Salon.com

How the fate of female-driven movies came to rest upon the success of “SNL” star Kristen Wiig’s new comedy

Mozart Sounds Like an Arab Love Song – Qantara.de

? This audacious project has foundered more than once and even this time its success hung by a thread. Daniel Barenboim performed a concert in Gaza with a group of European musicians. Hans-Christian Rößler reports

Dutch
Stop de teloorgang van de universiteitsjournalistiek – de Volkskrant – Opinie

krantjeop_300_01
Imago-obsessie bedreigt de vrijheid van universitaire media

De Bouali-norm « Wat Je Zegt Ben Je Zelf!

Daar waar de Balkenende-norm een doel dient – ik ken trouwens niet één Marokkaanse graaier bij de (semi-)overheid of in het bedrijfsleven… – is de Bouali-norm dus een compleet zinloze standaard, waar we heel snel van af moeten. Eerst was er alleen maar aandacht voor de “slechte” Marokkaan en nu is er aandacht voor de “wenselijke” Marokkaan. Maar wanneer komt er eens aandacht voor de echte en menselijke Marokkaan?

Frontaal Naakt. » Bij de dood van Osama

Hoe ironisch dat de Westerse toon en seculiere houding die de verschillende leiders hanteerden, minder heeft gedaan voor het imago van de Arabische wereld dan de simpele, maar volhardende acties van de mensen nu. Blijkt het gewone volk de taal van de diplomatie en PR beter te begrijpen dan de in dure, Westerse universiteiten opgeleide despoten.

OM vervolgt ‘imam’ Abdullah Haselhoef voor fraude :: nrc.nl

Binnenland

Het Openbaar Ministerie vervolgt Abdullah Haselhoef voor fraude. De NOS meldt dat hij naar schatting 2,5 miljoen euro aan kinderopvangtoeslagen zou hebben ontvangen voor opvang die in werkelijkheid nooit heeft plaatsgevonden.

Column van Willigenburg: waarom we de PVV dankbaar mogen zijn | DeJaap

Het is juist dáárom gekmakend, omdat diezelfde mensen iedereen voortdurend inpeperen dat je “niet te snel moet oordelen”, “genuanceerd” moet denken en “niet vanuit je onderbuik moet reageren”. Wát een gotspe. Als je de PVV niet meteen en ondubbelzinnig veroordeelt (maar haar handelen en voorspoed probeert te verklaren vanuit het recente verleden), kom je frontaal in contact met hún onderbuik! En die onderbuik is harder, strakker, gemener en onverbiddelijker dan de boze en soms hysterische onderbuik die rechts parten schijnt te spelen. Het is de onderbuik van de georganiseerde uitsluiting en verkettering.

Song of the Week

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Veil, For A Change

Posted on May 18th, 2011 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Multiculti Issues, Ritual and Religious Experience.

A few weeks ago the Dutch blog and twitter community saw a (small) explosion of messages about the headscarf. What happened? A young Tunisian-Dutch lady with the pseudonym Dunya Henya expressed her feelings and experiences about people who call her names and show other types of offensive behaviour because she wears a headscarf. The post, called ‘Fucking Headscarf’ (or literally Cancer Headscarf) was written quite well in the sense that it contained assertive and affective language and examples that were very compelling. According to her, she wears the headscarf out of her free will and stated that she does not force anything up to anyone, she adjusts and participates in society. The fact however that she wears a headscarf is, according to her, enough for some people to degrade her and treat her demeaningly as if she is a second rate citizen who can be called all kinds of abusive names. She stated ‘I draw a line, thus far and no further.’ and ‘Not the (non-existent) islamization is a danger to this society, the growing intolerance however is’.

Her blogpost probably should be seen in the context of the ‘battle of the veil’ that is going on in Europe today; a debate about the headscarf in many European countries that not only has consequences for the public sphere and on a political level but (as the post clearly shows) also on the streets of Europe. I think the combination of the assertive and affective language makes her post so strong and remarkable. There are more women of course speaking and complaining about the negative reactions they receive, but only seldom they clearly say back off like Dunya Henya did. There is clearly an obsession (often among white men) with Muslim women with headscarves. It appears that when people think about Muslim women they think about women with a veil and then indeed criticize, verbally abuse or even attack women who comply with that stereotype.

Important in Dunya Henya’s defense (and of many others as well) is the right to choose. Look for example at the next video of two American women who cover themselves (one with niqab and the other hijjab) in order to fulfill their desire of modesty:

It is often, as Dunya Henya states as well, to strive for modesty and being guarded against things that may harm them; not only because they feel their religion says so, but also because they actually experienced harmfull things.

In particular women wearing the face veil are currently at the center of the debate with the current ban in France and similar plans in other countries like the Netherlands. Even more so than women with a headscarf women with niqab are absent in the debates. Interesting therefore is Naima Bouteldja’s account of her research among French niqabi’s.

France’s false ‘battle of the veil’ | Naima Bouteldja | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

The authors of the bill assert that displaying the flag from one’s “country of origin” during demonstrations or celebrations often conveys a “provocative attitude towards our republican values”.

Unveiling the Truth illustrates the rupture between the hysterical national discourse on the women who wear the full-face veil and their own concrete realities. The testimonies of the 32 women interviewed in towns and cities across France challenged many of the myths relayed during the controversy. Rather than reflecting an attempt to subvert society, the adoption of the niqab was, in most cases, the result of a personal and extremely individualistic journey, a modern spiritual approach in an effort to transform the self.

Of course various other factors played a role in the women’s decision to adopt the veil. But most of them were the first members of their family to adopt the veil, the majority had no niqab-wearing peers, their attendance at their mosque was minimal, and their affiliation to any Islamic bodies almost nonexistent.

Her report also reveals how women with niqab receive almost no support from representatives of Islamic organizations that appear to comply with the French state’s discourse, policies and laws although they did oppose the ban. I think one can find the same in the Netherlands (with the exception of the Salafi networks). Most organizations appear to be against a possible ban but also state that niqab is not compulsory in Islam and that it has no basis in the Qur’an. True or false that doesn’t really matter, what it produces is that women with niqab receive no sign of solidarity at all. Instead, as Annelies Moors showed in her research on Dutch niqabi’s, part of the discourse aimed against it constructs the law as a matter of security while ignoring that women with niqab experience abusive behaviour or even violence against them.
France’s false ‘battle of the veil’ | Naima Bouteldja | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

This might explain why in a sample of 32 women, 10 young women decided to adopt the full-face veil, some clearly in an act of defiance, after the launch of the debate. Bushra, a 24-year-old former rapper who did not even wear a hijab in April 2009, explained: “The controversy put a flea in my ear … Already, for Eid, they don’t allow us to slaughter our sheep, they don’t let us go to school with our headscarves, they don’t let us do anything!” Giving them a taste of their own medicine, she adopted the veil. She adds, with a laugh: “Thanks to their nonsense, I stopped mine.”

It is indeed this dialectic of the state who tries to control women that has led some feminists to reconsider their own stance against the veil, such as Leila Ahmed who in the past saw the veil as representing political islam and who was very disturbed by the sight of women in the US wearing hijab:
Veil of Ignorance – By Leila Ahmed | Foreign Policy

Until recently, I thought, as Hourani did, that the disappearance of the veil was inevitable; I was sure that greater education and opportunity for women in the Muslim world would result in the elimination of this relic of women’s oppression. For decades, in books, op-eds, and lectures, I stood firmly and unquestioningly against the veil and the hijab, the Islamic headscarf, viewing them as signs of women’s disempowerment. To me, and to my fellow Arab feminists, being told what to wear was just another form of tyranny. But in the course of researching and writing a new book on the history of the veil’s improbable comeback, I’ve had to radically rethink my assumptions. Where I once saw the veil as a symbol of intolerance, I now understand that for many women, it is a badge of individuality and justice.

During her research (read the review at Wall Street Journal) Leila Ahmed learned that the meaning of hijjab changed from being ‘fraught with ancient patriarchal meanings’ in societies where it is required by law or through social pressure to wear one, to gender equality, social justice, rejection of negative stereotypes and affirming Muslim pride in Europe. This for example occurs among women who are the forefront of new and alternative interpretations of key Quran verses pertaining to women (Ahmed for example mentions Laleh Bakhtiar who published a new translation of the Quran: The Sublime Quran) but also ‘ordinary’ women who feel they are and should be free to wear whatever they want. At the same time this discourse of free will and free choice is under debate. Consider the next excerpt from Nadia el Awady’s blog on the women and headscarves in Egypt:
Societies Overpowered by a Headscarf: It’s Time for Change « Inner Workings of My Mind

A woman, we shout, has the right to choose.

But do we Muslims really believe this or do we use this argument when it suits us?

Do women in Muslim countries – or for that matter do women living in Islamic communities all over the United States and Europe – truly have the right to choose? Does a woman truly have freedom of choice if the societal impacts of that choice have the potential to devastate the very core of her existence?

In recent years in Egypt, a growing number of women are deciding to take off their headscarves. This growing number is still small, mind you it is no phenomenon, but there are enough women doing this that most Egyptians know someone who knows someone who has taken off the hijab. Their reasons for taking off the hijab vary as much as their reasons varied for donning it to begin with. Most of the women I know who have taken off the hijab live in circles of semi-liberal families and friends. This makes the choice relatively easier for these women. Every one of these women, nevertheless, has faced harsh judgment by some family members and friends because they chose to doff the hijab.

These women are immediately analyzed to their faces and behind their backs. Their original reasons for wearing the hijab were the wrong reasons. Her faith is weak. She has been moving in circles of friends who have tainted her soul. She has no proper understanding of the Islamic faith. She has opened too many doors to the devil and this is the result. The list goes on and on. And the snobby advice does as well. We’ll pray for you, dear sister. Remember to keep up your five daily prayers. That will save you. Be careful because you have started down the slippery slope to hell. We will pray to God to protect you and give you guidance.

She is immediately interrogated over and over and over about her reasons to take off the hijab. She is forced to entertain long discussions about the obligatory nature of the hijab in Islam. She is subjected to long explanations about how accepting Islam as a religion means accepting the doctrine. She is not allowed to disagree. She is not allowed to have her own opinion or her own interpretation. She is not even allowed to be uncertain – not really knowing in her heart whether the hijab is obligatory or not and deciding that it was not for her and that she would have faith in God’s understanding.

The woman must be convinced. She must be made to see the light. She must be saved.

The right to choose has all of a sudden gone to hell along with this woman who has chosen to take off her hijab.

These women I refer to above – those living among semi-liberal family and friends – are the lucky ones.

Women who come from more conservative circles barely stand a chance.

Nadia El-Awady points out that in that in Europe and America she is odd because of the hijjab and that there is a strong social and political pressure to put if off, while in Muslim societies she is successfull because of the hijab. In both cases she is judged and scrutinized because of the headscarf. This is also very clear when we look at a recent video and series of interviews with American Muslim women speaking about how people treated them when they wore the headscarf, how they experienced wearing it and…why they decide to take it off and still felt like practicing Muslim women. These women did experience social pressure to wear it but were also genuinely convinced that it was a good thing to do as a Muslim woman and they were criticized when they put it off. You can see the video here (via Muxlim.com):

And listen to the audio interviews at the site of NPR.
Although I liked the article, video and audio there is something that bothers me with that piece. It seems that putting off the headscarf (or wearing it for that matter) is seen as a fixed identity statement. Both practices, taking off and putting it on, reduce the practice of wearing a headscarf to communicative acts reflecting a full-formed moral identity that is also related to women being liberal, integrated, westernized, truly Muslim, modesty and so on. That is just not how it works however. Many women in my previous and current research put it on, take it off, put it on and take it off again, switch between several modalities of veiling several times during their lives. It shows different modalities of how women constitute and nurture their moral dispositions, identities (plural!), and commitments during various stages of life and in particular everyday and/or political contexts. It is probably difficult to have such a processual account of women’s lives and practices into a video and audio. Nevertheless the idea of women with a hijab or without having a fixed, full-formed identity makes it difficult to transcend to current debates on hijab and the social pressures laid upon them by Muslim and non-Muslims because it captures them in a discourse that is not theirs but of politicians trying to forbid the veil or those trying to force the veil upon women (see also Nicole Cunningham‘s account on Muslimah Media Watch for a similar view). This politicized idea of the headscarf makes real debates with Muslims and among Muslims almost impossible because the different points of view are reduced to simple us and them categorizations. And indeed, at one point someone really has to say: I draw a line, thus far and no further!

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Masculinity Box – The Smell of Burning Ants

Posted on April 21st, 2011 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues.

The Smell of Burning Ants :: Jay Rosenblatt Films

The Smell of Burning Ants is a haunting documentary on the pains of growing up male. It explores the inner and outer cruelties that boys perpetrate and endure. The film provokes the viewer to reflect on how our society can deprive boys of wholeness.

Through formative events of a boy’s life, we come to understand the ways in which men can become emotionally disconnected and alienated from their feminine side. The common dismissal that “boys will be boys” evolves into the chilling realization that boys frequently become angry, destructive and emotionally disabled men. The Smell of Burning Ants illustrates how boys are socialized by fear, power and shame.

I think the film is interesting and very suited for teaching purposes. The full film is available at Jayrosenblattfilms.com.

In the next TED video Tony Porter gives a brief introduction to what it means how we define masculinity and the consequences for men and women.

H/T: Socioimages

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Sexual Nationalisms – Gender, Sexuality and the Politics of Belonging in the New Europe

Posted on August 10th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: anthropology, Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Multiculti Issues.

International Conference – 27 & 28 January 2011 – University of Amsterdam
Sexual Nationalisms
Gender, Sexuality and the Politics of Belonging in the New Europe
Since 1989, and even more so after 9/11, the rise of new nationalisms has been inextricably linked to a refashioning of the politics, identities and imaginaries of gender and sexuality in Europe. The old virile nationalism analyzed by George Mosse is now being reinvented in the light of a new brand of sexual politics. Feminist demands and claims of (homo)sexual liberation have moved from the counter-cultural margins to the heart of many European countries’ national imaginations, and have become a central factor in the European Union’s production of itself as an imaginary community. Rhetorics of lesbian/gay and women’s rights have played pivotal roles in discourses and policies redefining modernity in sexual terms, and sexual modernity in national terms. How are these baffling shifts in the cultural and social location of sexuality and gender to be understood?

In Europe and beyond, the refashioning of citizenship contributes to the redefinition of secular liberalism as cultural whiteness. Homophobia and conservatism, gender segregation and sexual violence have been represented as alien to modern European culture and transposed upon the bodies, cultures and religions of migrants, especially Muslims and their descendants. In the process, the status of Europe’s ethnic minorities as citizens has come under question. How can the entanglement of sexual and gender politics, anti-immigration policies, and the current reinvention of national belonging be analyzed? How are we to understand the appropriation of elements of the feminist and sexual liberation agenda by the populist and Islamophobic right?

The prominence of sexual democracy in the remaking of European national imaginaries requires bringing the critique of gender and sexuality beyond second-wave feminism and post-Stonewall liberationist perspectives. In late-capitalist, post-colonial Europe, struggles for sexual freedom and gender equality no longer necessarily challenge dominant formations; on the contrary, they may be mobilized to shape and reinforce exclusionary discourses and practices. The new politics of belonging is thus inseparable from the new politics of exclusion. This shift has not been without consequences for progressive social movements. Whereas in social and cultural analysis, nationalism has long been associated with male dominance, sexual control and heteronormativity, certain articulations of feminism and lesbian/gay liberation have now become intimately entwined with the reinforcement of ethnocultural boundaries within European countries.

As feminist historian Joan W. Scott recently argued when she coined the provocative notion of ‘sexularism’, new forms of sexual regulation have been introduced, especially targeting migrants, their descendants, and other ‘non-whites’. Discursively defining the new national common sense, sexularism also operates at the level of the visceral, reaching deep into the sexual and racial politics, habits and emotions of everyday life. A required allegiance to sexual liberties and rights has been employed as a technology of control and exclusion – what could be called a ‘politics of sexclusion’. Symmetrically, the Europeanization of sexual politics has entailed counter-reactions both inside and outside Europe. In Eastern Europe admission to the European Union has been conditioned on the acceptance of the new standards of sexual democracy, which sometimes led anti-European reactions to also frame themselves in sexual terms. In Western Europe ‘non-‘whites can sometimes be tempted to identify with the caricatures imposed upon them.

An increasing number of scholars in the humanities and social sciences have begun to investigate the important shifts taking place in discourses of sexual freedom and gender equality across the continent. These shifts open up new arenas for ethnographic and other empirical research. What role do sex and gender play in various European nationalisms? In which cultural terms are sexual and gender boundaries articulated? What different trajectories can be discerned, and how can differences between countries be explained? What are the effects of these transformations at the level of the formation of community and subjectivity? How do these discursive shifts become tangible in everyday life? And how can sexual politics avoid the trap of exclusionary instrumentalization without renouncing its emancipatory promise?

In order to discuss such questions, we invite contributions grounded in ethnography and other empirical research along the five following themes:

1. The Nationalization of Gender Equality – In secular European imaginations of immigrants and their descendants, the Islamic headscarf in particular has been perceived as an axiomatic signifier of religious and gender oppression. It has been listed along other ‘uncivilized’ ills also attributed to ethnic minorities and disadvantaged neighborhoods, whether they be domestic violence, forced marriage, or female genital mutilations. In contrast, recently acquired milestones in gender equality, like the legal right to abortion, have been adopted by Left and Right politicians alike as new symbols of timeless national essences. What representations of gender have been conveyed by contemporary constructions of the nation? How have forms of domination between men and women been challenged and/or reproduced in neonationalist and secularist projects? In what ways are migrant women’s lives affected by the entwinements of feminist discourses and movements with these projects? How have those women experienced and handled being framed as simultaneously the main victims and the main accomplices of the new Islamic threat? Whereas religion is understood as operating at the level of the embodied, the habitual, material and visceral aspects of secularism are generally ignored or obscured. But what is the secular counterpart of the religious body? What does a gendered politics of secularism look like? At times, restrictive policies against women wearing headscarves have been justified in terms of the necessary limitation of religion to the private sphere; at other times, they have been framed in terms of gender equality and feminist ideals. Should this justificatory plurality be taken at face value, or does it point to deeper and more complex resentments against postcolonial and other ‘non-white’ migrants?
2. The National Politics of Sexual Freedom – In Europe, ideals and practices of sexual freedom have mostly been experienced as a tangible break with formerly hegemonic religious traditions and the restraints of community and family. In particular, gay people have sometimes been framed as the very embodiment of modern liberalism, as self-fashioning, unattached, and autonomous subjects. Why have such representations been so effectively tied to the nationalization of modernity in some countries but not in others? What have been the specific trajectories of such representations, and how have they affected lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender identified people in everyday life? What new normativities have been shaped in the process? And what have been the consequences of these discourses for those who have been framed as the ‘others’ of sexual democracy – Muslims and ethnic minorities? What have been the implications of such reinventions of sexual whiteness for everyday life in the global cities of Western Europe, and the sexual, cultural, religious and political diversity they offer? How have feminist and lesbian/gay movements been affected by these shifts in the social location of sexual and gender politics? What does ‘race’ have to do with the refashioning of sexual politics and identities? If sexual freedom and gender equality are being mobilized in a culturalist re-enactment of European racism, how does this affect white imaginaries and subjectivities? How are those (historically) excluded from whiteness affected by it? Which bodies come to be constructed in the sexual politics of neonationalisms? Which forms of ‘queerness’ are being authorized and which articulations of sexual otherness are being ‘queered’ and thus excluded from sexual normality? On what grounds does this occur, and how do these processes materialize in everyday life?
3. The Urban Geographies and Class Politics of Sexual Democracy – The interweaving of urban governance with sexual politics has been normalizing certain sexual spaces at the exclusion of others. In the context of an emergent urban entrepreneurialism and as part of gentrification processes, sexual others have been conscripted into urban politics and spatial renewal, while new hetero- and homonormativities have taken shape in the process. Gender representations have also played important roles in framing and representing cities as aesthetically and commercially attractive for business, tourists and aspiring residents. Simultaneously, certain brands of urban theory have celebrated gay men and women as the avant-garde of urban change, hence of the conquest of formerly working class and ethnic minority neighborhoods by bohemian middle and upper classes. What roles have sexuality and gay urban presence played in processes of gentrification? How have sex and gender been articulated in the urban governance of social marginalization? How are the sexual politics of neoliberalism to be understood? What role does the market play in the sexual reinvention of nationalism and citizenship and in shaping new (homo)normativities? Is the stigmatization of Muslim migrants as sexually conservative a reenactment of discourses that in the past stigmatized working class communities as immoral, archaic or authoritarian? What do the class politics of ‘sexularism’ look like? What kinds of subjectivities are produced in new regimes of sexual progress?
4. The Sexual Politics of Immigration Policies – The ever-stricter immigration policies of Europe – both at national levels and at the level of the E.U. – have often been justified in terms of sexual democracy: migrants, especially from Africa or other Islamic countries, have been ostensibly kept out, not on racial, but on sexual grounds, in order to preserve the hard-won democratic values of Europe in the treatment of sexual minorities, and even more crucially, of women. As a consequence, these same migrants, whose matrimonial (forced, fake, etc.) or sartorial (hijab, niqab, etc.) practices have thus been under constant scrutiny, are expected to demonstrate a sincere adhesion to sexual democracy that is presumed inherent to European cultures, despite its very recent history and contemporary limitations. How does such a constraint redefine the subjectivities of migrants – as well as that of their European partners? What does it mean for a woman of Islamic culture to be encouraged to reject her family’s expectations in order to express her sexual modernity? What are the strategies available to migrant women and sexual minorities who attempt to resist oppression, even violence, while refusing to be co-opted by anti-immigrant, if not xenophobic or racist, politics? In other words, what are the interactions between the sexual logic of immigration policies and the sexual imaginaries and practices of the migrants thus targeted?
5. European Sexual Modernization and Its Discontents – Today, the borders of Europe are also sexual boundaries. Admission into the E.U. requires identifying with the agenda of sexual democracy. At the same time, almost by definition, non-European countries are suspect. Turkey’s tradition of secularism largely inspired by the French historical model has not been sufficient to dispel the suspicion that this Muslim country is alien to European sexual democracy – as evidenced by the visible presence of the Islamic headscarf. In the same way, international campaigns against homophobia have largely been about the homophobia of others: the logic of human rights has focused more on legal repression than on legal discrimination – the penalization of homosexuality outside Europe rather than the exclusion of gays and lesbians from rights of marriage and adoption within Europe. Conversely, the Europeanization of sexual democracy has fueled reactive nationalisms, not only in those countries that are bound to remain on the margins of Europe, such as the Maghreb, but also in recent E.U. members – regarding homosexuality in particular, for example, in Poland or Lithuania. How are European and non-European sexual politics reconfigured in this new context, i.e. what are the political consequences, in various countries within and outside of Europe, of this geopolitical context?

We invite all those interested to submit a one-page abstract and a CV by: September 1, 2010.
Abstracts as well as questions can be sent to: Robert Davidson (R.J.Davidson@uva.nl)

Organizing Committee: Laurens Buijs, Sébastien Chauvin, Robert Davidson, Jan Willem Duyvendak, Eric Fassin, Paul Mepschen, Rachel Spronk, Bregje Termeer, and Oscar Verkaaik

Organizing Institutions:
Amsterdam Research Centre for Gender and Sexuality, UvA
Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire Sur Les Enjeux Sociaux, EHESS, Paris
Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, UvA
Research Cluster Dynamics of Citizenship and Culture, UvA
Research Centre for Religion and Society, UvA
Research Cluster Health, Care, and the Body, UvA

1 comment.

Cartoonesque 16 – Freedom: Drawing Muhammad and Banning the Burqa

Posted on May 24th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, ISIM/RU Research, Religious and Political Radicalization.

Last week it was Everybody Draw Muhammad Day. Originally begun as a protest against a South Park episode was censored after a threat (or was it a warning) not to depict the Prophet Muhammad (as a bear) in the series. The protest started with an announcement on the internet by cartoonist Molly Norris calling people to create a drawing representing the prophet Muhammad in order to protest against what was framed as (violent and/or threatening) efforts of Islamists to limit the freedom of speech or even as religious thuggery. The call received support from different sides who saw it as a celebration of the love of free speech and to protest against those who try to dictate the limits of a fundamental right.

As is the case in many of the cartoon-like controversies of recent, the complexity of political and religious issues pertaining to depictions of the sacred key symbols and freedom of speech, was reduced to a polarization of two antagonistic and mutually intolerant activisms: islamist groups vs. free speech. Referring to Islam as a religion that prohibits depictions of the prophet is neglecting the rich traditions in different parts of the world that do depict the prophet. The statement by Revolutionmuslim (the ones behind the threat)was quickly taken up by the mass media effectively supporting the production of such stereotypes and thereby supporting the claims of Revolutionmuslim that they represent Islam. It also serves to support the free speech protagonists’ claim of free speech as an unassailable virtue beyond all criticism and dismissing Muslim sensibilities and critique without any attempt to understand them and without any minor inquiry and reflection. Some even go so far as to use the picture of a Dutch Muslim politician in the Muhammad Cartoon of Muhammad with the bomb turban as to celebrate the love of freedom of speech (and to win votes for the upcoming elections). The claim on free speech in current European and US societies seems to be a reduced to a claim of freely reinforcing stereotypes and ignorance about Islam and an easy, shallow public performance of expressing solidarity with Enlightenment values; showing off that you are really on the good side. Somehow I think the protesters would be happy of this event would provoke violent reactions; it would ‘prove’ not only their case but also their righteousness. The Everybody Draw Mohammad Day as a means to stand up against people wanting to limit free speech is not so innocent as it may seem. By deliberately desecrating a key religious symbol of many Muslims (not only the radical ones) it by definition pushes Muslims (not only the radical ones) outside the circles of restraint and consideration; not worthy of the respect we think we should pay to those inside those circles. By taking the symbol of the prophet Muhammad the cartoonists are in fact saying we do not care about your sensibilities and your feelings and critique have no place in public sphere. It is not only aimed anymore at the radical Muslims of Revolutionmuslim but at all Muslim bystanders.

Besides my impression that Everybody Draw Muhammad Day is a rather childish form of political vandalalism many of the statements concerning free speech also seem to be based upon the assumption is that Islam is the last religion standing; the last religion that is not submitted by satire and humor. In the weeks leading up to the Everybody draw… however, Belgium has moved to ban niqabs and burqas, Italy is fining women wearing niqab, Quebec has set a ban for women wearin a niqab in public places, France has decided it will ban the niqab and burqa. In all cases because wearing one is seen as an offense of the nations’ traditions and public morals. The burqa has become a signifier or an icon so you will of the Islamic threat to society and attempts to civilize Muslims in our moral order. While many women wearing the niqab or burqa (in very small numbers) state they do so because God asks them to, other definitions are imposed on them even if they do not want to. They are seen as out of the realm of ‘our’ culture’, out of state’s attempts to gain more control over public space and out of the sexist gaze of men reducing women in public as objects of sexual desires. Not all these definitions are imposed of course; some of the women claim them too rendering burqas and niqabs probably even more problematic as an ostentatiouss form of cultural and political critique). It doesn’t really matter. As with the cartoons their is no criticial engagement with the question as to why some women wear the burqa or (perhaps more important) why most women don’t.

Banning female face covering is a piece of social engineering meant to bring the public domain back into compatibility with ‘our’ values of freedom and democracy. Both the Everybody Draw Muhammad Day and the burqa bans have in common that they are attempts to express and affirm a moral superiority over Muslims that need to be freed from their patriarchic religion that limits people’s freedom. It is a form of culturalizing citizenship whereby Muslims have to comply with our standards of reason, openness and freedoms. Both may be aimed at so-called radical Muslims but it imposes its intolerance on all Muslims. If the Everybody Draw Muhammad Day were to be directed only against radical Muslims why not, for example, invite people to draw caricatures of radicals instead of a key symbol of all Muslims? If the burqa ban were directed at radical Muslims why not only target those ones instead of claiming that veiled women are oppressed and backward (and women with a burqa the most of course) which has been refuted many times by now? And if these women are really oppressed, why punish them for that? And why is forcing someone to veil worse that forcing someone not to veil?

1 comment.

Cultuur, keuzes en hoofddoek

Posted on April 20th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, My Research, Public Islam.

Een groep moslima studentes schreven in de Volkskrant een stuk over de meerduidigheid en meerzinnigheid van de hoofddoek:
C L O S E R » Blog Archive » Brief: Lieve hoofddoekvrezenden, vrees ons niet, maar heb ons lief

Lieve hoofddoekvrezenden, wij hebben u lief, omdat wij weten dat u gewoon angstig bent en die angst op onze hoofddoek projecteert. Maar u hoeft ons niet te vrezen. Wij zijn het niet die de wijken van Gouda terroriseren, dat zijn andere allochtone jongeren waar wij niets mee hebben. Richt daarom je pijlen op hen en niet op onze hoofddoek. Soms horen wij mensen zeggen dat ze onze hoofddoek tolereren. Dat suggereert dat iedereen op ieder moment voor zichzelf kan beslissen of hij ons die vrijheid gunt of ter plekke besluit de hoofddoek van ons hoofd te rukken. Het lijkt om een gunst te gaan in plaats van een recht. Het is daarom zaak dat Wilders en andere hoofddoekvrezenden beseffen dat het hier om een verworven recht gaat dat niet onderhandelbaar is.

Lieve hoofddoekvrezenden, wij weten ook wel dat er moslima’s zijn die een hoofddoek op moeten en onderdrukt worden. Dat vinden wij heel erg. Want gedwongen worden je hoofddoek op te doen, is net zo erg als gedwongen worden je hoofddoek af te doen. Wij zouden graag zien dat de hoofddoek in de beeldvorming wordt losgekoppeld van onderdrukking. Want niet alle hoofddoekdragende moslima’s zijn zielig en worden onderdrukt.
[…]
Om onze eigen redenen, en die zijn net zo gecompliceerd en divers als wij zelf, dragen wij een hoofddoek. De betekenis ervan verandert steeds en is zeker niet voor iedereen gelijk. Voor de een is hij een culturele uiting, voor de ander een religieuze, voor een derde een strategische zet en voor een vierde een hip fashion statement.

Gehoofddoekte moslima’s zijn mondig, vechten voor hun vrijheid en dus ook voor de vrijheid een hoofddoek te dragen, en zij beschikken heus over een flink stel hersens die soms overuren draaien.

Naima Azough reageerde daar als volgt op:
C L O S E R » Blog Archive » Naima Azough – Meer eer met een hoofddoek?

moet ik daarom de hoofddoek liefhebben? Mag er uit solidariteit geen discussie meer zijn over diezelfde hoofddoek?

Wilders en consorten lijken elk diepergaand debat onder moslims zelf stil te hebben gelegd. Helaas, want er is – zonder het recht op dragen ter discussie te stellen – wel degelijk aanleiding voor vragen. Niet alleen over de dwang tot dragen waar de schrijfsters kort naar verwijzen. Want dwang daar is ieder weldenkend mens tegen. Makkelijk zat. Maar ook vragen als waarom zij heur haar moet bedekken, zodat hij niet overrompeld wordt door zijn driften? Wat zegt het over respect voor meiden zonder hoofddoek, als meiden mét hoofddoek stellen daarmee ‘respect af te dwingen’. Waarom kan een gesluierde vrouw geen seksuele voorlichting op Youtube geven, zonder dat ze daarmee haar hoofddoek zou onteren? Heb je dan meer eer met hoofddoek? Allemaal vragen over sociale druk die een serieuze discussie verdienen. En zoals ik niet snap waarom meisjes van zeven voorgevormde bikini’s wordt aangesmeerd, zo begrijp ik evenmin waarom meisjes van zeven een hoofddoekje dragen. Omdat mama hem draagt, omdat al hun vriendinnetjes hem dragen, omdat het moet? In beide gevallen maken we een vrouw van een jong kind. Maak je als vijfjarige een bewust fashion statement, politiek of religieus statement? Welke meerduidige betekenis heeft een bedekt kinderhoofdje volgens de schrijfsters? Of zouden ouders niet gewoon moeten zeggen: lieverd, wacht maar even tot je wat ouder bent.

De hoofddoek is – zolang er sprake is van vrije wil – in principe een privé zaak, dat ben ik met de schrijfsters eens. Zij hebben meer te doen dan hun recht op de hoofddoek te verdedigen. Want ik word er soms ook hoofddoekmoe van. Maar toch. Als moslimvrouwen met òf zonder hoofddoek niet meer het debat over die hoofddoek over hun hoofd willen laten verlopen, dan moeten ze dat debat vooral zelf voeren en ingewikkelde vragen niet uit de weg gaan.

In beide stukken staan de begrippen vrijheid en eigen keuze cq vrije wil centraal. De groep studentes claimt om verschillende redenen te kunnen kiezen voor een hoofddoek (zonder overigens dwang te ontkennen) en Azough wijst op de sociale druk die een rol kan spelen, maar stelt eveneens dat een hoofddoek gedragen uit vrije wil geen probleem zou moeten zijn.

Het is aardig om eens stil te staan bij vrije wil en vrije keuze. Hoe groot is het gedeelte van ons leven dat we niet zelf kiezen? Bepaalde taboes, kledingvoorschriften en uiterlijke zaken worden deels opgelegd. We kunnen er natuurlijk voor kiezen taboes te doorbreken, alternatieve kledingstijlen te dragen of geen bril te dragen (of ja een andere), maar toch is het niet zo simpel. De keuzes die mensen maken zijn namelijk altijd ingebed in een sociale omgeving en mensen maken keuzes in relatie tot anderen. Machtsverhoudingen, al dan niet openlijk, spelen daarbij een rol. Het is makkelijker om een wildvreemd iemand iets te weigeren, dan nee te zeggen tegen je eigen moeder of partner. Kinderen kunnen per definitie al niet doen wat zij willen. Als ze willen kunnen ze niet stemmen, zo moeten zo en zo laat thuis zijn, ze moeten naar school, ze moeten spruitjes eten (yakkes) en ze mogen boven een bepaalde leeftijd ook niet meer naakt of in luier op straat rondlopen. We dringen kinderen keuzes op die ze zelf niet zouden maken en wij hebben daar als kinderen ook mee te maken gehad. Op latere leeftijd hebben we deze beslissingen ge-internaliseerd en zouden we misschien hetzelfde doen of er ons juist tegen verzetten maar waarschijnlijker proberen om een middenweg te vinden.

Juist omdat keuzes gemaakt worden in een sociale omgeving en dus niet helemaal vrij zijn maar deels opgelegd, krijgen ze hun betekenis. Die betekenis ontstaat namelijk in interactie; een hoofddoek betekent niets wanneer er geen relatie is met een sociale omgeving. Het is de onvermijdelijkheid of de schijn ervan door druk, drang of dwang die een bepaalde handeling (of het nalaten ervan) betekenis verleent en ze zo krachtig kan maken. Het weigeren om een sluier te dragen in Saoedi-Arabië is iets heel anders dan een dergelijke weigering in het Nederland van nu en dat laatste is ook weer anders dan een weigering in het Nederland van de jaren ’50. Het dragen van een hoofddoek of niqab in Nederland is iets anders dan in Saoedi-Arabië of Frankrijk. Dit betekent ook dat keuzes maken in feite draait om onderhandelingen van mensen over definities en interpretaties van voorstellingen, praktijken en ervaringen en over de situaties waarin die voorstellingen, praktijken en ervaringen betekenisvol zijn.

Het beroep op de vrije keuze en vrije wil moet daarom ook niet in absolute termen worden gezien. Er bestaat niet zoiets als een vrije keuze. De opvatting dat een vrouw zich moet sluieren is door mensen ge-internaliseerd en kan daarom ervaren worden als vrije keuze. Datzelfde geldt voor de opvatting dat een vrouw zich niet hoort te sluieren teneinde de grillige man ter gewille te zijn en alleen uit vrije wil of zelfs dat niet. De nadruk op vrije keuze maakt wel enkele zaken duidelijk.

De constructie van moslimidentiteit is het resultaat van reflectie. Dit is deels een process waar jongeren bewust mee bezig zijn, maar het is ook gebaseerd op onbewuste routines en disposities. Deze reflectie wordt wel gezien als de kern van een moderne identiteit en heeft betrekking op het Zelf: de voorstelling die iemand heeft van zijn of haar eigen ik. Een voorwaarde voor deze reflexiviteit is dat het Zelf kan worden waargenomen vanuit een bepaalde distantie. Dit geldt niet alleen voor het Zelf, maar ook voor tradities en cultuur. Zowel het Zelf als de cultuur wordt geobjectiveerd; beide worden onderwerp van studie en reflective en het gevolg is dat beide gezien worden als verschijnselen met duidelijk herkenbare kenmerken, die kunnen worden onderscheiden van andere verschijnselen, die statisch zijn en met een duidelijke authentieke kern (de ‘eigen’ ik of de ‘zuivere’ islam). Reflecteren en kiezen zijn culturele processen die jongeren doormaken als een manier om zich te kunnen verhouden tot de veranderende omgeving. Bepaalde kenmerken van moderniteit, zoals individualisme, het streven naar zelfverwezenlijking en de nadruk op het zelf nadenken en religieus pluralisme evenals het huidige islamdebat versterken de noodzaak tot reflectie ook al omdat de nadruk op zelfreflectie en keuzes maken iets is wat jongeren aangeleerd wordt en er een zekere dwang/drang/sociale druk is tot het zelfstandig maken van keuzes.

De consequentie hiervan is dat de keuze voor een moslimidentiteit niet vanzelfsprekend is voor jongeren, maar ervaren wordt als een bewuste keuze uit meerdere opties waarover gereflecteerd wordt. Tegelijkertijd is reflectie op de eigen identiteit een manier om ‘trouw’ te zijn aan het eigenlijke Zelf en staat daarbij in het teken van de constructie van een authentiek Zelf. Authenticiteit betekent dat iemands wijze van bestaan aansluit bij zijn of haar ‘echte’ identiteit en natuur. In het geval van moslims kan dit bijvoorbeeld betekenen dat een persoon niet bepaalde leefregels volgt omdat dat ‘zo hoort’ of omdat anderen dat zeggen, maar omdat hij of zij dat zelf wil. Hierbij creëren mensen een identiteit rondom noties als echtheid en geloofwaardigheid. een claim die in het openbaar gemaakt kan worden door het benadrukken van de eigen vrije keuze juist in een omgeving en/of tijd waarin mensen hen die vrijheid ontzeggen of in twijfel trekken dat men vrije (en dus authentieke) individuen zijn. De claim op een hoofddoek als eigen keuze is dus betekenisvol juist omdat er vrouwen zijn die gedwongen worden en er een zekere mate van sociale druk is om het te dragen en omdat er een sociale druk is om het niet te dragen en er vrouwen zijn die erom lastig gevallen worden en vrouwen die gedwongen worden om het niet te dragen. De claim is evenzeer betekenisvol omdat het idee zou bestaan dat vrouwen met een hoofddoek deze per definitie zouden dragen omdat ze ertoe gedwongen zouden worden waarmee hen dus een eigen capaciteit tot handelen en betekenis geven (agency) ontzegt wordt.

Waar men het in dit hele debat dus wel over eens is, is het belang van vrije wil en vrije keuze. Terwijl daar nu dus juist vraagtekens bij gezet kunnen worden voor iedereen (niet alleen voor moslims dus) en niet alleen door antropologen en sociologen maar bijvoorbeeld ook door psychologen en sociaal-psychologen. De samenleving lijkt dus verenigd op basis van een illusie van vrije wil en vrije keuze. Een krachtige en soms ook nuttige illusie.

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Naima Azough – Meer eer met een hoofddoek?

Posted on April 19th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Public Islam, Young Muslims.

Naima Azough reageerde op een brief van een groep studentes over meerzinnigheid en meerduidigheid van de hoofddoek:
Waarom moet zij heur haar bedekken tegen zijn driften? – Opinie – de Volkskrant. Hieronder volgt de uitgebreide versie (via Allochtonen.web-log.nl)

Heb je meer eer met een hoofddoek?
Heel soms verlang ik naar een hoofddoek. Als mijn haar slecht zit, als ik koude oren heb of met natte haren door guur weer fiets. Maar die gedachte beklijft een seconde of twee en daarna waait hij over. Misschien zou ik er langer over denken als ik een puber van zestien was, om zo een figuurlijke middelvinger naar de tijdsgeest op te kunnen steken. Maar om de hele dag een politiek statement op mijn hoofd te dragen, gaat mij weer te ver.

In het artikel ‘Vrees ons niet, maar heb ons lief’ maandag jl. schreven een aantal moslima’s dat de hoofddoek meerzinnig en meerduidig is. Dat klopt. Er zijn altijd al vele redenen geweest voor de hoofddoek. Zo droegen vrije vrouwen in Athene een sluier om zich te onderscheiden van slavinnen. Als symbool van zedigheid en toebehoren aan de gemeenschap. In zekere zin is dat nog altijd de meest traditionele betekenis. Ook in Nederland anno 2010. Daarnaast had en heeft de hoofddoek ook een maatschappelijke en politieke functie. Waar er in de jaren zestig en zeventig bijvoorbeeld nauwelijks hoofddoeken op de universiteiten van Caïro en Ankara te zien waren, beschrijven sociologen vanaf de jaren tachtig een toename aan hoogopgeleide, gesluierde moslimvrouwen die uitgesproken assertief optraden. In het streng seculiere Turkije leidde en leidt deze religieuze assertiviteit tot ophef. Voor de seculiere elite was dit nieuwe fenomeen onbegrijpelijk. Natuurlijk was er het oude, traditionele hoofddoekje van de laagopgeleide vrouw, maar dat was een overblijfsel uit voorbije tijden waar verder geen waarde aan hoefde te worden gehecht. Maar diezelfde laagopgeleide vrouwen waren met hun mannen van het platteland naar de grote steden verhuisd. Scholing en werk creëerden een nieuwe middenklasse, tussen traditionele volksislam en seculiere elite in. En diens dochters tooiden zich met de hoofddoek als het symbool van deze jonge middenklasse. Tegelijk waren ze daardoor vrij, in tegenstelling tot hun moeders, om zich een weg te banen in de buitenwereld. Omdat ze zich met de hoofddoek goede moslimdochters betonen. Een beetje zoals voor meiden in Amsterdam-Slotervaart soms geldt.

Ook in Nederland heeft de hoofddoek een politieke betekenis. Enerzijds zet Wilders de hoofddoek neer als belichaming van islamitische achterlijkheid en de onderdrukking van de moslimvrouw die hij wil dwingen tot ‘bevrijding’. Anderzijds positioneren orthodoxe moslims de zedige moslima als het symbool van superioriteit tegenover het decadente verseksualiseerde westen.

Niets nieuws onder de zon. Begin vorige eeuw, rond 1900, was de hoofddoek inzet van een felle strijd tussen koloniale heersers in het Midden-Oosten en een deel van het verzet tegen het koloniale bewind. Aan de ene kant zette de anti-koloniale moslimbeweging in Egypte de hoofddoek in als geuzenteken van het verzet. Een patriottische vrouw was een gesluierde vrouw. Aan de andere kant meende de Britse consul-generaal Lord Cromer, dat de Egyptische vrouw met dwang ontdaan moest worden van haar man èn de sluier. Ze kon zich zelfs beter bekeren tot het christendom, want respect voor vrouwen was volgens hem inherent aan dit geloof. Een pleidooi dat kort geleden door Ayaan Hirsi Ali werd herhaald. Ironisch genoeg, was diezelfde Lord Cromer in eigen land een verklaard tegenstander van vrouwenrechten en vooral vrouwenkiesrecht.

Dus terecht concluderen Nora Kasrioui e.a. dat de hoofddoek vele betekenissen heeft. Er zijn moslima’s die uit religieuze zin voor de hoofddoek kiezen en tot een nieuwe lichting feministen behoren. Er zijn moslimvrouwen die uit culturele traditie een hoofddoek dragen. Er zijn ook meiden die hippe hoofddoeken combineren met een skinny en hoge hakken. Hun recht op een hoofddoek staat buiten kijf. Net als het recht er geen dragen. De dag dat de smerige term kopvoddentax in de handelingen van de Tweede Kamer werd bijgeschreven, was een inktzwarte dag voor onze democratie. Want mijn moeder draagt een hoofddoek, mijn tantes, nichtjes. Ik heb hun lief en zij mij. Maar moet ik daarom de hoofddoek liefhebben? Mag er uit solidariteit geen discussie meer zijn over diezelfde hoofddoek?

Wilders en consorten lijken elk diepergaand debat onder moslims zelf stil te hebben gelegd. Helaas, want er is – zonder het recht op dragen ter discussie te stellen – wel degelijk aanleiding voor vragen. Niet alleen over de dwang tot dragen waar de schrijfsters kort naar verwijzen. Want dwang daar is ieder weldenkend mens tegen. Makkelijk zat. Maar ook vragen als waarom zij heur haar moet bedekken, zodat hij niet overrompeld wordt door zijn driften? Wat zegt het over respect voor meiden zonder hoofddoek, als meiden mét hoofddoek stellen daarmee ‘respect af te dwingen’. Waarom kan een gesluierde vrouw geen seksuele voorlichting op Youtube geven, zonder dat ze daarmee haar hoofddoek zou onteren? Heb je dan meer eer met hoofddoek? Allemaal vragen over sociale druk die een serieuze discussie verdienen. En zoals ik niet snap waarom meisjes van zeven voorgevormde bikini’s wordt aangesmeerd, zo begrijp ik evenmin waarom meisjes van zeven een hoofddoekje dragen. Omdat mama hem draagt, omdat al hun vriendinnetjes hem dragen, omdat het moet? In beide gevallen maken we een vrouw van een jong kind. Maak je als vijfjarige een bewust fashion statement, politiek of religieus statement? Welke meerduidige betekenis heeft een bedekt kinderhoofdje volgens de schrijfsters? Of zouden ouders niet gewoon moeten zeggen: lieverd, wacht maar even tot je wat ouder bent.

De hoofddoek is – zolang er sprake is van vrije wil – in principe een privé zaak, dat ben ik met de schrijfsters eens. Zij hebben meer te doen dan hun recht op de hoofddoek te verdedigen. Want ik word er soms ook hoofddoekmoe van. Maar toch. Als moslimvrouwen met òf zonder hoofddoek niet meer het debat over die hoofddoek over hun hoofd willen laten verlopen, dan moeten ze dat debat vooral zelf voeren en ingewikkelde vragen niet uit de weg gaan.

2 comments.

Brief: Lieve hoofddoekvrezenden, vrees ons niet, maar heb ons lief

Posted on April 13th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Public Islam, Young Muslims.

Een interessante brief van een groep politiek actieve moslima studentes in de Volkskrant die de debatten over secularisme en feminisme oppakt in relatie tot de hoofddoek.
Vrees ons niet, maar heb ons lief – Opinie – de Volkskrant

Hoofddoeken zijn meerzinnig en meerduidig!

Het lijkt alsof onze hoofddoek steeds meer gevreesd wordt. Uit de discussie over de hoofddoek in Frankrijk, België en Nederland, leiden wij af dat het dragen van een hoofddoek een belangrijk vraagstuk voor de toekomst wordt. En als het over onze hoofddoeken gaat, willen wij daar graag bij zijn want we zien het klimaat steeds grimmiger worden, zonder dat wij daar een stem in hebben.

De laatste maanden wordt er over onze hoofddoek veel geroepen en we constateren dat er mensen en politieke partijen zijn die onze hoofddoek vrezen, ‘de hoofddoekvrezenden’, hebben dingen over ons geroepen waar wij ons geenszins in herkennen, bijvoorbeeld dat wij onderdrukt worden en zielig zijn. En dat wij tegen de Nederlandse normen en waarden zijn en met ons gedrag onze onderdrukkende broers en vaders ondersteunen.

Seculier
Ook seculiere feministen vielen over ons heen. Zij accepteren niet dat hoofddoekdragende moslima’s zich feminist noemen. Maar waarom zou dat niet mogen? Wij staan een feminisme voor waar ook ruimte is voor vrijwillig gehoofddoekte moslimfeministen. In de nieuwe feministische stroming 3.0 gaan hoofddoek en feminisme zeer goed samen.

Wij constateren dat er accentverschuiving is in het debat rondom de islam en dat de pijlen nu op de hoofddoekdragende moslima’s gericht zijn. Het klimaat jegens hoofddoekdragende moslima’s is bij een deel van de bevolking zo vijandig, dat de PVV vindt dat de straten hoofddoekvrij moeten worden. Ze heeft het vernederende begrip kopvoddentax geïntroduceerd. De PVV’ers en andere hoofddoekvrezenden hebben geprobeerd de maatschappij tegen ons op te zetten zodat wij in de verdediging zijn gedrongen.

Op straat en internetfora wordt geroepen: ‘Hé, vind je het heerlijk je hoofd met zo’n vod te bedekken?’ Het dragen van de hoofddoek is bij de vox populi nog geen geaccepteerd recht. Genoeg moslima’s moeten zich in het maatschappelijke discours verantwoorden voor het dragen van een hoofddoek.

Angstig
Lieve hoofddoekvrezenden, wij hebben u lief, omdat wij weten dat u gewoon angstig bent en die angst op onze hoofddoek projecteert. Maar u hoeft ons niet te vrezen. Wij zijn het niet die de wijken van Gouda terroriseren, dat zijn andere allochtone jongeren waar wij niets mee hebben. Richt daarom je pijlen op hen en niet op onze hoofddoek. Soms horen wij mensen zeggen dat ze onze hoofddoek tolereren. Dat suggereert dat iedereen op ieder moment voor zichzelf kan beslissen of hij ons die vrijheid gunt of ter plekke besluit de hoofddoek van ons hoofd te rukken. Het lijkt om een gunst te gaan in plaats van een recht. Het is daarom zaak dat Wilders en andere hoofddoekvrezenden beseffen dat het hier om een verworven recht gaat dat niet onderhandelbaar is.

Lieve hoofddoekvrezenden, wij weten ook wel dat er moslima’s zijn die een hoofddoek op moeten en onderdrukt worden. Dat vinden wij heel erg. Want gedwongen worden je hoofddoek op te doen, is net zo erg als gedwongen worden je hoofddoek af te doen. Wij zouden graag zien dat de hoofddoek in de beeldvorming wordt losgekoppeld van onderdrukking. Want niet alle hoofddoekdragende moslima’s zijn zielig en worden onderdrukt.

Razendsnel
Genoeg moslima’s gaan naar universiteit en hogeschool en emanciperen razendsnel. Genoeg moslima’s ervaren de hoofddoek als een hip fashion statement, als een onderdeel van onze identiteit. Dat wij van onze hoofddoek houden, is geen teken van achterlijkheid of analfabetisme. Om onze eigen redenen, en die zijn net zo gecompliceerd en divers als wij zelf, dragen wij een hoofddoek. De betekenis ervan verandert steeds en is zeker niet voor iedereen gelijk. Voor de een is hij een culturele uiting, voor de ander een religieuze, voor een derde een strategische zet en voor een vierde een hip fashion statement.

Gehoofddoekte moslima’s zijn mondig, vechten voor hun vrijheid en dus ook voor de vrijheid een hoofddoek te dragen, en zij beschikken heus over een flink stel hersens die soms overuren draaien. Politici moeten weten dat het accepteren van de hoofddoek geen teken van barmhartigheid of verdraagzaamheid is waar je stemmen mee kunt winnen, maar een wettelijke plicht.

Lieve hoofddoekvrezenden, wij hebben er oprecht over nagedacht waar uw angst vandaan komt. om onze hoofdbedekking gevreesd wordt. misschien denken jullie dat wij de hoofddoek van onze broers en zussen op moeten of dat we aanhangers zijn van een fundamentalistische islam, die de democratische rechtsstaat omver wil werpen. Helaas komt het nog teveel voor dat wij onze tijd en energie steken in het verdedigen van ons recht een hoofddoek te dragen. Wij zouden die liever blijven steken in onze emancipatiestrijd en het ondersteunen van vrouwen die belemmeringen ondervinden bij die strijd, of dat nu door vaders, broers of rechtse actoren komt.

Omarmen
Wij omarmen de Nederlandse rechtsstaat en hebben vooral een hekel aan onderdrukkende broers want zij zijn het die het voor ons, hoofddoekmeiden, versjteren. Wij ontkennen niet dat er ook gehoofddoekte moslimvrouwen zijn die onderdrukt worden. En evenmin dat er moslima’s zijn die louter op bevel van hun broers een hoofddoek dragen. Wij kennen deze moslima’s en we komen voor hen op.

Maar het is niet in overeenstemming met de complexe realiteit, als de hoofddoek altijd en overal gezien wordt als een symbool van onderdrukking. De hoofddoek is meerzinnig en meerduidig!

Nora Kasrioui, Student Bestuurskunde Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam en Opzij columnist.
Rachida Belhadj, Student Bestuurskunde Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam.
Barbara Chalghaf, Student Public International Law Rijksuniversiteit Leiden.
Hayet Ezzarfani, Student Bedrijfseconomie Avans Hogeschool Breda.
Sheima Farag, Student Geneeskunde Universiteit van Amsterdam.
Aouatif Tawfik, Student Rechten Vrije Universiteit en Arabist.

Zie ook de reacties en discussies hierover op
God voor Dommen

Carel Brendel

Maroc.nl

UPDATE

Zie ook de reactie van Naïma Azough (GroenLinks) in de Volkskrant: Waarom moet zij heur haar bedekken tegen zijn driften? U vindt de uitgebreide versie op deze site: HIER.

1 comment.

Edien Bartels – Eén dochter is beter dan duizend zonen (incl. english summary)

Posted on January 27th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues.

In haar proefschrift uit 1993, “Eén dochter is beter dan duizend zonen’. Arabische vrouwen, symbolen en machtsverhoudingen tussen de sexen, betoogt antropologe Edien Bartels dat Arabische moslimvrouwen geen passieve slachtoffers van onderdrukking door mannen zijn, maar actieve individuen die vanuit hun eigen positie in de samenleving een eigen visie op de sociale realiteit ontwikkelen, eigen strategieën ontwikkelen en strategisch gebruik maken van allerlei symbolen om macht uit te oefenen.

Het proefschrift dat dus al enige tijd oud is, heeft aan actualiteit niets aan waarde ingeleverd. Het is inmiddels te downloaden van de VU repository HIER.

English Summary

This volume, made up of a collection of related articles, focuses upon three issues: how Arabic women experience the balance of power between the sexes, how they express these experiences in symbols, and which symbolic strategies they devise to deal with the differences in power. It is based on field work conducted between 1976 and 1991 in three locations: rural Tunisia, Morocco and in the Netherlands among migrant Moroccan women. Part 1 (‘Women, symbolism and strategy’) describes the research process (Chapter 2) and the theoretical framework for the study (Chapter 1). The theoretical exercise is based on two choices made during field work. The first important decision was to focus on women’s vision of the balance of power. This choice is based on the supposition that Arabic women are not passive victims of suppression, but acting individuals capable of developing their own vision of reality and asserting it. This conception appears self-evident – most anthropologists would characterize Arabic men in a similar vein. Discussions in scientific literature demonstrate, however, that the idea is not yet clear for Arabic women. In contrast to many studies, it is not my intention to refute the current stereotypes and ‘prove’ that Arabic women are in fact similar to the rest of mankind.

As women occupy a different social position than men, one can generally distinguish a women’s and a men’s perspective on society. Whether various groups of women have their own visions of reality is the subject of much research: in this study I elaborate on the specific viewpoints of Arabic village women.

The second part of the book, titled ‘Women and Men’, investigates the varying perspectives of Tunisian women and men. Chapter three (‘The boy’s mother resembles a fish bone’) describes how I was confronted with differences in vision between women and men during my field work, and later tried to interpret these theoretically. A theoretical foundation hinging on the concept of subculture is provided in Chapter 4, called ‘Women’s perspective and men’s perspective: a useful distinction?’ Thesubcultural perspective offers the opportunity to determine the visions of men and women separately, and also explore the relationship between both sexes in a broader cultural framework. In addition, it concretizes the proposition that a women’s vision can only be spoken of if there is structural coherence between their various notions and ideas.

The second important decision I made was to choose symbolism as a tool to order the chaos inherent to field material. For the reconstruction of the substance of women’s vision I lean on Eickelman (1976), who distinguishes perspectives in symbolism on two different levels. Eickelman first demarcates a ‘common-sense perspective’, which resides at what I call the subcultural level. I use this concept to reconstruct the experiences of women as a social category. Secondly, Eickelman distinguishes a ‘religious perspective’ at a higher level of analysis. I consider this as an inclusive cultural framework with elements from both the women’s and the men’s perspective. In order to reconstruct women’s vision I do not take the symbolism of women at the subcultural level but the broader cultural context as a point of departure. Part 3, titled ‘Women and saints’, looks into an item of symbolism wielded both by men and women: saints. According to Turner, saints are a dominant symbol with high durability and consistency within the whole symbolic system. They are fixed points in social as well as cultural structures and function as links between the two (Turner 1967: 31-32). Saints also act as connecting symbols between various subcultures as well as between subcultures and the enveloping cultural structure.

Chapter 5 (‘A village saint as binding agenf) demonstrates that women are not passive victims, and that they do not only move about in a female world. Women live in a village community and actively intercede in the lives of both men and women. They are also able to play an important role in political conflicts which apparently do not involve them at all, by manipulating symbolic conceptions and practices. The argument in this chapter is that reality does not accommodate a ‘submissive women’s culture’ and a ‘dominant men’s culture’, but two subcultures with subcultural differences. However strong sex segregation may appear to be, there is always a more inclusive cultural framework containing influences from the two subcultures.

In Chapter 6 (‘The two faces of saints in the Maghreb’) I commence with the more general cultural context and subsequently reconstruct a women’s and a men’s perspective on saints. Saints form a gender-related symbol employed by men and women alike. I demonstrate that its polysemic character allows for confirmations of and protest against gender representations and relations simultaneously. This is the reason women are able to identify with symbolic representations which, in the first instance, appear to belong to the dominant men’s perspective. Further examination also indicates that women in North Africa have what Ahmed (1982: 167-168) calls a ‘native tradition of feminism’, which is not the result of contact with the West. Analyses of the perceptions and rituals of the veneration of saints indicate that equality in gender relations is of great importance to women.

Part 4 (‘Women and children’) is devoted to an exploration of women’s vision at the subcultural level. As village men and women in Tunisia and Morocco persistently reduce social differences between the sexes to biological distinctions – fertility, reproduction and related physical characteristics, I focus on motherhood. ‘Motherhood is the fulfilment of a woman’s life’ (cf. Hache-al-Luch 1987), it makes up her identity (‘mere-avant-tout’, cf. Lacoste-Dujardin 1985). Motherhood constitutes woman’s most important power base (‘au royaume des meres’, cf. Boudhiba 1975) but also makes for her submission to the land patrilineal kinship system (‘des meres contre les femmes’, cf. Lacoste-Dujardin 1985). Chapter 7 (‘Virgins and mothers’) contains an overview of perceptions about pregnancy and childbirth among traditional Moroccan women and relates them to their social position. Chapter 8 (‘Young mothers are like cats’) describes spirit possessions and torments of young mothers in rural Tunisia. These conceptions of possession are presented to express the problems young mothers are likely to face, as well as their position within the family and their relationship with the baby. The manner in which rural Tunisian women utilize their symbolic perceptions to ‘adapt to’ or ‘fit in’ maledominated views of the reproductive process is also depicted. Although chapters 7 and 8 are written from the viewpoint of women, they are based on ‘shared concepts’ of fertility, pregnancy, childbirth and the post-delivery period. According to these concepts, male fertility plays the central and dominant role in human reproduction; motherhood mainly develops after childbirth. Men bring this view forward time and time again. In fact these perceptions are used as critical arguments to legitimize the patriarchal and patrilineal nature of society. In Chapter 9 (‘Whose baby is it really?’) the focus shifts back to the women’s perspective. I describe how rural women give their own interpretation to processes of fertility and procreation. The proposition that women are active members of society is elaborated in the fifth and last part of the book (‘Women and strategy’) which considers women’s actions. Although individual women appear to react quite differently to circumstances, patterns may be recognized when the social category is taken as a whole. The discussion goes beyond incidental efforts to achieve a goal, beyond tactics. It looks into the conscious and unconscious reactions of women to the balance of power between the sexes and to the way in which they, proceeding from the women’s perspective, utilize symbolism. Chapter 10 (‘1 can still bear a beating’) is devoted to the way Moroccan migrant women in the Netherlands make strategic use of the cultural concepts of honour, virtue and disgrace in the power relationship with Moroccan men. It is demonstrated that women are able to plot a strategy even in the most threatening circumstances. Chapter 11 (‘Reinfibulation and the battle against women’s circumcision’) describes how women use reinfibulation as a tactic to improve their position in the context of social and economic change. Such cultural notions are employed not only to survive the gender struggle, but also to improve their relative position with men vis-a-vis other women.

Which conclusions are drawn in this study with regard to the scientific and social goals as set out in the first paragraph? In the first place it has become clear that the reconstruction of women’s views on the basis of a subcultural perspective illuminates the cohesion of symbolic conceptions and practices exercised by women. It is shown that symbolic concepts are arranged in two manners: on the one hand there is structural coherence between notions held by women at the subcultural level; on the other hand these are again related to symbolism at the more inclusive cultural level. Eickelman’s approach to symbols proves to be useful. By distinguishing ‘levels’ of representation and action in the symbolism used by Arabic women in rural Tunisia, it is possible to identify differences and construct a hierarchic order. The central perception of gender equality, as reconstructed for the more inclusive cultural level, can also be found in women’s representations at the subcultural level. It is clear that women experience the notions of fertility and reproduction wielded by men to justify their social position as unjust. Village women repeatedly emphasize that they do not feel they should be subordinate.

Secondly, the study demonstrates how women experience the fact that men’s perspective dominates at the inclusive cultural level. It also shows that men’s views are buttressed by ‘assistants’ among women. Notable among these are the traditional midwives. Although midwives are the help and stay of women giving birth, an analysis of symbolic concepts reveals that they are also key figures in the Arabic social order and the hierarchic relationship between the sexes. Whereas older women in their position as mother-in-law can be viewed as ‘sergeants’ of men’s perspective, traditional midwives assist men in disseminating their vision of the process of fertility and procreation. Hereby they confirm the patriarchal and patrilinear structure of society.

Finally, the study proves the validity of supposing that Arabic women do not passively submit to power differentials. An approach in which ‘power’ is characterized as a process of interaction and negotiation is fruitful. By applying symbolism strategically, women try to change the balance of power between the sexes in their favour. The reconstruction of a women’s perspective also has social relevance. Female circumcision and women’s abuse are viewed as some of the worst expressions of male domination. However, well-intended campaigns against these practices are often ethnocentric. Women are not passive victims, even in the case of abuse and circumcision. In combatting these practices the women in question must be involved. This will only be realized if it is based on their own vision and experiences.

0 comments.

Visual representation of Muslim women and the state

Posted on December 7th, 2009 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Public Islam.

In several previous posts I have paid attention to the use of images of Muslim women in government ads, see HERE and HERE. Such campaigns usually produce some debate and yes we have a new one again. On a website for internships at state instutions the following picture is used:

Think Ahead

Conservative-liberal party VVD asked the government for clarification on this matter. According to the VVD the campaign suggests that the government wants to employ more women with face-covering clothes. According to spokesman De Krom:

This is a campaign aimed at attracting young adults for a job at a state institution. Face-covering clothes is actually something the government tries to ban from the public domain and foremost from the state’s institutions.

A spokesperson of the Home Office stated that the campaign and its ads is meant to represent issues the state has to deal with.

This shows that there are differences in culture of young Dutch people the state has to engage with. Sometimes this is a puzzle.

Another picure used is this one for example:

The idea of the site is clear, and probably it is well intended. However it again shows the focus of the Dutch state on cultural differences, not all cultural differences but only those that represent people not part of mainstream society or better what is regarded as how mainstream society should be. Also when representing a Muslim woman, the idea always seems to be that she wears a headscarf or something like that. A Muslim woman without a headscarf may not be as recognizable perhaps, but should a (secular) state present such a stereotypical representation of Muslim women?

VVD spokesperson follows an interesting logic here. According to him the campaign suggests that the state is willing to hire women with facecovering. Looking at the second picture, would that also mean that the state is willing to hire kids who are too fat (assuming ‘we’ don’t like that as well)? Since the debate is usually about the representation of Muslim women, it is interesting to see how, again, white non-Muslim men are worried about the clothes of Muslim women, thereby marking and guarding the boundaries between Muslims and non-Muslims but also between men and women claiming the right to decide how women should be dressed or not.

In this case interesting as well is that the image of the women is not new. It has been there I think for several years now. So why now the fuss over the representation of women ánd the state?

0 comments.

Borstkanker: Roze Hijab Dag

Posted on October 28th, 2009 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues.

Oktober is de maand van de borstkanker en er zijn al diverse manifestaties geweest om het bewustzijn met betrekking tot borstkanker te vergroten en geld in te zamelen. Nu blijkt dat allochtone Nederlandse vrouwen in Nederland (onder wie dus vele moslima’s) minder kans hebben op borstkanker dan autochtone Nederlandse vrouwen. Daarbij moet wel wat aangetekend worden. De kans op borstkanker onder allochtone Nederlandse vrouwen is vergelijkbaar met die van de vrouwen uit de landen van herkomst, maar onder jonge allochtone Nederlandse vrouwen is de kans wel groter. Dit is in overeenstemming met ander onderzoek dat er op wijst dat wanneer vrouwen uit landen met een lage kans op borstkanker migreren naar een land met meer kans op borstkanker, die kans voor de migrantenvrouwen significant toeneemt. Dit heeft te maken met integratie in die landen waarbij de leefstijl (voedsel, aantal kinderen dat men krijgt, de leeftijd waarop men kinderen krijgt) zich langzaam maar zeker aanpast aan die van de dominante meerderheid in dat land. En laten we wel wezen, ook al is de kans kleiner, ieder geval is er één teveel toch?

Op de website Mammarosa kan in diverse talen meer informatie ingewonnen worden: Marokkaans, Berbers, Papiamento, Sranan Tongo en Turks.

Naast de internationale Pink Ribbon actie is er nu ook een internationale Pink Hijab Day en dat is vandaag, woensdag 28 oktober 2009:
Global Pink Hijab Day Official Site

Pink Hijab Day is intended to shatter stereotypes of Muslim women, as well as raise awareness and funds for breast cancer research. All over the world, Muslims participated by wearing pink hijabs, pink ribbons, and donating to breast cancer foundations.

Twee jaar geleden werd deze dag voor het eerst gehouden op een high school in Columbia, VS waar een groep meisjes besloot één dag een roze hijab te dragen om anderen te stimuleren hen vragen te stellen over de hijab en islam en daarnaast werd de Susan G Komen Foundation uitgekozen als partner. en initiatiefneemster Hend El-Buri probeert de actie nu bredere ingang te laten vinden. De bedoeling is dat deze dag een dialoog op gang brengt, bewustzijn over kanker vergroot en informatie verspreid over de hijab.

Muslimah2Muslimah heeft een video gemaakt over deze dag:
[flashvideo filename=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IFryniggRQ /]

Zie ook het filmpje van Kimdonesia op Muxlim.com.
Wellicht zal niet iedereen (moslims en niet-moslims) gelukkig zijn met een initiatief dat zo duidelijk de hijab aanprijst, maar niettemin is het toch een aardig initiatief denk ik. En zoals op Sarah the Red te zien is, je hoeft geen moslima te zijn om er te dragen, desnoods of zelfs in virtual reality. Ik heb in Nederland nog niet veel verwijzingen naar de Pink Hijab Day aangetroffen (behalve vorig jaar op de Hyves van Abayati en dit jaar een korte melding op Marokko.nl), maar wie weet komt dat nog als er behoefte aan is (geen idee). Een Nederlandse film die zich specifiek op allochtone Nederlandse vrouwen richt is ‘Borstkanker Ontsluierd‘ (wat ook een betekenisvolle verwijzing naar de hijab is…). In deze film wordt aandacht besteed aan allochtone Nederlandse vrouwen en hun ervaringen met en beleving van borstkanker met thema’s als geloof, vooroordelen, schuld en schaamte.

Het is een goed idee denk ik om met specifieke campagnes verschillende doelgroepen aan te spreken en of dat nu vanuit eigen kring of niet, vanuit islamitisch perspectief of een meer seculier perspectief gebeurt, maakt eigenlijk niet zoveel uit. Kanker heeft namelijk de heel vervelende eigenschap zich niet aan symbolische grenzen te houden.

1 comment.

Whose body is it anyway? | Amsterdam mayor: No Benefit with Burqa

Posted on September 28th, 2009 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, ISIM/RU Research, Public Islam.

It seems that, with a few notable exceptions, people in the Netherlands have been accustomed to the headscarf. The burqa or niqaab however is a different matter. A while ago there was a debate in the Netherlands about banning the burqa from public spaces. A proposal for this by Wilders’ Party of Freedom never made it, but in the mean time the burqa and niqaab have been banned for women in public service. Working for local or national authorities, at schools and universities, the burqa/niqaab is not allowed. a decision that has been implemented without any fuss, let alone a political debate.

Now the social democratic mayor of Amsterdam, famous for his attempts to ‘keep people together’ has stated in an interview in Dutch daily Trouw:

Contrary to france, the separation of church and state never meant that public space should be free of religious expressions. […]Personally I find it terrible to see a woman walk about in a burqa. But whether or not I like it is not a criterium by which to forbid it

In situations however when contact and interaction with other people is necessary, things are different according to him:

I agree with the notion that if you cannot find work because of the burqa you can also not turn up for benefits.

The idea is similar to what current Rotterdam mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb (also social democrat) said in 2006 in an interview with feminist magazine Opzij:

Nobody wants to hire someone with a burqa […] In that case, I say: off with the burka and apply for work. If you don’t want to do that, that’s fine, but you don’t get a benefit payment.

Now if Cohen says he thinks a burqa is terrible, but that is not a reason to ban it, he is right of course. But if other people hate the burqa too and therefore do not want women on the working place wearing it, that is a reason to cut benefit for women with a burqa? There are not that many women wearing niqaab, let alone burqa (not that both terms are used as if they are the same) so is it that difficult to come up with a solution that fits the individual case? Do we really need a law for this or a general measure?

In 2006 and 2007 a counter campaign was run by Muslim women opposing the proposed ban on the burqa. There was an online petition and a demonstration in the Hague. The demonstration took place and the slogans used focused on themes such as freedom, personal choice and emancipation. (Interesting at that time was that a few days before this demonstration, another demonstration took place in which Afghan women also used the burqa for their statement about freedom and emancipation, but then in order not to be expelled to Afghanistan where they would be forced to wear it). As I have shown in my PhD research and also in my current research on the Salafi movement, female behaviour and body, therefore, are important symbolic boundary markers. And not only for Muslims. The teenage girls and women in my research also experienced their behaviour and attire as an important factor in the attention of native Dutch people which leads them to the perception that not only do other Muslims try to tell them how to behave and what to wear, but so also do the native Dutch. By politicizing gender in relation to Islam, women become the core of the struggle between Muslims and native Dutch people over the control of the Muslims in the Netherlands. They have become the embodiment of the Islam debate and integration debate as well as many internal Muslim struggles.

Will be continued probably.

1 comment.

Whose body is it anyway? | Amsterdam mayor: No Benefit with Burqa

Posted on September 28th, 2009 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, ISIM/RU Research, Public Islam.

It seems that, with a few notable exceptions, people in the Netherlands have been accustomed to the headscarf. The burqa or niqaab however is a different matter. A while ago there was a debate in the Netherlands about banning the burqa from public spaces. A proposal for this by Wilders’ Party of Freedom never made it, but in the mean time the burqa and niqaab have been banned for women in public service. Working for local or national authorities, at schools and universities, the burqa/niqaab is not allowed. a decision that has been implemented without any fuss, let alone a political debate.

Now the social democratic mayor of Amsterdam, famous for his attempts to ‘keep people together’ has stated in an interview in Dutch daily Trouw:

Contrary to france, the separation of church and state never meant that public space should be free of religious expressions. […]Personally I find it terrible to see a woman walk about in a burqa. But whether or not I like it is not a criterium by which to forbid it

In situations however when contact and interaction with other people is necessary, things are different according to him:

I agree with the notion that if you cannot find work because of the burqa you can also not turn up for benefits.

The idea is similar to what current Rotterdam mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb (also social democrat) said in 2006 in an interview with feminist magazine Opzij:

Nobody wants to hire someone with a burqa […] In that case, I say: off with the burka and apply for work. If you don’t want to do that, that’s fine, but you don’t get a benefit payment.

Now if Cohen says he thinks a burqa is terrible, but that is not a reason to ban it, he is right of course. But if other people hate the burqa too and therefore do not want women on the working place wearing it, that is a reason to cut benefit for women with a burqa? There are not that many women wearing niqaab, let alone burqa (not that both terms are used as if they are the same) so is it that difficult to come up with a solution that fits the individual case? Do we really need a law for this or a general measure?

In 2006 and 2007 a counter campaign was run by Muslim women opposing the proposed ban on the burqa. There was an online petition and a demonstration in the Hague. The demonstration took place and the slogans used focused on themes such as freedom, personal choice and emancipation. (Interesting at that time was that a few days before this demonstration, another demonstration took place in which Afghan women also used the burqa for their statement about freedom and emancipation, but then in order not to be expelled to Afghanistan where they would be forced to wear it). As I have shown in my PhD research and also in my current research on the Salafi movement, female behaviour and body, therefore, are important symbolic boundary markers. And not only for Muslims. The teenage girls and women in my research also experienced their behaviour and attire as an important factor in the attention of native Dutch people which leads them to the perception that not only do other Muslims try to tell them how to behave and what to wear, but so also do the native Dutch. By politicizing gender in relation to Islam, women become the core of the struggle between Muslims and native Dutch people over the control of the Muslims in the Netherlands. They have become the embodiment of the Islam debate and integration debate as well as many internal Muslim struggles.

Will be continued probably.

1 comment.

The headscarf all over…again

Posted on September 14th, 2009 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues.

Sometimes particular debates become very irritating. In particular because they seem to return every year. This time in Europe the Belgian case makes headlines. There has been a row in Antwerp about the banning of headscarves on one of the schools triggering all kinds of protests among Muslims and others. Yesterday the Council of State (the highest advisory body) in Belgium stated (after an official protest of a Muslim girl) that individual schools cannot ban the headscarf. The result is now that the network of community schools in Belgium (Flanders) decided to ban the headscarf in all schools. Already 1/3 of the 700 schools belonging to this network has such a ban; for the rest a transitional period of one year will applied. The ban does not only apply to headscarfs but to all religious symbols.

Then in several newspapers and all over the internet a debate about the headscarf is going on that started with an article in the Sydney Morning Herald by Naomi Wolfe.Behind the veil lives a thriving Muslim sexuality – Opinion – smh.com.au

Ideological battles are often waged with women’s bodies as their emblems, and Western Islamophobia is no exception. When France banned headscarves in schools, it used the hijab as a proxy for Western values in general, including the appropriate status of women. When Americans were being prepared for the invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban were demonised for denying cosmetics and hair colour to women; when the Taliban were overthrown, Western writers often noted that women had taken off their scarves.

A clear and justified point by Wolfe although nothing new here. She then goes on by talking about her own experiences of travelling in Muslim countries:
Behind the veil lives a thriving Muslim sexuality – Opinion – smh.com.au

The West interprets veiling as repression of women and suppression of their sexuality. But when I travelled in Muslim countries and was invited to join a discussion in women-only settings within Muslim homes, I learned that Muslim attitudes toward women’s appearance and sexuality are not rooted in repression, but in a strong sense of public versus private, of what is due to God and what is due to one’s husband. It is not that Islam suppresses sexuality, but that it embodies a strongly developed sense of its appropriate channelling – toward marriage, the bonds that sustain family life, and the attachment that secures a home.

Behind the veil lives a thriving Muslim sexuality – Opinion – smh.com.au

The Western Christian tradition portrays all sexuality, even married sexuality, as sinful. Islam and Judaism never had that same kind of mind-body split. So, in both cultures, sexuality channeled into marriage and family life is seen as a source of great blessing, sanctioned by God.

This may explain why both Muslim and Orthodox Jewish women not only describe a sense of being liberated by their modest clothing and covered hair, but also express much higher levels of sensual joy in their married lives than is common in the West. When sexuality is kept private and directed in ways seen as sacred – and when one’s husband isn’t seeing his wife (or other women) half-naked all day long – one can feel great power and intensity when the headscarf or the chador comes off in the the home.

Among healthy young men in the West, who grow up on pornography and sexual imagery on every street corner, reduced libido is a growing epidemic, so it is easy to imagine the power that sexuality can carry in a more modest culture. And it is worth understanding the positive experiences that women – and men – can have in cultures where sexuality is more conservatively directed.

I do not mean to dismiss the many women leaders in the Muslim world who regard veiling as a means of controlling women. Choice is everything. But Westerners should recognise that when a woman in France or Britain chooses a veil, it is not necessarily a sign of her repression. And, more importantly, when you choose your own miniskirt and halter top – in a Western culture in which women are not so free to age, to be respected as mothers, workers or spiritual beings, and to disregard Madison Avenue – it’s worth thinking in a more nuanced way about what female freedom really means.

This has led Meghan Daum in the LA Times to contrast Wolfe’s piece with the case of Lubna Hussein who has been punished for wearing pants in Sudan, labelled as ‘indecent clothing’. The chador and feminism don’t always fit — latimes.com

But if equating the hijab with patriarchal oppression is reductive and reactionary, romanticizing it is even more so, and the case of Lubna Hussein is a reminder of that. As Wolf’s experience suggests, it’s fun to dress up if you’re truly dressing up, if the fabric that covers you feels more like a fun costume than a state- enforced shield against arrest or worse. Miniskirts may represent their own kind of tyranny, but in this country we have a way of fighting back: We can wear something else.

Also this reminder is a valid issue in itself of course. What is at stake in this whole debate on both sides is a struggle for the right of women not to be judged on (and reduced to) their appearance:
Of Burkas And Bikinis: Exercise, Body Image, And The Veil – Veil – Jezebel

Wolf seems to want to show how different Muslim women are from non-Muslims, how much freer and even sexier life is when lived in modest dress. But really, women face many of the same pressures, veiled or not. As much as Westerners like to talk about the oppressive Middle East, much of the same sexism is visible here. And as much as Wolf trumpets the freedom of modesty, restrictive beauty standards may affect Muslim women too. Rather than romanticizing the veil, as Wolf does, or banning it, as France threatens, we should be campaigning to keep women from being judged on how they look — just one of many issues that affect all of us.

Furthermore it is also a debate on feminism and between (white, non-Muslim) feminists. This brings us to the Netherlands where, probably as the result of the Belgian debate, the headscarf is also an issue again. Green-Left leader Femke Halsema stated in an interview:
Islam in Europe: Quote: ‘Islam is a problem’

Q: What do you think of the headscarf?

A: No objection against it, as long as it’s put on freely

Q: What do you think of it?

A: I think it’s really a pity that women hide their pretty hair

Q: That’s it?

A: No. I say that out of playfulness. When I come to my children’s school it’s difficult for me – I really come straight out of the feminist movement – that I then sit among all types of veiled women. I will not attack their rights in there. But I can’t wait for the moment when they’ll freely fling off their headscarf. I prefer each woman in the Netherlands to be headscarf-less. And completely free. I don’t believe that any God has clothing requirements too. It was the men who expounded faith.

You don’t coerce women’s emancipation from the top. It must come from the woman herself. I have said that police agents should be able to wear headscarves. I have quarreled with Ciska Dresselhuys, who did not want to accept any woman with a headscarf for Opzij magazine. That that doesn’t alter the fact that I have difficulties with the headscarf.

I notice it in my neighborhood: Naturally Islam is a problem. Indeed, especially Islam in combination with illiteracy. It is: having few opinions of your own about the good life. Not having much foothold in education and work, fearing our society and thereby being very receptive to what the imam thinks. Who is often very conservative.

There have been many reactions on this interview ranging from journalist Bennema who in an article (Hooray for the headscarf) calls for solidarity by wearing a headscarf and calls Halsema narrow minded. Halsema is being accused of aligning with the islam-bashers (I don’t think that is true and the statement is actually problematic in itself and exemplary of the whole islam debate). The reaction of salafi imam Fawaz Jneid on the interview with Halsema will probably yield controversy in itself as he asks the question of which women are more often the target of rape and sexual intimidation; veiled or non-veiled women. Furthermore he asks her if she does not realize that the headscarf makes women feel safe and produces respect (besides that, according to him, it is an obligation for women as stated by God). The interview also produced reactions from the social democrats such as Ahmed Marcouch on Twitter who stated ‘Dear Femke, the Islam is NO problem!! A (little) headscarf isn’t either!’ and by feminist and socialist party senator Anja Meulenbelt who stated that Muslim girls are working hard to conquer their place in society and now they get attacked by the leader of the Green Left.

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Rebelle – Art, feminism and Muslim women

Posted on July 8th, 2009 by martijn.
Categories: Arts & culture, Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues.

From postering activists to virtual cyber art. Forty years of art history are on display in Rebelle. This exhibition – whose name is derived from French artist Gina Pane’s (1939-1990) installation ‘Mots de mur‘ (1984-85) – focuses on works by female artists who are or have been greatly inspired by feminism. According to the press statement, while the topic of art and feminism has both champions and opponents, everyone is in agreement about one thing: feminism permanently changed the artistic landscape.

Recent exhibitions in MOCA, Los Angeles and the Brooklyn Museum in New York, amongst other institutions, reveal a renewed interest in art with a feminist slant. What does this theme mean for young female artists?And how did it inspire the work of earlier generations of female artists? The MMKA (Museum of Modern Art Arnhem) offers a major survey of works by eighty female artists revealing similarities and differences between generations and cultures: from American pioneers like Faith Ringgold and Eastern and Western European pioneers like Ewa Partum, Nil Yalter, Gülsün Karamustafa, Kirsten Justesen and Ulrike Rosenbach, to contemporary female artists from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the Netherlands.

According to the museum, the exhibition Rebelle reveals that feminist art is not about any single style or particular subject. Topics such as desire, the body, memory, masculinity, and social critique are explored. In addition, the exhibition focuses on female artists who stretch the concept of art in how they work – by collaborating with others, for example, or by using new media.  Newspaper clippings, documentaries and photos add another layer to Rebelle. The art is placed in the context of important social developments, the changing position of women, and ‘action’ and intervention in the art world in particular.

In 1969, the first meeting of Women Artists in Revolution (WAR) took
place in America. WAR soon organized protests against the exclusion of female and black artists, for instance, on the sidewalk in front of the Whitney Museum in New York. In the Netherlands as Kirsten Justesen tells us, the activist group Dolle Mina was started in 1969. The Stichting Vrouwen in de Beeldende Kunst (Women in the Visual Arts Organization), established in 1977, protested on the sidewalk in front of Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum that same year against the under-representation of female artists. The protestors held signs with the punning text “het zit wel snor hier” – a Dutch expression meaning all is well, but using the word “snor” which is Dutch for moustache. In 1978 and 1979 the two-part exhibition Feminist Art International was organized; it would stir emotions for years to come.

According to Justesen, drawing attention to the exclusion of female and non-western artists in public collections, exhibitions, and publications is only one aspect of the theme of art and feminism. Art itself, its societal role and so-called objective criteria of quality, are up for discussion as well. In the 1970s, the hierarchical distinctions between classical disciplines like painting and sculpture and newer forms like performance and video art were sharply defined. The same was true for the precarious distinction between what subjects could and couldn’t be used for art. Many female artists explored topics that had previously not been considered appropriate for great art, such as unequal relationships between men and women, violence and stereotypes, sexuality, identity, and the body. It is no coincidence that the slogan “the personal is political” has become so important. Female artists, in particular, investigated and experimented with a visual language that they saw as “their own” and original, and thus not influenced by “masculine” norms and views.

The exhibition rebelle brings together work from different generations and parts of the world. The South African Berni Searle (1964) who often uses natural pigments and changes the color of her skin with them – recalling the spice trade and colonization – is, for example, influenced by Cuban American Ana Mendieta’s (1948-1985) “earth prints.” The Guatemalan Regina Galindo (1974) belongs to a generation of performance artists that use their bodies to question chaos and violence in their societies. Her work recalls that of Gina Pane.

2009 is a year of looking back: Rebelle offers viewers the opportunity to look again at feminist art, freed from the cliches of pink overalls and easy dismissals (“damn anachronism”) that have clouded its representation over the past decades. Here the way is opened to fresh interpretations of art and its global implications.

In the context of this blog, particularly interesting are contributions from Middle Eastern feminist artists. Take for example Shadi Ghadirian whose contribution at first sight may seem to critique the alledged oppression of Muslim women:

Shadi Ghadirian - Like Everyday (Domestic life) 08, 2002, C-print, 50 x 50 cm

The series ‘Like Everyday (Domestic Life)’, presents women entirely veiled, the face hidden behind assorted items of kitchenware. Ghadirian warns against a too literal reading of these images, and underscores that the theme woman-object unfortunately has a universal dimension. Another contribution is Karamustafa’s video-installation “The City and the Secret Panther Fashion“. It gives you a look inside a secretly blooming Panther Fashion in Istanbul.

“…brings forth the arguments about the outlooks, especially the crucial debates about the ‘women’s body’, whether it should be covered or not or the other ethic problems related to it, on my side of the world. It is a ‘tragicomic fiction’ about lives of women who are pushed to live a secret life from 9 to 5, a limited days time that they can spare for themselves. On the other hand side the viewer is free to interpret the film in every aspect that ‘Panther Fashion’ may associate.”

The story is about the meeting of 3 women who wish to join the “secret panther fashion”-movement, which spreads quickly through the city. As their intentions are a bit illegal, they are anxious that somebody may spy on them while walking to the house where they can taste the joy of wearing freely the “Panther Design” dresses and spend a time of their own away from all dangers.

G. Karamustafa - The City And The Secret Panther Fashion, 2007, video

Only those who know the secret codes are allowed to enter the house which is decorated entirely in “Panther Fashion”, can enjoy the outfits and spend a friendly and fantastic time.

“In the house waits Panterella, the fearless housekeeper and her college who would offer them their endless freedom withwearing what they want. At the end of the day they leave the house in secret, again with the fear of being caught and return to their colourless lives.”

The third contribution is from Iranian Parastou Forouhar. Her ‘wallpaper’ Thousand and One Day, looks purely decorative based upon traditional Persian miniature painting.

Parastou Forouhar - Thousand and one day, 2003

At closer inspection however the wallpaper is composed of scenes of torture. Anonymous, faceless individuals are being tortured by anonymous, faceless men, only the weapons and methods of torture and killing are very clear. Knowing that Parastou’s parents were killed by Iranian secret agents makes the scenery even more hard hitting.

I’m not an art expert so I don’t know how progressive or new these (forms of) arts are. All three, but also other contributions to this exhibition try to engage in some sort of protest against oppression of women by…whoever. Must be said that in fact the contributions from the three women discussed here are the most rebellious of all and have strong and indeed hard hitting protests. What does this mean? Does it mean that ‘Western’ feminists are less engaged in fighting oppression, that the battle for them is done? And that only Middle Eastern feminists still have to fight and therefore they are the ones still being oppressed? This is of course too simple (note that there are contributions in the exhibition from Latin America, Asia and Africa as well), but the question what is feminism, or what are feminisms about these days is a relevant one I guess. Also what can be said about some sort of solidarity or influences from feminists throughout the world. Is it there? Is it in fact necessary? What I do know is that it is time for an exhibition in the Netherlands of feminist art from the Middle East and other non-Western countries or migrant women from the Netherlands.

What also struck me in the themes of the exhibition and more in particular of the Middle Eastern artists is the protest not only against oppression by political and/or religious elites, or men in general, but also the attempt to escape the routines of every day life that hold people (women in particular?) in some kind of straight jacket. It struck me because I just finished a conversation with two young (salafi) women who want nothing more than just that:

‘you may find it boring, you may even find it unattractive, but all I want is just a simple, normal life, having a nice husband, kids, be a mother and to be out of the thread mill of having to perform, having to be faster and faster, having to explain yourself.’

Can we also see that as a form of feminism, in the form of protest against a capitalist society or a society that keeps bothering Muslim women with their beliefs and practices?

Information based upon:

Press statement MMKA

Kirsten Justesen

Fashionoffice.org

Pierre Yves Desaive

Parastou Forouhar

NYT Art Reviews Global Feminism

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Zelfdoding, vrouwen en etniciteit – Suicidal behaviour in relation to gender and ethnicity

Posted on June 25th, 2009 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Multiculti Issues.

Drs. D.D. van Bergen – Staff of Sociology – Faculty of Social Sciences, VU University Amsterdam

There are indications that young women (15-24 years) from Hindustani, Turkish and Moroccan background suffer from severe mental health problems and more often contemplate and attempt to commit suicide than either autochthonous Dutch young women or young men from their ethnic group. This PhD project aims to establish whether this is so and to account for the apparent relation between suicidal behaviour, gender and ethnicity. In an epidemiological part it will be established whether they are indeed more suicidal. A qualitative part aims to get insight in the interplay of factors that lead these young women to contemplate suicide.

Suicidal ideation in ethnic minority and majority adolescents in Utrecht, the Netherlands[Crisis. 2008] – PubMed Result

We investigated the prevalence and explored the vulnerability to suicidal ideation across several ethnic minority versus ethnic majority adolescents in the city of Utrecht in The Netherlands. Exploratory analyses were conducted on a dataset obtained from the Municipal Health Services in Utrecht. We examined whether ethnic minority adolescents are at risk for suicidal ideation because of a family background of migration, social-economic position and certain family factors, which influence psychological constellations. We found that levels of suicidal ideation among adolescents of Turkish background were significantly higher than in both majority and other minority adolescents, The Turkish adolescents at risk for suicidal ideation reported that they do not enjoy being at home with their families. Psychological factors, in particular lack of self-pride and the idea of not becoming successful in life, appeared to be important, as well as feelings of loneliness. Suicidal ideation was not found equally across all ethnic minority groups. A history of migration, ethnic minority status, or low socioeconomic status were not sufficient to explain the variation across ethnicities. Our results suggest that specific social-cultural factors, contextualized in the individual and located in the family environment, are relevant in explaining the disproportionate rates for Turkish adolescents in Utrecht.

Reeds in 1994 wist het Sociaal Cultureel Planbureau in zijn Rapportage Jeugd 1994 te melden dat allochtone jongeren somberder zijn over hun toekomst, zich eenzamer voelen en vaker een poging doen tot zelfdoding. Dit zou nauw samenhangen met opleidingsniveau. Pogingen tot zelfdoding zouden relatief vaker voorkomen bij Surinaamse en Antilliaanse jongeren (12 procent) vergeleken met autochtone jongeren (5 procent) en Turkse en Marokkaanse jongeren (11 procent).

In 2005 trok psychiater Carla Rus aan de bel:
Fatale spagaat bedreigt moslim- en hindoetieners – Trouw

Psychiater Carla Rus is getroffen door de overeenkomsten tussen twee suïcidale tienermeisjes die bij haar in behandeling waren. Zo’n tien jaar geleden meldde zich een streng-gereformeerd meisje bij haar.

Rus: „Ze zat in 5-vwo, had veel behoefte aan zelfontplooiing, ze wilde uitgaan. Maar haar ouders verboden haar zo’n beetje alles. Ze bevond zich in een spagaat tussen de restricties van thuis en de vrije levenswijze van haar klasgenoten.” Na de eerste megadosis slaappillen kwam ze bij Rus terecht.

Omdat Rus zelf ook gereformeerd opgevoed is, bedacht ze al snel dat ze er een – ruimdenkende – dominee bij wilde hebben. Het werkte. „Na gesprekken met de dominee leerden haar ouders dat ze het meisje iets meer los moesten laten.”

Recenter meldde zich bij Rus weer een meisje uit 5-vwo, moslim in dit geval. „Dezelfde symptomen, dezelfde spagaat. Ze mocht zo ongeveer alleen maar naar school.”

De afloop was anders. Ook na de eerste suïcidepoging waren de ouders voor Rus moeilijk te bereiken. „De moeder was zeer ingetogen, de vader was zo streng dat hij me de deur uit zette. Natuurlijk moest ik denken aan het meisje op de Veluwe. Ik ben imams gaan bellen, maar die kozen eenzijdig de kant van de ouders. Nadat een vriendinnetje van het meisje zelfmoord pleegde omdat ze werd uitgehuwelijkt, sloeg ook zij de hand aan zichzelf.”

Het is bepaald niet het enige suïcidegeval bij jonge moslima’s dat Rus in haar praktijk heeft meegemaakt. Af en toe wordt ze moedeloos van de reacties van ouders. „Soms is het verkapte eerwraak. Dan kom ik na afloop in zo’n gezin, en dan merk ik dat er eigenlijk geen verdriet leeft; men had er baat bij dat het gebeurde. Eén keer toonde een broer zich zelfs opgetogen: zijn zusje had het in zijn ogen verdiend.”

Rus legde een verband met de religieus-culturele achtergrond van jonge moslims en hindoes, aangezien het aantal zelfmoordpogingen gemiddeld vijf keer zo hoog (het aantal geslaagde pogingen twee keer zo hoog) zou zijn als onder autochtone meisjes. Een conclusie die werd onderschreven door een onderzoek van Salverda naar hindoemeisjes in Den Haag. Deze meisjes zou het ontbreken aan steun bij de eigen groep. Hans Krikke wees op het dubbelleven van de meisjes:
Fatale spagaat bedreigt moslim- en hindoetieners – Trouw

De leerlingen van het Haagse Terracollege, die hij interviewde, leiden volgens hem ’een dubbelleven’. „Ze zijn loyaal aan twee waardensystemen die haaks op elkaar staan”, zegt Krikke. „Buitenshuis schrijf je ’ik’ met een hoofdletter, is het de bedoeling dat je verliefd wordt en op z’n minst gaat knuffelen. Maar thuis zou dat de eer van vader en broers aantasten.”

Maagdelijkheid is volgens Krikke ’de achilleshiel van vader’. „Zodra de meisjes de middelbare school verlaten, veranderen hun vader en broers in bewakers. En moeder stelt zich vaak op als een trouwe adjudant van vader.”

De dubbele loyaliteit, of de ’spagaat’, is verwarrend en uiteindelijk deprimerend. Volgens Krikke komt de onmogelijke positie voort uit de scheve verhoudingen tussen mannen en vrouwen, de gedwongen partnerkeuze en de gebrekkige communicatie tussen ouders en kinderen. „Als er in een traditioneel hindoe-gezin al over de problemen van een kind gepraat wordt, schakelen de ouders een pandit in. Die komt dan langs om de ellende te bezweren met zwarte magie. Daar haalt zo’n tiener in veel gevallen de schouders bij op.”

Krikke wees ook op de rol van andere omgevingsfactoren:
Fatale spagaat bedreigt moslim- en hindoetieners – Trouw

Hans Krikke vindt dat ook voor autochtone Nederlanders een belangrijke rol is weggelegd. „Xenofobie en islamofobie zet deze gezinnen extra onder druk. Als moslim kun je tegenwoordig niets meer goed doen. Dus trekken veel ouders zich terug in hun traditie, waarin ze zich wél gewenst voelen. Voor hun kinderen trekken ze de teugels daardoor nog strakker aan. De cultuurclash speelt zich dus met name thuis af, en jongeren delven daar vaak het onderspit.”

Zelfdoding als taboe en de ‘cultuurclash’ kan relateerd worden aan religieuze overwegingen en/of beeldvorming over religie en de buitenwereld. Tegelijkertijd kan religie ook als steun dienen zo stelde Rus:Fatale spagaat bedreigt moslim- en hindoetieners – Trouw

Over het algemeen verkleint religie de kans op zelfmoord, zo blijkt uit buitenlandse onderzoeken. Volgens psychiater Carla Rus kunnen bepaalde gebruiken en rituelen een belangrijke, steunende rol vervullen, en kan religie betekenis geven aan moeilijke situaties. “Met name bij ouderen met een chronische ziekte is het geloof een buffer tegen stress. Waarschijnlijk doordat zij een sterkere persoonlijke geloofsbeleving hebben dan jongeren.“

Persoonlijke devotie blijkt namelijk een belangrijker factor in de bescherming tegen psychische stress dan institutionele religie. Institutionele religie is de enige dimensie die een negatieve samenhang heeft met geestelijke gezondheid. Terwijl kerkbezoek bij ouderen een beschermende factor tegen eenzaamheid is, kan het voor jongeren juist beperkend werken. Rus: “Zij lijden meer onder de ge- en verboden van het instituut kerk, die hen in de weg staan bij zelfontplooiing.“ Als de religieuze socialisatie te sterk wordt, kan religie de kans op zelfmoord vergroten. Rus: “Dat zie je bij de moslim-, en hindoemeisjes die in een spagaat terechtkomen tussen twee werelden.“

Hoe deze meisjes dan terecht komen ‘tussen twee werelden’ en welke rol socialisatie precies speelt bleef echter voortdurend onder belicht, nog afgezien dat mensen, antropologisch gezien, nooit tussen twee culturen / werelden kunnen zitten: mensen zitten nooit in een cultureel vacuum. Wanneer we cultuur opvatten als de mogelijkheden en beperkingen die mensen hebben om betekenis te geven aan de wereld om hen heen met behulp van het beschikbare repertoire aan voorstellingen, praktijken en ervaringen, komen we iets meer te weten. Het gaat dan om keuzes maken. Dat is iets wat ook centraal staat in het onderzoek van Diana van Bergen die donderdag 25 juni is gepromoveerd aan de VU op haar proefschrift over zelfdoding in relatie tot etniciteit en gender. Turkse en Surinaams-Hindostaanse meisjes doen veel vaker een zelfmoordpoging dan Nederlandse jonge vrouwen. Anderzijds doen Marokkaanse meisjes juist minder vaak een zelfmoordpoging. Vooral de mate waarin meisjes in belangrijke levenskeuzes beperkt worden, speelt een grote rol.

Uit cijfers van de GGD in Rotterdam bleek dat 19,2 procent van de Surinaams-hindostaanse meisjes ooit een zelfmoordpoging had ondernomen. 14,6 procent van de Turkse meisjes bleek een zelfmoordpoging te hebben gedaan, van de Nederlandse meisjes 8,8 procent. Maar slechts 6,2 procent van de Marokkaanse meisjes gaf aan ooit een zelfmoordpoging te hebben gedaan. Alleen een migratieachtergrond of een etnische minderheidsstatus kan volgens van Bergen daarom het verhoogde risico op suïcidaal gedrag van migrantenmeisjes niet verklaren.

Om na te gaan welke factoren wel suïcidaal gedrag kunnen veroorzaken, interviewde Van Bergen vijftig vrouwen die eerder een zelfmoordpoging hadden ondernomen. Van Bergen interviewde zowel vrouwen met een migratieachtergrond als autochtone vrouwen. In de levensverhalen van de migrantenvrouwen die een zelfmoordpoging hadden gedaan, bleek vooral de strijd met de familie over essentiële keuzen in hun leven centraal te staan. Verwacht werd dat Turkse, Marokkaanse en Surinaams-hindostaanse vrouwen aan zouden geven te weinig autonomie te hebben. Dat bleek echter vooral het geval te zijn voor Turkse en Marokkaanse meisjes.

Veel van de Turkse en Marokkaanse vrouwen gaven aan dat zij door hun ouders en familie gedwongen werden dingen te doen die zij achteraf eigenlijk niet wilden. Meisjes werden bijvoorbeeld van school gehaald om te trouwen met een man die door de familie was uitgezocht, of te zorgen voor familieleden. De inperking en dwang werd bovendien vaak gerechtvaardigd door culturele beelden van vrouwen die zich zouden moeten schikken naar de wens van de familie. Dit tastte niet alleen hun vrijheid aan, maar ook hun zelfbeeld.

Ondanks deze overeenkomst tussen de Marokkaanse en Turkse vrouwen, laten de cijfers van de GGD zien dat Marokkaanse meisjes veel minder vaak een zelfmoordpoging ondernemen. Volgens van Bergen is het mogelijk dat de meisjes tegenwoordig met minder restricties te maken hebben, sneller de strijd aangaan met hun familie, of juist sneller afstand nemen van hun familie wanneer zij wel sterk beperkt worden door hun ouders. Een andere mogelijkheid is dat zij zich minder gebonden voelen aan de culturele beelden van zelfopoffering en ondergeschiktheid.
Daling suïcidepogingen onder Marokkaanse meisjes – Binnenland – de Volkskrant

Volgens Van Bergen is een mogelijke oorzaak voor het relatief hoge aantal zelfmoordpogingen dat migrantenmeisjes meer worden beperkt bij het nemen van belangrijke levensbeslissingen. In de gesprekken die ze met Turkse en Marokkaanse meisjes voerde, komen uithuwelijking en de verplichting thuis te blijven om bijvoorbeeld voor familieleden te zorgen, nadrukkelijk naar voren.

Het dalende suïcidecijfer bij Nederlands-Marokkaanse meisjes is volgens Van Bergen mogelijk te verklaren uit hun toenemende autonomie binnen de gemeenschap. ‘Meisjes van Marokkaanse afkomst hebben minder last van restricties, gaan eerder de confrontatie aan met familie en nemen sneller afstand als ze zich te veel beperkt voelen door hun ouders.’ Marokkaanse meisjes treden volgens de sociologe makkelijker naar buiten met problemen dan hun Turkse leeftijdsgenoten. Waarschijnlijk kloppen ze eerder aan bij hulpinstanties.

Nederlandse meisjes bleken veel minder te kampen te hebben met beperkingen van hun vrijheid; zij werden juist vaak genegeerd of verwaarloosd door hun familie en ondernamen daarom een poging tot zelfmoord. Tegen alle verwachting in gold dit echter ook voor Surinaams-hindostaanse meisjes. Niet alleen werden deze meisjes geconfronteerd met een gebrek aan affectie en geborgenheid, hun ouders waren ook vaak autoritair en gebruikten vaker fysiek geweld.
Daling suïcidepogingen onder Marokkaanse meisjes – Binnenland – de Volkskrant

Uit de gesprekken met Hindoestaans-Surinaamse meisjes kwamen weer andere verhalen naar voren. ‘Het ging daar niet zozeer om inperking van persoonlijke vrijheden, maar juist meer om een gevoel van verwaarlozing door familie’, zegt Van Bergen. ‘Dat sluit veel meer aan bij de gevoelens die autochtone meisjes hadden voordat ze een zelfmoordpoging deden: gebrek aan affectie en geborgenheid in de directe omgeving.’

Migratie bleek verassend genoeg geen erg grote rol te spelen voor de geïnterviewde vrouwen. Het samenspel van gebrek aan autonomie, culturele beelden over de ondergeschikte rol van vrouwen, een slecht zelfbeeld, en een gemis van verbondenheid in het gezin zijn voor deze vrouwen veel belangrijkere punten. Van Bergen pleit ervoor om vrouwen te ondersteunen bij het verbeteren van hun zelfbeeld en de culturele beelden over de opoffering van vrouwen te bekritiseren.

Daling suïcidepogingen onder Marokkaanse meisjes – Binnenland – de Volkskrant

Bij de bestrijding van suïcide zouden dan ook de beweegredenen centraal moeten komen staan, concludeert de sociologe. ‘In de Turkse gemeenschap moet de aandacht voor de kwalijke gevolgen van een beperkte keuzevrijheid aangekaart worden. Bij Hindoestaans-Surinaamse meisjes is juist aandacht voor het gebrekkige verbondenheid met familie en gezin van groot belang.’ Sleutelfiguren in de gemeenschap kunnen hierin volgens Van Bergen een grote rol spelen.

De weergave van het onderzoek van Van Bergen heb ik gebaseerd op een artikel in de Volkskrant en Scienceguide.nl. Ik zou het zelf nog eens moeten lezen, maar zo op het eerste gezicht lijkt me het een alleraardigst onderzoek dat als het gaat om de culturele factor bij zelfdoding veel verfijnder is dan de grove pennenstreken van Krikke en Rus eerder. Het gaat, zoals ik het nu zie, in alle gevallen om keuzes maken. Turks- en Marokkaans-Nederlandse meiden die teveel beperkt zouden worden in hun keuzevrijheid, waarbij het erop lijkt dat Marokkaans-Nederlandse meiden meer mogelijkheden hebben (of weten te vinden) om toch ondersteuning te vinden. Bij de autochtoon-Nederlandse meiden en de Hindostaans-Nederlandse meiden gaat het dan eerder om een gebrekkige begeleiding bij de keuzevrijheid; teveel vrijheid is zo ongeveer verwaarlozing als een kind het zelf moet uitzoeken en geen (affectieve) ondersteuning krijgt. Iets dat schijnbaar voor kan komen bij zowel gezinnen gekenmerkt door een autoritair opvoedingsklimaat als bij gezinnen bij een opvoedingsklimaat zonder liefdevol gezag.

De cijfers overigens van de GGD in Rotterdam zijn ronduit alarmerend. Ik heb geen idee hoe representatief deze cijfers zijn, maar vraag me wel af of we net zoveel hierin gaan investeren als in het terugdringen van overlastgevend gedrag van jongeren (jongens).

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“Looking at the world as if women matter” – Feminism and Islam

Posted on June 10th, 2009 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Internal Debates, Public Islam, Ritual and Religious Experience.

The Mosque in Morgantown has several interesting articles on the topic Feminism and Islam which includes women led prayer, interpreting the Quran, women’s rights, pluralism, social change, female authority, and so on.

The Global Islamic Feminist Movement

by Yvonne Haddad

Islamic feminism has been applied to the work of a group of scholars in the American academy who seek to address the role of women from within the heritage of Islam. They include Amina Wadud, Riffat Hasan, Amira Sonbol, Asma Barlas and Nimat Hafez Barzangi. They also include the first woman to translate the Qur’an into English, Laleh Bakhtiar. Their efforts fall in contrast to the activism and advocacy of other Muslim women who seek change through recourse to secular ideas as well as those who attack the faith as misogynist at its core. Asra Nomani and Irshad Manji are seen by some as representatives of the former category, Ayan Hirsi Ali and Wafa Sultan as examples of the latter. Instead, the Islamic feminists have sought to reconcile the religion with feminism. They do not question the validity of the Qur’anic text as eternally valid guidance for all humanity, but have reservations about the patriarchal interpretations characteristic of traditional societies.

Their discourse requires a re-examination of the Qur’anic text, which had been the private domain of male scholars. They have scoured the narratives of the life of the Prophet Muhammad for parallels to be promoted as models of liberation. They have challenged Islamic jurisprudence derived from patriarchal readings of the Qur’an, examining legal precedents and court decisions in order to reconstruct history. Some have focused on reinterpreting Qur’anic verses used by traditional scholars to formulate laws that discriminate against women, especially in a marriage context. Their revised interpretations affirm the grounding of women’s rights in the immutable Qur’an, rendering it a divine mandate for humanity, impervious to misogynist attacks. They have dubbed their efforts a “gender jihad.”

Looking at the World As If Women Matter

by Tayyibah Taylor

“Looking at the world as if women matter” is just one of the many ways feminism is explained. Some definitions are more academic and others are less generous, but searching through the philosophical pile of feminist theory and movements, one will discover first-wave and second-wave feminism, post colonial feminism, Western feminism, Black feminism, radical feminism, Islamic feminism and more, all with varying solutions to the issues women face.
[…]
Islam is more than a religion and it’s more than a way of life; Islam is a state of being. When we truly live our lives in the state of Islam, that is in a state of wholeness, serenity and in alignment with the laws of the universe, every second of existence, and every fiber of self is centered on connecting to the Divine. In that state, the flame misogyny has no oxygen. In that state, a world is created where women, and all humanity, matter.

Real Indicators of Female Empowerment: Women’s Space and Status in American Mosques

by Hadia Mubarak

[…]
Refusing to accept the status quo, I and five of my friends registered as members and attended the general body elections. We sat in the main prayer hall, which had been partitioned into two sections that day, a large section for the men and a smaller one for the women. Citing the mosque’s Constitution and religious textual sources, we demanded the right to vote like everyone. Our demands incited a heated and emotionally charged debate. Although it was clear that the majority of the men were on our side, the small minority of men who were against us, including the chair of the elections committee, dominated the debate. Exploiting his position, the elections committee chair took up a motion that put in his own hands the power decide whether or not women should vote — without subjecting the motion to a general vote.

I and my five friends left the mosque that day without voting for the men who would manage our mosque, make decisions on our behalf and represent us within the larger community. We left feeling disgusted, isolated and enraged. But we never for a second questioned the status that Islam accorded women or our God-given right to elect the leaders of our community. We knew that Islam was on our side and that ignorance was on theirs.

[…]
As a woman, I feel empowered by God’s laws — laws that I know with absolute certainty are for my own spiritual, emotional and physical well-being. At the same time, I refuse to rely on the interpretations of men to understand the laws of God. Women must engage the Islamic tradition themselves in order to restore rights that they were granted as early as the seventh century. When armed with knowledge of our God-given rights, then no human being can stand between us and our prerogative to exercise those rights.

The Real Feminist Leaders

by Kari Ansari

Islam teaches that men and women are equally capable of attaining the highest level of spirituality, and that both will be judged on equal terms by God. The teachings of Islam protect and defend the rights of a woman; she has the right to demand dignified treatment by all people — men included. She has the right to voice her opinion, and the value of that opinion is judged upon the same merits and criteria afforded to men.

[…]
The above-mentioned women are examples of leadership displayed all across the country by Muslim women of every ethnicity, age, and socio-economic background; we just don’t see them on television, or the New York Times Bestseller List. They are women who are changing the status quo at American mosques; they are working behind the scenes to establish domestic violence support services for immigrant women, they are running food pantries in the inner cities, they are teachers in Islamic schools–teaching tolerance and love for their neighbor. These Muslim women are homemakers and engineers, they are doctors and lawyers, and they are bankers and nurses. These women do not seek notoriety or fame; instead they are integrating into a society that often misunderstands them, and even sometimes pities them unnecessarily. Still, Muslim American women persevere, having faith in God and faith in the future of the American Muslim society as it matures and grows.

Useful links mentioned in the articles:
Sisters in Islam – Home

Women Living Under Muslim Laws

WLUML: Publications –

Warning Signs of Fundamentalisms
Edited by Ayesha Imam, Jenny Morgan & Nira Yuval-Davis (Published: December 2004)

The papers relate to a variety of contexts and global issues: Afghanistan, Algeria, Austria, Bangladesh, Egypt, Gambia, India, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Palestine, Rwanda, South Africa, USA, Yugoslavia, Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender identities, multiculturalism, the Internet, as well as fundamentalisms in Catholic, Hindu and Jewish contexts.

Fundamentalist movements are political movements with religious, ethnic, and/or nationalist imperatives. They construct a single version of a collective identity as the only true, authentic and valid one, and use it to impose their power and authority. They usually claim to be the representatives of authentic tradition, and they speak against the corrupting influence of modernity and ‘the West’. However, fundamentalists are far from pre-modern. To promote their project, they use all modern technological means available, from the media to weaponry. Furthermore, the vision they conjure up is a constructed and selective vision, rather than a revival of something in the past. Since 2000 the popular appeal of fundamentalisms has been growing across the world and different communities.

Feminists have particular concerns when it comes to fundamentalist movements. Although many women take part in fundamentalist movements, overall fundamentalist politics tend to constitute a threat to women’s freedom and autonomy and often their lives. Gender relations in general, and women in particular, are often used to symbolize the collectivity, its ‘culture and tradition’, its boundaries and its future reproduction.

Includes:
WSF: Preface (Jenny Morgan)
WSF: Introduction (Ayesha Imam and Nira Yuval-Davis)
WSF: The lesson from Iran: How the ‘warning signs of fundamentalism’ were ignored (Ziba Mir-Hosseini)
WSF: The rise of fundamentalism and the role of the ‘state’ in the specific political context of Palestine (Nahda Younis Shehada)
WSF: Attacks against lesbian, gay and bisexual people: Warning signs of fundamentalism? (Anisa de Jong)
WSF: Education in Afghanistan: A gendered ideological terrain (Niloufar Pourzand)
WSF: Jewish fundamentalisms and women (Nira Yuval-Davis)
WSF: America’s mission of saving the world from Satan: Christian fundamentalism in the USA (Elfriede Harth)
WSF: Catholic fundamentalism, right wing politics and the construction of womanhood: The case of Austria (Michaela R Told)
WSF: Two cheers for multiculturalism (Gita Sahgal)
WSF: Hindu fundamentalism in India: Ideology, strategies, and the experience of Gujarat (Chayanika Shah)
WSF: Islamisation and its impact on laws and the law making process in Malaysia (Zainah Anwar)
WSF: Fundamentalist groups and the Nigerian legal system: Some reflections (Sanusi Lamido Sanusi)
WSF: ‘Apostates’, Ahmadis and advocates: Use and abuse of offences against religion in Bangladesh (Sara Hossain)
WSF: The rise of the religious right in Bangladesh: Taslima Nasrin and the media (Tazeen Murshid)
WSF: The media and signs of fundamentalism: A case in the Gambia (Amie Bojang Sissoho)
WSF: Revelation and religion: Representations of gender and Islam (Gabeba Baderoon)
WSF: Women’s struggle against Muslim fundamentalism in Algeria: Strategies or a lesson for survival? (Louisa Ait-Hamou)
WSF: Fighting the political (ab)use of religion in Nigeria: BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights, allies and others (Ayesha Imam)
WSF: The Model Parliament for family law reform: A signi?cant step towards linking women’s issues with national concerns (Nahda Younis Shehada)
WSF: Sisters in Islam: Advocacy for change within the religious framework (Nora Murat)
WSF: Secular women’s activism in contemporary Egypt (Nadje Al-Ali)
WSF: Religious fundamentalisms and repression of reproductive and sexual rights (Stasa Zajovic)
WSF: The far right and the religious right on the world wide web: Some snapshots and notes (Harsh Kapoor)
WSF: Biographies of conference participants and contributors

III International Congress on Islamic Feminism

Junta Islámica » ¿Quiénes somos?

ILDC – Women’s Involvement

MSA National – Home

Faculty Profile of Ingrid Mattson

Director of the Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Director of Islamic Chaplaincy Program, Professor of Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations

Edina Lekovic: Communications Director – MPAC Staff & Board

As MPAC’s Communications Director, Edina acts as a spokeswoman for the American Muslim community to media outlets, government officials, interfaith leaders, academic institutions, and community groups.

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The power of images – Muslima ads

Posted on May 29th, 2009 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues.

The Dutch province Overijssel has started a new campaign in which it puts the spotlight on the (indeed beautiful) landscape of Overijssel. On the front page of the website it says: See. The landscape is in you. And then below: A beautiful landscape. See, that is what the province Overijssel would like to devote itself to:

Public campaign of Dutch province Overijssel

Now there are more people you can see on that website than the ones on the screenshot above but I would like to have your attention for the girl at the right: the one with the headscarf. Just like the other people she also features in the public campaigns on billboards:

Girl on billboard in Overijssel

And her picture has raised some eyebrows as we can read now in the Dutch newspaper Telegraaf. Their story is based upon a story of the Dutch magazine Elsevier. Someone has put a sticker on the billboard saying: Overijssel…is not Islamic. According to some anonymous complaints at Elsevier the campaign “lacks respect“. “What has Overijssel got to do with Islam? In particular when it concerns the landscape and culture of Overijssel“. According to a spokesperson of the province they received several other negative reactions about the campaign as a result of the girl’s picture on a brochure people received in their mail boxes. ‘We received about twenty critical reactions’ a spokesperson said. ‘We explain these people the persons featuring in this campaign are not models but actual residents of the province. Also the lady with the headscarf lives in Overijssel. Then they understand.’ Earlier, according to Elsevier, also a poster from telephone provider Ben with a Muslim woman with headscarf, was the target of the same action.

I don’t really know how big this anti-islam action really is nor do I know how many companies or local or national institutions use Muslims in their campaigns. It is certainly not the first time that it caused a (minor) debate. Last year the SNS Bank had a campaign in which we would see a woman with a headscarf.

Dutch Arabist Hans Jansen, known for his hostile views and distortions about Islam, complained at the bank stating that the type of headscarf of the woman refers to a non-liberal version of Islam (he also complained about ‘an Arab looking guy with a Muslim extremist beard’ who showed his feet which is ‘a standard insult in the Islamic world’.

Campaign 2008 SNS Bank

In the case of the province of Overijssel the decision to include to Muslim woman has probably to do with sending a message to Muslims and non-Muslims alike that Muslims are part of the local community. In the case of the SNS Bank it is probably about appealing to a wider audience and potential customers. In both cases this might lead to a normalization of Muslims in the public landscape and I think a lot of the complaints against the campaigns are complaints against the normalization of Muslims in the public landscape. Some people don’t want Muslims or Islam to be part of the Dutch culture. Muslims do feature in public campaigns for a long time now but usually related to some exotic (halal) product or to some campaign related to integration of migrants or campaigns designed to promote social cohesion and public safety. The fact that they now appear in other type of (commercial) ads might indeed lead to further normalization. Nevertheless, there is something that troubles me about these ads. And that is in fact the headscarf. I’m not troubled about the fact that some Muslim women wear a headscarf, but I’m troubled about the fact that Muslim women in public campaigns always seems to wear a headscarf. Same thing seems to happen when you search for pictures of “Muslim woman” in Google images. On the first page you only see woman who, in different ways, covered themselves. With three exceptions. One Muslim woman who designs ‘decent garments for Muslim women’ and two models (one miss). This reminds me of something that Lila Abu-Lughod has written about in the Power of images and the danger of pity:

Eurozine – The Muslim woman – Lila Abu-Lughod The power of images and the danger of pity

one of the most distinctive qualities of representations – literary and scholarly – of the Muslim “East” has been their citationary nature. What he meant by this is that later works gain authority by citing earlier ones, referring to each other in an endless chain that has no need for the actualities of the Muslim East. We can see this even today in visual representations of the Muslim woman. I have been collecting such images for years, ones that reveal clearly the citationary quality of images of “the Muslim woman”. The most iconic are those I think of as studies in black and white. One finds, for example, impenetrable Algerian women shrouded in ghostly white in the French colonial postcards from the 1930s that Malek Alloula analyzes in his book, The Colonial Harem.[3] This kind of photography, Alloula argues, was dedicated to making Algerian women accessible, if only symbolically, to French soldiers, tourists, and the people back home. And then one finds in the late 1990s covers of American media, even highbrow, such as the New York Times Magazine or the Chronicle of Higher Education, that similarly depict women whose faces are hidden and bodies covered in white or pale Islamic modest dress. These are women from Jordan or Egypt whose lives and situations are radically unlike those of women in colonial Algeria, and unlike many other women in their own countries. One also finds in Alloula’s book of postcards images of women dressed dramatically in black, with only eyes showing. Again, almost identical images appear on the covers of the New York Times Magazine and even KLM Magazine from 1990 to the present, despite the fact that the articles they are linked to are on different countries: Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Yemen. There is an amazing uniformity.

As she rightly points out, these images do not in any way reflect the variety of styles (and the meaning of that) of women’s dress. To what extent is that a problem? As Abu-Lughod explains:
Eurozine – The Muslim woman – Lila Abu-Lughod The power of images and the danger of pity

There are several problems with these uniform and ubiquitous images of veiled women. First, they make it hard to think about the Muslim world without thinking about women, creating a seemingly huge divide between “us” and “them” based on the treatment or positions of women. This prevents us from thinking about the connections between our various parts of the world, helping setting up a civilizational divide. Second, they make it hard to appreciate the variety of women’s lives across the Muslim or Middle Eastern worlds – differences of time and place and differences of class and region. Third, they even make it hard for us to appreciate that veiling itself is a complex practice. Let me take a little time over this third point. It is common knowledge that the ultimate sign of the oppression of Afghani women under the Taliban-and-the-terrorists is that they were forced to wear the burqa. Liberals sometimes confess their surprise that even though Afghanistan has been liberated from the Taliban, women do not seem to be throwing off their burqas. Someone like me, who has worked in Muslim regions, asks why this is so surprising. Did we expect that once “free” from the Taliban they would go “back” to belly shirts and blue jeans, or dust off their Chanel suits?

Always using veiled women in public campaigns (no matter how well intended they are) might in fact not lead to normalizing Islam and Muslim women. It does not do any justice to the diversity among these women and in fact sets them apart from other people. This tendency is even stronger because no other women from migrant groups are displayed with a religious symbol. We do occasionally see black women, Hindustani women but only in ethnic and integrations campaigns we may see them with religious symbols (and even then on very rare occasions). Of course, Hindu women or black women are not the focus for the integration debates; its the Muslims. But then only using Muslim women again singles them out as category of people ‘we’ have some issues with and moreover a specific type of Muslim woman: the ones with the headscarf. Are the ones without a headscarf not really Muslim? Or not really modest Muslims? Are these campaign designers not creative enough to come up with something else? They problably designed it knowing/hoping it would appeal? Why would they think that? And in these cases it did appeal in a particular way. What does this mean? Again, the image of the Muslims woman, the way the appear in public and her type of dress in public is one of the battle grounds on which the integration struggle takes place.

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