WUNRN
August
02, 2007
'Targeting
Fundamentalism Does Not Help Muslim Women'
Interview with Aisha Lee Shaheed
ROME, Aug 2 (IPS) - Rising fundamentalisms around the world are challenging
human rights, and particularly women's rights, feminist groups say. But this is
not an Islam-related problem only, and isolating Muslim fundamentalism does not
help Muslim women.
Feminist networks have systematically included fundamentalism among the
discussion subjects in the 'Feminist Dialogues' (FD) started in Mumbai in 2004
during the fourth World Social Forum. The dialogues are coordinated by a group
of 12 feminist networks from Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe.
Invited by the Rome based Society for International Development (SID) and
CeSPI, Centro Studi di Politica Internazionale (Centre of Studies for
International Politics), members of the FD and renowned Italian feminists met
in Rome earlier in July to discuss the deepening crisis of democratic nations
traversed by forces of fundamentalisms, militarism and globalisation.
"Fundamentalism is one of the key themes identified by the feminist
dialogues, which have pointed out how in the World Social Forum itself as well
as in popular discourse amongst the media and policy makers, fundamentalisms in
all their forms are not spoken about enough," says Aisha Lee Shaheed, in
an interview with IPS correspondent Sabina Zaccaro.
Aisha Lee Shaheed is a writer and researcher who grew up in rural Canada,
Britain and Pakistan. For the past three years she has been a networker for an
international feminist network, Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML), working
to create links amongst women and women's groups within Muslim countries and
communities. She spoke with IPS correspondent Sabina Zaccaro.
IPS: Is fundamentalism a Muslim concern only?
Aisha Lee Shaheed (ALS): I don't think this necessarily has to be a Muslim
issue. I've been speaking with many South Americans, Latin Americans as well as
Indian women participating to the FD, and speaking about their own experiences
of Catholic fundamentalisms, of Hindu fundamentalisms, Protestant
fundamentalisms in North America. For me, these are all linked to our struggles
against Islamist and Muslims fundamentalisms.
IPS: What are the potential effect of isolation?
ALS: It is a real step back to isolate Muslim fundamentalism as one discrete
problem, because I think that the effect of this, one of the potential effects,
is that it roots fundamentalism and politicises religion in coming out of Islam
itself, which is totally irrelevant.
I think Islamist actors, their being violent, or politically controlling, comes
out of their political agendas, not out of religion itself. I feel that a lot
of things are done in the name of religion.
By isolating Islam it seems to say that this is a Muslim problem, that only
Muslims try to put their political agenda there. I think that this obscures the
other ways that institutions like the Vatican or like the BJP (Bharatiya Janata
Party, the main nationalist Indian political party), in India might also be
exercising power in exactly the same way, with the same effects on minority
communities, their daily lives and the lives of women specifically.
Our strengths of including fundamentalism in the feminist dialogues means that
on a trans-national level we can share our experiences of this and our
strategies towards working on this.
IPS: How does your organisation address the issue?
ALS: WLUML is a network, rather that an organisation. We were started very
informally in 1984 by a handful of women in different countries -- in Algeria,
Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India, and Indonesia -- who came together and said
something's happening in our contexts, right wing forces are taking over,
military forces are taking over, we're struggling with them on a local national
level, but there has to be some connection here, how can we work together
across our differences, and across the gap of space.
So, in the last 20 plus years it has grown, and it now covers over 90
countries, with many languages and religions. We not only work in places with
Muslims laws -- countries like Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia -- but also in
Muslim majority areas that have secular laws, such as Turkey, and also places
with secular laws with Muslim minority, for example many countries like Western
Europe, North America as well.
We also address women who are given the identity of being Muslim. We are in
Italy, so I use this as an example: we don't automatically assume that here
every woman we're speaking to is Catholic, is religious. We don't identify them
as Christian women, because we don't know what someone's personal beliefs are.
I find that...we need to give the Muslim women as well the chance to
self-identify.
IPS: Don't you think that identifying a woman with her faith is slightly limiting?
ALS: Especially in a context of trans-nationalism, when many of us have mixed
heritage, like myself, also migrant women and expatriate women moving across
these borders and across these identities, it's incredibly limiting to be
reduced to a religion, that has many different manifestations. For example, the
Muslimness that a woman might feel being born and raised in Algeria might be
very different from Muslimness felt by a woman in Indonesia and all the others
in betweens.
IPS: In this specific struggle, is there room for alliance with men? Can also
men be somehow feminist?
ALS: This is my personal opinion, but I think that to a certain extent yes,
they can. There is always a space for alliances. I don't think they need to be
at the forefront of the movement, but our supporters, ours allies as human
being.
If we fall under the umbrella of women's rights as human rights, it works the
other way as well. Those interested in human rights certainly have an
investment in women's rights. I don't believe the women's issues should only be
taken up by women, the same way that I don't think the right of any minority
should only be taken up by that minority. I feel that I can speak with -- not
for -- many other groups that I ally with, that may not be of the same
religion, the same background...
IPS: Do Muslim women in different nations face different challenges?
ASL: In many contexts in the world you can find different challenges for women.
In the globalised setting, it is difficult to identify what challenges are
local, and what are more trans-national.
In general, I think militarisation affects women on many levels and across
religion. Although a lot is made about dress code and the veil, and this
private-public dichotomy, I worry about placing that too high on the agenda. I
fear that that's the symptom of a lot of other things going on.
Women in Iran, who are part of the Iranian women's movement, say that people
always ask 'how do you feel, you have to wear chador, you have to cover your
head'. And they say you know what, to me this is very irrelevant; my freedom of
speech, my freedom of expression, my freedom to politically participate is far
more important to me than this. Do I like it? No, I don't like it, but this is
not my main source of contestation. So, we have to listen to what women
themselves identify as their challenges.
In Afghanistan, my colleagues ask women what is your main issue? Is it rising
of Talibanisation, is it conservatism? They say it's security; you know, my
children aren't safe, I might want to send my daughters to school but I don't
think they're safe walking out there. Take care of security, then we'll talk
about our rights, and our constitution, and our body politics. We're not there
yet.
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