Гольцева О.Ю. Международное право в официальных документах. Под ред. И.А. Горшеневой

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Fighting for Muslim women's rights

Some of the world's leading Islamic feminists have been gathered in Barcelona for the third International Congress on Islamic Feminism, to discuss the issues women face in the Muslim world.

Some of the women taking part in the conference explained the problems in their home countries, and where they hoped to make progress. ASMA BARLAS, Author,

Pakistan.

Religions always come into cultures, they don't come into abstract and pure spaces. Islam came into a very patriarchal, tribal and misogynistic culture. One of the deepest damages to Islam has been its reduction to "Arabisation".

I'm not going to say that the Arabs are particularly misogynistic in a way that nobody else is, but I do think there are very particular traits and attitudes towards women that have crept into Islam.

I have a friend who has been studying the interface between what he calls the Persian models and the Arabist models of Islam in the subcontinent and surprise, surprise: the Arabist models are misogynistic, authoritarian, unitarian and the Persian models are much more plural and tolerant.

This is a fight on two fronts – on the one hand we are struggling against the kinds of oppression dominant in Muslim patriarch societies and, on the other, Western perceptions of Islam as necessarily monolithic, and confusing the ideals of Islam with the reality of Muslim lives.

If we read the Koran as a totality rather than pulling out random verses or half a line, that opens all kinds of possibilities for sexual equality.

RAFIAH AL-TALEI, journalist, Oman

Oman is relatively liberal, women are free to choose what to wear, and can choose their jobs and education.

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And the law does not require us to wear any particular form of clothing. But there are strong social and cultural factors – coming from the fact that we are in Arabia – that limit women.

As a journalist, it has not been hard for me to work among men, but it has been hard for some of my colleagues whose families told them this was not "appropriate" work for them.

The biggest difficulties are the social and cultural factors, and some aspects of law. For example, women who marry a foreigner cannot pass on their nationality to their children, whereas men in that situation can.

Religion is not an issue in our struggle, although there are problems with family law about divorce and marriage status. Omani laws are based on sharia law. Sharia is fair, but it is the wrong interpretations that are the problem. Male judges often don't understand the principal goals of sharia. We feel the law is fair, but ends up being unfair for women because of how judges interpret it.

Cultural and social factors often get mixed up with religion. Educated women can be more empowered and separate the two, but many don't dare challenge the conventions.

NORANI OTHMAN, Scholar-activist, Malaysia

I don't think it is any more difficult to be an Islamic feminist than a non-Muslim, or secular feminist.

Feminists in general have to face up to political and cultural obstacles, to achieve our objectives of women's rights. Even Western feminists have had a similar history – having to engage with certain religious beliefs not conducive to gender equality.

Perhaps the only distinctive difference peculiar to Muslim feminists is that we are caught in the cross-currents of modernisation and a changing society, due to a modern economy on the one hand and the global resurgence of political Islam on the other.

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Political Islam wants to impose a world view about the gender order that is not consistent with the realities and the lived experiences of Muslim men and women in contemporary society.

There is a difference between South East Asian Muslim countries and the ones in the Middle East – culturally we are less patriarchal, we can always respond to our detractors by pointing out we don't have the cultural practices that they do.

Our detractors would hurl empty accusations at us – calling us Western, secular or anti-Islamic.

Our arguments are rooted within Islam – we want renewal and transformation within the Islamic framework. They don't like that.

We have a holistic approach, seeking gender equality within the Islamic framework, supported by constitutional guarantees. We see that these are not inconsistent with the message of the Koran, particularly during its formative stages. We have to understand the history and cultural context and extract the principle that will be applicable in modern times.

SITI MUSDAH MULIA, Academic, Indonesia

In my experience, I find that it is very difficult to make

Indonesian Muslim women aware that politics is their right.

In Indonesian society, politics is always conceived as cruel and dirty, so not many women want to get involved, they think it is just for men.

We try to make women understand that politics is one of our duties and rights and they can become involved without losing their femininity.

Personally, I'm non-partisan; I'm not linked to one political party because, in Indonesia, the political parties often discriminate against women.

I struggle from outside the political sphere to make it women-friendly, to reform political parties and the political system.

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One day, I hope to be involved more directly, if the system becomes more women-friendly. We have passed a law about affirmative action and achieving 30% female representation, but we won't see if it is implemented until after 2009 elections. We are waiting.

In Indonesia, some groups support us, but some radical groups oppose what we are trying to achieve. They accuse me, accuse feminist Muslims, of being infidels, of wanting to damage Islamic affairs.

According to their Islamic understanding, women should be confined to the home, and the domestic sphere alone.

AMINA WADUD, Academic, United States

There are many more conversations going on today between different interpretations of Islam. Some interpretations are very narrow, some are more broad, principled, ethically-based.

Unless we have sufficient knowledge about Islam, we cannot bring about reform of Islam. I am not talking about re-interpretation, I am talking more about genderinclusive interpretation.

We have a lot of information about men's interpretations of Islam, and of what it means to be a woman in Islam. We don't have equal amounts of information about what women say it means to be a good woman in Islam. Now it's time for men to be active listeners, and after listening, to be active participants in bringing about reform.

There is a tendency to say that it is Islam that prohibits women from driving a car, for example, when women drive cars all over the world except in one country. So then you know it is not Islam. Islam has much more flexibility, but patriarchy tends to have the same objective, and that is to limit our ability to understand ourselves as Muslims.

I have always defined myself as pro-faith and profeminism.

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I do not wish to sacrifice my faith for anybody's conception of feminism, nor do I sacrifice the struggle and actions for full equality of women, Muslim and non-Muslim women, for any religion. Islamic feminism is not an either/or, you can be Muslim and feminist and strive for women's rights and not call yourself a feminist.

FATIMA KHAFAJI, Consultant, Egypt

In Egypt, Islamic feminism is a way for women activists to reach a large number of ordinary women in the villages and in urban low-income areas, using a framework of Islam. So there would be a reference to Islam when talking about women's rights. Experience has shown that that is an easy way to get women to accept what you're saying.

Not many women get information about women's rights easily, so you have to counter what has been fed to them, to both men and women, from the strict, conventional, religious people who have more access to women.

They have their own idea of women's rights in Islam – that is, patriarchal, still limiting opportunities for women. But women have been receiving this concept for ages, through the radio, TV, mosques, so the challenge is how to give them another view, of enlightened Islam, that talks about changing gender roles. It's not an easy job.

Historically, in Egypt in the feminist movement, there have been both Muslim and Christian women. It has never been a problem. Unfortunately nowadays, it has become a problem. Religious discrimination has been dividing people very much. We have to think carefully about how to supersede the differences.

With family law, we're aiming to change the philosophy of the law itself. Traditional family law puts women down. I can see this whole notion of "women do not have control over their bodies" in so many laws, in the penal code and family law. For example, sexual harassment is happening because men think the control of women's bodies is a

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matter for them. Even the decision whether to have children is the decision of men. This whole notion has to be changed in a dramatic way if we are really going to talk about women's rights in Egypt.

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/- /2/hi/in_depth/7689897.stm

OVER TO YOU

Write essays on the following topic.

1.What are the basic principles of Islamic culture and religion concerning human rights in general and rights of women in particular? Is the attitutude to the role of a woman in the Islamic society changing nowadays, in your opinion?

2.What do you know about Hollywood stars activities in the sphere of human rights protection? What peacemakers do you know? What do you understand by peacemaking activity?

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LESSON 14

WAR AND ARMED CONFLICTS

Starting up

Analyze the following quotation.

“These days, our senses are bombarded with aggression. We are constantly confronted with global images of unending, escalating was and violence”.

Margaret J. Wheatley, a writer and management consultant

Debate the following questions.

1.What is war in your opinion?

2.How do you think war start?

3.Who suffers most in armed conflicts and wars?

Exercise 1. Study the information of the chart.

How many armed conflicts took place in the world in 2009? Which regions are the most / the least affected by war? Do you think these conflicts have been resolved or still active?

Geographic Distributions of Armed Conflicts in 2009

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Exercise 2. Read the text and give the definition of the term “war”.

War

War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political communities. Thus, fisticuffs between individual persons do not count as a war, nor does a gang fight… War is a phenomenon which occurs only between political communities, defined as those entities which either are states or intend to become states (in order to allow for civil war). Classical war is international war, a war between different states, like the two World Wars. But just as frequent is war within a state between rival groups or communities, like the American Civil War. Certain political pressure groups, like terrorist organizations, might also be considered “political communities”, in that they are associations of people with a political purpose and, indeed, many of them aspire to statehood or to influence the development of statehood in certain lands.

What's statehood? Most people follow Max Weber's distinction between nation and state. A nation is a group which thinks of itself as “a people”, usually because they share many things in common, such as ethnicity, language, culture, historical experience, a set of ideals and values, habitat, cuisine, fashion and so on. The state, by contrast, refers much more narrowly to the machinery of government which organizes life in a given territory. Thus, we can distinguish between the American state and the American people, or between the government of France and the French nation. At the same time, you've probably heard the term “nation-state.” Indeed, people often use “nation” and “state” interchangeably but we'll need to keep them conceptually distinct for our purposes.

“Nation-state” refers to the relatively recent phenomenon wherein a nation wants its own state, and moves to form one. This started out as a very European trend – an Ital-

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ian state for the Italian nation, a German state for the German people, etc., but it has spread throughout the world. Note that in some countries, such as America, Australia and Canada, the state actually presides over many nations, and you hear of “multi-national societies”. Most societies with heavy immigration are multi-national. Mul- ti-national countries are sometimes prone to civil wars between the different groups. This has been especially true of central Africa in recent years.

… It seems that all warfare is precisely, and ultimately, about governance. War is a violent way for determining who gets to say what goes on in a given territory, for example, regarding: who gets power, who gets wealth and resources, whose ideals prevail, who is a member and who is not, which laws get made, what gets taught in schools, where the border rests, how much tax is levied, and so on. War is the ultimate means for deciding these issues if a peaceful process or resolution can't be agreed upon.

The conflict of arms must be actual, and not merely latent, for it to count as war. Further, the actual armed conflict must be both intentional and widespread: isolated clashes between rogue officers, or border patrols, do not count as actions of war. The onset of war requires a conscious commitment, and a significant mobilization, on the part of the belligerents in question.

It's not just that war is the continuation of policy by other means; it's that war is about the very thing which creates policy – i.e., governance itself. War is the intentional use of mass force to resolve disputes over governance. Ultimately, war is profoundly anthropological: it is about which group of people gets to say what goes on in a given territory.

War is a brutal and ugly enterprise. Yet it remains central to human history and social change. These two facts together might seem paradoxical and inexplicable… War

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and its threat continue to be forces in our lives. Recent events graphically demonstrate this proposition, whether we think of the 9–11 attacks, the counter-attack on Afghanistan, the overthrow of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, the Darfur crisis in Sudan, the bombings in Madrid and London, or the on-going “war on terror” more generally.

Exercise 3. Suggest the Russian equivalents. Make sentences of your own.

War

cold war, warlord, to be at war with, civil war, a warlike nation, war game, World Wars, warhead, war of nerves, warfare, to go to war against/with sb, a war-torn city, the onset of war, warring factions, to declare war on the enemy, war on terror, war crime, to lead to war, on-going war, war criminal, the horrors of war

Exercise 4. Complete these sentences.

1.War should be understood as ___________________

2.War occurs only between ______________________

3.Classical war is ______________________________

4.Civil War is _________________________________

5.The distinction between nation and state is ________

6.The term “Nation-state” refers to ________________

7.Multi-national societies are the ones which ________

8.War is a violent way for determining _____________

9.The onset of war requires _____________________

10.War is the intentional use of mass force to _______

Exercise 5. Match these adverbs with their definitions. Translate them into Russian.