24 Aug A final blog (for now)
I’ve talked about Muslim women and international law. Where are they? Where am I? I am sitting here at my keyboard, a lump of protoplasm surrounded by skin. International law is external to me. The Islamic people are external to me. Do I have a right to interfere with these external things? Do they have a right to interfere with me?
The word “right” shows up in these questions. Does the right come from them? Or does it come from me?
If international law says that the Islamic people and I have rights, who authorized international law to say it? In his comments to my blogs, “Obtestor” keeps saying that it is the women of the world who have told international law what to say. It is they who have decided what everyone’s rights shall be. Is Obtestor articulating a powerful insight here? Or is he just trolling for a date?
If my rights are part of my belief system, where did I get my belief system? Most belief systems are formed in childhood. In the Muslim world, boys and girls are raised together in the women’s quarters. When a boy is born, there is great fuss and celebration. But the women do not seem happy when a girl is born. They convey their displeasure to all the boys and girls who are in their care.
A young boy is fussed over and spoiled by all the adult women. As a result, the boy usually becomes a brat. He hits his sisters, steals their food, and behaves like a tyrant toward them. His mother and all the adult women back him up. If he hits a girl who is younger than he is, and hits her for no reason, the women will yell at the girl and maybe hit her. They will tell the little girl that she has displeased the boy, even if she hasn’t.
Finally, when the boy is six or seven he’s sent to the men’s quarters to live with a tutor under the authority of his father.
We might say, looking at all of this, that the women are merely preparing the children for the life of extreme inequality that lies ahead of them. The male person can do whatever he wants; the female person must learn to like it, whatever it is.
Who am I to criticize these people? Hasn’t my belief system been instilled in me just as their belief system was instilled in them? When I was a child, I was told, by adults I trusted, all about God. I was told that I could pray to God and that He would listen. I prayed a lot. I tried to start conversations, but I knew that God was a little too busy to answer me.
However, I no longer believe these things. I have trouble even figuring out what the concept “God” might mean. I don’t say that God doesn’t exist, but I also don’t say that God exists. I think I was very lucky to be able to read books and be exposed to ideas, and given enough time to think in solitude, that I could mentally disengage from these childish things.
I don’t think that Muslim women have the opportunity to disengage. Their childhood brainwashing is just too thorough. What the young Muslim woman said in my previous blog are things she deeply believes. She has been sincerely brainwashed.
I don’t think I was quite as thoroughly brainwashed as a child because I’ve rejected all the things I was taught. I would not have been able to reject them if I had been as completely brainwashed as the children of Islam.
I have evolved a perspective of the world and my place in the world that I believe is not entirely the product of what any other person or group of persons have ordained for me. I think I see the world more objectively than Muslim women see it. Of course, I could be wrong about this, but just the possibility that I am wrong doesn’t make it wrong. Someone would have to prove to me that I am wrong.
So here’s how I come out. I may be a creature of my belief system, but it’s MY belief system. And an important part of it is that no human adult should ever have legal or moral superiority over any other human adult.
I look at the Qu’ran. Even though Ali in a comment says I should be taking seventh century texts with a grain of salt, he would probably be even more outraged if I instead quoted a later translation. I am also sure that the same words I am quoting are read today by millions of Islamic people. As you recall, those words of the Prophet are: “Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other.”
And I say to Muslim women: Reject these words. Do not allow a seventh century Prophet to run your life.
And I say this because I cannot say the opposite without denying my own belief system. I cannot say the opposite without denying my own humanity. I believe I am right and their system is grievously wrong.
[In his comments to my blogs, “Obtestor” keeps saying that it is the women of the world who have told international law what to say. It is they who have decided what everyone’s rights shall be. Is Obtestor articulating a powerful insight here?] I am convinced. Look at the precedents. Western Law and international law is moving directly into the arena of matriarchal totalitarianism. Two days ago a man was fired by NBC for saying that Islam created terrorism. Starve the man why don’t they! That is what they are doing. Starving him because he is a man. Don’t toe the line, no problem. Have fun being hungry in America, soup line guy. Yesterday a high school in America was forced to admit that 13% of its female students were pregnant. That means 65 cases of statutory rape in one school. The incident never made the cable news for a moment. There is no way the matriarchal school system would ever get such attention. Today at Walter Reed Hospital, leftist anti-war protestors that flooded the area held up signs that read: “Maimed For A Lie.” What is that!?! Over 53% of the American voting population is women. Women control the… Read more »
Prof. D’Amato’ opinions on law, culture and religions are insightful. While reading his latest blog, i couldn’t contain myself from laughter ( not in disrespect) when I read the passage that says that boys were raised in women’s quarters and boys were moved to men’s quarters after they get a little older. The reason for my laugh was because Prof. D’Amato had painted a picture of a medieval or an Ottoman Palace life. I think ordinary Muslim homes, from China to the Middle East, do not have men quarters or women quarters. a boy or a girl would live in the same house with other members of family. Though, D’Amato assertion about Muslim women, has some truth to it, regarding indoctrination of values and religions, which is true of all other belief systems out there. Religion is a dogma, not necessary a rationally calculated choice. It is a matter of believing of one’s parents, and society’s choice for you, unless you choose otherwise. The same could be true about the Christian or Jewish faith. Children born into these faiths ( and others) did not make a rational choice to be in that belief system. Religion, often times does not make… Read more »
One man’s brainwashing is another man’s morality – the difference is the value system which supports the rules. I think it is a mistake to dismiss value systems based solely on applying one’s own value system against an apparently incompatible one. That appearance of incompatibility may only be a surface appearance. It is also a mistake, I think, to generalize value systems with a wide brush – people have differences which are essential to their own identity within their societal value system; those variances sometimes have essential things to say about how coherent the value system is. I am also, by choice and upbringing, in the humanist secular western tradition and I find the Koran-centric value system of many Muslim household likewise uncompelling based on the tenets of my values: humancentric, individual, rational, experiential, etc. But I am loathe to dismiss the entire set of Muslim values merely because they have some major differences and dissonance with my own. That is not because I don’t feel I’m right in my values (they wouldn’t be values if I did), but because I understand that understanding and tolerance are the best means to present the virtues of my own value system. People… Read more »
I found Professor D’Amato’s posts quite interesting. However, I’m quite confused by Obtestor’s comments and criticisms, particularly since Professor D’Amato’s “most important human right” can be summed up as respect for the individual. Or, as some phrase it, “the golden rule” (others can argue its origins).
While I was not happy with some of the generalities made by Professor D’Amato, I do understand that he was using them to try and make a particular point. I would be very surprised to learn that he has this one narrow view of Islam.
I am also confused by Obtestor’s idea that “international law is clearly what western women (feminism) dictate[s].” My understanding of the development of international law does not see it forming based on Western notions of feminism. There appears to be a need for the Carnegie Foundation to reprint their classics of international law.
Like most legal developments, the law of human rights has been reactionary to problems that garner the attention of governments. Thus, its no surprise that the UDHR followed the abuses of WWII. We see this as well in the development of the different human rights conventions.
[However, I’m quite confused by Obtestor’s comments and criticisms, particularly since Professor D’Amato’s “most important human right” can be summed up as respect for the individual.] If you are confused by my comments you should ask for clarification. I am also in the same room with you (this forum), so there is no need to speak in the third person, unless you do so out of disrespect. The only claim that I am making in regards to the development of international law is that fascism finds it easier to replicate itself, sort of how viruses replicate themselves, than to implement systems of law and governance foreign to the host. You are confused about the topic because you did not read all of Professor D’Amato’s blog posts in sequence on the matter. Professor D’Amato was clearly stating that the most important human right for mankind was the regulation of female rights in any society. I won’t go further than that and speak for Professor D’Amato because he does a good job of doing that all by himself, but let’s not kid ourselves at what is going on with international law. In the early 1970s when the American 5th column funded by… Read more »
Well I really don’t have time to get into all of this, but I’ll attempt some brief comments… To Obtestor: The other day you asked what Isalm exports besides oil. Well oil is just another commodity, and it’s utterly trivial that anyone who has a surplus of it is an exporter: that’s just an accident of location, and there’s nothing “Islamic” about it. Yet in the same post, you used one of the most important and pervasive cultural exports of Isalm without even realizing it. Do you need a clue? (Couldn’t resist asking that one!) And you rant about “feminist / humanist ‘facism'”, and claim the bill of rights is a gift from god. As if you were a prophet speaking for god, as if your understanding was perfect and beyond doubt, as if your woeful ignorance was not evident in every sentence you write. As if you EVEN believed in the bill of rights. And as if Islam, Judaism, and Christianity were not all branches growing from the same tree, just as Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism are. And you speak of love even as you vent your contempt for those who do not share your ignorace or bigotry. *… Read more »
More 5th column nonsense.
“Ignore the issues and stick to the revolution only.” — Joseph Stalin.
…to sum up Charly’s post.
Obtestor
Obtestor,
If you think I care a fig about vacuous slanders like “5th columnist”, think again: you, sir, are a self-made IDIOT.
And I repeat: res ipsa loquitur.
Charly
Quit your whining, Charly. You don’t even know the difference between a criminal and a combatant, and you are calling me an idiot?
The 5th column at work.
LOL
Obtestor