Must not confuse suffering with suffrage.

Cheers!

Yes, I do. In our society, we have taboos against certain things based on our Judeo-Christian morals. For example, we make our women cover their breasts in public. From the perspective of someone from an aboriginal society in Africa that might be considered oppressive. I certainly wouldn’t appreciate, nor would most American women, being told that we are oppressed and that they have the correct take on women’s rights, so we should listen to them and do as they do (although I doubt many American men would protest the result of that particular movement).

Neither do I believe Western cultures have the moral authority to impose their system on other cultures. Many Muslim women willingly agree to abide by Sharia and don’t want it to change. They feel secure and devout in their beliefs that the Koran is the right way for them. Who are we to tell them otherwise? And then there are ME women who work to reform their culture to achieve a more secular society and political system. The point is that in either case, it’s THEIR choice, not ours.

Here is an excellent article; the best explanation I’ve found of the various attitudes of Palestinian women toward political rights and cultural traditions; it’s well worth reading if you want to gain a better understanding of this issue.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/01/21/islamist_women_redraw_palestinian_debate_on_rights/

(I find an interesting parallel between Palestinian women wanting the right to fight for their homeland and American women’s struggle to achieve equality in the military. Something that until very recently didn’t exist, if it does even now.)

[The one premise I do not read in your comments is that Middle Eastern women enjoy anything like the freedoms of American women, which you rightly celebrate.]

Then you must have missed comment #2 paragraph #3. The right which I celebrate in this post is the right to vote, to be considered intelligent enough to debate the issues and choose a candidate. That right is shared by my Muslim sisters in both Iraq and Palestine where women not only vote, but hold positions in the government. In that respect they enjoy the exact same freedoms as American women.

Perhaps this is where the confusion lies in our discussion. I am talking about sexual equality in a civil rights sense and you are talking about sexual equality in social customs. I make a distinction between civil rights and moral rights. The first is granted by the state, the second determined by “cultural and religious traditions.” I, we, nobody has the moral high ground and should never presume that “they” would be better off if they were more like “us,” as illustrated by my bare-breast analogy and also by the history of those who tried to impose their morality on others; the Christians in Hawaii, the Christians in North America, the Christians in South America, the Christian Crusaders in the Middle East, the Christians…oh well, you get the idea. Which brings us to your next comment;

[Yet you are publicly critical of the God "portrayed either in the Bible, the average Christian church, or the letters to the editor,"]

I’m publicly critical of those who use their interpretation of God to bash us with their superior morality and try to scare us with threats of everlasting damnation unless we fall in line and do it their way. That is no different an attitude than those Jihadists you and Michael are always throwing up as an example of badness in the world.

I know many Christians who have a broader view of God and a more charitable view of non-Christians than the letter writers, so I am not opposed to Christians per se, just the ones who use religion to justify bigotry, war, violence, revenge, and rabid patriotism.

Besides, I figured if the Christians can hog the letters to the editor for months on end, we Taoists should get a turn too.

[Frankly, I don't think you've ever fully revealed what it is you try to protect. I do know it's neither Judeo nor Christian.]

I’m not sure I know what you mean, but I guess you could say I’m an equal opportunity offender. Nothing is sacred to me, because everything is. No one has the answers. No one. We all just find what works for us and for me that’s Taoism. For others it might be Christianity or Judaism or Islam. That’s fine, as long as you don’t try to enforce your beliefs on others or use your beliefs to dominate, control, frighten, or persecute anyone else. Yes, that goes for Muslims too. But so far in this neighborhood, I haven’t found any Muslim letter writers that I can aim my poison pen at.

Well done. Your bullet list at the end of your last comment is, if true, among the most compelling evidence supporting the theme of your original point--that suffrage, and womens' rights generally, are a good thing and should be protected.

You point out movement restrictions imposed by Israelis impede Palestinian womens' rights to the kinds of health and pre-natal care afforded by civilized societies, but you ignore all restrictions brought on by cultural and religious traditions of the Middle East.

You are unfairly quick to yoke me with religious bias against Muslims. Yet you are publicly critical of the God "portrayed either in the Bible, the average Christian church, or the letters to the editor," as demonstrated by your letter to the Editor published in the GSPI earlier this week.

The one premise I do not read in your comments is that Middle Eastern women enjoy anything like the freedoms of American women, which you rightly celebrate. Frankly, I don't think you've ever fully revealed what it is you try to protect. I do know it's neither Judeo nor Christian.

Cheers,

I have never claimed it will. As I’ve said many times before in answer to this same comment of yours, ending the occupation of Palestine is but one step in the process of restoring justice to U.S. foreign policy. There are many other steps to take to neutralize terrorism. I just don’t believe that blasting our way around the ME trying to hunt down and kill every terrorist is as effective as diplomatically and politically addressing the grievances of those trying to exact revenge for the wrongs that the U.S. has done to their people for the last sixty years. Islamic terrorism against the U.S. didn’t suddenly arise out of nowhere, there is a cause and effect. We can deal with the effect from now until the cows come home, but until we deal with the cause, nothing will change.

I get from your line of questioning that you believe that Islam itself is solely to blame for terrorism and that if there were a reformation, terrorism would end. I think this is what you have been trying to get me to acknowledge; that if Islam was reformed resulting in ME Muslim women being given their rights, then the problems in the ME would lessen. That may be partially so. There is a radical faction of Islam that oppresses women and engages in Jihadist ventures. But I am mainly concerned with the injustice of the occupation as a rallying cry for the Jihadists. I would like to see this weapon removed from their arsenal. But remember; it’s not the final solution, just ONE SMALL STEP.

Out of respect for your willingness to engage me in discourse despite my “insulting rhetoric,” I have done some research into Palestinian women’s rights. Here are some excerpts that explain my position better than I have so far been able to do and show that the best thing that we as Americans can do to enhance the rights and lives of Palestinian women is to bring an end to the occupation…

http://www.washington-report.org/archives/May-June_2007/0705062.html

During the question-and-answer session, many audience members asked how the second intifada and Israel’s annexation wall have reinforced the social constraints placed on women. Pointing out that she conducted her research prior to both developments, Rubenberg expressed the belief that “external factors can only reinforce these problems.” When asked if passing legislation to guarantee women’s rights would help alleviate the situation, Rubenberg replied that “getting a law through the legislature is the last step…the society has to socialize the change first.”
Indeed, Rubenberg concluded, regarding all issues such as power struggles, class differences, status and patriarchy, “change has to come from the ground up.”

http://www.awid.org/eng/Issues-and-Analysis/Library/Does-women-s-rights-activism-lack-lustre-in-Palestine

AWID: In your case study you argue that a rights based approach is not the best way to address the issues Palestinian women face. Why do you think so?

IJ: Organizations that use the rights based approach assume that we are living in an ordinary post colonial society. Therefore it is perceived that the post colonial state should protect or promote certain rights and privileges to realize every person's specific interests. However in actual terms this is not the case. We are still a colonized society and we are still living under a colonized state. We cannot talk only of individual rights and forget national rights; freedom from Israeli occupation. With the NGOization process activism has shifted to individual rights. We have a Palestinian Authority that is drawing plans and trying to implement policies to benefit the people of Palestine, but at the same time we are under occupation which is denying the Palestinian people nationhood. The NGOization process is funded by different international organizations. These organizations seem to equate the Palestinian case with the South African case, as an example. The South African situation is that of a post-apartheid state that has instituted a new system of governance. Our case in Palestine is very different, we are still under occupation. The rights based approach has minimized the push for national rights.

http://www.madre.org/countries/Palestine.html

Israeli-imposed restrictions on Palestinians' freedom of movement, coupled with intermittent military attacks, pose a serious threat to the rights and well-being of Palestinian women and their families, with particular consequences to women's reproductive health.
Effects on Women's Reproductive Health
• Within the first four years of the current intifada, 61 Palestinian women were forced to give birth at Israeli military checkpoints, resulting in the deaths of 20 women and 36 infants.
• During roughly the same period, home deliveries increased from 5.2 percent to over 30 percent. Many women felt compelled to stay at home because of the fear of having to pass through military checkpoints.
• There has been almost a fivefold increase in the number of pregnant women who received no prenatal care due to movement restrictions on women and healthcare providers.
• There has also been a dramatic increase in births that take place in unsafe conditions or are unsupervised by a skilled health worker—all of which has led to drastic increases in the dangers posed to women during pregnancy and childbirth, and creates enormous psychological strain for women.

[You have apparently formed an unfavorable judgment of my position and pronounced that no further meaningful discussion on the subject is necessary or even possible. I honestly don’t understand what you were expecting of me that I didn’t deliver and frankly I’m insulted that you would take that position with me.]

Your conclusion belies my continued willingness to engage you in discourse despite your insulting rhetoric. My hope is that your words were sufficiently punitive. Rest assured, they hit their mark.

I understand your position that you can't toil under every cause. You've taken up the mantle of the Palestinians, and this is a noble undertaking. I get that.

All I'm saying is, it's not that simple.

Solve the Palestinian conflict, and all the magical tumblers will not fall into place, and there will not be peace in the ME, and whatever we've done to piss off Jihadists will not have been neutralized. And it wasn't because of George Bush, it wasn't because of "Big Oil," and it wasn't because of "Dick Cheney," "Halliburton," or "Fox News." As far as I'm concerned, all this crap is dancing around a May Pole while a serious shite storm brews...

But that's just my opinion.

Cheers,

I guess I should feel flattered that you think so highly of me as to expect that I am capable of not only championing the rights of the Palestinian and Iraqi people, but also take up the cause of Middle Eastern women’s rights. Sorry to disappoint you, I just don’t have enough energy or sufficient compulsion to become a suffragette.

Remember, I only became an activist out of concern that the United States was being attacked due to its dubious involvement in the Middle East. Otherwise, the plight of the Palestinians never would’ve shown up on my radar, and if it did, without 9/11 I probably would not have cared.

I don’t consider myself an activist for the rights of all humans, or for peace and justice in general, which is why I never focus on Darfur or Tibet. I have enough on my plate trying to make Americans aware of the policies that incite anger and terrorism against us. To become sidetracked into trying to influence Middle Eastern social customs toward more freedom for women would only complicate an already complex task.

As the saying goes; “Lord, give me the strength to change what I can, the ability to accept what I cannot change and the wisdom to understand the difference.” I believe I have that wisdom.

Now Mitch, you perpetually call my activism into question, make sarcastic comments about the perceived incongruities of my opinions and purposefully post videos that show Islam in a bad light. It certainly appears that you are trying to provoke me to defend a position that you find inherently indefensible. Yet when I call you on it, you deny there is any motive behind these actions other than to make my activism stronger. Come on!

What was the purpose of posting that last video if not to prove that my defense of the rights of Muslims is not only unfounded but contemptible? As usual your entire line of questioning is pointedly aimed at proving just how despicable and unworthy the people of the Middle East are of my choice to, as you put it; “carry a torch for.” You can deny your annoyance at my activism on behalf of Muslim people all you want, but your words and actions prove otherwise.

And finally, you claim to be seeking to foster thoughtful discussion, yet I give you an extensive explanation of my experience in Iraq and Jordan, my opinion of women’s rights and roles in various ME nations, and what role those of other nations should or shouldn’t play in a ME suffrage movement, and you say no thoughtful discussion has happened, nor would it. You have apparently formed an unfavorable judgment of my position and pronounced that no further meaningful discussion on the subject is necessary or even possible. I honestly don’t understand what you were expecting of me that I didn’t deliver and frankly I’m insulted that you would take that position with me.

I don't impugn your activism. Rather, I wonder how it comports with your celebration of women's suffrage, and the changes it portends for the future.

This is not a baseless question, no matter what kind of psychological heat lamp you shine on my motives. I have no compunction whatsoever to undermine your cause, nor do I carry some kind of grudge against you. Instead, I rather hoped this question would foster some thoughtful discussion. A few comments ago, I was satisfied this would not happen.

For the record, I wonder how an American women who rightly holds up suffrage as a major gain in the existence of women in this country can look upon nations and cultures that largely, if not completely, deny such rights to women not to impugn your activism, but to make it stronger.

Cheers,

You impugn my activism because it doesn’t include women’s rights and you impugn my celebration of women’s rights in America because I didn’t fight for them myself and I’m not involved in the struggle on behalf of ME women.

Nice.

Like I said, I don’t believe that rights within a society should be fought for by those of another society. Civil rights can’t be gained by a blunt blow to the head from a foreign object, it must be taken step by step by the very people who stand to gain from the acquisition. I leave Middle Eastern women’s activism to people like Hirsi Ali and others who know what they are talking about from their own experience and who personally stand to gain from the reformation. Their voices are much more powerful than mine.

What I find interesting is how you turned this post into a discussion of the Middle East. That’s usually my bag. After all of this time and having gotten to know me better through several lunch dates, you still display an aversion to my activism for the liberation of Palestine, and use any opportunity on the blog to undermine and discredit my cause. I just don’t get it. It’s almost like some kind of personal vendetta. What is bothering you really?

You opened this blog with the words, "On Aug. 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote, was declared in effect." From there, you go on to celebrate the achievement that is the women's vote in America.

I do not assert that overcoming Middle Eastern sexual inequality will solve the conflict between Israel and Palestine, and it's a cheap to suggest I do. Rather, I wonder simply how your professed value of the female vote in the U.S. comports with the state of women in the Middle East.

In truth, you answered this question quite to my satisfaction when you wrote, "if women are dissatisfied with inequality in their society, it’s up to them to change it." To me, that frames your opinion of the universality of women's suffrage, the object of this celebratory blog, quite clearly. You've got yours (by virtue of prices you never had to pay). If Middle Eastern women want anything like the same thing, they'll have to fight for it.

Nice.

Cheers,