SACW #2 | Oct. 22-23, 2006 | Women in Islam / India: Afzal's sentence and events of 13 Dec 2001 / AFPSA
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Mon Oct 23 03:33:05 CDT 2006
South Asia Citizens Wire - # Pack 2 | October 22-23, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2309
[1] Clothes Aren't the Issue (Asra Q. Nomani)
[2] India: 'And His Life Should Become Extinct' (Arundhati Roy)
[3] India: Of military rule by other means (Jawed Naqvi)
____
[1]
Washington Post
October 22, 2006; B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/20/AR2006102001261.html
CLOTHES AREN'T THE ISSUE
by Asra Q. Nomani
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. When dealing with a
"disobedient wife," a Muslim man has a number of
options. First, he should remind her of "the
importance of following the instructions of the
husband in Islam." If that doesn't work, he can
"leave the wife's bed." Finally, he may "beat"
her, though it must be without "hurting, breaking
a bone, leaving blue or black marks on the body
and avoiding hitting the face, at any cost."
Such appalling recommendations, drawn from the
book "Woman in the Shade of Islam" by Saudi
scholar Abdul Rahman al-Sheha, are inspired by as
authoritative a source as any Muslim could hope
to find: a literal reading of the 34th verse of
the fourth chapter of the Koran, An-Nisa , or
Women. "[A]nd (as to) those on whose part you
fear desertion, admonish them and leave them
alone in the sleeping-places and beat them,"
reads one widely accepted translation.
The notion of using physical punishment as a
"disciplinary action," as Sheha suggests,
especially for "controlling or mastering women"
or others who "enjoy being beaten," is common
throughout the Muslim world. Indeed, I first
encountered Sheha's work at my Morgantown mosque,
where a Muslim student group handed it out to
male worshipers after Friday prayers one day a
few years ago.
Verse 4:34 retains a strong following, even among
many who say that women must be treated as equals
under Islam. Indeed, Muslim scholars and leaders
have long been doing what I call "the 4:34 dance"
-- they reject outright violence against women
but accept a level of aggression that fits
contemporary definitions of domestic violence.
Western leaders, including British Prime Minister
Tony Blair and Italian Prime Minister Romano
Prodi, have recently focused on Muslim women's
veils as an obstacle to integration in the West.
But to me, it is 4:34 that poses the much deeper
challenge of integration. How the Muslim world
interprets this passage will reveal whether Islam
can be compatible with life in the 21st century.
As Hadayai Majeed, an African American Muslim who
had opened a shelter in Atlanta to serve Muslim
women, put it, "If it's okay for me to be a
savage in my home, it's okay for me to be a
savage in the world."
Not long after I picked up the free Saudi book,
Mahmoud Shalash, an imam from Lexington, Ky.,
stood at the pulpit of my mosque and offered
marital advice to the 100 or so men sitting
before him. He repeated the three-step plan, with
"beat them" as his final suggestion. Upstairs, in
the women's balcony, sat a Muslim friend who had
recently left her husband, who she said had
abused her; her spouse sat among the men in the
main hall.
At the sermon's end, I approached Shalash. "This
is America," I protested. "How can you tell men
to beat their wives?"
"They should beat them lightly," he explained. "It's in the Koran."
He was doing the dance.
Born into a conservative Muslim family that
emigrated from Hyderabad, India, to West
Virginia, I have seen many female relatives in
India cloak themselves head to toe in black
burqas and abandon their education and careers
for marriage. But the Islam I knew was a gentle
one. I was never taught that a man could -- or
should -- physically discipline his wife. Abusing
anyone, I was told, violated Islamic tenets
against zulm , or cruelty. My family adhered to
the ninth chapter of the Koran, which says that
men and women "are friends and protectors of one
another."
However, the kidnapping and killing of my friend
and colleague Daniel Pearl in 2002 forced me to
confront the link between literalist
interpretations of the Koran that sanction
violence in the world and those that sanction
violence against women. For critics of Islam,
4:34 is the smoking gun that proves that Islam is
misogynistic and intrinsically violent. Read
literally, it is as troubling as Koranic verses
such as At-Tauba ("The Repentance") 9:5, which
states that Muslims should "slay the pagans
wherever ye find them" or Al-Mâ'idah ("The Table
Spread with Food") 5:51, which reads, "Take not
the Jews and Christians as friends."
Although Islamic historians agree that the
prophet Muhammad never hit a woman, it is also
clear that Muslim communities face a domestic
violence problem. A 2003 study of 216 Pakistani
women found that 97 percent had experienced such
abuse; almost half of them reported being victims
of nonconsensual sex. Earlier this year, the
state-run General Union of Syrian Women released
a report showing that one in four married Syrian
women is the victim of domestic violence.
Much of the problem is the 4:34 dance, which
encourages this violence while producing
interpretations that range from comical to
shocking. A Muslim man in upstate New York, for
instance, told his wife that the Koran allowed
him to beat her with a "wet noodle." The host of
a Saudi TV show displayed a pool cue as a
disciplinary tool.
Modern debates over 4:34 inevitably hark back to
a still widely used 1930 translation of the Koran
by British Muslim Marmaduke Pickthall, who
determined the verse to mean that, as a last
resort, men can "scourge" their wives. A 1934
translation of the Koran, by Indian Muslim
scholar A. Yusuf Ali, inserted a parenthetical
qualifier: Men could "Beat them (lightly)."
By the 1970s, Saudi Arabia, with its
ultra-traditionalist Wahhabi ideology, was
providing the translations. Fueled by oil money,
the kingdom sent its Korans to mosques and
religious schools worldwide. A Koran available at
my local mosque, published in 1985 by the Saudi
government, adds yet another qualifier: "Beat
them (lightly, if it is useful)."
Today, the Islamic Society of North America and
popular Muslim Internet mailing lists such as
SisNet and IslamIstheTruth rely on an analysis
from "Gender Equity in Islam," a 1995 book by
Jamal Badawi, director of the Islamic Information
Foundation in Canada. Badawi tries to take a
stand against domestic violence, but like others
doing the 4:34 dance, he leaves room for physical
discipline. If a wife "persists in deliberate
mistreatment and expresses contempt of her
husband and disregard for her marital
obligations," the husband "may resort to another
measure that may save the marriage . . . more
accurately described as a gentle tap on the
body," he writes. "[B]ut never on the face," he
adds, "making it more of a symbolic measure than
a punitive one."
As long as the beating of women is acceptable in
Islam, the problem of suicide bombers, jihadists
and others who espouse violence will not go away;
to me, they form part of a continuum. When 4:34
came into being in the 7th century, its
pronouncements toward women were revolutionary,
given that women were considered little more than
chattel at the time. But 1,400 years later, the
world is a different place and so, too, must our
interpretations be different, retaining the
progressive spirit of that verse.
Domestic violence is prevalent today in
non-Muslim communities as well, but the apparent
religious sanction in Islam makes the challenge
especially difficult. Some people seem to
understand this and are beginning to push back
against the traditionalists. However, their
efforts are concentrated in the West, and their
impact remains small.
In his recent book "No god but God," Reza Aslan,
an Islam scholar at the University of Southern
California, dared to assert that "misogynistic
interpretation" has dogged 4:34 because Koranic
commentary "has been the exclusive domain of
Muslim men." An Iranian American scholar recently
published a new 4:34 translation stating that the
"beating" step means "go to bed with them (when
they are willing)."
Meanwhile, shelters created for Muslim women in
Chicago and New York have begun to preach zero
tolerance regarding the "disciplining" of women
-- a position that should be universal by now.
And some Muslim men appear to grasp the gravity
of this issue. In Northern Virginia, for
instance, an imam organized a group called Muslim
Men Against Domestic Violence -- though it still
endorses the "tapping" of a wife as a "friendly"
reminder, an organizer said.
Yet even these small advances, if we can call
them such, face an uphill battle against the
Saudi oil money propagating literalist
interpretations of the Koran here in the United
States and worldwide.
Last October, I listened to an online audio
sermon by an American Muslim preacher, Sheik
Yusuf Estes, who was scheduled to speak at West
Virginia University as a guest of the Muslim
Student Association. He soon moved to the subject
of disobedient wives, and his recommendations
mirrored the literal reading of 4:34. First,
"tell them." Second, "leave the bed." Finally:
"Roll up a newspaper and give her a crack. Or
take a yardstick, something like this, and you
can hit."
When I telephoned Estes later to ask about the
sermon, he said that he had been trying to limit
how and when men could hit their wives. He
realized that he had to revisit the issue, he
told me, when some Canadian Muslim men asked him
if they could use the Sunday newspaper to give
their wives "a crack."
Yet even those doing the 4:34 dance seem to
realize that there's a problem. When I went back
to listen to the audio clip later, the offensive
language had been removed. And when I asked Estes
if he had ever rolled up a newspaper to give his
own wife a crack, he responded without hesitation.
"I'm married to a woman from Texas," he said. "Do
you know what she would do to me?"
<mailto:asranomani at muslimsforpeace.net>asranomani at muslimsforpeace.net
Asra Q. Nomani is the author of "Standing Alone:
An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of
Islam" (HarperSanFrancisco).
____
[2]
Outlook Magazine Oct 30, 2006
Afzal Hanging
'AND HIS LIFE SHOULD BECOME EXTINCT'
THE VERY STRANGE STORY OF THE ATTACK ON THE INDIAN PARLIAMENT
by Arundhati Roy
We know this much: On December 13, 2001, the Indian Parliament was in
its winter session. (The NDA government was under attack for yet another
corruption scandal.) At 11.30 in the morning, five armed men in a white
Ambassador car fitted out with an Improvised Explosive Device drove
through the gates of Parliament House. When they were challenged, they
jumped out of the car and opened fire. In the gun battle that followed, all the
attackers were killed. Eight security personnel and a gardener were killed
too. The dead terrorists, the police said, had enough explosives to blow up
the Parliament building, and enough ammunition to take on a whole
battalion of soldiers. Unlike most terrorists,
these five left behind a thick trail
of evidence-weapons, mobile phones, phone numbers, ID cards,
photographs, packets of dry fruit, and even a love letter.
Not surprisingly, PM A.B. Vajpayee seized the opportunity to compare the
assault to the September 11 attacks in the US that had happened only
three months previously.
On December 14, 2001, the day after the attack on Parliament, the Special
Cell of the Delhi Police claimed it had tracked down several people
suspected to have been involved in the conspiracy. A day later, on
December 15, it announced that it had "cracked the case": the attack, the
police said, was a joint operation carried out by two Pakistan-based terrorist
groups, Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed. Twelve people were
named as being part of the conspiracy. Ghazi Baba of the Jaish (Usual
Suspect I), Maulana Masood Azhar also of the Jaish (Usual Suspect II);
Tariq Ahmed (a "Pakistani"); five deceased "Pakistani terrorists" (we still
don't know who they are). And three Kashmiri men, S.A.R. Geelani,
Shaukat Hussain Guru, and Mohammed Afzal; and Shaukat's wife Afsan
Guru. These were the only four to be arrested.
In the tense days that followed, Parliament was adjourned. On December
21, India recalled its high commissioner from Pakistan, suspended air, rail
and bus communications and banned over-flights. It put into motion a
massive mobilisation of its war machinery, and moved more than half-a-
million troops to the Pakistan border. Foreign embassies evacuated their
staff and citizens, and tourists travelling to India were issued cautionary
travel advisories. The world watched with bated breath as the subcontinent
was taken to the brink of nuclear war. (All this cost India an estimated Rs
10,000 crore of public money. A few hundred soldiers died just in the
panicky process of mobilisation.)
[. . .]
In its August 4, 2005, judgement, the Supreme Court clearly says that there
was no evidence that Mohammed Afzal belonged to any terrorist group or
organisation. But it also says, "As is the case with most of the conspiracies,
there is and could be no direct evidence of the agreement amounting to
criminal conspiracy. However, the circumstances, cumulatively weighed,
would unerringly point to the collaboration of the accused Afzal with the
slain 'fidayeen' terrorists."
So: No direct evidence, but yes, circumstantial evidence.
A controversial paragraph in the judgement goes on to say, "The incident,
which resulted in heavy casualties, had shaken the entire nation, and the
collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if capital
punishment is awarded to the offender. The challenge to the unity, integrity
and sovereignty of India by these acts of terrorists and conspirators can
only be compensated by giving maximum punishment to the person who is
proved to be the conspirator in this treacherous act" (emphasis mine).
To invoke the 'collective conscience of society' to validate ritual murder,
which is what the death penalty is, skates precariously close to valorising
lynch law.It's chilling to think that this has been laid upon us not by
predatory politicians or sensation-seeking journalists (though they too have
done that), but as an edict from the highest court in the land.
[. . .]
So: Should Mohammed Afzal's life become extinct?
A small, but influential minority of intellectuals, activists, editors, lawyers
and public figures have objected to the Death Sentence as a matter of
moral principle. They also argue that there is no empirical evidence to
suggest that the Death Sentence works as a deterrent to terrorists. (How
can it, when, in this age of fidayeen and suicide bombers, death seems to
be the main attraction?)
If opinion polls, letters-to-the-editor and the reactions of live audiences in
TV studios are a correct gauge of public opinion in India, then the lynch
mob is expanding by the hour. It looks as though an overwhelming majority
of Indian citizens would like to see Mohammed Afzal hanged every day,
weekends included, for the next few years. L.K. Advani, leader of the
Opposition, displaying an unseemly sense of urgency, wants him to be
hanged as soon as possible, without a moment's delay.
Meanwhile in Kashmir, public opinion is equally overwhelming. Huge angry
protests make it increasingly obvious that if Afzal is hanged, the
consequences will be political. Some protest what they see as a
miscarriage of justice, but even as they protest, they do not expect justice
from Indian courts. They have lived through too much brutality to believe in
courts, affidavits and justice any more. Others would like to see
Mohammed Afzal march to the gallows like Maqbool Butt, a proud martyr to
the cause of Kashmir's freedom struggle. On the whole, most Kashmiris
see Mohammed Afzal as a sort of prisoner-of-war being tried in the courts
of an occupying power. (Which it undoubtedly is). Naturally, political parties,
in India as well as in Kashmir, have sniffed the breeze and are cynically
closing in for the kill.
Sadly, in the midst of the frenzy, Afzal seems to have forfeited the right to
be an individual, a real person any more. He's become a vehicle for
everybody's fantasies-nationalists, separatists, and anti-capital
punishment activists. He has become India's great villain and Kashmir's
great hero-proving only that whatever our pundits, policymakers and
peace gurus say, all these years later, the war in Kashmir has by no means
ended.
[. . .]
If Afzal is hanged, we'll never know the answer to the real question: Who
attacked the Indian Parliament? Was it the Lashkar-e-Toiba? The Jaish-e-
Mohammed? Or does the answer lie somewhere deep in the secret heart
of this country that we all live in and love and hate in our own beautiful,
intricate, various, and thorny ways?
There ought to be a Parliamentary Inquiry into the December 13 attack on
Parliament. While the inquiry is pending, Afzal's family in Sopore must be
protected because they are vulnerable hostages in this bizarre story.
To hang Mohammed Afzal without knowing what really happened is a
misdeed that will not easily be forgotten. Or forgiven. Nor should it be.
Notwithstanding the 10% Growth Rate.
FULL TEXT AT:
Alternative India Index
http://membres.lycos.fr/sacw/article.php3?id_article=29
(originally at:
http://outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20061030&fname=Cover+Story+%28F%29&sid=1
)
____
[3]
Dawn
October 23, 2006
OF MILITARY RULE BY OTHER MEANS
by Jawed Naqvi
THE Justice Jeevan Reddy Committee was set up
recently to review India's Armed Forces Special
Powers Act, (AFSPA, 1958) -- a law that has been
inflicting a heavy toll on democracy and civil
liberties in border states like Jammu and Kashmir
and across the northeastern swathe of primarily
tribal provinces.
The committee's report has been lying with the
government for days and human rights groups now
want it to be made public and discussed in
parliament. A "leaked" copy was distributed to
the press last week by rights NGOs, especially
those engaged in the troubled state of Manipur.
Incidences of frequent rape and killings in this
state, allegedly by security forces, have
triggered a wave of protests there.
According to the committee's findings "... the
(AFSPA) Act, for whatever reason, has become a
symbol of oppression, an object of hate and an
instrument of discrimination and
high-handedness." Giving other similar arguments,
the Reddy Committee has recommended that it would
be desirable to repeal the Act altogether. We'll
discuss the caveat entailed in this generosity.
In its initial comments on the proposed repeal of
the Act, Manipur's Human Rights Alert welcomed
the move, albeit cautiously. But some other
activists led by senior Supreme Court lawyer
Colin Gonsalves warned that the recommended
repeal could really be another way of bringing
the law back through the back door to encompass
not just the border states but the entire
country. "Remember that we could be preparing the
grounds for Martial Law in India," Gonsalves
warned his audience at the Delhi Press Club.
The Reddy Committee's report coincides with what
is seen as an apporaching change in India's
neighbourhood policy, particularly the "Look East
Policy". There is an aim here to link the country
to South East Asia, by a network of roads and
railways. The Human Rights Alert sees the move as
part of a wider globalization process that
offered a window of opportunity to the
historically ignored region. "But this is
contingent on whether and how far are the people
of the Northeast empowered and prepared enough to
leverage this opening promised by the Look East
Policy."
Colin Gonsalves is evidently not so sanguine
about the future. In a detailed critique of the
Reddy report he listed concerns, primarily the
suggestion that the key provisions of the AFSPA
could be transferred to beef up already existing
Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAP Act,
1967). To begin with, the Reddy report suggests
that even if a new law is not made, the Central
Government can nevertheless order the Army into
any particular state under Article 355 of the
Constitution to protect the State against
"internal disturbances". It can do so even
without there being a request from the state
government.
Gonsalves points to other troublesome
implications. The Reddy report, for example, says
that "it is highly advisable to repeal this Act
altogether, without of course, losing sight of
the overwhelming desire of an overwhelming
majority of the region that the Army should
remain." In other words, the Act can go but the
army should stay under different heads. "For this
purpose an appropriate legal mechanism has to be
devised."
To justify the transfer of the powers of the
AFSPA to UAP, the Committee presents arguments.
It says that a major consequence of the proposed
course would be to erase the feeling of
discrimination and alienation among the people of
the north-eastern states that they have been
subjected to, what they call "draconian enactment
made especially for them. The UAP Act applies to
entire India including to the Northeastern
States. The complaint of discrimination would
then no longer be valid."
Now that's a brilliant way of arguing against
discrimination. In other words, let's share the
same draconian laws with everyone and make it
equitable throughout the country. As Gonsalves
notes, the Reddy Committee is aware that the UAP
Act "does not provide for an internal mechanism
ensuring accountability of such forces with a
view to guard against abuses and excesses by
delinquent members of such forces."
The committee has proposed Grievances Cells to
address this problem. However, a cursory look at
the constituents of these cells makes the
proposal look laughable. The cells "should be
composed of three persons namely, a senior member
of the local administration as its chair, a
captain of the armed/security forces and a senior
member of the local police."
Not only are the cells going to be dominated by
the security forces and the police, but they
would also have no power to punish at all. All
they can do is to enquire into an allegation and
provide information. Gonsalves suggests an
alternative -- a Civilian Oversight Commission
along the lines prevalent in Britain. "This is
obvious from the principal grievance against the
security forces in India. No enquiry has ever
come to light where the security forces have been
severely punished."
Further, after setting out the principles that
the use of the armed forces ought to always be
for a limited period, the Reddy Committee
suggests an open-ended time schedule. It says
that while the Central Government should desist
from extending the period for calling in the army
beyond six months, there were circumstances when
it could do so.
"At the end of the period so specified, the
Central Government shall review the situation in
consultation with the State Government and check
whether the deployment of forces should continue
and if it is to continue, for which period. The
review shall take place as and when it is found
necessary to continue the deployment of the
forces at the expiry of the period earlier
specified."
Another proposed amendment to the clauses of the
AFSPA that may be co-opted into the UAP Act has
raised serious concern. The Reddy Committee
qualifies its suggestion that the armed forces
act in aid of the civil power by saying that the
forces will do so "to the extent feasible and
practicable... However, the manner in which such
forces shall conduct their operations shall be
within the discretion and judgment of such
forces." Worse, the Committee also suggests that
the deployment of the security forces in any
states can happen "notwithstanding that no
request for such force is received from the State
Government concerned." In the opinion of Colin
Gonsalves and others all this adds up to a
proposal to pave the way for martial law in the
country as and when that is found feasible to
have it. But many Manipuri activists are too busy
celebrating the proposed repeal of the dreaded
law to notice the warning. And given their long
ordeal, they can't be blamed.
* * * * *
We all know that American diplomats often
interfere with the most private matters of state
of the countries they are stationed in. Some half
a century ago the boot was on the other foot.
Here's a vignette from The Hindu of October 21,
1956.
"India's Ambassador to the United States, Mr.
G.L. Mehta, was on October 18 spotted by a
reporter as he (Mr. Mehta) was standing far back
in the rear of a crowd at the railway station at
Elyria (Ohio) to watch the Democratic
Presidential candidate, Mr. Adlai Stevenson. The
reporters called out from the train "Hi
Ambassador" to Mr. Mehta, who was standing with
his hat brim lowered firmly over his eyes.
The Ambassador then dropped his "disguise" and
was greeted by Mr. Stevenson. Mr. Mehta had just
delivered an address to students at the Oberlin
College at Elyria.
He said he had not planned to attend the
"whistle-stop" meeting as he did not want to get
mixed up in American politics but was persuaded
that the disguise would work. Evidently, it did
not, he added."
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
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