I’ve just discovered Maryam Namazie’s website, and I can’t believe I’ve missed it for so long. (In case you don’t know her, she’s a strong activist against the evils of Islam, especially sharia law, and a strong promoter of secularism.)
I’ve previously written about the segregation of Muslim schoolgirls in Canada during prayer (and the hyper-segregation of menstruating girls, who aren’t allowed to pray with others at all), but Namazie has a graphic illustration of this segregation in her post, “How sexual apartheid works with children—in photos.” There are three versions of a picture of the Parsian Children’s Ensemble, with two of them rejected by censors since boys and girls were (horrors!) sitting together, the girls were unveiled, and too much skin was showing. The last one, with full veiling and segregation, was the one that was approved.
Namazie also quotes a great piece by Mansoor Hekmat on the veiling of Islamic children (and remember that they have no choice about whether to be “Islamic”). So much for the Islamic argument that this mode of dress is freely chosen by women!
‘The child has no religion, tradition and prejudices. She has not joined any religious sect. She is a new human being who, by accident and irrespective of her will has been born into a family with specific religion, tradition, and prejudices. It is indeed the task of society to neutralise the negative effects of this blind lottery. Society is duty-bound to provide fair and equal living conditions for children, their growth and development, and their active participation in social life. Anybody who should try to block the normal social life of a child, exactly like those who would want to physically violate a child according to their own culture, religion, or personal or collective complexes, should be confronted with the firm barrier of the law and the serious reaction of society. No nine year old girl chooses to be married, sexually mutilated, serve as house maid and cook for the male members of the family, and be deprived of exercise, education, and play. The child grows up in the family and in society according to established customs, traditions, and regulations, and automatically learns to accept these ideas and customs as the norms of life. To speak of the choice of the Islamic veil by the child herself is a ridiculous joke. Anyone who presents the mechanism of the veiling of a kindergarten-age girl as her own ‘democratic choice’ either comes from outer space, or is a hypocrite who does not deserve to participate in the discussion about children’s rights and the fight against discrimination. The condition for defending any form of the freedom of the child to experience life, the condition for defending the child’s right to choose, is first and foremost, to prevent these automatic and common impositions. Anyone who thinks that in the matter of the veil there is ‘no difference’ between the child and the adult, should, before becoming a member of any editorial board or any Scandinavian Committee of any organisation, urgently do something about her own backwardness and ignorance about the basics of the issue under discussion. ‘
I suddenly feel embarrassed for all of us westerners when people like Maryam Namazie see all that typing wasted on a certain recent awkward social interaction.
Does she just feel that westerners have lost all touch with the plight of some parts of the world or she just goes; FUUUUUUUUUUUU
These are children. They have skin. This is clearly an incitement to depravity. Alternatively, the censors are fucking depraved lunatics.
Or catholic priests …
I have just recently started reading Maryam Namazie’s blog as well. I must say I am very impressed with her.
I just wrote a post in my own blog, paleolibrarian.blogspot.com on religious violence against women.
Please take a look.
Yours is an excellent post and one that I’d like to link to…..
Cheers,
David
Thanks for this David. I’ve been a long term feminist, who is also a science nut, hence my fondness for Jerry’s site. Its great to see some of that old biblical stuff that I used to go on about, up there…… My religion is poetry, where I sit with the profound and ponder.
Sometimes a typo makes a difference to the context. In this case the typo is Jerry’s.
The photo is of the Parsian Children’s Ensemble, not the Parisian Children’s Ensemble. Parsi is a branch of Zoroastrianism.
I don’t know where the photograph was taken, but it seems very unlikely that it was France.
Another version of the photograph can be found on this Persian language website. http://bombclub.cloob.com/club/post/show/topicid/2119750/%C2%BB+%D8%AF%D9%85+%D8%AE%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B3+%D9%88+%D9%82%D8%B3%D9%85+%D8%AD%D8%B6%D8%B1%D8%AA
I am not in favour of the enforced veiling or segregation of children or adults, but if we are going to criticise something, we need to ensure we know what it is we are criticising.
Fixed, thanks!
Thanks, beanfest, for pointing that out. It’s also too bad that Maryam’s blog doesn’t mention where the photo is taken, but if I had to guess, I’d say probably Iran since they have so stringent censorship? And also because Zoroastrism is one of the religious minorities in Iran; in fact, a religion indigenous to Persia, IIRC. Another thing important to consider here: while Iran tolerates the coexistence of other religions than Islam on their territory, the authorities still oblige the non-Muslim women to wear a veil, long sleeves, and a “non revealing” long dress or coat. Even foreign residents and tourists have to abide by these rules.
Welcome to a Republic that has, on paper, democratic institutions (a parliament, elections…), but where everything is subject to the supervision and censorship of a theocratic bureaucracy!
I’m not a fan of bans on Islamic veils when it concerns only adult women in a democratic country. But forcing young girls, who don’t have choice about it, into a conservative religious mold, through school segregation, dress codes, endless petty rules and minutiae… That’s beyond the pale.
“I’m not a fan of bans on Islamic veils when it concerns only adult women in a democratic country” but it’s never the case. You have to ban it for everyone or for no one.
Some say that the new law in Belgium will be as putting women in jail, since they won’t be able to go out of their home, but it’s not true. It’s possible that for some days the fathers and husbands go and fetch the children at the school, go shopping, queue at the post-office, etc; but they will quickly find that “there is no sin when there is no choice” and the women will go out unveiled.
Ignorance is not bliss!
Just reading through her “About” section, I caught that she works with the “International Committee against Stoning”
International Committee against Stoning?
Just run over that phrase a couple of times. How pathetic that we live in a world where such an organisation needs to exist.
It not only needs to exist, it’s crucial.
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is still sentenced to death by stoning and her lawyer Houtan Kian is in jail. The Iranian authorities have said they will not review her case. Unless the international community keeps this case in the public eye, she will almost certainly be executed – slowly and in excruciating pain.
I had the distinct pleasure to personally talk to Maryam for over an hour during the Dublin World Atheist Convention. She gave a lot of info on the revolts going on in the arabic world. She also made it clear that she has problems with both the left and right of the political spectrum. Of course, the right discriminates against immigrants and uses islam as a bogeyman to rail against. But the left displays near equal racism by patronizing (former)muslims. They are deemed unable to take normal criticism and any problem (like islamism and misogyny) are waived away as though they are impossible to fix for ‘those people’.