Arab women are demanding their rights - at last

Their time has come

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EVEN the Saudis - or rather, the small number of men who actually rule their troubled country - are giving ground in the struggle for women's rights. For sure, the recommendations handed this week to Crown Prince Abdullah at the end of an unprecedented round of "national dialogue" concentrating on the role of women were fairly tame. In the re­formers-versus-reactionaries litmus test of whether women should be allowed to drive cars (at present they cannot do so in the kingdom, nor can they travel unaccompanied, by what­ever means of motion), the king was merely asked to "assign a body to study a public-transport system for women to facili­tate mobility". No mention, of course, of the right to vote - but then that has been denied to men too, though local elections, on an apparently universal franchise, are supposed to be held in October. In sum, it is a tortoise's progress. But the very fact of the debate happening at all is remarkable - and hopeful.

It is not just in Saudi Arabia that more rights for women are being demanded but across the whole of the Arab and Mus­lim world. The pushy Americans have made women's rights part of their appeal for greater democracy in what they now officially call the "Broader Middle East", to include non-Arab Muslim countries such as Iran, Turkey and even Afghanistan. Many Arabs have cautioned the Americans against seeking to impose their own values on societies with such different tradi­tions and beliefs. Many leading Muslims have accused the cul­turally imperious Americans of seeking to destroy Islam. The appeal for more democracy in the Muslim world issued by leaders of the eight biggest industrial countries was watered down for fear of giving offence. Yet, despite the Arabs' prickli­ness, the Americans have helped pep up a debate that is now bubbling fiercely in the Arab world, even though many Arab leaders, none of whom is directly elected by the people, are understandably wary of reforms that could lead to their own toppling. Never before have women's rights in the Arab world been so vigorously debated. That alone is cause to rejoice.

Don't blame the Koran

One of the great falsehoods deployed by the conservatives, nearly all of them men, is that the Koran, the word of God as imparted to Muhammad more than 13 centuries ago, decrees that women should remain in second place. The trouble in Saudi Arabia (and in Iran, just outside the Arab fold but still in­fluential in parts of it, such as Iraq and Lebanon) is that conser­vatives, on whom - for reasons of history and realpolitik - the regime still relies, have grabbed a near-monopoly of religious authority, imposing an exceptionally narrow interpretation of Islam on the people, especially women. To take but one exam­ple, it is written that women should dress modestly, but no­where is it stated that they should be covered from top to toe in black. Nor, for that matter, is it stated that women should be denied an equal say in decisions of state.

Saudi Arabia, it should be stressed, is exceptionally behind­hand. Yet, compared with most of their western sisters, Arab women elsewhere still, on the whole, enjoy fewer rights. But they have generally been gaining ground apace. And there are now numerous examples in the Muslim (but not yet in the Arab) world where, without in any way disavowing Islam, women have actually headed governments: for instance in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Turkey.

It cannot be denied that there are problems, for liberals and supporters of full female emancipation, with the application of Sharia, the body of laws deemed to derive from the Koran, in those countries where the judicial system is wholly or partly based on it. Laws of inheritance, the relative weight of evidence given in court by men and women, rights of divorce and of children's custody - these, if taken literally, all diminish women. But there is far more flexibility and fuzziness, even here, than the conservatives concede. Sharia is not an actual code nor is it clearly defined; it is merely a basis for a system in­spired but not dictated by the Koran. It is certainly not incum­bent on all good Muslims to insist that the government use Sharia - or indeed the Koran - as the sole source of law. And both are open to wide interpretation, as they should be, to meet the changing demands of modernity.

Christians hardly need reminding that for centuries they fought bloody wars over competing versions of their faith, and bodies such as the Catholic Inquisition testify to the cruel­ties that can flow, within any religion, from a dogmatic deter­mination to impose a particular set of beliefs. Over the years, however, a separation of church and state has helped to nur­ture individual creativity alongside reasonable governance under temporal laws. A wider measure of separation of mosque and state would probably provide similar benefits, as it has done, for instance, in Turkey.

In the end, democracy, entailing a freedom of choice, is the prerequisite, for Muslims as much as anyone else, for creating a society that is both cohesive and fair. There is no reason why Muslim Arabs, women included, should not have the demo­cratic freedom enjoyed by people of other faiths. It would, after all, liberate men too.

Article 4

Дата добавления: 2014-12-24