Indigo Jo Blogs

Before the week begins in earnest, I thought I might offer a round-up of stories which caught my eye the past week:

Stuart Jeffries in the Guardian on the stupid, racist gibberish which has followed the discovery of the woman and her children in the cellar in Austria. Some nonsense has been printed about how there must be something rotten in the Austrian psyche or something like that, probably derived from its wartime record, and the perpetrator himself tried to blame his "sickness" on growing up under Hitler. In fact, Austria was ruled by the Nazis for only seven years, compared to Germany's twelve, so you would expect a plethora of such cases to have appeared in Germany, but no. There have been just two cases, involving about a handful of perpetrators out of several million. What does such a thing about any population?

Hassan Butt has been busted. At last, also, the Observer acknowledges that there are critics of Hassan Butt who are not fanatics issuing threats to his life. They print that some people think Butt is a fantasist or was an MI5 informer; my theory is that he turned tail when times got tough for an extremist.

Yet another alleged adviser to the Quilliam Foundation, Shaikh Babikr Ahmad (the imam at Islamia school), turns out to have nothing to do with them.

Continue reading "Round-up: Austria, Hassan Butt, Julian Baggini in Rotherham, life in Yemen" »

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Harry's Place, a blog I read often but generally disagree with, posted this last week, about Yvonne Ridley winning a case for harassment, sex discrimination and constructive unfair dismissal against the Islam Channel. Since HP is currently on hiatus due to overshooting its data transfer allowance (as it seems to do for the last week or so of every month), I'm going to copy a whole load from the Google cache of it, because I agree wholeheartedly with it.

But before I do, I am going to add something which makes my blood boil about this case, which is that certain Muslim men, including some in authority, do not seem to realise that the prohibition of shaking hands with women outside their families applies to all women, not only Arab women, Pakistani women or women who obviously look like Muslim women. They would not dream of publically shaking hands with one of "their" women, so why on earth do they do it with a white woman (or a black woman, for that matter) who is well-known to have converted to Islam? It does not matter if you are suspicious of her motives or sincerity. If you feel you must shake hands with some women and one of them refuses because she is a Muslim and you couldn't tell because she wasn't in hijab, take it gracefully rather than getting offended. No, shaikhs and state muftis are not exempt.

I should add that, if you are a man and a woman offers to shake your hand, be polite about refusing and don't snatch your hand away and mutter in an offended tone, "I do not shake hands with women", because this can be really hurtful. Still, it would make things a lot easier for it to be as well-known that Muslims don't do this as it is that we don't eat pork or drink alcohol, and when Muslims in positions of authority break this rule and then publically humiliate those who try to keep it, it pushes this goal further away every time it happens.

The Harry's Place excerpt is under the fold.

Continue reading "Yvonne Ridley wins case against Islam Channel" »

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Maureen Freely: Cover Stories from Comment is Free

Maureen Freely (translator of Orhan Pamuk's books, who has spent a fair amount of time in Turkey) on the politics behind the recent move by the Turkish parliament to remove the ban on women's wearing the headscarf in universities in Turkey:

There are many shades of secularism in Turkey. But the most dominant variety puts great faith in the army. It sees the army's involvement in the day-to-day running of the state as necessary, even essential, for only the army can protect the republic from its many enemies. For it is not just the Islamists the army keeps at bay. It is also the Kurds, and the Armenians, and (increasingly) Europe. Turkey's militarist-secularists have a very limited faith in democracy. They condone or even applaud laws that make it an offence to insult Turkishness or the memory of Ataturk. What they are defending here is not democracy or feminism but the state's right to decide what women wear.

She also notes that the women who are so scared about being "bullied" by scarf-wearing women may well be afraid of those women getting even on them, since many of them were spat on and otherwise harassed during the 1990s by secularists, and that no law has ever been passed to keep Islamist men out of the universities (same twisted brand of pseudo-feminism as was on display in France, then).

The comment from "WestToEast" is also worth reading.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 7:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Last (i.e. Thursday) night, and the night before, BBC1 showed a two-part series called Honour Kills, about honour-related murders in the British Asian community (mostly Pakistani, with one Kurdish case). Abu Eesa has already reacted to the programmes, but I feel there was one obvious flaw in the programmes that Abu Eesa did not seem to pick up. About three quarters of it, including the entire first episode, were given over to two highly atypical cases which involved the murder of not just the "offender" but also her (and the killer's) children.

These were familicides, a problem which appears to cut across racial and cultural backgrounds. They normally involve a man killing his wife and children and then himself. They may be motivated by the wife's affair or leaving him or threatening to leave, but may be related to other matters such as work stress. According to this article in the Guardian from 2004, such incidents happen every six to eight weeks in the UK alone, and the perpetrators are nearly always men. Esther Addley, the author of that article, claims that most such killers have a history of domestic violence; Kevin Toolis, who wrote this article about another real such case in Wales, paints an entirely different picture, of a devoted father, if not such a devoted husband, under stress and facing financial ruin.

The typical honour killing, however, involves a woman who has transgressed the moral code of her community, and is killed to preserve some sense of honour for her family. The "transgression" can be anything from being seen talking to a strange man to actually sleeping with him; sometimes the killing is prompted by mere rumour, rather than a real transgression. This is not to justify this (do I really need to explain that?) but it is not the same as killing innocent children for their mothers' real or alleged actions.

Admittedly, the programme also showed an incident where a house was set on fire, killing a young girl, in an apparent attempt to murder (or just intimidate) a man seen talking to the sister of one of the murderers. However, only brief coverage was given to classic honour killings, at the beginning of the second programme. The rest was given over to the highly emotive familicides, namely the mass murders of their families by Rahan Arshad and Mohammed Riaz. Honour killing may be most common among Muslims; familicide seems to cut across all cultural boundaries, and the programme made no distinction.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 11:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Emel Magazine, a British Muslim lifestyle magazine (Emel is a woman's name meaning hope, and ML stands for Muslim Lifestyle), has an interview with Virago Press founder Carmen Callil. The website has not yet been updated for the most recent issue, and I don't think they publish their articles online anyway, so you'll have to get it to read it. The interview begins with the host allowing her two dogs to sniff around her two guests (the female interviewer and a male photographer), and in response to their dislike and the interviewer's explanation that the photographer had a traumatic experience involving a dog, replied, "what is wrong with you people?".

Continue reading "Emel interviews Carmen Callil" »

Posted by Indigo Jo at 6:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

BBC - Radio 4 Woman's Hour - Ingrid Mattson

This is an interview I heard today while out driving; Ingrid Mattson (president of the Islamic Society of North America and the first female, first non-immigrant and first convert to hold that post) tells basically her life story, talks a bit about her new book "The Story of the Koran", and fields a few questions on Islam and what it offers women. The download is in Real format and will probably keep up for a week.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 10:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The other day, Vanessa Feltz brought up the issue of the NHS offering hymen repairs to women of certain ethnic origins who need to appear to be virgins on their wedding night. Apparently, according to recent news reports ([1], [2]), for some women failing to bleed on their wedding night can have lethal repercussions as it is automatically assumed that they had slept around. Naturally, among the callers were people linking this to "fundamentalism", although one caller said she had heard of the "hanging out the sheets" business through family connections in Greece.

The problem is that this has nothing to do with fundamentalism and everything to do with culture. The fact is that Islamic law does not allow for people to accuse a woman of any previous illicit sex just because she does not bleed, because there are other causes for a broken hymen, such as a lot of physical activity ([1], [2], [3]); some scholars say that this operation is forbidden. The issue of where this leaves rape victims is therefore irrelevant, because it does not indicate sexual activity, consensual or otherwise. My first thought on hearing this was that not only should it not be available on the NHS, the procedure should be banned altogether.

However, the Channel 4 report quotes a campaigner for Kurdish and Iranian women's rights saying that the operation, which was performed 24 times on the NHS from 2005 to 2006, should be available more widely as it would prevent many honour killings. North African grooms are also alleged to be demanding virginity certificates from their brides. In the latter case, surely a bit of Islamic education is the answer? I don't know what the women out there think, but I don't believe that indulging this ignorance is a good use of NHS funds.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Comment is free: Lifting the veil

Rajnaara Akhtar (chair of Protect Hijab) on the recent fake scandal involving the Somali who was involved in murdering the policewomen Sharon Beshenivsky and supposedly might have escaped disguised as a Muslim woman in a veil. What she doesn't mention is that the "veiled escape" is only one of a number of possible reasons for why Mustaf Jama fled and thus escaped justice. Of course, nobody in our community has ever demanded that veiled women not be identified if need be, but you don't need to flip a veil to find out if the wearer is actually a woman - you need to just induce them to speak (and devise ways of surprising them into dropping their attempt to disguise their voices, if that's what they're doing).

More at Islamophobia Watch: [1], [2], [3], [4].

Posted by Indigo Jo at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Guardian Unlimited: No retreat

Sara Wajid interviews the novelist Alice Walker, best known for writing The Color Purple and - uh, not much else. They discuss the recent elections, 9/11 and the reaction to it, her affair with Tracy Chapman, and the supposed connection between FGM, the niqab and high heels.

Continue reading "Alice Walker and her views on Muslim women" »

Posted by Indigo Jo at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

This morning, Vanessa Feltz took her BBC London radio show to a new low by recycling a story from the Black Hole, otherwise known as the Daily Star, about non-Muslims supposedly being banned from the swimming pool at Thornton Heath, near Croydon in south London, for a Muslim ladies' swimming session. Here's how she announced it:

You will remember, I'm sure, our list of current London crimes. Travelling on a bus or tube while Muslim we said was definitely a crime; walking in the street while Jewish was a crime; well, here's the newest: swimming while non-Muslim. Thornton Heath Leisure Centre in Croydon has decreed that non-Muslims swimmers will not be allowed to attend the Saturday night session at the pool unless they cover their bodies from neck to ankle. Men must also cover up if they want to swim during the Muslim session on Sundays. They must wear shorts which hide the navel and come down below the knee. According to the council, "the facility was begun in response to public demand from the local Muslim community whose belief extends to the wearing of appropriate costumes. The sessions are not exclusively for members of any particular religion; the only restriction is that only appropriately dressed women can be present on the Saturday sessions, and only appropriately dressed men on the Sundays. Both weekend sessions are held at times when the pool would not normally be open to the general public; during the course of the last year, the single gender sessions have proved popular with users, and the only discontent has been that which has been deliberately stirred up by provocative reporting in national newspapers. Having a more responsible attitude towards community relations, Croydon's local newspapers, while aware of the situation, concluded that the issue did not amount to a story. We will not be putting anyone forward for interview this morning." Oh, OK. That doesn't mean that we can't talk about it. What do you make of it?"

Continue reading "Feltz pinches story from the Star" »

Posted by Indigo Jo at 9:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Technorati Tags: niqab, yasmin alibhai brown, khadija ravat, channel 4

The contrived controversy over the Channel 4 "Alternative Christmas Message" dragged on today, with the Daily Mirror featuring an interview with the lady in which she told the interviewer that she, being a patriotic British citizen, will be watching the Queen rather than her own message. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, however, comes out with the usual attack on the niqab, alleging that Channel 4 "has decided to glamorise and validate the veil, showing cool indifference to the meanings of one of the most violently contested symbols in the world today". Ravat, she says, is "a nice lady" whom she met on a TV programme and found to be "warm and non-judgmental", and "gives the niqab a good name". The article appeared in the Evening Standard, which does not generally publish its opinion pieces online (but Islamophobia Watch reproduced it).

Continue reading "Khadija Ravat and the niqab's good name" »

Posted by Indigo Jo at 11:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBacks (0)

Via Deenport and Pickled Politics, we hear that Channel 4 is planning to have a woman in niqab to read their "alternative Christmas message" this year:

A veiled Muslim woman will deliver this year's alternative Christmas speech on Channel 4, the broadcaster has said. Khadija, a Zimbabwean-born British citizen who has been wearing the full veil - or niqab - for 10 years, has been given the slot. The message will reflect a year in which the wearing of religious clothing and symbols have "dominated the news agenda", said a Channel 4 spokesman.

More: Daily Mail (which broke the story), Media Guardian, BBC News.

Leon at PP suggests that the channel "has decided to take its pseudo subversive ‘controversy’ reputation one step further", but what is of concern to Muslims is that this will give the Express and similar stupid rags an excuse to manufacture yet another of their pseudo-scandals to make a huge profit at our expense. Perhaps we should flood Channel 4 with letters and faxes, or perhaps we might defend the idea, given that Christmas is right at the end of the year and that the Christmas message is often about things which have affected the country over the past year, and is a logical time to give such a speech since it's exactly a week before the start of the next year.

By the way, who on earth is this Khadija? We are told she is in her early 30s, was born in Zimbabwe and has British nationality, lives in the Midlands and is "a freelance teacher and lecturer in Islamic studies and the Qur'an", but we are not given any other details about her, supposedly to avoid her being inundated with interview requests. Perhaps someone out there knows who this Khadija is; I'm not suggesting you post her address, but maybe we could be enlightened as to why she went along with this idea.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 10:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

The Guardian yesterday carried a major feature on the fundamentalist Mormon polygamists who dominate two small towns in the Utah/Arizona border area: Husband and Wives gives the whole historical background, the details of the prosecution of Warren Jeffs, his abusive, cult-like control-freakery, the families split up and people kicked out for no reason, and so on, while The Life of a 'Sisterwife' is collated from this discussion thread on a discussion board called "Sisterwives". Readers might read this and decide for themselves whether this is genuine or a hoax. The bit about sleeping in a bunk bed being better than having one big bed for all of them because they can look down and see hubby and the "on" wife having sex makes me suspect the latter.

Continue reading "Mormons, Muslims and abusive polygamy" »

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Technorati Tags: euthanasia, melanie phillips

(Is this only the second country where the national Obs & Gynae institution has developed a tendency to defend the indefensible? In France we recently read that their O&G college demanded that Muslims in France accept that "public hospitals are part of a secular state, in which patients must accept being examined by a doctor of the opposite sex" according to the Daily Telegraph, as if a woman should really need a religious reason to insist that a woman do intimate examinations if one is available.)

Continue reading "British gynaecologists back euthanasia" »

Posted by Indigo Jo at 10:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (22) | TrackBacks (0)

EducationGuardian.co.uk: Do not contact the parents

This story appeared yesterday in the Guardian's education supplement and concerns young Asian girls (often Muslims) taken out of school to go "back home" to get married, often to someone they have never met. The article gives advice on the warning signs, but then, as with John Reid's "warning signs of terrorism", the same signs could point to other problems, and advises against contacting parents over such concerns (in one notorious case of an honour killing in London, the school had contacted the girl's parents about her relationship with a boy and its effect on her schoolwork).

One thing that sticks out here, though, is that the women's organisation mentioned is called Karma Nirvana, which is a Hindu-based name which may well be off-putting to Muslims, and a source of shame to the women involved, even if Hindus and Sikhs are affected by this issue as well. The article states that honour killing "can occur in strict Muslim and also Sikh families", even though the practice is forbidden by Islam and the people involved may not be particularly strict; the woman shown in the picture in the print edition, described as a Karma Nirvana service user, is wearing shalwar kameez and not hijab.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 7:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)