MEREDITH TAX: Sanitizing the Muslim right - tied up in knots on the left
Instead of sanitizing the Muslim right as a way of fighting racism in the North, the left should develop a strategy of solidarity with democrats, trade unionists, religious and sexual minorities, and feminists struggling in the Global South against both neo-liberalism and fundamentalism.
I have spent the last twenty years working on issues of women and religious censorship. As a feminist activist in International PEN and then in Women’s WORLD, I couldn’t help noticing that increasing numbers of women writers were being targeted by fundamentalists. Not all these fundamentalists were Islamists; some were Christians, Jews, or Hindus. In fact, one of my own books was targeted by the Christian Coalition in the US.
Nobody on the left ever objected when I criticized Christian or Jewish fundamentalism. But when I did defence work for censored Muslim feminists, people would look at me sideways, as if to say, who are you to talk about this? This tendency has become much more marked since 9/11 and the “war on terror.” Today on the left and in some academic circles, people responding to attacks on Muslim feminists in other countries are likely to be accused of reinforcing the "victim-savage-saviour" framework or preparing for the next US invasion. This puts anyone working with actual women’s human rights defenders in places like North Africa or Pakistan in an impossible situation. From these concerns springs my book, Double Bind: The Muslim Right, the Anglo-American Left, and Universal Human Rights, published by the Centre for Secular Space.
Human rights defenders are supposed to protect the rights of those oppressed by the state or by non-state actors. They must also defend the rights of women (which may be violated by the state as well as by non-state actors). But what happens when people who are mistreated by the state violate the rights of women? Can one fight their violations while at the same defending their rights against state power? How?
This political terrain is tied up in so many knots it amounts to what Gregory Bateson called a “double bind” in “Toward a theory of schizophrenia” - a double bind results when people are given conflicting instructions so that in obeying one set of orders, they must violate the other. Last year’s debate around Mona Eltahawy’s article on the oppression of women in the Middle East, called "Why do they hate us?" is a recent example of this double bind. As Parastou Houssori, who teaches international refugee law at the University of Cairo, observed:
Some of the other criticisms of El Tahawy’s piece illustrate the dilemma of the “double bind” that African-American and other feminists have also faced. For instance, when they write about their experiences, African-American feminists often find themselves caught between confronting the patriarchy within African-American communities, and defending their African-American brothers from the broader racism that exists in American society. Similarly, women who identify as Islamic feminists often find themselves in this bind, as they try to reconcile their feminism and religious identity, and also defend their religion from Islamophobia.
This double bind cannot be resolved by retreating into silence or becoming immobilized. In international law, it can be addressed by emphasizing that non-state actors must not violate rights, and by integrating equality and non-discrimination more fully into human rights work. But on the political level, one can only proceed by thinking one’s way through a maze of taboos, injunctions and received ideas - and also being willing to face backlash and censorship.
Gita Sahgal, founding head of the gender unit at Amnesty International, found this out three years ago when she left Amnesty after publicly raising objections to its alliance with Cageprisoners, a UK organization set up to defend prisoners at Guantanamo. People around the world came to Gita’s defense and have now formed the Centre for Secular Space in order to strengthen secular voices, oppose fundamentalism, and promote universality in human rights. The questions we raise are critical to the left:
In a period of right wing attacks on Muslims – or people thought to be Muslims – how does one respond to human rights violations by the Muslim right without feeding hate campaigns?.. Read more:http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/meredith-tax/double-bind-tied-up-in-knots-on-left
Also see: The Centre for Secular Space: Why Now?
The Centre for Secular Space has just published its first book: Double Bind: The Muslim Right, the Anglo-American Left, and Universal Human Rights. It can be ordered from lulu.com. We will launch Double Bind with a panel in London on Feb. 11 and in New York on March 1. Here is a link to the flier for the London launch at Toynbee Hall on Feb. 11. You need to sign up to get on the list.
We have founded the Centre for Secular Space to address critical gaps in understanding of the relationship between terrorism, fundamentalism and peace and security, using a feminist analysis. We believe that strategic discussions of peace and security must expand to include secularism and universality, since one of the greatest sources of conflict in today’s world is the mobilization of religion and culture for political gain. Secularism is key to strengthening civil society and building democracy, because gender, religious minority, and sexual rights become issues whenever human rights are limited by religion, culture, or political expediency. The Centre for Secular Space will expose threats by fundamentalist groups and take note when human rights and other organizations fail to uphold their own standards on gender and discrimination.
