There's been quite an uproar in the civil unrest in Islamad surrounding President Musharraf iafter his miscalculated step of dismissing chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. Amidst the hoopla of sweaty and unkempt Pakistani lawyers, an interesting little faction has popped up on the radars of western media. Right-wing Islamists from Lal Masjid (translation: Red Mosque) contain a group of women activists known for their direct-action tendencies to confront authority and kidnap police as well as the occasional prostitute.
What I don't exactly understand is their militant aspirations to reinstate Sharia law if and when Musharraf's government topples. I understand religious acesticism, and I understand self-flagellation, though wouldn't recommend either. What I don't get is actively and passionately inscribing a chauvinistic code upon one's own life and body that completely mechanizes self-oppression. It does bring to mind 'The Army of Roses'. Back in the early 90's, Arafat coined the term when attempting one of his acrobatic public relations stunts by endorsing the unprecedented phenomena of female Palestinian suicide bombers/martyrs. Barbara Victor documented the 'movement' and its conflicted participants in a book by the same name. Again, women somehow inspired by a nefarious system that only champions patriarchal fallacies that directly results in self-destruction.
3 comments:
Great title. Allow me to suggest a couple of things.
I don't think you were suggesting that these woman are self-flagellants. I know it seems a minor point, but it is nonetheless useful to remember that self-flagellation is considered heretical to most Sunni Muslims, and in particular to the hard-line Salafi and Wahhabist creeds you find among the Lal Masjid activists. Not to nitpic or anything.
I would also caution looking at Sharia as being monolithically oppressive to women. While its true that Sharia as its been practiced by Taliban, Saudis and revolutionary Iran hasn't painted perhaps the rosiest of pictures, it is important to understand what Sharia is. And don't get me wrong, this is not an endorsement. The fact is that Sharia has been used variously throughout Islamic history as a liberating agent and an oppressive one. Remember that ayatollahs, imams and religious scholars in the Islamic world don't spend all their time coming up with anti-American diatribes. They are in fact, and have been for centuries, engaged in the process of jurisprudence and fiqh or interpretation. Sharia is not a fixed thing, it is text based, and therefore subject to any number of analytical exploratioons. While it might seem ironic that these woman would actively seek their own oppression (whether for sake of masochism or ascetisicm or both simultaneously), it might very well be that their vision of Sharia is not that which, often in modern times has been influencd by cultural and political motivations, rather than exegetical religious ones.
Food for thought. Mostly hummous.
Sory one more thing. I am not sure what to make of your comparison with the "Army of Roses." sharia law in Pakistan and 60 years of military occupation in Palestine seem to suggest very different beasts.
Very good points regarding Sharia. To clarify my comparison (albeit vague) b/w the women from Lal Masjid and Army of Roses, in passing, it's unfortunate that radical religious doctrine or, rather, ideology can hijack gendered situations for the worse. Often times, lack of opportunity and self-determination among women only allow a narrow bandwidth of expression and legitimacy. It is the renegade islamic extremism that seems to have appropriated these women against themselves.
Post a Comment