Why Do Mullahs
Always Blame Women For Everything Bad
By
Esam Sohail
A
NIGERIAN religious court sentences a woman to death by stoning
for not having a marriage certificate proving her nuptials. The
Prime Minister of Pakistan bans fashion shows in his capital terming
the mostly female industry ‘vulgar’. What gives?
There
was a French judge of the 18th century whose motto was ‘It
is always a woman.’ No matter what the case was before him
and who the accused, he would not sentence a male offender because
he passionately believed that some woman was the root of any crime
that came to pass. While France may have purged its judiciary
of such obsessive-compulsive magistrates, the sickness has long
since been transmitted to warmer climes of the Near East. Once
we diagnose the ailment, perhaps we can treat it too.
Sunni
or Shia, Arabist or Deobandi, traditional or radical, at the end
of the day it all comes down to women. Take your pick of any mullah
led movement anywhere in the contemporary Islamic world, and they
have an obsession with women.
Their
lofty concepts of honor, social justice, equity and what not invariably
boil down to an almost pathological fear of women. When these
movements find their way into government, usually through the
backdoor, the obsession translates itself into poisonous anti-woman
edicts. The difference between the various sects is one of degree,
not kind.
In
the peninsular land considered by the super-pious to be the repository
of all that is holy and pure, the honor of women is protected
by making sure that they cannot work, drive, or travel unescorted.
The nearby pious republic across the peninsula assures ‘Islamic’
gender equity by forbidding women to become judges or architects.
In
the Indian administered part of Kashmir, separatists underscore
their religious credentials by throwing acid on women who are
not properly attired. Religious parties in Bangladesh and Indonesia
want to establish God's kingdom in their secular nations by removing
the nuisance of women from public life. Mashallah, mashallah!
And
then there is Pakistan, a nation crafted by her Founder to be
the ideal welfare state where the law was to be blind to caste,
creed, or gender. That idealism was patently un-Islamic, opined
the learned major from Jullunder, the dictator Zia ul Haq. To
correct the Quaid-e-Azam’s faulty vision, this man in uniform
bequeathed to his nation laws that made the victim of rape the
chief perpetrator of the crime.
This
is what the True Faith calls for, the dictator thundered. Today
his ideological underlings, ensconced in power in Peshawar and
elsewhere, swear by the Divine origin of Hudood laws (as if Divinity
resides in GHQ Rawalpindi!).
In
2003, of course, the greatest threat to morality is the image
of women on advertisement bill boards and their voices on music
CDs; hence the drive to create a virtue police in the valleys
of the northwest, the NWFP.
Thus
it goes. The sum total of great pronouncements by the turbaned
class always translates into the lowest common denominator of
misogyny. All we need to do to lead better lives is shroud our
mothers and sisters and daughters in shapeless, faceless, airless
yardage of black cloth.
The
magic wand to a superb educational system is segregating the sexes
and the miracle pill to create more jobs is to simply shut women
in their homes. And who would argue that all social ills and crimes
will disappear once all women are rightfully reduced to second
or third class citizenship of the Righteous Society.
The prescription from the mullahs
of what ails Muslim societies is alluringly simple and enchanting:
make the women disappear and so will your problems. Perhaps the
hypothesis ought to turned on its head.
Lets
see what happens if we make all the mullahs disappear instead.
Or at least put them under expert psychiatric care so that their
obsessive-compulsive disorder is treated properly. I am sure the
tax payers will be happy to foot the bill.
After
all it is the least they can do for their spiritual leaders, no?
The
writer is a banker by profession and a former college lecturer
of international affairs, based in Kansas. Email: sigalph235@hotmail.com
