or, How to Encourage Islamic Feminists

Last night I returned from a safe, wonderful, charming Islamic country. I was there with my two children aged ten and thirteen, along with a girlfriend, her husband, and their three children ages four to fourteen. Sometimes people ask me why I take my children out of the country every year on vacation. I usually say, “Because I don’t want them to grow up as cultural bigots.” Now I can be more specific and say, “Because I would be horrified if they turned out to be as ignorant and intolerant as Sarah Palin.”

Sarah Palin

Read this article about Sarah Palin’s protest regarding the possibility of a religious sanctuary being built near the site of the World Trade Center. Sarah Palin says a mosque would not only be inappropriate but crushingly insensitive.

Does this mean that Sarah believes Islam caused 9/11? Is she with Mel Gibson on the “Holocaust never happened” thing too?

I realize that I may seem an unlikely advocate for Islam, but when it comes to women’s rights, some Muslim countries are catching up fast. The way I see it, we have the choice of either shunning them or encouraging them. I’d prefer we did the latter, as I can think of no better way to demonstrate to Taliban and Palestinian women, who watch their sisters being beaten and murdered every day, that Islam is not the culprit; evil men are (see DFFP chapter 15 page 249 for more details on the negative effect of fundamentalism on women).

Not to mention the fact that Morocco is an impressive country for reasons listed below. Sorry Sarah, but in some ways it appears healthier than America does. True, many Muslim men worldwide are reluctant to give up their male prerogatives, but this doesn’t make them evil or crazy – just a little lazy. In fact they remind me of some Americans – Muslims, too, prefer double standards and indentured servitude when they can get away with it. Fortunately Islamic Feminists (see this interview with Asra Nomani who practices “gender jihad”) are alive and kicking, and most Western women support them in spirit (excepting perhaps Sarah Palin).

It may help if someone told Sarah what really happened at the World Trade Center: a handful of religious kooks caused a staggering amount of terror, death and chaos on 9/11. They were Muslim, but that’s just a few people out of over a billion Muslims worldwide.

Also, Ms. Palin – perhaps you don’t know that Islamic communities in New York go back to at least 1907. That’s a lot farther than many Christian, Jewish, Hindu and atheist Americans can trace their lineage. A mosque near the site could tell the world that America is smart enough to know the difference between an entire religion and a few religious nuts. Shouldn’t we – especially in the name of our spirituality, whatever brand it may be – attempt to move beyond the fundamentalist bigotry demonstrated by the terrorists, and not presume everyone who looks like them or worships like them shares their madness?

After all, who better to understand religious kooks than Americans? As God knows (or Allah, or Jehovah, or the Big Bang) America has more of them than most countries. For instance, what about those crazy Christians who kill other Americans at abortion clinics in the name of Christianity? Who can we blame for that? Should we ban the building of churches there? Or is that an unfair question given the fact that Sarah Palin shares the (anti-abortion) convictions of the Christian killers?

And not to be crass, but let’s consider economics too. New York relies heavily on tourism. What better way to get Muslims to visit the city than to build a beautiful new mosque?

Before I go, let me mention my favorite things about Morocco, and a few tips we Westerners could take from them:

a.) Morocco has very little violence (no one is allowed to carry guns except for hunting).

b.) Morocco is a much poorer country than the United States. Yet they have no social services (welfare or social security) but there are very few homeless (we traversed the country from Tangier to the Sahara so we had a reasonably wide sampling). One reason for this is their extreme focus on family and extended family – it’s the center of their existence.

c.) A rule of Islam is that Muslims must give alms to the poor regularly. Many Moroccans seem to follow this. My question to them about whether they give to the church was laughed at: “what do they need it for? We give money directly to the people in need.” They say that if anyone ever knocks on your door asking for food, you must share what you have.

d.) They are very tolerant of Westerners. Forget what you may have read about the right way to dress. Western shorts and jeans are worn from Marrakech to remote Berber villages, although not as often by the Moroccans themselves.

Last of all, let me say that I have a solution to Sarah’s fears. It’s to create the, “Sending Sarah Palin to an Arabic Country Fund”. Email me if you’d like to contribute. I know she can see Russia from her house and her jet once stopped for gas in Europe, but I think it’s time to move past the xenophobia and shake some Arabic hands. She probably doesn’t even know that a lot of them are Asian.

We’ll start with Marrakech (Morocco is called “The America of Africa” so it would be most appropriate) and then move to Malaysia. A little mint tea, a charming rug salesman (I know just the place) and some lovely carved tables should help her realize that these are not in fact the people she (or we) should fear. Islam is not responsible for all the horrors of 9/11. Crazy people are. But of course it’s so much harder to eradicate those, and so much easier to scapegoat and entire race or religion, isn’t it?

Best,

cj

PS: the last pic is of me and my kids “going native” on the way to the desert, where we really needed the scarves.

PPS: I have seen some more intelligible arguments for the “no new mosque in New York” protest such as the one Abigail wrote for Forbes. I agree that funding sources should be considered and exposed but it’s hard to argue that $100M is too much if it’s coming from the private sector. And it’s a bit of a stretch to compare civilian deaths which occurred in WWII to a war that happened in 711 A.D.

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