Tuesday, January 22, 2008

I am waiting....


Mona Eltahawy hits a pitch-perfect note. The old-line Feminists have proven in the last half-decade that they are irrelevant useful idiots of the anti-Western Left and not what they pretend to be, advocated of women.

The greatest retrograde force in the world for women is fundamentalist Islam, yet the silence from those who should be defending young women from men who want them kept as chattel and the sub-culture that enables them, is deafening.

Mona hits it just right on the lack of moral courage of the West, crippled by Political Correctness, in facing this misogynistic entity.
I am waiting for the removal of clerics and imams, who incite hate and violence with their messages about hijab. I am waiting for Muslim families to stop disowning European Muslim women for marrying non-Muslim men. And I am waiting for the end of a sometimes deadly choice Muslim women -- victims of violence -- have had to make in a post-9/11 United States, when calling the police could mean the deportation of a husband, a brother or a father.

The clash of patriarchal cultures -- from the perspective of a Muslim woman in the middle -- offers a too-familiar oppression and abuse, covered up by an equally too-familiar system of denial.

It is heartening to hear of shelters opening in the United States with the needs of Muslim women in mind. But unless we confront and resolve these difficult issues, not enough girls and women will make it to those shelters.
Yes, we are all waiting. As the father of two girls, the parallel universe these poor women exist in is almost beyond comprehension. The fact so few speak out against it, especially in academia, is a shame on us all.
Like Mona? You can see and hear her in an interview below that is focused on the Egyptian Christian Copts. She may be from Egypt, but Mona I think represents the best of the Liberal Western tradition - Liberal in the traditional not American context. Strong moral courage; I'm going to keep an eye on her. Like we say in the Navy; Bravo Zulu, Mona - Bravo Zulu.

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