Marina’s answer to “Your book really inspired me to learn more about Iran and politics in general. You've had a sort of…” > Likes and Comments
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I think your answer was perfect!
Characterizing Ayaan Ali Hirsi's call for an Islamic reformation as simply calling all Muslims "bad people" is intellectually dishonest.
Hirsi is revealing the oppressive aspects of Islamic theology; like Solzhenitsyn challenged Stalin's totalitarian Communist ideology, and Bonhoeffer opposed Hitlers National Socialist ideology.
When 64% of those polled in Egypt and Pakistan support capital punishment for apostasy it is not unreasonable for Ms. Hirsi to question Islamic ideology.
When Saudi women are denied the vote, cannot drive a car, and must always be accompanied by a male chaperone Ms. Hirsi is right to challenge Islam.
"Iranian women have less than second-class status in Iran.
Their husbands may divorce them at will and take as many as four concurrent wives; divorced women have no custody rights to their own children once the child reaches age 2.
Women are denied the right to study what they choose and are forbidden from entering certain professions and from studying abroad unless accompanied by their husbands.
Their testimony in court is devalued: Two women must testify to carry the same weight as one man.
The court system is an arm of fundamentalist Islam. Female victims of crime receive less justice than male victims. Punishment for harming or even killing a woman is less harsh than if the victim is a man."
It's not the people Ms. Nemat, it is the ideology.
While apologists,and sophists argue in the media and the halls of academe that this misogyny is a perversion of Islam, Hirsi literally risks her life for the innocent and the oppressed.
I wholeheartedly agree with the observation that "Religions and ideologies can be used and misused by a few to gain power over many." I don't think this goes far enough, however. Christianity, Judiasm, and Islam, like other utopian and millenarian ideologies, be they religious, Communist, or National Socialist, all share a tribal, supremacist weltanshauung that at times, and one might argue, inevitably, overtakes whatever spiritual uplift they provide. (And yes, even the Nazis were able to "inspire" their adherents with utopian images of a new world order.) Scripture, whether it be Christian, Hebrew, or Islamic, provides more than ample grist for the mill for divinely inspired murderers, torturers, and slave masters to sleep well at night, secure in the knowledge that they are doing God's work. It is my sincerest hope that these hoary doctrines give way to the pluralistic humanism that is flower of (the) E/enlightenment. Paul C.
Judiasm (sic) (spelled a bit more orgasmically than intended). pdc
Judiasm (sic) (a bit more orgasmic sounding than I had intended). Paul C.
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Mustafa
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Dec 20, 2014 09:57PM
I think your answer was perfect!
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Characterizing Ayaan Ali Hirsi's call for an Islamic reformation as simply calling all Muslims "bad people" is intellectually dishonest.Hirsi is revealing the oppressive aspects of Islamic theology; like Solzhenitsyn challenged Stalin's totalitarian Communist ideology, and Bonhoeffer opposed Hitlers National Socialist ideology.
When 64% of those polled in Egypt and Pakistan support capital punishment for apostasy it is not unreasonable for Ms. Hirsi to question Islamic ideology.
When Saudi women are denied the vote, cannot drive a car, and must always be accompanied by a male chaperone Ms. Hirsi is right to challenge Islam.
"Iranian women have less than second-class status in Iran.
Their husbands may divorce them at will and take as many as four concurrent wives; divorced women have no custody rights to their own children once the child reaches age 2.
Women are denied the right to study what they choose and are forbidden from entering certain professions and from studying abroad unless accompanied by their husbands.
Their testimony in court is devalued: Two women must testify to carry the same weight as one man.
The court system is an arm of fundamentalist Islam. Female victims of crime receive less justice than male victims. Punishment for harming or even killing a woman is less harsh than if the victim is a man."
It's not the people Ms. Nemat, it is the ideology.
While apologists,and sophists argue in the media and the halls of academe that this misogyny is a perversion of Islam, Hirsi literally risks her life for the innocent and the oppressed.
I wholeheartedly agree with the observation that "Religions and ideologies can be used and misused by a few to gain power over many." I don't think this goes far enough, however. Christianity, Judiasm, and Islam, like other utopian and millenarian ideologies, be they religious, Communist, or National Socialist, all share a tribal, supremacist weltanshauung that at times, and one might argue, inevitably, overtakes whatever spiritual uplift they provide. (And yes, even the Nazis were able to "inspire" their adherents with utopian images of a new world order.) Scripture, whether it be Christian, Hebrew, or Islamic, provides more than ample grist for the mill for divinely inspired murderers, torturers, and slave masters to sleep well at night, secure in the knowledge that they are doing God's work. It is my sincerest hope that these hoary doctrines give way to the pluralistic humanism that is flower of (the) E/enlightenment. Paul C.
Judiasm (sic) (spelled a bit more orgasmically than intended). pdc
Judiasm (sic) (a bit more orgasmic sounding than I had intended). Paul C.
