‘Women are like tamarinds’.

Allama Shah Ahmed Shafi is a very powerful man in Bangladesh. This Deobandi scholar has a huge followers. A few months ago he called for a general strike, half a million people came to the street to occupy Dhaka. In his new public meeting, he spoke against women’s rights. Speaking against women and their rights is nothing new in Bangladesh. Religious, political, societal, cultural leaders use their own fine languages to suppress,oppress,denigrate, abuse, humiliate women.

Allama said,

Women should take care of furniture, bring up children and stay within the confines of their homes!

“You women should stay within the four walls of your houses.
“Sitting inside your husband’s home you should take care of your husband’s furniture and raise your children, your male kids. These are your jobs. Why do you have to go outside?”

“Why are you sending your daughters to work in garment factories? She goes to work after Fajr at 7/8:00am and does not come back even at 8/10/12 at night.”

“You do not know which man she is hanging out with. You do not know how much zina [unlawful sexual activity] she is getting involved in. Through zina, she is earning money, which does not bring prosperity [Barkat].”

“Women go to schools, colleges and universities; let them study up to class four or five. After marriage, keeping record of their husbands’ finances is enough for them.
“You are spending lakhs of taka for sending them to schools, colleges and universities. But, after a few days, your daughter will get a husband of her own, enter into a love marriage or a court marriage and elope. She will not remember her father.”

“Students, both boys and girls, have mobile phones. The male students collect the phone numbers of female ones while female students go to schools and colleges and collect the phone numbers of male students. This is what is going on in the name of education.”

“Do not come out of your house. Do not roam naked on roads and at stations, markets and fields. Beware! Do not go shopping. Ask your husband and son to do the shopping. Why would you go? Ask your husband to bring this thing and that. You just sit and order your son. Why do you have to take the trouble?”

“If a small boy is sucking on a piece of tamarind…. when you walk beneath a tamarind tree… when you go by a tamarind shop in the market, it makes your mouth water; women are worse than that.”

“Seeing women, your heart salivates in desire — desire to marry them, to enter into a love marriage or a court marriage.”

“These women are like tamarinds. If you are studying with women day and night, your heart will not be able to control itself. You are walking on the streets and shaking hands [with women]; you will not be able to control your heart.
“No matter how pious you may be, if you shake hands with a woman, your heart will start having evil intentions. This is a Zina of the mind, Zina of the heart, and soon it will turn into a real Zina.
“If an elderly man tells me that he does not start having evil intentions when he sees a woman, then I will tell him: ‘Old man! You are suffering from impotency, your manhood has gone. That is why you do not get evil intentions when you see a woman.’”

In his sermon, Shafi strongly opposed family planning and birth control. He asked men to have four wives to increase the size of Muslim community.

I heard that many people in Bangladesh even who believe in Islam are angry with Allama because of his vulgar talk. But the truth is, Allama did not say anything that Allah didn’t say in the Quran or Muhammad didn’t say in the Hadiths. Allah suggested men to have four wives if necessary. Allama did the same. Muhammad asked women to stay at home, and to not go outside, so did Allama. Muhammad suggested women not to go in front of men who are not their close relatives. Allah and Muhammad both endorsed patriarchal system for society, which made men superior to women. Women are advised to run to their husbands whenever they called them for sex, it is women’s religious duty to do household chores, to bear and rear children, to take care of the house belong to their husbands and obey their husbands, their masters. These are from the sacred hadiths. I have no idea why the believers of Islam should angry with Allama. Allama promoted patriarchy the way Allah and Muhammad promoted. Almost all the people, from politicians to playwrights, promote patriarchal system. The difference between them and Allama is Allama is innocent and honest. He hasn’t learnt yet the politically correct language like other respected misogynist gentlemen.

Allama compared women with tamarinds, it is the only thing I found new in Allama’s talk. Women are often compared with fruits, flowers and vegetables by poets, artists and all kinds of people. Those fruits etc. may smell and taste better than tamarinds, but the purpose of comparison is the same, to treat women nothing but sex-objects.
Like other religious big shots, Allama believes men are the predators and women are the prey. Men like to fuck around, so women better cover themselves in dark burqas and become pathetic mobile prisoners. Allama didn’t invent burqas. Muhammad chose that bizarre garments for women, to oppress and humiliate women.

Why blame Allama? All he did in his life was learned the Quran and the Hadiths. So that he knows better than many others that Islam is not compatible with women’s rights. He says everything what Islam says. You are a hypocrite if you praise Islam but accuse him of abusing women.

Free Femen

Caroline Fourest, the courageous French writer and journalist and I have joined a Tunisian secularists’ demonstration held in Paris day before yesterday.

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We showed our solidarity towards Tunisian secularists and Amina as well.

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We have been campaigning for Amina,the Tunisian Femen activist.

FREE FEMEN
Francois Hollande, the President of France is going to visit Tunisia in July. We ask him to remember four names, Amina, Pauline, Josephine and Marguerite. A Tunisian, a German and two French women. Four FEMEN. They are now in prison. Three of them, including two French activists, just scoop four months in prison for protesting topless in front of the courthouse. An act considered “indecent assault, indecent and disturbing public order”. It was a peaceful protest, demanding the release of Amina, the first Tunisian Femen, which is even arbitrarily detained for several weeks.
Her crime? She wrote a word on a wall. Femen. A word on the wall made 40,000 Salafists angry on May 19. Amina has been accused of “indecency”, “grave desecration” and “conspiracy.” Amina would be sentenced to 6 to 12 years in prison. Amina, Pauline, Josephine and Marguerite are political prisoners. They are not the only ones to endure this kind of repression since the revolution. Ghazi Beji and Jabeur Mejri, two bloggers were sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for blasphemy. One in absentia. He had to take refuge in France. The other is serving his sentence in terrible condition. The Franco-Tunisian journalist, Hind Meddeb continued for denouncing the severity of the sentence of rapper Weld el 15: two years in prison for singing an irreverent song to the police.
The filmmaker Nadia El Fani can not return to the country of her childhood, where she faces up to six years in prison for having made a film about secularism ”Secularism Inshallah”! Her lawyer has also recently been persecuted for “sodomy”. Through these highly political judgments, the Tunisian justice shows a terrible face: nice with terrorists and hard with free spirits.
We are not asking the president not to go to Tunisia. Rather, he should go there for the release of these political prisoners. Undaunted by those who cry to interference or convene the past. Nothing, not the “stability” of Franco-Tunisian relationship or economic interests that justify overlook these unjust laws and how they are applied. François Mitterrand, at the time, was able to forget the diplomatic modesty to defend the cause of dissidents during his trip to Moscow.
Today, dissidents are in Tunis, Cairo, Algiers, Doha, Riyadh, wherever international theocratic attempts to gain ground on democracy and universal values.
On behalf of its voiceless dissidents, we ask the president to challenge his counterpart, the Tunisian president who claims to be a former activist of Human Rights, who had taken refuge in France when he was even persecuted under the former regime, but is silent about violations of the basic right to freedom of expression by its own government.
When President Hollande will be in Tunis, he should demand the release of Amina (18), Pauline (27), Josephine (age 19) and Marguerite (22 years), not because both of these political prisoners are French nationals, but because women’s rights and the right to freedom of expression are universal. This trip will be a challenge for the French president, whether these words have at all any meaning.

At Caroline’s house in the evening, Femen leader Inna Shevchenko came. Inna had to leave Ukraine because Christian fundamentalists were threatening her for cutting down the holy cross. Franco-Tunisian film maker Nadia El Fani also came. We all raised our voices to free Amina who is now in a prison in Tunisia.

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Freedom of expression is still a distant dream.

Misogyny knows no bounds

First, a top general blames ‘hookup mentality’ for the Air Force’s massive sexual assault problem . Then,  Hong Kong’s security minister   said   that women should avoid drinking too much if they don’t want to get raped.  He said, “Some of these cases also involved the victims being raped after drinking quite a lot of alcohol. So I would appeal that young ladies should not drink too much.”

 

Women should not wear ‘provocative dresses’, women should not drink alcohol too much,women should not go to bars, women should not go to the streets at night, women should not go out alone,  women should not go outside without  burqas. They have to do hundreds of different  things to avoid rape.

 

Men do not stop raping. Men are not   advised  not to rape the way women are advised not to be raped.  Most people probably believe men will never control  the urge of raping  women, so it is women, or the potential victims  should   reduce or sacrifice  their freedom and rights if they want  to save themselves from being raped, abused, assaulted, killed by their fellow humans.

 

Women will still   be raped even If women stop   wearing  provocative dresses, stop  drinking alcohol,    do not walk outside  alone, or do not go to bars. Most men  still do not believe  raping is bad because they know that  it is not considered bad to treat  women as sex objects and slaves in patriarchal societies.

 

 

 

 

Life is more important than boobs!

‘Angelina Jolie wrote on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times that she had tested positive for a genetic mutation known as BRCA1, which left her with an exceedingly high risk for developing breast and ovarian cancer. Her mother died at 56 after nearly a decade with cancer. After genetic counseling, Ms. Jolie opted to have both breasts removed and to undergo re-constructive surgery.’

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Angelina Jolie has taken a very good decision to undergo preventive surgery that, doctors say, will reduce her breast cancer risk to less than 5%. Many people are now crying for Brad Pitt, because he will not be able to enjoy Jolie’s body anymore. They believe, women’s boobs are more important than women’s lives.

I hope every woman will be able to get their gene tested and take control of their lives like Angelina Jolie. But all women are not so lucky. Most women in the world do not have much money. They do not have the right to choose. Because of the patriarchal tradition in most parts of the world, women suffer unbearable inequalities and injustices. They suffer from different physical and psychological problems that are not treated. Women remain untreated because they are not taken to hospitals until they reach terminal stages. Women are not supposed to become sick, because they must remain busy with household chores, bear and rear children, take care of the family, and make sure that the male members of the family are happy. A woman’s destiny is to be ruled by the father in childhood, by the husband when she is young, and by her son when she is old.

My mother had symptoms of colon cancer. But she was not allowed to see a doctor until she was bedridden. It was too late when she saw a doctor. She already got metastasis in her liver. She died without any treatment. She was 57. My father was a doctor, we were called an educated upper middle class family, if it happened in our house, imagine what could happened in other houses.

Women’s role is to stay at home and to obey her husband. Women are considered weak, so they should be taken care of, their body and mind, their desire and wishes, their rights and freedom must be controlled by men. Women are treated as inferior beings, child bearing machines and mere sex–objects. Whatever happens, sex objects must not remove their breasts. If they do, they are not anymore women and they are not anymore beauty, not anymore worthy. It is hard to change patriarchal mindset.

Genetic testing will remain dreams for women until women’s lives are considered valuable.

Please read some comments I got on Twitter about this issue:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

‘The Feminist Housewife!’

When we women in the East are learning from the Western feminists how to fight for our rights and freedom, opposing patriarchy and misogyny, breaking the age-old shackles, denying to be dependent on men, to be a slave of men, to be a cook, a cleaner, a care taker, refusing to be a child producing machine, to do chores and child care alone, wanting to go out of the house, to take a job, to become financially independent, and hoping to live with dignity and honour — Western liberated women have decided to go back to the dark ages, to be a full-time housewife, to make domesticity their career.

‘Free Speech is a feminist issue’!

Meredith Tax is a brave feminist writer who has been fighting against gender-based censorship for decades. She believes, ‘free speech is a feminist issue’. I agree with her.
She says:

“The subordination of women is basic to all social systems based on dominance; for this reason, conservatives hate and fear the voices of women. That is why so many religions have made rules against women preaching or even speaking in the house of worship. That is why governments keep telling women to keep quiet: ‘You’re in the Constitution,’ they will say, ‘you have the vote, so you have no right to complain.’ But having a voice is as important, perhaps more important, than having a vote. When censors attack women writers, they do so in order to intimidate all women and keep them from using their right to free expression. Gender-based censorship is therefore a problem not only for women writers, but for everyone concerned with the emancipation of women.

“Women writers are a threat to systems built on gender hierarchy because they open doors for other women. By expressing the painful contradictions between men and women in their society, by exposing the discrepancy between what society requires of women and what they need to be fulfilled, woman writers challenge the status quo…[and] make a breach in the wall of silence. They say things no one has ever said before and say them in print, where anyone can read and repeat them.”

Meredith Tax says again:

”Women writers symbolize, in their work and life, the free speech of women. That is why they become targets and that is why the global women’s movement and all democrats must defend them even when what they say or the way they live is controversial. Women have a right to be controversial: you don’t have to agree with someone to defend her right to speak. They have a right to be celibate or childless, to get divorced, to be lesbians, or to have many lovers. You don’t have to live the way they do to defend their rights. A democracy is defined by its ability to tolerate differences. The problem here is not the strength of conservatives but the lack of commitment of liberals when it comes to defending the free speech of women. When their own rights are threatened, it’s a different story.”

It is so true! I have experienced almost everything Meredith talks about. My books got banned, I was physically attacked, Fatwas were issued against me, hundreds of thousands of fanatics marched to execute me by hanging, I was thrown out of the countries. Other atheist writers were there, but I became the target. I became the target because I am not only an atheist, I am a feminist. Liberals shut their mouths when feminists are attacked. The same liberals protest loudly when male writers or artists are harassed even though the harassment they suffer is much less than the harassment I suffer. Women are still considered inferior beings who should stay at home, do chores, rear children and must not be outspoken. The misogynistic patriarchal media and men call me, ‘controversial writer’, but they call male writers having much less literary quality than mine, ‘superb writers.’ And when I express my ideas that are different than conventional ideas, they would call me, ‘attention whore’, and they would definitely call male writers who later express their ideas that are exactly like my ideas,’very bold and very courageous writers’!

Women’s Day in a Man’s World!

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Police beating up women who asked for the voting rights, 1910.

100 years passed. Police still beat up women’s rights marchers. Men still laugh at them, try to break their unity. Men still hate women, become Men’s Rights Activists.

100 years passed. Some significant changes occurred in some parts of the world in the last 100 years, e.g. rape is now outdated, gangrape is a trend, raping women is now old fashioned, raping children is a trend.

100 years have passed. It’s Women’s Day today. Will men stop exploiting, harassing, oppressing, torturing, raping, trafficking, murdering women at least for today?

The answer I get is, no, they won’t.

It is a shame for human species that they need a Day for Women to inspire men to stop violence against woman and learn to treat women as humans. Men should be ashamed of themselves as long as it is necessary to have Women’s Day.

(Someone asked me about Man’s Day. I said, don’t worry Man’s Day will begin just after a few hours and continue until 8th of March 2014.)