Archives

“Other” people’s business — not

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts, On The Road on Jul 24, 2008

Irshad with Eleanor Smeal, President of the Feminist Majority, which alerted America to the Taliban’s human rights abuses. (Photo: Talton Gibson)

As I explained in my previous blog entry, so much moral and legal confusion is infecting humanity’s shared journey to justice because of artificial notions about “us” and “them.” Sad thing is, many these notions are coming from my tribe — progressives.

Take the idea of cultural relativism. It’s the belief that there’s no universal standard of human dignity or human decency and consequently what “other people” do is none of “our” business.

Western feminists are especially vulnerable to this idea because they want to be seen as culturally sensitive to minorities. But should they stay silent when the traditions and norms of any minority reinforce the patriarchy that feminism is meant to oppose?

Are Western feminists being imperialists by speaking out about the oppression of women in societies beyond their own?

In an interdependent world, is there such a thing as “other” people’s business?

These are among the questions I addressed in a speech to America’s largest gathering of feminists, the National Organization for Women. Here are highlights:

It’s a privilege to be living in a democracy, where we have the precious freedoms to think, express, challenge and be challenged. As feminists, we know the power of voice. My question to you is: Will we make the choice to do more with our voice?

What I’m about to say might leave some of you uncomfortable. It might even leave some of you angry. Fine. Being unified is not about being uniform. Unity is about working for a common goal yet feeling free to express diversity of thought in pursuit of that goal.

And what should our common goal be today? I propose defending the universality of human rights. Why do I emphasize “universality”? Because around the world, a contest is raging between the rights of individuals and the so-called rights of cultures.

In Sydney, Australia, the Catholic Church has the won “right” not to be offended this entire month.

Throughout July, Sydney police have new powers to arrest and punish anybody who causes annoyance to participants of the Vatican-sponsored World Youth Day, even if annoyance is inflicted merely by wearing a T-Shirt with an irritating message. Penalties include partial strip searches and fines of more than $5,000. All in the name of cultural rights.

In Britain, Muslim lobbyists — egged on by a handful of non-Muslim church leaders, judges and politicians — are quietly seeking to introduce Sharia law, or Islamic law, also in the name of cultural rights.

Three years ago, a campaign to introduce Sharia almost succeeded in my own country of Canada. The first people to speak up against this manipulation of multiculturalism were Muslim women.

But they found that too many non-Muslim women were afraid to join them. Afraid, that is, of being called racists for getting involved in “other” people’s business. Remember when that was said about domestic violence — that it’s other people’s business?

Fear produces not just a lack of feminist unity, but also a lack of feminist integrity. How can we stay quiet about the abuse of women under most forms of religious law, including Sharia law? If feminists still view patriarchy as global (and I think we do unless I missed a memo), then differences in culture should not compel us to hit the mental mute button whenever Muslim men start speaking…

Another example of human rights getting trounced by culture: honor killings. The United Nations reports 5,000 honor killings worldwide every year — and that’s just the documented ones.

In 2006, I spoke at a major gathering of Amnesty International members. There, I met with Pakistani delegates who showed me, through case reports, that in their country alone, in the preceding year alone, at least 1,000 women had been killed for allegedly violating their family’s honor.

One thousand! As a Pakistani delegate pointed out to me, that’s twice the number of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Non-Muslim feminists have been outspoken about human rights abuses at Gitmo. Honor crimes have not generated nearly so much condemnation.

Why?

Even serious speeches need fun moments. (Photo: Liz Newbury)

Too many of us are scared of being labeled “outside agitators” — you know, imperialists — for getting involved in “other” people’s business. And to rationalize our fears, we’re creating a religion of our own: the Church of Cultural Relativism.

The doctrine of this Church insists that there’s no universal standard of human decency or human dignity. Therefore, anything goes as long as it doesn’t affect me or my children.

But in an interdependent world, there’s no such thing “other” people’s business. What happens thousands of miles away sooner or later catches up to our children.

In September 1996, the Taliban began amputating the hands of women merely for flashing a patch of skin as they tried to pay for meat over a butcher’s counter. Back then, such amputations amounted to “other” people’s business.

A few morally courageous women and men, including some in America, tried to stop the Taliban. But they didn’t receive nearly enough help from the privileged. Us. Myself included.

Exactly five years later — September 2001 — “other” people’s business became our business…

Please understand, I’m not trying to over-dramatize the already dramatic. I’m trying to learn from the history of social justice.

Martin Luther King Jr. himself was labeled an “outside agitator” by eight liberal clergymen in Alabama. In his now-famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail, which he addressed to these clergymen, Rev. King confronted the realities of interdependence.

He said, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial ‘outside agitator’ idea.”

Since Rev. King wrote those words, citizenship has become that much more global. So let me suggest an additional nugget of King-like wisdom for our time: Never again can we live with the assumption that just because human beings are born equal, cultures are too.

Cultures are not born. Cultures are constructed. Which means there’s nothing sacred about cultures and therefore nothing sacrilegious, blasphemous, or unthinkable about seeking to reform the most oppressive aspects of cultures.

Will we offend? Yep. Is our offense a source of tension? You bet. Is tension the price of justice? Ask Rev. King.

In that same Letter from a Birmingham Jail, he wrote that the greatest barrier to African-American liberation is not the transparent racist; it’s the tepid progressive. It’s the person who fancies herself forward-looking, but who prefers what King called “negative peace,” which is the absence of tension, over “positive peace,” which is the presence of justice.

This point, made in the context of the battle for domestic civil rights, has stunning parallels to today’s struggle for universal human rights.

For more about my commitment to universal human rights, read up on my work with the European Foundation for Democracy.