Two great women

As a part of Muscat Festival there are a series of workshops and lectures being held throughout February. You may not have heard a lot about them because they haven't yet been well advertised...that might just be because they are not properly organised yet, as I've heard this is a trait of the festival!


Anyway there are two ladies I am really excited about...actually I'm desperate to go to see them. Arundhati Roy (on the 12th Feb) and Fatima Mernissi (on the 14th). For those who don't know Arundhati Roy is a novelist and political activist. Her only novel was The God of Small Things and she has published a lot of her essays and speeches. I read something about her being examined for sedition in India. No surprise, she's very outspoken but incredibly articulate.


Fatima Mernissi is a Moroccan Islamic feminist. Her work on Muslim women is amazing and she has written many books from her research.


To show the kind of women they are and their areas of interest I'm putting in some of my favourite quotes of theirs:

Arundhati Roy:

To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.

To call someone 'anti-American', indeed to be anti-American, (or for that matter anti-Indian or andti-Timbuktuan) is not just racist, its a failure of the imagination.

The mullahs of the Islamic world and the mullahs of the Hindu world and the mullahs of the Christian world are all on the same side. And we are against them all.

The only thing worth globalizing is dissent.

Fatima Mernissi:

In the Orient, femininity is under control. Like time, women are still and quiet. They can dance and dream, but not think. Thinking might interfere with men's pleasure.

The most subversive of all is the educated unveiled woman who can write independently and produce and disseminate information, because she breaks the Muslim ruler's monopoly over communication.

Is it possible that Islam's message had only a limited and superficial effect on deeply superstitious seventh-century Arabs who failed to integrate its novel approaches to the world and to women? Is it possible that the hijab, the attempt to veil women, that is claimed today to be a basic Muslim identity, is nothing but the expression of the persistence of the pre-Islamic mentality, the jahiliya mentality that Islam was supposed to annihilate?

(Note: The picture above is called Women Empowerment)

Prohibition Mission

More often than not these days, reading articles in the news about multi-faith communities gives me an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach. The one I read which prompted this post describes another protest against the proposed construction of a mosque in Tennessee, US. Okay, this area of America isn't exactly famed for its religious broadness, but I can't help but be shocked at the lack of tolerance these people are exhibiting. The story is that the community's group of Muslims has outgrown their current mosque in a small office building and has bought some land on which to build a new one. A few non-Muslim locals who have got carried away with the hype of anti-Islamic feeling have in their small minds turned what is a mosque-come-community-centre to serve the small local Muslim population into some sort of centre for global domination reminiscent of a comic book plotline.

The response to the mosque has included vandalism, construction equipment on-site being set alight and a lawsuit. Even a couple of authoritative figures (one wonders how they came to be such) have put in their two cents. A Republican candidate for Congress commented that she was "opposed to the idea of an Islamic training centre being built in our community". Yes, right alongside their Christian training centres (if thats what we're now calling them).

Whilst theological debate is healthy, it is being used as a cover for prejudice and oppression. Scarily its beginning to feel as though all of these efforts towards so-called 'freedom' and human rights have been a waste of time and that humans are in some ways regressing. I don't suppose any of them have read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (major contributor: the United States) which permits every human to freedom of religion and "either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance". It shouldn't even need to be re-stated.

We can't just blame Americans, nor Christians for this transgression. The story is being repeated in many other parts of the world and among all religions. Egyptian authorities are currently in the news (again) for preventing the construction of churches, causing violent riots. In Syria too, the repression of Protestants and Evangelicals is being claimed as several buildings operating as churches have been closed down for not having licenses.

How, in our modern world of great scientific and technological advancement, is religion still causing such fear and fury?! At the moment Oman stands pretty well in terms of religious tolerance (at least officially). Lets just hope it doesn't get bitten by this dangerous bug.