LEILA HUSSEIN GUNNED DOWN

June 3, 2008 – 8:09 am

Basra, Iraq – The Guardian reports that Leila Hussein, the mother of honour-killing victim Rand Hussein, was shot and killed as she was walking with two women activists to meet a contact to take her to Amman, Jordan. Leila Hussein drew her family’s ire when she refused to support her husband’s decision to murder their daughter for entertaining a crush on an American soldier. Leila Hussein’s sons had also participated in the brutal act, and did not support their mother in her escape.

Hussein’s husband had previously boasted to the media that the local police had fully supported him. And while Basra law enforcement officials have told the press that Leila Hussein’s defiance had nothing to do with her murder, that this was a routine spat of sectarian violence targeting the women activists, their own role in this story makes their statements suspect.

It wouldn’t be surprising if Leila Hussein was being made an example of. This wouldn’t be the first time, nor the last time, in today’s brutalized Iraq. The activists who were trying to help Hussein escape are receiving threats as well. Any woman who does not submit to her role as a passive piece of human garbage is a potential target in a patriarchal society scarred by years of violence.

Please note that the authors of Jezebel can help you donate money to the Basra activists, if you contact them. We hope to have more on this story. Until then, may God rest the souls of the innocent. There is nothing more that I can personally can say in the face of such tragedy.

By Natalia Antonova | Posted in honor killing, iraq, muslim women | Comments (2)

The Exploitation of Sufiah Yousof

April 5, 2008 – 3:57 pm

I was looking at Al Arabiya recently, when I came across an article on child prodigy turned sex-worker, Sufiah Yousof.

Now, I am well aware of the fact that prostitution is frowned upon in all major religions, but the wording of this story, and many of the comments following it, struck me as cheap and exploitative. Let’s weep crocodile tears for Sufiah Yousof while enjoying the furtive thrill of seeing a good girl from a Muslim family go bad! What could possibly be wrong with that?

It’s easy to reduce Ms. Yousof to a two-dimensional caricature, but I suspect that her story is as complicated as any story of lived experience. Of course, a nuanced portrayal most likely means that you do not get to make a buck and/or a self-righteous fuss over the matter at hand.

Allowing people to make choices means that, every once in a while, they will do things that go against one’s ideology, perhaps even against one’s spirit. This is why people everywhere (not just in the Muslim world) are so fond of making examples out of women who stray from the fold. Women have long been regarded as property in many societies, and, in many cases, have been taught to regard themselves, their daughters, and sisters as property as well. And who wants “damaged goods”? Right?

In many ways, Sufiah’s story reminds me of the story of Britney Spears, another “good girl” gone “bad.” I am old enough to remember the days when Britney’s much-publicized virginity was the stuff of hotly-traded soundbytes and teasing magazine spreads. We just love to watch those good girls come tumbling off their public pedestals, do we not? Read More »

By Natalia Antonova | Posted in current affairs, islam, muslim women, religion | Comments (37)

Real Love and Real Life

April 1, 2008 – 12:35 pm

The author would like her readers to know that this piece underwent an editing process by ArabComment.

Finding love isn’t easy in our day of age. It seems to be everywhere, and nowhere, all at once.

People have abused the term in every way; you almost never know if it’s ‘love love’ or just plain old ‘love.’ Is your fifth grade crush considered love? Most people would disagree, but who are we to define it for you?

I’ve heard people swear that they ‘fell’ at the first sight of their beloved. Others report that they joined the lovers’ club through arranged marriage. Perhaps these different stories are a sign that love can be found anywhere, regardless of your lifestyle, provided you look hard enough.

Instead of looking, however, we spend a lot of time fantasizing. Every girl, at one point or another, dreams of the one: that super hunk of a guy (who just happens to resemble her favorite movie star), possessing the awesome qualities of kindness and generosity. He will make her happy because he understands her like no other. Most girls will tell you that money doesn’t matter, love is what counts. Yet, as we mature, demands will become more practical.

A woman wants to be loved and cared for. And yet, why do women often make bad decisions when it comes to relationships? Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in romance, society | Comments (5)

The Rape and What Came After

February 6, 2008 – 4:25 pm

My cousin did not leave a suicide note. They spoke of it as if it had been an accident. She had accidentally taken half a bottle of pills. Every family has secrets, you see.

And I should have known.

Her husband never struck her, and never smiled at her. She was grateful to him. He re-married quickly.

I should have known.

Her old classmate came to me years later, in a different city, where the air thankfully did not smell of her hair. Did I want to have a cup of coffee? Did I want to know the truth about my cousin? “My cousin had an accident.”

She had so many. Starting at age twelve.

I should have known. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in arts and literature, muslim women, parenting | Comments (4)

Politics, Leadership, and the Muslim Woman

January 25, 2008 – 7:47 pm

Do Muslim women have a right to be political leaders?

The answer is yes.

Furthermore, there is no time to waste when it comes to exercising this essential right.

In “Women’s roles take divergent paths in First and Third Worlds”, Rosa Brooks quotes Francis Fukuyama’s article titled “Women and the Evolution of World Politics,” which debates that “a truly matriarchal world would be less prone to conflict and more cooperative than the one we now inhabit” although “masculine policies will still be essential even in a feminized world.”

Brooks takes Fukuyama’s point a step further to state that because of the increasing female infanticide in Asia, Asian men are in “surplus” and “unless we take the changing demographics of gender as seriously as we take other emerging global trends such as weapons proliferation and climate change the future could be as dangerous as a cage full of Fukuyama’s furious male chimpanzees.”

Interestingly, Islam in the 21st Century has been reduced to a dangerous cage full of furious men not because of demographics of gender but because of the patriarchs of our society and community, people such as Abubakar Ahmad Gada, the author of Political Irrelevance of Women in Islam.

Gada’s basic premise is the hadith in which the Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) had said, “A nation which placed its affairs in the hands of a woman shall never prosper.” Sanusi wrote an informative article, “Women and Political Leadership in Muslim Thought,” which sheds light on the relevance of the hadith to preceding events and circumstances under which the Prophet (pbuh) had said that.

However, many Muslims read the hadith in isolation and insist that a nation led by a woman will not have Allah’s blessings.

History suggests otherwise. The sun never set on the British Empire under the rule of Queen Victoria; Russia flourished under Catherine the Great; and Spain was ‘Christened’ under Queen Isabella and her Spanish Inquisition. India prospered under the premiership of Indira Ghandi, and Golda Meir defeated Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.

Where women leaders have prospered, they have failed greatly too. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in islam, muslim women, religion | Comments (6)