It is surprising how little difference there is between the views and values of Islamic and Christian societies. According to "values surveys" the populations of both societies agree on the need for democracy and "freedom". So why do Islamic extremists kill ordinary western citizens?
The conflict between Extreme Islam and the West is cultural, not military and economic (see Al-Qaeda's Saudi Origins. Islamist Ideology). The most noticeable difference between the West and Islam is the treatment of women. When Western women visit the Middle East and North Africa the amount of flesh on display becomes a major issue. Women can discover the scale of the problem by simply walking alone through any large souk with bare legs, in shorts. Being a woman in Islamic countries is like being a black in the Southern States of the USA in the 1940s or being obviously Gay in the West in the 1950s. In the USA in those days you could do the right things, a "negro" could stay on the right side of the street or a gay could dress and act as a man and the prejudice just disappeared... So it is today in Islamic Societies, if women obey the rules there is no prejudice: as it was a Black's choice in the USA to walk on the wrong side of the street so it is a woman's choice in an Islamic society to not wear the prescribed punitive clothing or behave in the proscribed manner.
The difference between Islamic and Western views of women is particularly clear in the research of the World Values Survey. One of the most interesting products of this survey is the Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map of the World.
The two axes on this map are the Traditional/Secular-rational values dimension and the Self-expression values dimension. "The Traditional/Secular-rational values dimension reflects the contrast between societies in which religion is very important and those in which it is not. A wide range of other orientations are closely linked with this dimension. "... "Self-expression values give high priority to environmental protection, tolerance of diversity and rising demands for participation in decision making in economic and political life. These values also reflect mass polarization over tolerance of outgroups, including foreigners, gays and lesbians and gender equality. " (Inglehart).
The Islamic societies cluster at the bottom of the "Traditional/Secular-rational values dimension" and to the left of the "Self Expression" values but on closer inspection one of the largest components of this tendency is the way they believe in "traditional family values", and reject divorce. The support for "traditional family values" in Islamic cultures is shown clearly in Islam & the West: Testing the Clash of Civilizations Thesis. By Pippa and Inglehart). In the Islamic countries studied in the paper only 55% of the population believe in gender equality and only 35% approve of divorce, compared with 82% and 60% respectively in Christian countries. Other comparisons between the West and Islam show social attitudes to be remarkably similar. In this article I will discuss this polarisation towards traditional values (The polarisation against freedom of expression is disussed in Anti-Islamic Film Clarifies the Difference Between Islam and the West).
The world Values Survey further highlights the different attitudes to gender equality. The belief in gender equality is particularly stretched when questions are asked such as whether men should be given preference for jobs if work were scarce. In Islamic countries over 80% of respondents think that men should be given preference compared with about 75% who disagree with this in Christian countries. In general the view in Islamic countries is that women should be in the home rather than at work. Even educational opportunities are widely thought to be wasted on women in Islamic countries, for instance in Egypt about 40% of the population think that "university is more important for a boy than for a girl" whereas only about 5% of respondents in Britain believe this.
Women are second class citizens in many Islamic countries and this has been taken to such lengths in some countries that it has led to serious international concerns. (See for instance Amnesty International Document - Pakistan: Insufficient protection of women). In some countries women can be raped and killed without any police intervention. It is interesting that after the "liberation" of Basra in Iraq various Islamic groups were given free rein which resulted in "48 women, murdered by extremist groups, in the name of Islam, for not dressing properly."(Guardian 17/12/2007 Basra is not a 'better place')..
Since Jan 21, 2007, vigilante groups from a government funded mosque in Islamabad, the Lal Masjid, have roamed the streets and bazaars as they impose Islamic morality and terrorize citizens in full view of the police. A Lal Masjid cleric broadcast the following threats:
"The government should abolish co-education. Quaid-e-Azam University has become a brothel. Its female professors and students roam in objectionable dresses. I think I will have to send my daughters of Jamia Hafsa to these immoral women. They will have to hide themselves in hijab otherwise they will be punished according to Islam.... Our female students have not issued
the threat of throwing acid on the uncovered faces of women. However, such a threat could be used for creating the fear of Islam among sinful women. There is no harm in it. There are far more horrible punishments in the hereafter for such women ." (Source Pakistan Security Research Unit (PSRU). Department of
Peace Studies at the University of Bradford).
The PSRU laments that: "What next? As Islamabad heads the way of Pakistan’s tribal towns, the next targets will be girls schools, internet cafes, bookshops and western clothing stores, followed by shops selling toilet paper, tampons, underwear, mannequins, and other un-Islamic goods."
Any Westerner who has visited Islamic (or Hindu) societies will have noticed their salacious and condemnatory media coverage of western women. Locals are genuinely shocked if they find that a touring western couple has been married for more than a few years! These attitudes give the locals a sense of moral superiority - there is a belief that Westerners might have all the money but they, and especially Western women, are corrupt and immoral.
As a Westerner I am also disappointed with some Western women, but in a different way. There can be no doubt that many Islamic states are oppressing women and that although this oppression is largely promulgated by males there are a substantial number of female Islamic fanatics who support the oppression of all women, Islamic or not. Female Western intellectuals should see this as a warning - first they will come for the Islamic women, then for those wearing short skirts and then they will come for those in the universities and the media. Yet what do these Western female intellectuals say about the outward signs of Islamic female oppression such as the "Burqa"? Naomi Wolfe, Germaine Greer, and many others, including those who have alleged feminist credentials support this oppression. Perhaps they are afraid of Lal Masjid throwing acid in their eyes.
Yet Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, who understands the culture that is agitating for the Burqa says of those who wish to ban it that: "They are right to ban the burka, even if it is for the wrong reasons".
The conclusion that can be drawn from this analysis is that extreme Islamists are fighting against the Western desire to see the universal acceptance of human rights for women. This seems shocking but there is little difference between the political aspirations of those in Islamic and Western countries except their ideas about women. Furthermore the growth in Islamic extremism over the past 40 years has followed the growth in Western feminism, 40 years ago even a devout Muslim in Egypt could wear no more than a head-scarf whereas today full burka is essential. For an extreme Islamist gender equality means the destruction of the family and society and must be stopped, even if this means war. This is crystal clear from the fact that the oppression of women is the most evident action taken by states that adopt extremist Islam.
The West is encouraging this war against women by being confused and failing to confront such medieval attitudes. The confusion is probably caused by Western feminists siding with Islamic extremists. It is as if slavery were widespread and some of the ex-slaves are saying "people have a right to be slaves, some slave children prefer it of their own free will!".
This is a serious, principled conflict and it is extraordinary that as one side wages a war against a perceived immorality the other side just responds militarily as if there is nothing to be discussed. On the one side there are the Islamic societies that are radicalised by Salafist extremists financed by Saudi Arabia and on the other a Western society that is confused from within and hence impotent.
So how do we fight those who wage war against us for our adherence to what we regard as human rights? Well, we have always known how to do this, we guard our borders, exile extremists and respect the borders and cultures of other countries and if we are attacked by nations we meet these attacks with lethal force. If another country harbours cults that are attacking us we persuade the government of that country to restrain the cult or suffer punitive measures such as sanctions or even punitive military expeditions (such as the US - Moroccan war that stopped piracy of US ships). What we do not do is invade countries that we despise and attempt to overthrow their beliefs - this does not work, beliefs can only be changed by persuasion and example.
Lastly, what of the Arab-Israeli conflict? This conflict is important and perhaps, had it been resolved the current tensions might have been lessened, but it does not embrace the changes that have occurred in Islamic extremism from Pakistan to Chechnya and Nigeria to Bradford. If you don't agree then go to an Islamic country and walk around the back streets alone, or if you are a man, go with a Western woman and just feel the force of the social difference.
See also:
The roots of Islamic terrorism
Do muslim women want to wear the burka?
The conflict between Extreme Islam and the West is cultural, not military and economic (see Al-Qaeda's Saudi Origins. Islamist Ideology). The most noticeable difference between the West and Islam is the treatment of women. When Western women visit the Middle East and North Africa the amount of flesh on display becomes a major issue. Women can discover the scale of the problem by simply walking alone through any large souk with bare legs, in shorts. Being a woman in Islamic countries is like being a black in the Southern States of the USA in the 1940s or being obviously Gay in the West in the 1950s. In the USA in those days you could do the right things, a "negro" could stay on the right side of the street or a gay could dress and act as a man and the prejudice just disappeared... So it is today in Islamic Societies, if women obey the rules there is no prejudice: as it was a Black's choice in the USA to walk on the wrong side of the street so it is a woman's choice in an Islamic society to not wear the prescribed punitive clothing or behave in the proscribed manner.
The difference between Islamic and Western views of women is particularly clear in the research of the World Values Survey. One of the most interesting products of this survey is the Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map of the World.
The two axes on this map are the Traditional/Secular-rational values dimension and the Self-expression values dimension. "The Traditional/Secular-rational values dimension reflects the contrast between societies in which religion is very important and those in which it is not. A wide range of other orientations are closely linked with this dimension. "... "Self-expression values give high priority to environmental protection, tolerance of diversity and rising demands for participation in decision making in economic and political life. These values also reflect mass polarization over tolerance of outgroups, including foreigners, gays and lesbians and gender equality. " (Inglehart).
The Islamic societies cluster at the bottom of the "Traditional/Secular-rational values dimension" and to the left of the "Self Expression" values but on closer inspection one of the largest components of this tendency is the way they believe in "traditional family values", and reject divorce. The support for "traditional family values" in Islamic cultures is shown clearly in Islam & the West: Testing the Clash of Civilizations Thesis. By Pippa and Inglehart). In the Islamic countries studied in the paper only 55% of the population believe in gender equality and only 35% approve of divorce, compared with 82% and 60% respectively in Christian countries. Other comparisons between the West and Islam show social attitudes to be remarkably similar. In this article I will discuss this polarisation towards traditional values (The polarisation against freedom of expression is disussed in Anti-Islamic Film Clarifies the Difference Between Islam and the West).
The world Values Survey further highlights the different attitudes to gender equality. The belief in gender equality is particularly stretched when questions are asked such as whether men should be given preference for jobs if work were scarce. In Islamic countries over 80% of respondents think that men should be given preference compared with about 75% who disagree with this in Christian countries. In general the view in Islamic countries is that women should be in the home rather than at work. Even educational opportunities are widely thought to be wasted on women in Islamic countries, for instance in Egypt about 40% of the population think that "university is more important for a boy than for a girl" whereas only about 5% of respondents in Britain believe this.
Women are second class citizens in many Islamic countries and this has been taken to such lengths in some countries that it has led to serious international concerns. (See for instance Amnesty International Document - Pakistan: Insufficient protection of women). In some countries women can be raped and killed without any police intervention. It is interesting that after the "liberation" of Basra in Iraq various Islamic groups were given free rein which resulted in "48 women, murdered by extremist groups, in the name of Islam, for not dressing properly."(Guardian 17/12/2007 Basra is not a 'better place')..
Since Jan 21, 2007, vigilante groups from a government funded mosque in Islamabad, the Lal Masjid, have roamed the streets and bazaars as they impose Islamic morality and terrorize citizens in full view of the police. A Lal Masjid cleric broadcast the following threats:
"The government should abolish co-education. Quaid-e-Azam University has become a brothel. Its female professors and students roam in objectionable dresses. I think I will have to send my daughters of Jamia Hafsa to these immoral women. They will have to hide themselves in hijab otherwise they will be punished according to Islam.... Our female students have not issued
the threat of throwing acid on the uncovered faces of women. However, such a threat could be used for creating the fear of Islam among sinful women. There is no harm in it. There are far more horrible punishments in the hereafter for such women ." (Source Pakistan Security Research Unit (PSRU). Department of
Peace Studies at the University of Bradford).
The PSRU laments that: "What next? As Islamabad heads the way of Pakistan’s tribal towns, the next targets will be girls schools, internet cafes, bookshops and western clothing stores, followed by shops selling toilet paper, tampons, underwear, mannequins, and other un-Islamic goods."
Any Westerner who has visited Islamic (or Hindu) societies will have noticed their salacious and condemnatory media coverage of western women. Locals are genuinely shocked if they find that a touring western couple has been married for more than a few years! These attitudes give the locals a sense of moral superiority - there is a belief that Westerners might have all the money but they, and especially Western women, are corrupt and immoral.
As a Westerner I am also disappointed with some Western women, but in a different way. There can be no doubt that many Islamic states are oppressing women and that although this oppression is largely promulgated by males there are a substantial number of female Islamic fanatics who support the oppression of all women, Islamic or not. Female Western intellectuals should see this as a warning - first they will come for the Islamic women, then for those wearing short skirts and then they will come for those in the universities and the media. Yet what do these Western female intellectuals say about the outward signs of Islamic female oppression such as the "Burqa"? Naomi Wolfe, Germaine Greer, and many others, including those who have alleged feminist credentials support this oppression. Perhaps they are afraid of Lal Masjid throwing acid in their eyes.
Yet Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, who understands the culture that is agitating for the Burqa says of those who wish to ban it that: "They are right to ban the burka, even if it is for the wrong reasons".
The conclusion that can be drawn from this analysis is that extreme Islamists are fighting against the Western desire to see the universal acceptance of human rights for women. This seems shocking but there is little difference between the political aspirations of those in Islamic and Western countries except their ideas about women. Furthermore the growth in Islamic extremism over the past 40 years has followed the growth in Western feminism, 40 years ago even a devout Muslim in Egypt could wear no more than a head-scarf whereas today full burka is essential. For an extreme Islamist gender equality means the destruction of the family and society and must be stopped, even if this means war. This is crystal clear from the fact that the oppression of women is the most evident action taken by states that adopt extremist Islam.
The West is encouraging this war against women by being confused and failing to confront such medieval attitudes. The confusion is probably caused by Western feminists siding with Islamic extremists. It is as if slavery were widespread and some of the ex-slaves are saying "people have a right to be slaves, some slave children prefer it of their own free will!".
This is a serious, principled conflict and it is extraordinary that as one side wages a war against a perceived immorality the other side just responds militarily as if there is nothing to be discussed. On the one side there are the Islamic societies that are radicalised by Salafist extremists financed by Saudi Arabia and on the other a Western society that is confused from within and hence impotent.
So how do we fight those who wage war against us for our adherence to what we regard as human rights? Well, we have always known how to do this, we guard our borders, exile extremists and respect the borders and cultures of other countries and if we are attacked by nations we meet these attacks with lethal force. If another country harbours cults that are attacking us we persuade the government of that country to restrain the cult or suffer punitive measures such as sanctions or even punitive military expeditions (such as the US - Moroccan war that stopped piracy of US ships). What we do not do is invade countries that we despise and attempt to overthrow their beliefs - this does not work, beliefs can only be changed by persuasion and example.
Lastly, what of the Arab-Israeli conflict? This conflict is important and perhaps, had it been resolved the current tensions might have been lessened, but it does not embrace the changes that have occurred in Islamic extremism from Pakistan to Chechnya and Nigeria to Bradford. If you don't agree then go to an Islamic country and walk around the back streets alone, or if you are a man, go with a Western woman and just feel the force of the social difference.
See also:
The roots of Islamic terrorism
Do muslim women want to wear the burka?
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