There are already many genitally mutilated women and girls in America, and many others at risk of mutilation. To take the culture I know best, it is a rare Somali family that will refrain from cutting their daughters, wherever they live. All but the most assimilated parents want their children to marry within the Somali community, and they believe that an “impure” girl, one whose clitoris and vagina are intact, will not find a husband. They may perform the “lesser” circumcision, which involves cutting only the skin of the clitoris, but most of them will do just as our fathers (and mothers and grandmothers) have always done: they will cut off the clitoris and cut the lips of the vagina so that it scars shut, to create a built-in chastity belt. They do not always need to fly back to Africa to do this. Every Somali community has members who can provide this service close to home, or who know someone, somewhere nearby, who will.
There are already Muslim schools in America where girls learn all day long to be subservient and lower their eyes, to veil themselves to symbolize the suppression of their individual will. They are taught to internalize male superiority and walk very softly into the mosque by a back door. In weekend Quran schools girls learn that God requires them to obey, that they are worth less than boys and have fewer rights before God. This too is happening in America.
But on one point my audiences were insistent. Surely honor crimes, the systematic beatings and even murder to punish a daughter or sister or wife whose “misbehavior” casts shame on the family, could not possibly happen in the United States, the land of the free?
As a newcomer to the country, I had no idea whether that was true. But I was soon to find out that this aspect of Islam’s dysfunctional culture had already made its way into the American heartland.
Even though I outraged some Americans with the stories I told about institutionalized Islamic misogyny, I was haunted by the fear that I might instead inspire them merely to pity me. The whole point of my memoir, I tried to explain, is that I have been extraordinarily lucky. I managed to make it out of the world of dogma and oppression and into the sunlight of independence and free ideas. I did escape, and at every stage of that process of escape I was assisted by the goodwill of ordinary non-Muslims, just like the people in those audiences.
It’s true that I have had to pay a price for leaving Islam and for speaking out. For instance, I have to pay for round-the-clock security because of the death threats against me. But because Islam demands that anyone who leaves the religion be punished by death, this constant fear is to some extent shared by all Muslims who leave the faith as well as those who practice a less strict form of it.
In my books and talks I want to inspire readers to think of the others, those who are still locked in the world I have left behind. I use anecdotes from my life and the stories of women I know or who have e-mailed me or stepped up to speak to me. By drawing verbal pictures of them I try to help audiences relate to them as real people. Behind the veil are human beings of flesh and blood, mind and soul, and once you perceive the suffering that lies behind that veil, it is harder to turn away.
These are little girls who love learning, but who are taken out of school when they begin to menstruate because their families fear that they may meet improper influences in school and sully their purity. Children are married to adult strangers they have never met. Women long to live productive, working lives, but are instead confined within the walls of their father’s or husband’s house. Girls and women are beaten, hard and often, for a sidelong glance, a suspicion of lipstick, a text message; they have nowhere to turn because their parents, community, and preachers approve of these deadening punishments.
Most American audiences reacted, first, with astonishment, and second with compassion to stories of the routine horrors of a Muslim woman’s life, even as they struggled to believe it was happening in their own country. There was one exception to this reaction. This was on college campuses, exactly the kind of environment where I had expected curiosity, lively debate, and, yes, the thrill and energy of like-minded activists.
Instead almost every campus audience I encountered bristled with anger and protest. I was accustomed to radical Muslim students from my experience as an activist and a politician in Holland. Any time I made a public speech, they would swarm to it in order to shout at me and rant in broken Dutch, in sentences so fractured you wondered how they qualified as students at all.
On college campuses in the United States and Canada, by contrast, young and highly articulate people from the Muslim student associations would simply take over the debate. They would send e-mails of protest to the organizers beforehand, such as one (sent by a divinity student at Harvard) that protested that I did not “address anything of substance that actually affects Muslim women’s lives” and that I merely wanted to “trash” Islam. They would stick up posters and hand out pamphlets at the auditorium. Before I’d even stopped speaking they’d be lining up for the microphone, elbowing away all non-Muslims. They spoke in perfect English; they were mostly very well-mannered; and they appeared far better assimilated than their European immigrant counterparts. There were far fewer bearded young men in robes short enough to show their ankles, aping the tradition that says the Prophet’s companions dressed this way out of humility, and fewer girls in hideous black veils. In the United States a radical Muslim student might have a little goatee; a girl may wear a light, attractive headscarf. Their whole demeanor was far less threatening, but they were omnipresent.
Some of them would begin by saying how sorry they were for all my terrible suffering, but they would then add that these so-called traumas of mine were aberrant, a “cultural thing,” nothing to do with Islam. In blaming Islam for the oppression of women, they said, I was vilifying them personally, as Muslims. I had failed to understand that Islam is a religion of peace, that the Prophet treated women very well. Several times I was informed that attacking Islam only serves the purpose of something called “colonial feminism,” which in itself was allegedly a pretext for the war on terror and the evil designs of the U.S. government.
I was invited to one college to speak as part of a series of lectures on Muslim women. I was amazed and delighted that an American university would devote an entire lecture series to this subject, but when I received the poster for the series, I was downcast.
The veil, honor killings and female genital mutilations are now commonly seen, in the West, as signs of Muslim women’s oppression.
So far, so good. But then it went on:
Muslim women’s liberation has served as a justification for interventions in the War on Terror. But this is not new. Since the days of British colonialism, the women question has been used to justify rule. This is what Leila Ahmed termed colonial feminism—the selective concern for Muslim women’s plight, focusing on the veil rather than education, while opposing women’s suffrage back home in imperial England. Why the veil and not education, or health, sexuality, economic and legal rights, religious and gender equality? These latter issues are admittedly messier than a cultural iconic one. They belong to a complex web of historical and political dynamics and interactions, which challenges us to, in the words of Lila Abu-Lughod, “consider our own larger responsibilities to address the forms of global injustice that are powerful shapers of the world in which [Muslim women] find themselves.”
And so on. As soon as it made an interesting point, this little poster veered off into academic nonsense. All its assumptions were either morally or factually empty. First, the term colonial feminism carries a snide implication that this alleged brand of feminism somehow subjects women rather than frees them. Concern for the plight of Muslim women was not remotely related to the original European colonization of what is now called the developing world. The scramble for Africa was a brazen competition openly motivated by gold, God, and glory, not a gracious attempt to emancipate little girls.
One great side effect of colonization, however, was that European countries brought their political and legal infrastructure to many Muslim
countries, which did improve the situation of women in significant ways. Ignoring this, and beating constantly on the monotonous drum of colonial oppression and bigotry, excuses formerly colonized peoples from scrutiny and criticism for their own failings. For after the colonizers left, many countries reintroduced Shari’a law—always, first, as “Family Law” (in other words, women’s law)—and the situation of women in every case became worse.
The idea that something called colonial (or sometimes neocolonial) feminism was a pretext for George W. Bush’s war on terror does not stand up to scrutiny either. It is akin to the suspicion that there are Jewish conspiracies: an attempt to displace blame. I was a member of the Dutch Parliament at the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, serving a party that was in government, and when we debated the question of whether to vote for or against the war (I voted in favor), the arguments were about weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein’s unwillingness to admit international atomic inspectors into the country. Just as with the invasion of Afghanistan, nobody mentioned Muslim women and their liberation as a reason to go to war. Moreover, when the United States put new constitutions in place in both Afghanistan and Iraq, they indulged the Muslim clerics, making family law subject to Shari’a.
The argument that by criticizing Islam you defame believing Muslims is also specious. If I criticize George Washington, I am not defaming Americans; if I deplore Abraham’s lying to Pharaoh about his wife being his sister I am not slandering other Jews—or, for that matter, Muslims, who also recognize Abraham as a Patriarch. But a religion, Islam, based on a book, the Quran, that denies women basic human rights is backward, and to say so is not an insult but an opinion. If it is a valid criticism, then ignoring the book’s view and the practice of victimizing women that stems from it adds to the harming of the victims. My view does not defame Muslims who do not have this belief or do not themselves oppress women.
Similarly, many of the defenders of Islam on campuses also magnified the horror of America’s record on civil rights: the extermination and displacement of Native Americans, the slave trade, absurd and cruel laws of segregation. These records are a fact. However, it is also a fact that, especially compared to other developed nations, the United States has led the way in promoting the notion, first at home and to this day in foreign lands, that all people are born free and equal. It is also a matter of record that the American civil rights movement ultimately succeeded in peacefully overcoming the many forms of discrimination against African Americans that persisted long after the end of slavery. From the vantage point of a relative newcomer to the United States, this is not a bad record at all. Yet apparently this was not what many college students were learning.
On campus after campus I would stare in despair at these confident young men and women, born in the United States, who had so manifestly benefited from every advantage of Western education yet were determined to ignore the profound differences between a theocratic mind-set and a democratic mind-set. I once resembled them myself, in the days when I too wore a headscarf and strove to obey and submit with all my mind rather than to question and speak out. But I believe there is a difference between these students and my younger self. These students seemed to lack a basic human empathy for other Muslim women—women who are just like they are but who cannot speak in public or even go to school. If they lived in Saudi Arabia, under Shari’a law, these college girls in their pretty scarves wouldn’t be free to study, to work, to drive, to walk around. In Saudi Arabia girls their age and younger are confined, are forced to marry, and if they have sex outside of marriage they are sentenced to prison and flogged. According to the Quran, their husband is permitted to beat them and decide whether they may work or even leave the house; he may marry other women without seeking their approval, and if he chooses to divorce them, they have no right to resist or to keep custody of their children. Doesn’t this matter at all to these clever young Muslim girls in America?
I would look around the well-furnished auditoriums of the elite American colleges, rich in so many ways, and think of the many small tragedies they contained. These young people, who had experienced only personal freedom, a liberal education, and economic opportunity, could become the vectors of democratic values, the standard-bearers of a new, more modern Islam, blending Muslim characteristics with Western openness. Yet although they are clearly exposed to education of the highest quality, they refuse to look reality in the face, to see that just because something is written, it is not necessarily right. Instead they insist on a black-and-white view of Islam. They concentrate on defending the image of the Prophet Muhammad, a dead man, from “insults.” Why, I asked, did they not organize to defend other Muslims, other women? Even though many were attending colleges where the entire educational ethos was constructed around the need for justice and solidarity with the poor and displaced, the sufferings of women under Islam were simply overlooked.
There are activist groups of every stripe on campus, yet nothing for girls fleeing Islam, no group fighting for the rights of Muslim women. When violence is committed in the name of Islam these student activists are silent. Even when Muslims blow up other Muslims who differ in their interpretation of this supposedly peaceful religion; even when children are used as suicide bombers; even when a devout Muslim woman is raped, goes to the authorities, and is sentenced to be stoned on the grounds that she has had sex outside of marriage—even then, these students are silent.
There is a problem with Islam, I would tell the Muslim students who hectored me. By ignoring it, you, student or adult, do a disservice to your community. If your goal is to seek the truth, which education is supposed to do, then we cannot deny that a strict interpretation of Islam is preparation for bigotry, violence, and oppression. You cannot deny that the failure of Muslim societies in the world today to provide peace, prosperity, and opportunities to their inhabitants is linked to these beliefs. Whether your country of origin is Pakistan, Morocco, or Somalia, you are not living there for a reason. Please, embrace what you and your parents bought that airplane ticket to America for: fair justice and a better life, in a place where you can be safe from tyranny, keep the fruits of your labor, and have a say in the running of the country. And if you believe that there should be Shari’a law in America, please, fly back home and take a look at what it’s really like.
I would cite the Quran, chapter and verse, where it specifically mandates unequal and cruel treatment of women. For instance, chapter 4, verse 34 instructs men to beat the women from whom they fear possible disobedience. In response, some would become angry and shout that other religions also have passages in their holy books that are not friendly to women. Others argued, absurdly, that beating merely referred to a symbolic tap with a tiny stick the size of a toothbrush. Most would soon segue back into their favorite theme: my exceptionally traumatized youth, my vengeful, personal vendetta against all Muslims.
Such encounters with small but vocal antagonists were seldom fun. But every now and then I realized that my arguments were achieving something. Perhaps I was not changing the minds of the self-appointed defenders of Islam, but I was opening the eyes of the majority of non-Muslim students in the audience. Often I glimpsed the horror on their faces as they realized that these veiled and bearded youngsters, with whom for years they had shared cups of coffee, books, and classes, did not share their most basic values.
At one speech at Scripps College, a women’s liberal arts school in Claremont, California, the auditorium was packed, and even before my talk ended a long line of Muslim girls began to form in front of the microphone to ask questions. But before anyone could make the first comment, a girl in a headscarf called out from the audience, “WHO THE HELL GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO TALK ABOUT ISLAM?”
A red-haired kid standing in the line yelled back, “THE FIRST AMENDMENT!”
That was inspiring.
* * *
In March 2008 the New York Times ran a piece headlined “Resolute or Fearful, Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling.” I r
ead, appalled, that 40 percent of Pakistani and Southeast Asian families in the Lodi district east of San Francisco have opted for home schooling for their daughters. Many possible reasons for this decision were listed in the article: so that Muslim children will not be teased or mocked, exposed to pork, “corrupted” by American influences—but mainly so that the girls do not engage in behaviors that would “dishonor” their families and render them unsuitable for marriage.
Smiling, Vermeer-like photos of young girls in veils, reading and playing with their yo-yos, softened the shock that this information might otherwise elicit. But why should American citizens or future American citizens be taught that girls must cover their hair and even their faces? That boys and men are entitled to boss girls around? That loyalty to another, higher law is more important than loyalty to the U.S. Constitution? That a minimal education and an arranged marriage to your cousin is all that a female American Muslim needs? Why live in the United States if you want to keep girls culturally illiterate?
It is important to remember that Muslim schools are different from so-called regular Christian or Jewish schools. By “regular” I mean schools that are Christian or Jewish in identity but have secular curricula. Muslim schools, by contrast, are more or less like madrassas, which emphasize religion more than any other subject. Students are taught to distance themselves from science and the values of freedom, individual responsibility, and tolerance. The establishment of a Muslim school anywhere in the world, but especially in the West, gives Wahabis and other wealthy Muslim extremists an opportunity to isolate and indoctrinate vulnerable groups of children.
When I was growing up in Kenya, my best friend, Amira, was from a Yemeni family. They lived in Nairobi as if they were still in Yemen. Although Amira was at least permitted to attend school—a Muslim school—she had to marry a man from Yemen who couldn’t read or write and showed absolutely no respect for her. Her cousin Muna was spectacularly smart—when she was eleven she ranked seventh in a nationwide exam—but when she was fifteen she was married to a pudgy man twice her age who took her away with him to Saudi Arabia.