Why Do They Hate Us: Culture NOT Religion

In an article published in US-based Foreign Policy Magazine, titled Why Do They Hate Us, Mona Eltahaway, who is often a guest commentator on news shows, brings up some very legitimate issues affecting women in the Middle East. She raises some good points, though paints all the issues with the idea that women are "hated," which is untrue.

She tries to link "Islamists" to the status of women in the Middle East:

"This, however, is no mere Saudi phenomenon, no hateful curiosity in the rich, isolated desert. The Islamist hatred of women burns brightly across the region -- now more than ever."

And:

"I'll never forget hearing that if a baby boy urinated on you, you could go ahead and pray in the same clothes, yet if a baby girl peed on you, you had to change. What on Earth in the girl's urine made you impure? I wondered.
Hatred of women"
 [Let me say I have literally no idea what she is talking about. Urine is considered unclean in any circumstance I know of and no Muslim I know would pray in clothes ANYONE peed on.]

But this is a political and cultural issue, not a religious issue.

Numerous times Saudi Arabia, an easy target, was used as an example of a lack of women's rights:

"Saudi Arabia, the country where a gang-rape survivor was sentenced to jail for agreeing to get into a car with an unrelated male and needed a royal pardon; Saudi Arabia, where a woman who broke the ban on driving was sentenced to 10 lashes and again needed a royal pardon; Saudi Arabia, where women still can't vote or run in elections, yet it's considered "progress" that a royal decree promised to enfranchise them for almost completely symbolic local elections in -- wait for it -- 2015."

Having lived in Saudi Arabia I have to agree that women are treated more like second-class citizens. The entire infrastructure, from banks to airports to restaurants separates men from women with two doors marked WOMEN and MEN, invoking images of the US's segregated south before the civil rights movement.

But it is unfair to pin these ideologies on Islam. Within every country in the Mideast there are also other religions including Christians and Jews, and also many sects of Islam. Particularly Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, the Palestinian Territories, Jordan, have large Christian populations.

The issue that needs to be addressed is deeply rooted in culture across all religions in the Middle East, and needs to be tackled from a religiously-objective standpoint. Even if you take God out of the discussion, some Arab men still believe women should be married and stay at home. And some of the ones who don't, still believe that women should live close to their families (or in their parent's home) and get permission from their fathers or male relatives to travel, marry, divorce, etc. In relation to other grievances these are not particularly suppressive norms, but it speaks to the very core of the issue. And when you compare these expectations of Arab women to the expectations of Arab men who are almost at the opposite end of the spectrum, the very real inequality is obvious, and ugly, and embarrassing. 


The gap in social expectation between men and women is what needs to be addressed. Arabs have a hard time really vocalizing and accepting that women should be free to wear what they want -- in all capacities -- from niqabs to bikinis. Even women are uncomfortable with this because modesty for women is deeply engrained, as is the need for femininity. But men have no qualms about wearing swimming trunks and no shirt on the beaches of the Middle East. Men are not questioned when they come home late at night. Men are not considered a burden on their families if they never marry. Men are not frowned upon for being loud in public.

To this point, I agree from my own experience, with Eltahawy's assessment that "it's the men who can't control themselves on the streets, where from Morocco to Yemen, sexual harassment is endemic and it's for the men's sake that so many women are encouraged to cover up."

Of course, not every Arab family subscribes to these notions. Not every Arab woman is oppressed.

The point is not to make a sweeping diagnosis of the whole region, but to encourage the revolutionaries to not stop short at deposing dictators, and to encourage women to speak up at a time when the popular voice has become so important.


And let's not make a very legitimate discussion into a religious issue.

Israel Loves Iran: Grassroots Social Media Project a Hit

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/19/world/meast/israel-iran-social-media/index.html?iref=allsearch

By Samira Said, CNN
March 19, 2012

Israeli graphic designer Ronny Edry has created posters with messages of peace for the people of Iran and posted them on Facebook.


(CNN) -- It is not possible to dial an Iranian number from an Israeli telephone. It will simply not go through. That lack of communication stems from the government level, where there is no dialogue between the two countries aside from public speeches meant to carry weighty threats of war to each camp.

That is why it was so difficult for Ronny Edry, an Israeli graphic designer based in Tel Aviv, to get his message across to the people of Iran.

"My idea was simple, I was trying to reach the other side. There are all these talks about war, Iran is coming to bomb us and we bomb them back, we are sitting and waiting. I wanted to say the simple words that this war is crazy," said Edry.
Using his graphic design skills and his wife's help (she is also a graphic designer), he plastered memes over pictures of himself, his wife, his friends and his neighbors. He then posted them on the Facebook page of Pushpin, his design preparatory school, with a resounding message:

IRANIANS
we will never bomb your country
We *Heart* You

The response, said Edry, was overwhelming. "In a few hours, I had hundreds of shares and thousands of likes and it was like something was happening.

"I think it's really amazing that someone from Iran poked me and said 'Hello, I'm from Iran, I saw your "poster" on Facebook,' " Edry said.

"I thought it was crazy because I never spoke to an Iranian in my life. I woke up my wife: 'There is someone on Facebook from Iran!' "

He posted his designs for anyone to take and plaster over their own photos. The photos and posts have been flooding the page.
Edry says he started the campaign to get past the harsh words and talk directly to Iranians to see whether there really was anything to fight about.

Iran's nuclear development program is causing alarm in Israel and its Western allies. Critics in the West say Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon while Iranian officials insist their nuclear program is for peaceful energy generation only.

Edry has received thousands of messages from people in Iran sending a statement to Israel, he said.

He shared one private message from Iran, without revealing the identity of the sender: "We love you too. Your word reaches out there, despite the censorship. And Iranian people, aside from the regime, have no hard feelings or animosity towards anybody, particularly Israelis."

One post on the Pushpin Facebook page says: "We share a common history, have been sharing both our great and ancient cultures, languages and poetry together. ... We are so similar, and politicians cannot cut a tie that has been tied thousands of years ago. I am proud to have you as my friends."

Not all the responses to the campaign were positive, however.
One meme says "Iranians We *Heart* You SO MUCH we are coming over."

The first meme was posted Wednesday, and Edry says he hopes the dialogue will not end merely with Iranians and Israelis. He noted the tension involves more than these two countries and he would like to include allies and neighboring countries in the conversation. "The idea is to put the message out there that we don't want this war."

"At the end of it, I will be the one doing this war. Bibi is not going to take the gun," he said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanhayu, "I will have to. Before I go into another war, maybe I check this one a bit better."

\When asked whether this style of campaign could work with Israelis and Palestinians, Edry said that it was probably already past that point, but now Israel has the chance to capitalize on an opportunity to start fresh with another regional neighbor.

"We are [right next to] Palestinians, so communication was not a problem. This situation is different because [Israel is] now just starting to talk to Iran," he said. "And maybe just by talking we can end it."

In an Israel Public Opinion survey by Shibley Telhami and the Dahaf Institute conducted February 22-26 among a nationally representative sample of 500 Israelis (margin of error is +/- 4.3%), only 19% of Israelis expressed support for a pre-emptive attack on Iranian nuclear facilities without U.S. backing. And while 45% believe an Israeli strike would weaken the Iranian government, 44% believe it would actually strengthen it.

The United States has pushed for a nonmilitary solution, including tougher sanctions and diplomatic negotiations.

The growing tensions between the two countries have already impacted other countries as well: Israel blamed Iran for a Valentine's Day bombing in Thailand and for a bombing the next day in India that targeted Israeli diplomats.