I
would, first of all, like to thank the Junta Islamica Catalana for
having organized this colloquium, which is a real breath of fresh air in
a Europe that is shriveling up in upon itself, wrought up in xenophobic
debates and increasingly rejecting difference/alterity.
I
hope that such an initiative will be able to take place in France.
Before getting into the subject at hand, I would like to introduce
myself, as I believe that speech should always be located.
I
live in France, I am the daughter of Algerian immigrants. My father was
a working-class man and my mother was a housewife. I am not speaking as
a sociologist, a researcher or a theologian. In other words, I am no
expert. I am an activist and I am speaking as a result of my experience
as a political activist and, I might add, my own personal sensibility. I
am insisting on these details because I would like to be as honest as
possible in my reasoning. Truth be told, until today, I hadn’t really
thought about the question of Islamic feminism. So why am I taking part
in this colloquium? When I was invited, I made it quite clear that I
lacked the authority to speak about Islamic feminism and that I would
rather deal with the idea of decolonial feminism and the ways in which, I
believe, it should be related to the more general question of Islamic
feminism. That is why I thought I would lay out a few questions that
could prove useful for our collective questioning:
Is feminism universal?
What is the relationship between white/Western feminisms and Third World feminisms among which we find Islamic feminisms?
Is feminism compatible with Islam?
If it is, then how can it be legitimized and what would its priorities be?
First Question: Is feminism universal? For
me, it is the question of all questions when adopting a decolonial
approach and when attempting to decolonise feminism. This question is
essential, not because of the answer but rather because it makes us, we
who live in the West, take the necessary precautions when we are
confronted with ‘Other’ societies.
Let’s take, for example, so-called,
Western societies that witnessed the emergence of feminist movements and
have been influenced by them. The women who fought against patriarchy
in favour of an equal dignity between men and women gained rights and
improved women’s circumstances, which I, myself, benefit from. Let’s
compare their situation, that is to say our situation, with that of
so-called “primitive” societies in Amazonia for instance. There are
still societies here and there that have been spared by Western
influence. I should add here that I don’t consider any society to be
primitive. I think there are differing spaces/times on our planet,
different temporalities, that no civilization is in advance or behind on
any other, that I don’t locate myself on a scale of progress and that I
don’t consider progress an end in itself nor a political goal. In
other words, I don’t necessarily consider progress to be progressive but
sometimes, even often, it is regressive. And, I think that the
decolonial question can also be applied to our perception of time.
Getting back to the subject at hand, if we take as our criteria the
simple notion of well-being, who in this room can state that the women
from those societies (who know nothing of the concept of feminism as we
conceive of it) are less well-off than European women who not only took
part in the struggles but also made available, to their societies, these
invaluable social gains? I, myself, find it quite impossible to answer
this question and would consider quite fortunate anyone who could. But yet
again, the answer is of no importance. The question itself is, for it
humbles us, and curbs our imperialist tendencies as well as our
interfering reflexes. It prevents us from considering our own norms as
universal and trying to make other’s realities fit into our own. In
short, it makes us locate ourselves with regards to our own
particularities.
Having
laid out that question clearly, I now feel more at ease to tackle the
second question dealing with the relationship between Western feminisms
and Third World feminisms. Obviously it’s very complicated but one of
its dimensions is the domination of the global south by the global
north. A decolonial approach should question this relationship and
attempt to subvert it. An example:
In
2007, women from the Movement of the Indigenous of the Republic took
part in the annual 8th of March demonstration in support of women’s
struggles. At that time, the American campaign against Iran had begun.
We decided to march behind a banner that’s message was “No feminism
without anti-imperialism”. We were all wearing Palestinian kaffiyehs and
handing out flyers in support of three resistant Iraqi women taken
prisoner by the Americans. When we arrived, the organizers of the
official procession started chanting slogans in support of Iranian
women. We found these slogans extremely shocking given the ideological
offensive against Iran at that time. Why the Iranians, the Algerians and
not the Palestinians and the Iraqis? Why such selective choices? To
thwart these slogans, we decided to express our solidarity not with
Third World women but rather with Western women. And so we chanted:
Solidarity with Swedish women!
Solidarity with Italian women!
Solidarity with German women!
Solidarity with English women!
Solidarity with French women!
Solidarity with American women!
Which
meant: why should you, white women, have the privilege of solidarity?
You are also battered, raped, you are also subject to men’s violence,
you are also underpaid, despised, your bodies are also instrumentalised…
I
can tell you that they looked at us as if we were from outer space.
What we were saying seemed surreal, inconceivable. It was like the fourth
dimension. It wasn’t so much the fact that we reminded them of their
situation as Western women that shocked them. It was more the fact that
African and Arab-Muslim women had dared symbolically subvert a
relationship of domination and had established themselves as patrons. In
other words, with this skillful rhetorical turn, we showed them that
they de facto had a superior status to our own. We found their looks of
disbelief quite entertaining.
Another
example:
After a solidarity trip to Palestine, a friend was telling me
how the French women had asked the Palestinian women if they used birth
control. According to my friend, the Palestinian women couldn’t
understand such a question given how important the demographic issue is
in Palestine. They were coming from a completely different perspective.
For many Palestinian women, having children is an act of resistance
against the ethnic cleansing policies of the Israeli state.
There
you have two examples that illustrate our situation as racialised
women, that help understand what is at stake and envisage a way to fight
colonialist and Eurocentric feminism.
Following
on from that question, is Islam compatible with feminism? This question
is purely provocative on my behalf. I can’t stand it. I am asked this
question by a French journalist who believes they are asking a really
pertinent question. As for me, I refuse to answer out of principle. On
the one hand, because it comes from a position of arrogance. The
representative of civilization X is demanding that the representative of
civilization Y prove something. Y is, therefore, put in dock and must
provide proof of her/his “modern-ness”, justify her/him-self to please
X.
On the other hand, because the answer is not simple when one knows
that the Islamic world is not monolithic. The debate could go on forever
and that is exactly what happens when you make the mistake of trying to
answer.
Myself, I cut to the chase by asking X the following question:
Is the French Republic compatible with feminism? I can guarantee you one
thing: ideological victory is in the answer to this question.
In
France, one woman dies every three days as a result of domestic violence. The
number rapes per year is estimated around 48 000. Women are underpaid.
Women’s pensions are considerably less substantial than those of men.
Political, economic and symbolic power remains mostly in the hands of
men. True, since the 60’s and 70’s, men share more in household duties:
statistically, three minutes more than 30 years ago!!! So I ask my question
again: are the French Republic and feminism compatible? We would be
tempted to say no! Actually, the answer is neither yes nor no. French
women liberated French women and it’s thanks to them that the Republic
is less macho than it was. The same goes for Arab-Muslim, African and
Asian countries. No more, no less. With, however, one extra challenge:
consolidating within women’s struggles the decolonial dimension, that is
to say the critique of modernity and eurocentrism.
How
to legitimize Islamic feminism? For me, it legitimizes itself. It
doesn’t have to pass a feminist exam. The simple fact that Muslim women
have taken it up to demand their rights and their dignity is enough for
it to be fully recognized. I know, as result of my intimate knowledge of
women from the Maghreb and in the diaspora, that “the-submissive-woman”
does not exist. She was invented. I know women that are dominated.
Submissive ones are rarer!
I
would like to conclude with what, in my opinion, should be priorities
for decolonial feminism. You have all heard about Amina Wadud and her
involvement in the development of Islamic feminism. She became well
known the day she lead the prayer, a role usually reserved for men. Out
of context, I would say that it could be thought of as a revolutionary
act. However, in an international context that saw the Iranian
Revolution and 9/11 (as well as growing Islamophobia, demands that Islam
update and modernize itself), a much more ambiguous message was brought
to light. Was it answering strong demands, an urgency, the fundamental
expectations of women from the Umma? Or were these expectations of the
white world? Allow me to dwell on the latter hypothesis. Not that there
aren’t any women who find it an injustice that only men be allowed to
lead the prayer but because women’s priorities and urgent needs are
elsewhere. What do Afghan, Iraqi and Palestinian women want? Peace, the
end of the war and the occupation, the rebuilding of their national
infrastructures, legal frameworks that guarantee their rights and
protect them, access to sufficient food and water, the ability to feed
and educate their children under good conditions. What do Muslim women
in Europe and more generally those who are immigrants and who, for the
most part, live in lower income neighborhoods want? A job, housing,
rights that protect them not only from state violence but also men’s
violence. They demand respect for their religion, their culture. Why are
all of these demands silenced and why does the issue of leading the
prayer make its way across the globe when Judaism and Christianity have
never really made apparent their own intransigent defense of the
equality of sexes?
To finish up with this example, I believe that Amina
Wadud’s act was, in fact, quite the opposite of what it claimed to be.
In reality and independently of the theologian’s own wishes, this act,
in my opinion, was counter-productive. It will only be able to adopt a
feminist dimension once Islam is equally treated with respect and once
the demands to lead the prayer come from Muslim women themselves. It is
time to see Muslim men and women how they really are and not how we
would like them to be.
I
conclude here and hope to have shown the ways in which a true
decolonial feminism could benefit women, all women when they,
themselves, deem it to be their path to emancipation.
Madrid, 22 October 2010
