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The Netherlands Seminar "Muslims in the Netherlands between Integration or deportation."

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On Sunday, 02/22/2015, Hizb ut Tahrir in the Netherlands held a seminar regarding the reality of Muslims in the Netherlands and what the Netherlands' government is doing from unfair arbitrary actions against Muslims.

Three talks were presented; the first titled "Islam and the Netherlands Government Politics," where the speaker addressed the severe actions taken by the Netherlands government against Muslims in which these procedures have increased in the recent period, leading some to question about whether the government has a problem with Islam, making it strive day and night to melt Muslims into Dutch society.

The second talk was delivered by Okay Pala, Media Representative of Hizb ut Tahrir in the Netherlands, titled: "The methods used to melt the Muslims in Holland's society," and included a presentation of the means adopted by the government to change the Muslim identity by allowing them to participate in political life, causing Muslims to be entangled with the secular system and taking their solutions for their problems, and also how the government deceives Muslims inviting them to integrate with the fact that they are working assimilating them into society.

The third talk was titled, "The preservation of identity," where the speaker gave examples from the lives of the honorable companions, May Allah reward them in how they maintained their Islamic identity. For example the Sahabah Jaleel Abdullah bin Hudhafa which upheld his faith and his conversion to Islam, even when threatened by the Roman Caesar to throw him into the hot oil ... as the speaker called on the audience to cherish and preserve their Islamic identity whatever pressure they faced.

The seminar ended with a question and answer session. The link was made between today's problems faced by Muslims and the absence of the Khilafah "Caliphate" Rashidah, and that the existence of the Khilafah "Caliphate" State on the method of the Prophethood will be the one to provide Muslims and non-Muslims with safety and security.

 

Deputy of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir

In Europe

 


 

Picture Slideshow: Click Here

 

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The Marriage between Feminism and Colonialism in the Muslim World PART 2 Modern-Day Attacks on Women and Shariah: Replicating Historical Colonial Agendas

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Historically, Western colonial rulers constructed and widely propagated the narrative of women's subjugation under Islam to gain legitimacy for their occupation over Muslim lands as well as to undermine Islamic governance in order to maintain domination over the region and its resources. In modern times, Western politicians and government continue to use the rhetoric of ‘Women's Rights' and the rallying cry of ‘saving the Muslim woman' from the ‘oppression of the Shariah' as a tool to morally justify colonial interventions in the Muslim world, as well as to fight the global resurgence of Islam and the re-establishment of the Khilafah "Caliphate", replicating the strategy of their forefathers.

The invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq are recent examples where talk of women's rights and lies regarding the mistreatment of women under the Shariah were used by Western leaderships and their supporters to aid the moral case for war and to justify continuing occupations. They were also used to achieve their visions of modeling those countries along Western secular lines and away from Islamic governance. Laura Bush for example, the wife of the former US President George Bush, said in a radio address in 2001 at the beginning of the war on Afghanistan, "Because of our recent military gains in much of Afghanistan, women are no longer imprisoned in their homes. They can listen to music and teach their daughters without fear of punishment... the fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women." Cherie Blair, the wife of previous British Prime Minister Tony Blair, voicing similar support for the intervention stated in 2001, "The women in Afghanistan are entitled, as women in every country are, to have the same hopes and aspirations as ourselves and our daughters: for good education, a career outside the home, if they want one; the right to health care, and, of course, most importantly, the right for their voices to be heard." These high profile Western women were joined in chorus by various feminist groups in support of the war, including the prominent US feminist organization founded by Eleanor Smeal, ‘Feminist Majority' who ran an intensive campaign against what they viewed as the barbaric mistreatment of Afghan women under Shariah laws. The group's actions have been described by many as having played an integral part in garnering widespread support for the ‘War on Terror'.  Indeed, the US social anthropologists Saba Mahmood and Charles Hirschkind noted that the relationship between the neoconservative Bush administration and some US feminists was reciprocal and intimate. They said, "By the time the war started, feminists like [Eleanor] Smeal could be found cozily chatting with the general about their shared enthusiasm for Operation Enduring Freedom and the possibility of women pilots commandeering F-16s."

However, such organizations, individuals, or even institutions such as the UN that also gave its backing to the invasion notably expressed little concern for the crippling affect that sanctions imposed on Afghanistan under UN Security Council Resolution 1267 had had on the country's women preceding the war; OR that countless lives of Afghan women and their families and children were likely be lost in this venture; OR that Western governments were supporting the Northern Alliance into power in the country - a gang of warlords who had a notorious record of rape and abuse of women; OR the fact that Western bombing of Afghanistan that was in the midst of a 3 year drought would put the country's women at greater risk of starvation due to impeding the delivery of food aid. All of which illustrated a lack of genuine concern for the wellbeing of Afghanistan's women, as did the hellish conditions created as a consequence of the occupation which led to the deaths, injury and displacement of tens of thousands of Afghan women and created a lawless society with spiralling levels of abductions, rape, and violence against women. According to the UN, 5000 people were killed in the first 6 months of 2014 alone, and deaths and injuries to women and children caused by improvised explosive devises increased by 38% in the first half of 2013. And there are now 1.5 million war widows in the country.

Additionally, as with colonial rule of the Muslim world historically, the living conditions of women in Afghanistan failed to improve as a result of this modern-day colonial intervention. In fact in many cases they deteriorated. Today, 36% of Afghans live in extreme poverty, 8.5 million people, or 37% of the population are on the borderline of food insecurity, and there has been a rise in women setting themselves on fire due to financial desperation. One woman dies every two hours in the country due to maternal deaths resulting from a pitiful healthcare system, and there is only a 12% female literacy rate. All this has been accompanied by high levels of non-Islamic practices such as forced marriages and honour killings that have been allowed to flourish under a Western-inspired secular regime and system. This is the true lasting legacy for Afghan women of 13 years of Western colonial policies in the country, where talk of women's rights has been nothing but a smokescreen to hide ulterior colonial political motives in the region.

Despite all this, over a decade after the beginning of the war, Western politicians absurdly continued to argue that Western intervention in Afghanistan had improved the lives of its women, while also shamelessly exploiting talk of Afghan women's rights to justify continued occupation of the country.  In November 2013, at a time when the US was attempting to convince both the American and Afghan public of the need for some US combat forces to remain in the country, both John Kerry, US Secretary of State and Hiliary Clinton, former US Secretary of State, were also arguing intently that the US needed to remain engaged in the fight for women's rights in Afghanistan, warning about the dangers to Afghan women following the withdrawal of US troops from the country in 2014. John Kerry, in his address at Georgetown claimed that Afghan women and girls had made great progress since 2001, enjoying greater access to education and healthcare. He said, "As Afghanistan sees women standing up in Afghanistan, taking control of their country's future, not only for themselves, but for all Afghans, we have to be determined that they will not stand alone. America will stand up with them as they shape a strong and united Afghanistan that secures a rightful place in the community of nations." Hiliary Clinton stated,"...we are well aware this is a serious turning point for all the people of Afghanistan, but in particular the hard-fought gains that women and children have been able to enjoy." This was despite the nightmare that the presence of US troops had caused for Afghanistan's women for over a decade.  All this demonstrates that as with the West's historical precedence, feminist rhetoric and campaigns in relation to the Muslim world continue to be employed by modern-day Western-secular governments for nothing but colonial ends.

When the War on Terror moved to Iraq, Western leaders once again employed the language of feminism and apparent concern for the rights of Iraqi women to justify bombing the country. President Bush for example on International Women's Day in 2004, nearly a year after the invasion began, addressed 250 women from around the world who had gathered at the White House, saying, "The advance of women's rights and the advance of liberty are ultimately inseparable." The president claimed that "the advance of freedom in the greater Middle East has given new rights and new hopes to women there". In 2005, British Prime Minister Tony Blair fear-mongering against Islamic rule in order to justify continuing British occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq stated, "They demand...the establishment of effectively Taleban states and Shariah law in the Arab world en route to one caliphate of all Muslim nations. We don't have to wonder what type of country those states would be...Girls put out of school. Women denied even rudimentary rights....All of it justified by reference to religious faith."

However, as with Afghanistan such ‘concern' for the rights of Iraqi women amongst Western leaders and governments was notably absent with regards to the debilitating impact that 13 years of UN sanctions had had on the country's women and their families. These sanctions had led to high levels of malnutrition, widespread diseases, crippling of the healthcare system in the country, deterioration of women's education due to the declining economic situation, and hundreds of thousands of deaths amongst children.

As part of the war effort, the US and British governments also actively funded, established, and supported a number of Iraqi feminist groups. For example, at a press conference two weeks before the invasion of Iraq, the then Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs, Paula Dobriansky stated, "We are at a critical point in dealing with Saddam Hussein. However this turns out, it is clear that the women of Iraq have a critical role to play in the future revival of their society." Next to her were members of ‘Women for a Free Iraq'', a group comprised of exiled Iraqi women and formed in January 2003 to raise awareness of women's persecution under Saddam Hussein. The movement received funding from the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies whose president, Clifford May was a former Republican Party operative and whose board was filled with prominent neoconservatives. The US State Department also publicized the abuses women suffered under the Saddam regime, while in the UK, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office included the regime's crimes against women in its dossier on human rights abuses in Iraq. Additionally, Western governments aided the organization of numerous workshops, seminars, conferences, and training programs for women on democracy and human rights, especially in the initial period after the invasion. In 2003, the US allocated $27million for women's programmes to be utilised in part for national women's conferences and to support newly formed women's organisations that both supported the colonial intervention in the country as well as promoted an understanding of "women's rights" from a secular standpoint amongst Iraqi women. Many of these groups worked actively to ensure that the way forward for Iraq was through a secular constitution and that Islam was kept away from the state, reflecting the modern-day marriage between feminism and colonialism in the Muslim world.

However, despite all this talk of women's rights, the women of Iraq as with Afghan women paid a heavy price for Western intervention in the country. Hundreds of thousands lost their lives, their families and their homes. Their society spiraled into an abyss of chaos, violence, and lawlessness leading to high numbers of abductions, rapes, and murders. 9.5 million of Iraq's population now live below the poverty line with poverty rates increasing even further. And thousands of innocent Iraqi women have been abused, tortured or imprisoned by security forces of the Western supported secular regime to extract information from them regarding male relatives who were suspected to be insurgents. All this reveals once again that Western politicians and administrations held no sincere concern for the wellbeing of Iraqi women but rather exploited the language of feminism to secure their political and oil interests in the country.

 

Conclusion

There has therefore been a long marriage between feminism and colonialism in the Muslim world that is very much alive and strong today. Western governments utilized women's rights and feminist ideals simply to pursue and further their colonial interests in the region. This included a goal of secularising systems and the culture of the people through eroding their Islamic beliefs, as well as fighting the resurgence of Islam within Muslim societies - all to strengthen their colonial foothold in the region.

All talk and initiatives by such governments towards women in the Muslim lands therefore holds no true concern for the happiness or wellbeing of Muslim women, nor will they bring anything positive to their lives. This is illustrated further by the intimate relationship that current Western governments have with secular and other non-Islamic dictatorships in the Muslim world which unashamedly oppress their women and rob them of basic rights but do the bidding of their Western masters. Hence, feminist initiatives and agendas at play in the Muslim world, whether promoted by women's organizations, secular regimes, or institutions such as the UN simply aid the realization of colonial plans and strengthens their control over the politics and economics of Muslim societies. This includes the imposition of international women's treaties such as CEDAW in our lands, the enshrining of the Western feminist ideal of gender equality in constitutions, the support of secular personal status codes as well as the promotion of the non-Islamic concept of ‘Islamic Feminism'.

Furthermore, the colonial lies regarding the oppression of women under the Shariah of the Khilafah "Caliphate" continues to be replicated by successive generations of Western leaderships and politicians, generating hatred and fear amongst their public and even Muslims towards Islamic rule. They also provide them justification for continued and future interventions in the Muslim world.  The ideals of feminism must therefore be rejected as firmly as the concept of colonialism in our Muslim lands is fought against. Furthermore, the outdated historical narrative of women's subjugation under the Islamic governance of the Khilafah "Caliphate", which has its roots in a colonial agenda to dominate the Muslim world and rob it of its resources, should be discarded into the dustbin of history.

((يُرِيدُونَ أَن يُطۡفِـُٔواْ نُورَ ٱللَّهِ بِأَفۡوَٲهِهِمۡ وَيَأۡبَى ٱللَّهُ إِلَّآ أَن يُتِمَّ نُورَهُ ۥ وَلَوۡ ڪَرِهَ ٱلۡكَـٰفِرُونَ))

"They (the disbelievers) want to extinguish Allah's Light with their mouths, but Allah will not allow except His Light should be perfected even though the Kafirun (disbelievers) hate it." [TMQ At-Taubah: 32]

 

Written for The Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by

Dr. Nazreen Nawaz

Member of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir

 

 

Part 1: A Historical Perspective: Click Here

 

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Regarding the Events of Boulaaba

Following a heinous crime which claimed the lives of four members of the National Guard in the town of Boulaaba, in the governorate of Kasserine, and as we pray for mercy for the victims and offer our condolences to their families and loved ones, we emphasize the following:

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Question and Answer Regarding the Minsk Agreement and the Escalation of Events in Ukraine

There has been a noticeable escalation in the interaction of Merkel and Hollande with Putin and then converging in Minsk with the presence of the President of Ukraine... and after their meeting they reached an agreement in Minsk to a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine as of Sunday, 15/02/2015 CE, and the establishment of a demilitarized zone. The Minsk agreement states that the Ukrainian authorities and the rebels in the east of the country have two days after the ceasefire to start the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line. Allowing for the establishment of a buffer zone

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Presidential System is Another Form of the Democratic Rule and it is prohibited to defend it

The discussions about the "Presidential System", which began for the first time in the era of the former President Turgut Ozal, has been resumed again and intensively with Erdogan's arrival to the presidency of the Republic. So that, this is offered on the scene to make it formally valid by conducting constitutional amendments after the general elections

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The Marriage between Feminism and Colonialism in the Muslim World PART 1 A Historical Perspective

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"Anthropology, it has often been said, served as a handmaid to colonialism. Perhaps it must also be said that feminism, or the ideas of feminism, served as its other handmaid."
Leila Ahmed, Egyptian American writer on Feminism in the Muslim World

 

For over a century there has been an indisputable marriage between feminism and colonialism in the Muslim world that continues into modern times. Successive Western governments and politicians have employed the language of feminism and its movements in order to further their colonial interests in the region. They generated and propagated a narrative that Muslim women needed saving from the ‘oppression' of Islamic laws and rule as well as liberating through the Western culture and system. This was in order to morally justify their colonial intervention and wars in the Muslim lands and strengthen their foothold in the region. In truth however, their apparent concern for the wellbeing of Muslim women was feigned emotion, for such intervention worsened the lives of women in the Muslim world and stripped away their rights. An academic, Janine Rich, in an article published in the International Affairs Review entitled, "‘Saving' Muslim Women: Feminism, US Policy and the War on Terror" wrote, "The complex discourses surrounding women in the Islamic world have a long and deeply political history, and this narrative has been renewed and re-utilized numerous times to garner widespread public support for Western military intervention in the Middle East. Yet when examined critically, it becomes apparent that U.S. foreign policy and military intervention in the Middle East has both worsened the status of women's rights in the region, and subsequently used the discourse of women's rights as a justification for the "war on terror."


Today, as the concept of the ‘Caliphate' is attacked from all sides by Western politicians and media, fear-mongering towards the status of women under Islamic rule has once again intensified. At this time it is perhaps more pertinent than ever to understand that for Western governments, talk of ‘Women's Rights' in the context of the Muslim world - both historically and at present times - has only ever been used as a smokescreen and tool to further colonial aims.

 

The Western Colonial Strategy to Undermine Islamic Rule under the Khilafah "Caliphate":


In the 19th and 20th century, the lust of European powers for expansion of wealth and territory was satisfied through the occupation and colonisation of many Muslim lands, due to their abundant resources and rich revenue potential. Lord Cromer, British Consul-General who ruled over Egypt from 1883 to 1907 stated, "The European would not reside in Egypt unless he could make money by doing so."


However, these powers realized that strengthening and expanding their domination over the region could only be achieved through undermining the political and cultural authority that Islam held within the Muslim world, that was manifested in the presence of Islamic rule under the Khilafah "Caliphate" state, alongside replacing it with Western-inclined values, laws and systems. The Western colonial rulers therefore devised a strategy to weaken and ultimately destroy the Khilafah "Caliphate" and prevent its future re-establishment; for this state had always stood as the fiercest obstacle to European control of the ‘East'. This plan included distancing Muslims intellectually and emotionally from their Islamic beliefs and values and hence re-aligning their loyalties and attachment away from their Deen to the Western secular culture and system. They recognized that the strong adherence of Muslims to their Islamic beliefs and practices carried a potential of the re-emergence of Islam as a powerful political state. This would herald the greatest threat to continued colonial rule in the region and had to be fought at all costs. Hence the European powers employed all means to mould the cultural loyalty of their Muslim subjects towards the West, understanding that this was vital for political loyalty: that cultural colonization held the path to continued physical, political and economic colonization. Lord Cromer for example, viewed by many as the mastermind behind British imperialism in the Arab world, wrote in his book, ‘Modern Egypt', "...it is essential that, subsequently to our evacuation, that (Egyptian) government should.....act on principles which will be in conformity with the commonplace requirements of Western civilization.....It is absurd to suppose that Europe will look on as a passive spectator whilst a retrograde government based on purely Muhammadan principles and obsolete oriental ideas, is established in Egypt. The material interests at stake are too important...It is nothing less than this: that the new generation of Egyptians has to be persuaded or forced into imbibing the true spirit of Western Civilization."

 

The Western Colonialist Attack on "Women and Shariah" to Aid the Destruction of the Khilafah "Caliphate"


Reforming the thinking and identity of Muslim women was a primary target in this colonial plan to destroy and prevent Islamic rule, for European powers recognised that in the Islamic society, women were the centre of the family, the heart of communities, and the nurturers of future generations. Hence capturing their minds and hearts would be pivotal in re-shaping the mentality of entire Muslim societies. If they could get Muslim women to despise and reject the Shariah by presenting it as ‘the enemy' of the woman, then they could create staunch opponents to Islamic governance within the Muslim world. If they could couple this with enticing them towards the Western identity and system so that they view them as the path to liberation and salvation, then they could also generate strong advocates and ambassadors of Western culture and Western-orientated rule. Christian missionaries also openly advocated targeting the women of the Muslim world due to them being the primary shapers of the thinking and inclinations of the region's children. S. M. Zwemer, a well-known missionary to the Middle East argued, "Owing to the fact that the mother's influence over the children, both boys and girls.....is paramount, and that women are the conservative element in the defence of their faith, we believe that missionary bodies ought to lay far more emphasis in work for Moslem women as a means for hastening the evangelization of Moslem lands."


Therefore, to achieve their goal, the colonialists engineered a specific narrative: that Islam and Islamic rule oppressed women and hence it was their moral duty to save her through removing the cause of her subjugation - the Shariah laws - and to ‘civilise' her people through the imposition of Western rule and the Western system. This narrative provided moral justification amongst their own public and those they occupied for their continued colonisation of the Muslim world, also aiding them in their goal of maintaining and strengthening their foothold in the region. Joan Scott in ‘The Politics of the Veil' writes regarding France's colonization of Algeria in the 19th century, "From the outset, the violent imposition of French rule was justified in terms of a ‘civilizing mission' - the bringing of republican, secular, universalist values to those who lacked them.....the colonizers aimed to assimilate these underdeveloped peoples to French culture."


A host of lies and misinformation was therefore constructed and widely disseminated regarding the position, rights and mistreatment of women under the Shariah. They also promoted the idea that if Muslim women continued to accept the Qur'an and Sunnah as the basis of their beliefs and actions, they would be condemned to oppressed lives. To achieve their aims, colonial rulers also employed the malicious accusations of numerous Western orientalist writers who had over many years conjured up false tales about the mistreatment of women under Islam. Some had even suggested that the backwardness of the Muslim world was due to Islam's degradation of women, and that Muslim societies could only progress towards modernization and civilization if Islam's practices and laws were discarded in exchange for European culture, social customs, and mores. Stanley Lane-Poole for example, the early 20th century British orientalist and archaeologist wrote, "The degradation of women in the East is a canker that begins its destructive work in childhood, and has eaten into the whole system of Islam." Lord Cromer's writings mirror such views. He wrote in his book, ‘Modern Egypt', that the reasons, "Islam as a social system has been a complete failure are manifold." However, "first and foremost," he asserts was its treatment of women. He claimed that unlike Christianity that teaches respect for women and causes European men to "elevate" women due to their beliefs, Islam degraded them, and it was due to this degradation, epitomized in ‘veiling and segregation of the sexes' that the inferiority of Muslim women could be traced. He wrote that it could not be doubted that ‘veiling' exercised, "a baneful effect on Eastern society. The arguments in the case are, indeed, so commonplace that it is unnecessary to dwell on them". He stated that it was essential, "that the new generation of Egyptians has to be persuaded or forced into imbibing the true spirit of western civilization", and to achieve this it was necessary to change the position of women in Islam, for it was Islam's degradation of women through ‘veiling' that was "the fatal obstacle" to the Egyptian's, "attainment of that elevation of thought and character which should accompany the introduction of Western civilization", and only by abandoning this could they attain, "the mental and moral development" which he (Cromer) desired for them.


It was clear therefore that to achieve this ‘Westernization' of minds, the colonizers sought to dismantle and eliminate any aspect of Islam that prevented them from having control over or access to Muslim women, such as the Islamic family structure of male guardianship over women, the segregation of the sexes, and the Islamic dress. Frantz Fanon, the Afro-French philosopher and writer, commenting regarding French colonialism in Algeria in the 50's, noted, "There is also in the European the crystallization of an aggressiveness, the strain of a kind of violence before the Algerian woman. Unveiling this woman is revealing her beauty; it is baring her secret, breaking her resistance [to colonial rule]. There is in it the will to bring this woman within his reach, to make her a possible object of possession."


Indeed, accusing the Muslim woman's dress of subjugating the woman was an essential part of this colonial project of ‘capturing hearts and minds'. As the most visible marker of the difference between Muslim societies and the West, it became a key target of the European onslaught against Islam and came to represent the conflict between the culture of the colonizers and that of the colonized. For example, in the 20th century, in response to an uprising of Algerian Muslims in 1954 aimed at ousting French control of the country, French authorities attempted to maintain their grip over the country by trying to enlist Algerian women to their cause by establishing a network of ‘feminine solidarity' centres across the country, run by the wives of the occupation's military officers. The aim was to inculcate Algerian Muslim women with French values and the orientalist narrative on Islam and the Islamic dress in order to win their loyalty to the French cause. The wife of Brigadier General Jacques Massu who led the movement in the capital Algiers once said, "Nourish the mind and the veil will wither by itself". On May 16th, 1958, the women from the organization, accompanied by the French army unveiled a hundred women in a public square. The Muslim women apparently cried, "Let's be like French women" and "Vive L'Algérie francaise". It was a symbolic gesture, aimed at propagating further the engineered idea that these ‘native' women wished to be set free from their covers and Islam, and that continuing French rule was the means to achieving this. However, later historians have suggested that these unveiled women were impoverished women and maids of the colonial government who were coerced into taking part in this carefully managed event under the threat of losing their jobs if they did not comply. Joan Scott writes in ‘The Politics of the Veil', "It (the veil) was the piece of cloth that represented the antithesis of the tricolore, and the failure of the civilizing mission.....For a long time, much longer than the duration of the war of independence, the veil was - for colonized and colonizers alike - an impenetrable membrane, the final barrier to political subjugation."


The issue of ‘women' and their status under the Shariah therefore became a centre-piece in the colonial assault against Islamic rule. Indeed it is interesting to note that the European campaign against the Islamic social laws was not undertaken initially by Western feminists - whose influence came only later - but rather by colonial rulers and their administrations. Leila Ahmed, the US Professor on Women's Studies writes in her book ‘Women and Gender in Islam' regarding this colonial feminism, "It was here and in the combining of the languages of colonialism and feminism that the fusion between the issues of women and culture was created. More exactly, what was created was the fusion between the issues of women, their oppression, and the cultures of Other men. The idea that Other men, men in colonized societies or societies beyond the borders of the civilized West, oppressed women was to be used, in the rhetoric of colonialism, to render morally justifiable its project of undermining or eradicating the cultures of colonized peoples.....Colonial feminism, or feminism as used against other cultures in the service of colonialism, was shaped into a variety of similar constructs, each tailored to fit the particular culture that was the immediate target of domination - India, the Islamic world, sub-Saharan Africa. With respect to the Islamic world, regarded as an enemy (and indeed as the enemy) since the Crusades, colonialism.....had a rich vein of bigotry and misinformation to draw on."

The Deterioration of the Rights of Muslim Women under Colonial Rule


Whilst European governments employed feminist rhetoric to attack the ‘apparent' low status of women in Islam, they cared little about the subjugation of women within their own societies in the West who were denied basic educational, economic, political, and legal rights of citizenship at the time. In fact colonial rulers such as Lord Cromer, who in Egypt adopted the self-appointed role as liberator of Muslim women from their so-called ‘oppression' under Islam, while in England was a founding member and one time president of the Men's League that opposed the suffragette movement and their fight for equal legal, political, and economic rights. Indeed, the predominant view within states such as Britain and France during this period was that women were biologically inferior to men in intellect and rationality. Even Western thinkers such as Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and Montesquieu had described women as incapable by their nature to develop the full faculty of reasoning. They had depicted them as creatures of emotion and therefore unsuitable for the public sphere. Rousseau had argued that the abilities of men and women differed and this is what defined their roles such that men became citizens and women became wives and mothers. Women at the time also lost all legal existence upon marriage, their property and wealth were placed under their husband's authority, and they were denied the right to seek divorce even in an abusive relationship.


In relation to this lowly view and poor treatment of women by European rulers in their own lands, Leila Ahmed writes, "Even as the Victorian male establishment devised theories to contest the claims of feminism, and derided and rejected the ideas of feminism and the notion of men's oppressing women with respect to itself, it captured the language of feminism and redirected it, in the service of colonialism, toward Other men and the cultures of Other men." Therefore, feminism on the Western home front was resisted while exported abroad and used against Islam. It illustrates clearly therefore that all talk of the rights of Muslim women by the European powers was born purely from a colonial will to dominate the Muslim lands rather than any noble altruistic intent to improve the lives of the region's women.


It is therefore not surprising that the rights of Muslim women deteriorated rather than improved under colonial rule. Firstly, European economic penetration into the Muslim world adversely impacted its rural and urban working-class women. European textile imports as an example flooded the Egyptian market, negatively affecting the local textile industry due to competition with the Western goods. Textile production in many of the Muslim lands had for centuries been an area in which women had been employed and able to gain a good income. However, under European economic reforms, countries such as Egypt became mainly an exporter of raw materials such as cotton and an importer of finished European products. This naturally caused a decline in employment, business, and income of those local women involved in the industry. Similarly women in Syria and Aleppo employed within the cotton industry lost their important position within the sector due to imports of European twists and dyes. Other local traders were also affected with local merchants pushed aside due to European companies. Women who invested in local business were therefore also negatively affected.


Secondly, under British colonial occupation of Egypt, the education and training of Muslim girls and women in various fields was minimized hence reducing their possibilities for employment. Lord Cromer as an example placed restrictions on Egyptian government schools and raised school fees which naturally held back girls education. He also discouraged the training of female doctors, closing down the School of Hakimas that had given women as many years of medical training as men received in the School of Medicine, restricting it to midwifery. He argued, "I am aware that in exceptional cases women like to be attended by female doctors, but I conceive that throughout the civilized world, attendance by medical men is still the rule". Additionally, the colonizers introduced British women into the labour force of Egypt in the fields of education and healthcare. This reduced the employment opportunities of Muslim women in these sectors while simultaneously increasing the dependence of the colonized on their colonizers for teachers and medical care.


Thirdly, the imposition of British laws upon the Muslim world, stripped women in the region of their rights ordained by the Shariah that they had enjoyed under Islamic rule. Noah Feldman, a law professor at Harvard University, wrote in a 2008 edition of The New York Times Magazine, regarding ‘The implementation of Shariah', "As for sexism, the common law (of European countries) long denied married women any property rights or indeed legal personality apart from their husbands. When the British applied their law to Muslims in place of Shariah, as they did in some colonies, the result was to strip married women of the property that Islamic law had always granted them".


All this clearly illustrates that the historical attack on the Islamic social laws and the status of women in the Shariah by European politicians and governments had no association whatsoever with furthering the call for women's rights. Neither did it bear any relation to the true problems facing Muslim women at the time. It was unequivocally driven purely upon securing colonial political interests in the Muslim world. The accusation that Islam and Islamic rule oppressed women while the Western secular system liberated them from subjugation was therefore nothing but a false, deceitful, self-seeking narrative born from a colonial will to dominate the region. Present day attacks against ‘Women and the Shariah' by Western politicians, governments and institutions are replicating this same strategy.

 

 

Written for The Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Dr. Nazreen Nawaz
Member of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir

 

 

Part 2: Modern-Day Attacks on Women and Shariah: Click Here

 

 

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News and Comment The Security Reform Package

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News:


After a week, a Security Reform Package is on the Parliament's agenda again. (Source: Agencies)

Comment:


The Government seeks to push through the 132-article-bill through Parliament and enact it in spite of harsh critics and dissent of the opposition parties. While doing so, the government uses a very professional tactic. Through creating a perceptual agenda over the articles refused by the opposition, it is covering or veiling its real intentions or all the other very important articles contained in the package. As there is, jerking the public and opposition over issues contained in the articles like the proposed punishment for those using Molotov cocktails, or covering their faces with masks at demonstrations...


Three points stand out in this package. The first one is providing the governors with super authorities. Some of these are: the Governor will be able to give direct orders to the police commanders and officers in order to take urgent steps to find criminal wrongdoers. The Governor will be authorized, to give orders to judicial institutions, as well as local administrations and to personnel of any public institutions and organizations (provisions reserved), with exception of military institutions, in order to ensure the fulfilment of his measures and decisions with the aim of ensuring public order and safety or ensuring the protection of life and property. Public institutions and organizations are obliged to carry out all orders and instructions of the Governor. It seems that the Government wants to prepare the basis for the presidential system which is discussed these days. It seems that if the presidential system would be implemented, than the governors would get a wide range of authorities like in America.


As for the second point, through binding the gendarmerie general command to the Ministry of Interior Affairs, it is aimed to provide the Ministry with important powers. Some of these are: with exception of the provincial gendarmerie commander, the governor will be allowed to remove any of the gendarmerie staff within the province. The Ministry of Interior will determine the assignment, replacement and secondment of any department chiefs other than the rank of a general, and province and district gendarmerie commanders. All actions and processes of gendarmerie outside of its military duties are to be inspected and supervised by the Ministry of Interior, the Governors and their chiefs. "With exception of the Admirals, the Coast Guard Command's Chief of Staff and the chiefs-in-office at the Coast Guard Command's Headquarters, as well as the section commanders are to be assigned by the Ministry of Interior.


As it can be seen, this package gives the Ministry a rather wide range of authorities. In other words, the Government wants to solidify its power up to the hilt through gaining control over every institution and through total passivation of the English (powers). Together with that, it plans to make this institution ready for the presidential system.


As for the last point, it is aimed at closing the Police College which is especially President Erdogan's and the Government's struggle field against the Parallel structure and which provides important human resource to the police. In this, the Government wants to deal big blow to the parallel structure.


In short, as I stated before, the Government puts its steps into action with great professionalism through veiling its true goal by jerking the opposition parties and the public over the other articles.

 

 

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Yılmaz Çelik

 

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