At last I have finished reading
Geraldine Brooks’ book “Nine Parts of Desire” and rather than go over the book
what I would like to do is review my reactions as I read the 12 chapters.
The first thing I realized was how truly
ignorant I was about the Moslem religion.
I had read the Encyclopedia Britannica as well as Wikipedia biography of
the prophet Mohammed but that was many years ago and neither article was
particularly enlightening on the status of women. The second thing I realized was that a great
deal of what we hear about the religion is in fact not truly part of the
teachings of the Koran but rather cultural beliefs that have been folded into
the religion. This is important to
understand because a great deal of how the women are treated is not really
prescribed in the Koran.
The book moves from one country to
another and describes the condition of women in these countries through the
voice of various women. I learned that
Iran (at the time of publishing in 1994) was the most liberal of the countries
and this surprised me as I had always thought that Ayatollah Khomeini was a
vicious tyrant who suppressed women. In
fact Saudi Arabia is the most fundamentalist country in the Middle East (at the
time of publishing at any rate). Brooks’
also writes about Jordan, Palestine, Iraq, Eritrea, Egypt, Syria and Turkey.
The further into the book I got the
angrier I became; I mean that I was not just upset but very angry. I was angry at the primitive thinking of both
the men and the women. Then I became
angry at our Western governments for not recognizing the condition of these
women whose human rights were being violated daily. Then I wondered in bafflement at how
hypocritical our governments are in using expedience as the way to work out “global
or foreign policy”. We live with so much
bullshit and as always the ultimate concern is money. That’s right, as usual everything boils down
to money.
It makes me really angry because I
am struggling with feelings of racism and justification that are against my
upbringing and better nature. I am
watching masses of refugees flooding out of the Middle East into
Europe and I am feeling threatened not only on behalf of Europeans but also for
Canadians because I am seeing these refugees as economic opportunists just as the
Hungarian minister said. But as I have
been reading this book another alarm has gone up in my mind and that is the
question of whether these people (most of which are young men) are being sent
into Europe to undermine the countries, just as some fanatics have threatened
to do in Denmark.
But now as I have finished the book I have
taken time to absorb everything I have read and what I feel is that I need to
know more about Islam, the Islamic state and what it means for the women in
these countries. I need to understand if
these women are brainwashed into believing their religion or if they honestly
believe the teachings are true and right for them. Have they really been educated to understand
what opportunities are in the world waiting for them? I need to know what the United Nations
position is on the condition of women and children in the Middle East and
everywhere that Islam is the main religion.
As a woman I feel that it is utterly
wrong to endorse a religion that would suppress a woman’s potential by locking
her up in her house and telling her that her duty in life is to reproduce. As part of the human race, women everywhere
have a right to human rights and the human rights sanctioned by the United
Nations is I believe the benchmark that the world has agreed on. Am I correct in believing this? Please see the link below to the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights on the UN site; the fifth
paragraph clearly states equal rights for men and women.
I would encourage all of my readers to
read this book and think about what is happening in the Middle East. I think it’s time we look at this from a
completely different perspective and that what needs to happen is that all
nations in the world who believe that women have the same human rights as men
should boycott the Middle East and all countries that adhere to fundamental
Islam.
Footnote: Just to be clear, I feel the same way about
any fundamental religion or culture that suppresses women, children or men.
UNITED NATIONS SITE:
GERALDINE BROOKS’ SITE:
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