Women living under muslim laws Femmes sous lois musulmanes Dossier 18 Dossier 18 Women living under muslim laws Femmes sous lois musulmanes Dossier 18 was edited by Marie-Aimée Hélie-Lucas and Harsh Kapoor Resource Section: Harsh Kapoor Cover Photo: Istanbul, 1919 (M. Tug˘ rul Acar) About the Dossiers The Dossiers are an occasional publication of the International Solidarity Network of Women Living Under Muslim Laws. Conceived as a networking tool, they aim at providing information about lives, struggles and strategies of women living in diverse Muslim communities and countries. We do not hold any copyright on the content of the Dossiers. Women’s groups may freely reproduce material, however we would appreciate acknowledgements. For those articles previously published in other journals, permission should be sought directly from them. Information contained in the Dossiers does not necessarily represent the views and positions of the compilers or of the network Women Living Under Muslim Laws, unless stated. The Dossiers are meant to make accessible the broadest possible strands of opinion within varied movements / initiatives promoting greater autonomy of women. The Dossier seeks to inform and share different analysis and experiences. Produced on non-profit basis through donations and grants, the Dossiers have, till now, mostly been distributed free of cost to women and women's organisations. Printing and distribution costs of one Dossier work out to 60 F.Francs (about 12 US$). We appeal to readers to send donations to meet the production and postage costs. Any donation however small is extremely welcome. To new readers of the Dossiers: Would you like to be placed on our mailing list? If you are associated with an institution / group would you consider setting up an exchange of publications with us? For all correspondence write to: Women Living Under Muslim Laws, Boite Postale 23, 34790 Grabels, France. Directrice de publication : Marie-Aimée Hélie-Lucas Rédaction : Women Living Under Muslim Laws BP 23, 34790 Grabels, France Dépôt légal 1et trimestre 1991, ISSN 1018-1342 Commision paritaire en cours. Mise en Page : Crayon & cie, Montpellier Imprimerie Arceaux 49, Montpellier. 2 - Dossier 18 Contents Introduction 5 The All-American Queer Pakistani Girl: The dilemma of being between cultures Surina Khan 7 Lihaf (The Quilt) Ismat Chughtai 10 United States Sex and the Single Shi’ite: Mut’a Marriage in an American Lebanese Shi’ite Community Linda S. Walbridge 18 Algeria S.O.S Algeria: Women’s Human Rights Under Seige Karima Bennoune 29 Sudan Gender Politics and Islamization in Sudan Sondra Hale 51 Legal Aid, New Laws & Violence Against Women in Sudan 81 Ustadh Mohamed Taha: 12 years after his execution Anonymous 93 Pakistan The Offence of Rape in the Islamic Law of Pakistan Rubya Mehdi 98 India Customary Practices Among Muslims Geetanjali Gangoli in Gomia, Bihar and Seema Kazi 109 Resource Index Newsbriefs 126 Organisations and Projects 143 Bulletins and Journals 149 Books and Papers 151 Dissertations and Theses 158 Courses 159 Audiovisuals 160 Announcements 161 Campaigns and Events 162 Dossier 18 (July 1997) Women Living Under Muslim Laws - 3 4 - Dossier 18 Introduction To the lonely voice of a Pakistani American lesbian woman wondering how her grandmother would react to her sexual mores, responds the powerful short story of Ismat Chugtai, written more than 50 years ago - and banned at the time. Our dossiers had announced the first two Asian lesbians conferences; we are now beginning to recieve articles about the situation of lesbians in Muslim countries and communities which we will be publishing in the future issues. A study of temporary marriages (mut’a) in a Lebanese American Muslim community, by Linda Walbridge, shows how some ‘local’ imams are promoting the practice of mut’a as a way to allow modern teenagers of the community to have sexual freedom, within the acceptable “religious-moral parameters”. This re-interpretation of a practice which we only knew as highly unfavourable to women and girls, provides evidence of how religious edicts pulled out of Iranian Shia islamic framework are being applied in an alien diasporic context to facilitate “cultural accomodation”; community and religious spokesmen might want to justify this practice, as being rooted in “authentic culture” and may hide behind the smokescreen of “cultural pluralism” in order to bypass prevailing marriage laws of the land, but we hope women’s rights activists will not close their eyes. The article on Algeria by Karima Bennoune, describes, amongst other atrocities against women, examples of the terrible use that fundamentalists have made of mut’a in Algeria. Apart from a stinging denounciation of the crimes of against women in Algeria, it sets out the backdrop of the present situation; in particular, it counters the commonly adopted view that fundamentalist violence started as a protest against the government putting an end to the electoral process in 1992 and it shows that this violence started -and escalated- long before these events. She demonstrates the collusion of the government with fundamentalists and the way they traded women’s constitutional rights. It also clearly links the defence and promotion of women’s human rights to the very existence of democracy in Algeria. She gives a voice to Algerian feminists in this battle for life. The situation is deteriorating every single day in Algeria: villages are attacked on a daily basis, and inhabitants slaughtered irrespective of age or sex. Future dossiers will keep you up to date. In the sections on campaigns and in the newsbriefs, you will find information on the ongoing campaign by Algerian women to collect a million signatures against the existing family law which has bound women since 1984. So called “moderate islamists” in Algeria are actively mobilizing against the women’s petition and claim, in a virulent appeal to “protect algerian Women Living Under Muslim Laws - 5 national identity” and to prevent “an act of revolt against the word of God”. They are collecting 3 million signatures to defend the discriminatory family law in force in Algeria. In Sudan, the other showcase of fundamentalists’ policies in the world, new laws have been passed which further limit women’s access to public life: the decency laws. Sondra Hale analyzes the Islamisation project as part and parcel of a cultural-national construction of identity which obscures class approach and makes a move towards essentialism, while a Sudanese feminist addresses the issue of violence against women in the light of these new laws. A warm tribute is paid to Mahmoud Mohammad Taha, a well known and respected progressive interpreter of the Qu’ran, murdered [by the then government] in 1985 for his writings. To this date his books remain banned in Sudan. The paper by Rubyia Mehdi on rape in Pakistan denounces the assimilation of rape to sex outside marriage (fornication and adultery) and links this law to the political use of Islam by the then government. Finally the contribution by Kazi & Gangoly on customary practices in Bihar gives concrete examples of ‘what muslims do’ in a sociological and and daily life sense as different from what ‘muslim law(s) [of the land] say’, or ‘what Islam says’ in a theological sense. 6 - Dossier 18 The All-American Queer Pakistani Girl: The dilemma of being between cultures Surina Khan don't know if my grandmother is dead or alive. I can't remember the last time I saw her. It must have been at least ten years ago when I was Iin Pakistan for an extended visit. She was my only living grandparent and her health was beginning to fail her. Every once in a while, I think she's probably dead and no one bothered to tell me. I'm completely out of touch with my Pakistani life. As a kid, I remember being constantly reminded that I was different by my accent, my brown skin color, the smell of the food we ate, and my mother's traditional clothing. And so, I consciously Americanized myself - I spent my early childhood perfecting my American accent; my adolescence affirming my American identity to others; and my late teens rejecting my Pakistani heritage. And now, at the age of twenty-seven, I'm feeling the void I created for myself. I can hardly speak Urdu. I certainly can't read or write it. I have no idea how many cousins I have. I know my father comes from a large family (eleven brothers and sisters) but I don't know all their names. I've never read the Koran and I have no faith in Islam. Sometimes I think of what my life would be like if my parents hadn't migrated from Pakistan to the U.S.. We moved to Connecticut in 1973 when I was five. Most of my family has since moved back to Pakistan, and up until seven years ago, when I came out, I went back somewhat regularly, but always with a little ambivalence. I never liked going back. It made me feel stifled. Constrained. People were always talking about getting married. It was either, "Oh, you're almost old enough to start thinking about finding a nice husband", or, "When are you getting married?" Now I imagine they'd say (with disappointment), "You'll be an old maid". Fortunately, my family is of a more liberal mindset when it comes to Pakistani society. By American standards that translates into conservative. (My mother raised money for George Bush). In any case, I was brought up in a family that valued education, independence, integrity, and love. Women Living Under Muslim Laws - 7 The All-American Queer Pakistani Girl Unlike some of my cousins, I never worried about my parents arranging a marriage for me even though I saw several of my first cousins arranged into marriages, sometimes with each other. Once I went to a wedding where the bride and groom saw each other for the first time when someone passed them a mirror after their wedding ceremony and they both looked into it at the same time. That's when I started thinking my family was "modern". Unfortunately they live in a fundamentalist culture that won't tolerate me. I can't even bring myself to go back for a visit. The last time I was back was seven years ago for my father's funeral. And sometimes I think the next time I go back will be for my mother's funeral. She asks me to come visit every time I talk to her. And I tell her I'm too busy, that I can't get away. Three years ago I finally answered her truthfully. I told her that I didn't like the idea of travelling to a country that lashed lesbians one hundred times in public. And more importantly, I didn't feel comfortable visiting Pakistan when she and I had not talked about anything important in my life since I had come out to her. Pakistan has always been my parents' answer to everything. When they found out my sisters were smoking pot in the late 1970's, they shipped all of us back. "You need to get in touch with the Pakistani culture", my mother would say. When my oldest sister got hooked on transcendental meditation and started walking around the house in a trance, my father packed her up and put her on a plane back to the homeland. She's been there ever since. Being the youngest of six, I wised up quickly. I waited to drop my bomb until after I had moved out of the house and was financially independent of my family. If I had come out while I was still living in my parents home, you can bet I'd have been on the next flight to Islamabad. When I came out to my mother, she suggested I go back to Pakistan for a few months. "Just get away from it all. You need some time. Clear your head", she begged. But I knew better. And when I insisted I was queer and was going to move to Washington, DC, to live with my girlfriend, Robin (now my ex-girlfriend, much to my mother's delight), she tried another Pakistani scare tactic. "You and your lover better watch out. There's a large Pakistani community in DC and they'll find out about you. They'll break your legs, mutilate your face". That pretty much did it for me. My mother had just validated all my fears associated with Pakistan and I cut off all ties with the community, including my family. Pakistan became synonymous to homophobia. My mother disowned me when I didn't heed her advice. But a year later when Robin and I broke up, she came back into my life. Wishful 8 - Dossier 18 United States - Pakistan thinking on her part. Though I do have to give her credit, not only for nurturing the strength in me to live by my convictions with integrity and honesty, but for eventually trying to understand me. I'll never forget the day I took her to see a lawyer friend of mine. She was on the verge of settling a lawsuit started by my father before he died and was unhappy with her lawyer. I took her to see Maggie Cassella, a lawyer/comedian based in Hartford, Connecticut, where I was again living. "I presume this woman's a lesbian", my mother said in the car on the way to Maggie's office. "Yes, she is", I replied, thinking, oh no, here it comes again. But my mother totally took me by surprise. "Well, the men aren't helping me, I might as well go to the dykes". I didn't think she even knew the word dyke. Now, that was a moment. Her changing attitude about my lesbian identity was instilling a desire in me to reclaim my Pakistani identity. The best way to do this, I decided, would be to seek out other Pakistani lesbians. I barely knew any Pakistani people aside from my family and I sure as hell didn't know any, or even know of any, Pakistani lesbians. I was just naive enough to think I was the only one. Having rejected my culture from a young age, when I came out I identified only as a lesbian. I knew other lesbians but I didn't know any Pakistani lesbians, and so it didn't occur to me to identify myself as a Pakistani lesbian. And in my zeal to be all- American I threw myself into the American queer rights movement - not realizing (unfortunately) that there is an active South Asian gay and lesbian community in the U.S. - and many of us are here because we're able to be queer and out in the Western world where at least there is a queer liberation movement. The conflict I'm experiencing seems relatively simple to me - I don't know how not to be out anymore, and if I went back to Pakistan to find that my grandmother is indeed alive and well and still wondering why I don't have a husband, I'll tell her politely, "I'm not interested in marrying a man, but I am looking for a wife. Know any good women?" Source: --- This is an excerpt from an essay which will be published in Generation Q: Inheriting Stonewall, a collection of essays being published next fall by Alyson Publications © 1996 Trikone. All rights reserved. Internet Source: http://www.rahul.net/trikone/magazine/jan96/surina.html Trikone (Lesbian and Gay South Asians) PO box address - PO Box 21354, San Jose CA 95151- 1354, U.S.A. E-mail: