Forcing people to not wear the shawl is just as bad as forcing people to wear the shawl.
An argument that completely disregards the place of the shawls in Muslim cultures and societies. It's not a choice to begin with - it's a patriarchal mandate forced upon women from childhood and up.
...how? TBF never suggested it was a choice to wear the shawl. He just said that preventing someone from practicing a religion is just as bad as forcing them to.
As a counterpoint to the argument that shawls are inherently oppressive.
And at that, forcing people to not go along with an oppressive custom is not just as bad as forcing them to go along with it. Forcing people to not lock others in rooms is not the same as people forcing others into locked rooms.
@scriver: `:\
Aaaaand I also said what you said was bad is bad, too. But you shouldn't take that as license to suppress someone's right to decide for themself to follow a religion.
They aren't deciding for themselves. Do you not know what a patriarchy means? It means men are deciding it for them.
And here we go again. Do you realise, TBF, that you are literally parroting the words of the Islamic establishment? That you choose to listen and take to heart the words and arguments of the people who are oppressing women and men in the middle east, and women amd men of middle eastern origin in the west, over listening to the many middle eastern feminists who oppose and fight against their patriarchal society?
Oh come on.
One: "The patriarchy", as much as it exists - which I will define as 'an oppressive cultural environment that suppresses the right to choose', regardless of its leading figures - is bad.
Two: Just because someone wants to convert to or follow Islam of some sort does not automatically induce them into a patriarchy-controlled state/status. I don't know how else to explain that in a manner that would get you to listen.
Three: Forcing people to not follow Islam if they (would otherwise) so choose of their own free will, without external influences is the exact same oppressive cultural environment that you rail against! It's not "not locking people in rooms", to use your metaphor, it's "locking people out of rooms"!
Do you realize your position violates a fundamental principle of the United States, freedom of religion?
Do you realize that I agree with you that suppressing agency is bad?
Do you realize that not all Islam (and I do not say it is even a majority of Islam, or even a significant minority, but certainly some flavors practiced in the US) is patriarchical, and that people should be able to choose to follow it regardless?
Do you realize most of Christianity is full of male authority figures? Are you going to argue we should abolish that, too?
I really don't think you've thought your position through fully.
Did you realizes that when religions in the U.S. practice child marriage, use the threat of physical violence to prevent people from leaving, &c. we mock, shun, and when appropriate take legal action against them?
This is the principle issue I have with the hypocrisy re: the religion of peace. When Mormons, Scientologists, Christians, whatever make a habit of doing something appalling, nobody blinks at criticizing them and working to stop it. But the instant it's Islam doing those things or worse, it stops being okay to oppose it? Also note that you're making the same argument re: freedom of religion that people like you make from the other side on freedom of speech.
God, this sounds awful, but as an atheist Islam embodies pretty much every bronze-age barbarity that disgusts me about Christianity and Judaism, except with some extra bonuses and centuries less of mellowing and movement towards civilization. Let's fact-check:
What's that? Is it the sound of basically every gorram issue with Christianity except worse, topped off by a side of "killing people for the faith is still A-Okay!" and "yeah, sure, marry and fuck kids as long as they're girls"?
Arabs? Totally cool. Ex-Muslims? Ex-cellent. Moderate Muslims who have dropped the oppressive, intolerant shit? Yeah, sure, no better or worse than other religious folks of the same stripe.
But let's lay this out. When Christians shun and refuse service to LGBT folks it's the end of the world. When Muslims murder LGBT folks for existing, when a
95%-Muslim country is literally
putting gay men into concentration camps and torturing them, it gets glossed over. When some sects of Christians are kinda backwards and condescending towards women, it's absolutely unacceptable. When some sects of Muslims functionally keep women as property and marry children, it's totally okay, just part of their culture. When Christians persistently bother you in conversation about conversion, it's massively irritating and offensive. When Muslims give you the choice of converting or dying (if you get a choice!), it's ignored. Look at Afghanistan before and after the takeover by strongly religious leadership. Before the Soviet invasion, women were attending university with bare faces. Now? Look at Iran before and after the revolution.
Shit like that. It's absolutely hypocritical to defend it from Muslims while condemning lesser evils from Christians.
The counts of heinous shit the West has done in the ME don't just include the physical deaths, but also the societal breakdown that destroyed many predominantly Islamic states' progress towards modern attitudes on a lot of these issues. If you're not willing to tolerate milder echoes of centuries-old barbarity, why are you defending the real thing? Why are you trying to shut down the voices within Islam calling for reform and better treatment of disadvantaged groups? How can you call yourself progressive when you're working to defend people who kill and enslave because of the words of some fucker who lived centuries ago?
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