Woman's issues and the internationalization of values
Since the beginning of Amin's call, a century has passed during which the Western and Islamic worlds achieved extensive progress throughout the course of social, cultural and intellectual transformations. The interval between what was known as the call to liberate the Muslim woman in the past and our position today is sufficient to contemplate the series of dangerous deteriorations that has afflicted the Muslim communities. In conclusion, today, the woman's issue is no longer the responsibility of individuals or characters, or a set of isolated initiatives that emerge from here and there to start a battle, wage a war or initiate a discussion between the supporters and the opposition, between the advocators of westernization on one side and the current of keeping the identity and adherence to origins on the other. Today, the Muslim woman's issue is discussed internationally and has been subjected to political and cultural internationalization. This means that the issue of the woman and family, in general, has become part of the comprehensive civilizational confrontation.
Since 1994, international conferences and meetings have been held consecutively. They aim at imposing the secular western view on other societies – including the Muslim world which was the heart of international transformations for at least two centuries – concerning the family system, the status of women and marriage morals. In that year, the International Conference on Population and Development was held in Cairo. It was followed by The World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. In 1998, The World Conference on Women was held in Cairo. In June of the same year, the Youth Conference was held in Bangkok. Side international meetings and conferences were held consecutively to follow up the execution of recommendations of these conferences on more than one occasion.
Such a transition and transformation in the slogan of liberating the Muslim woman– between the beginning of the 20th and the 21st centuries, a complete century – did not take place all at once; rather, it happened through gradual stages. Each stage was intended to be a gain in itself to facilitate transference to the next stage and to be firmly established as part of reality that can neither be doubted nor nullified. During all such stages, western secular thought infiltrated into the Arab and Muslim communities by means of westernized people as well as feminist secular parties and movements, which tried to assume power through the media, cultural authority as well as western material, political and moral support. The vast convergence between the feminist movements in the Muslim world and their counterparts in the West and the western organizations allowed the occurrence of a semi international bloc, by means of coordination, cooperation and joint work. This series has caused many international meetings to be held concerning women.
The recommendations of these conferences became binding on non-western countries and nations, not only by the power of the international legitimacy, but also by the influence that the feminist movements had won within such countries by means of foreign support. Such movements formed lobbies for applying pressure on governments to obtain their demands. Here, I recall models from Morocco, Algeria, and other Arab and Muslim countries. In these countries, parties and feminist institutions applied pressure to governments and demanded changes in family and marriage laws to contain the principles and resolutions of these international conferences and meetings. This development in handling the issue of liberating women – according to the western conception of the word 'liberation' that is not subject to any discussion today for fear of exposing its truth – created a new universal reality; the reality of internationalizing values that are related to the family, in general, and to woman, in particular.
A few years ago, the concept of globalization came into existence and pushed forward the issue of internationalization. Today, not only the recommendations of the international conferences perform this role, but new powers that have ethical and moral influence on minds and souls are included to create internationalization of these values in Arab and Muslim feelings. These new powers are represented in the media and the communication revolution which presents a new vision for woman and the family that is based on praising moral liberation, freedom of choice, the principle of enjoyment and benefit, the law of personal desire and the individual's authority over him/herself.
How to win the battle?
The challenge that faces the Muslim Ummah (nation) concerning women's issues is not as easy as it may seem, because woman is part of the family and the family is part of the entire community, and the strength of a civilization is contingent on the strength and integrity of the community. We are very mistaken if we believe that the West tackles women’s issues in the Muslim world apart from other issues, as its main goal is to disintegrate the Muslim community. More than two centuries ago, the West understood the aforesaid formula between the woman, the family, the community and civilization very well and so it tried to start with the first and strongest chain with the intention of breaking it. The battle of civilization today is the battle of culture and media for enlightening and creating a sound historical awareness of what happened, what is happening and what will happen in the future if we follow the same way.
There are two issues that should be carefully studied, explained and analyzed in order to confront the strong civilizational attack that the West is now waging against the Muslim world, under the slogan of woman and the family.
The first issue is intellectual and historical. Islam brought the sound concept for the comprehensive liberation of women and guaranteed all her rights from the cradle to the grave, like her peer, the man, with whom she equally participates in establishing society and civilization, as well as reckoning in the Hereafter. Here, we have a unique historical experience of Islamic legislative, religious and moral practice whose age is more than fourteen centuries and can be used as a criterion. As for the west, its experience is not more than two centuries and it has led to family disintegration, woman's humiliation and eradicating sound social morals and destroying humanity. By comparing the two experiences – despite the significant difference in time between them – we emerge with an intellectual standard and conclude the following: In fourteen centuries, Islam succeeded in establishing a sound human civilization that is based on morals. On the other hand, however, western thought fell at the beginning of the road without even successfully completing two centuries.
The second issue is social and moral. In principle, the philosophy which created the western model for the concept of liberating women is morally and socially corrupt. The result of this western model, since its initiation and the beginning of its call, unveils the dangers that threaten any entity that wants to imitate the same ideology. In France, for example, statistics of the past year indicate that more than 40% of newborns were registered outside marriage, 53% of women become pregnant outside legitimate marital relations and 300,000 children are born annually of unlawful relations. These figures are continuously increasing. The percentage of the adolescent pregnancies is 30 girls out of every one thousand girls, whose ages vary between 15 and 19. The same statistics indicate that the rate of marriage is continuously decreasing and they record only slight differences between France, Sweden, Norway and Finland. In Britain, the situation is even worse. The last figures that were issued by the British Office for National Statistics indicate that one half of children in Britain are born outside traditional marital relations. Ten years ago, the percentage was only one-third. According to our evaluation, this means that the percentage is likely to increase after another ten years. After twenty years for example, the result would be parentless societies and a bestial world. The image becomes darker and bleaker when we contemplate the figures and facts of the hidden world of prostitution in Europe and America. The woman has been turned into a commodity that is bought and sold with neither mercy nor any feeling of belonging to humanity.
Before me is a dangerous book whose author is the Swiss Member of Parliament, Nicole Castioni. One year ago, the book appeared in Paris under the title “The Sun at the End of the Night.”In this book, she relates her strange story as one of those who were swallowed by the prostitution machine in the West or the trade of ‘white slavery’, as it is otherwise known. In modern times, the time of European and western hegemony, 'trading in women' is called the trade of white slavery. Throughout the book, which has more than 300 pages, we learn about the journey of the author and the dark world of prostitution in western countries. The victims of this world are estimated to be hundreds of thousands of women.
Also, we learn about the means of killing, raping and political corruption. The author managed to leave that deep abyss, and became a wife in 1995, formed a family and studied law. She ran for elections and became a member in the Swiss Parliament to start her struggle against brothels by means of writings and founding societies. I presented these proofs to clarify that the issue of liberating the woman in the West started with brilliant slogans and ended within the mouths of greedy capitalism, which does not differentiate between trading in wood and humans.
There are wise people in the West itself who have learnt from this unsuccessful experience concerning the liberation of women; why do we not realize this before them? Those of us who are deceived by the slogans of liberation plan to follow the westerners. However, they do not realize that, meanwhile, many of these westerners are thinking about how to save themselves and would follow us if they only knew the way…If only we knew how to make them know it.