The Enemy At Home by Dinesh D'Souza

Author:Dinesh D'Souza
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780385521529
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2007-01-16T05:00:00+00:00

MUSLIM PROTESTS AGAINST interference in their social institutions have not gained much sympathy in the West because the Muslim family has such a bad reputation. So negative is the image of the Muslim family that even conservatives take pride in championing women’s rights and sometimes even homosexual rights in the Muslim world. Laura Bush pointed to the liberation of the Afghan women as one of the great benefits of the overthrow of the Taliban in the aftermath of 9/11. While we can all rejoice in the sight of Afghan women who are now free to uncover their faces, travel outside the home, vote, and work, we should remember that women enjoy these rights in most Muslim countries, including fundamentalist Iran. So the strong prejudice of many Americans against the Muslim family still requires explanation.

I think one reason for it is the Muslim practice of polygamy. For Americans across the spectrum, even homosexual marriage is a less freakish prospect than polygamy. The typical American woman cannot even imagine living in a household where she shares her husband’s affection with other wives. Americans are also offended by other forms of gender discrimination that seem religiously mandated in Muslim countries. Sharia law decrees that Muslim women inherit half of what men inherit, and the testimony of a Muslim woman in court carries half the weight of the testimony of a man. Muslim men can easily divorce women, but Muslim women cannot easily divorce men. Women are concealed in veils and burqas while men do not hesitate to wear Western-style clothing. Male infidelity is ignored while women who are suspected of premarital sex or adultery bring shame and dishonor on their families. Sometimes such dishonor is avenged by “honor killings,” in which the disgraced family wreaks their vengeance either on the girl or her mate. These honor killings provoke unmitigated revulsion in the West.

In order to assess Islamic society, we should be on guard against the blinders of ethnocentrism. This problem is illustrated by Under-secretary of State Karen Hughes’s visit to Saudi Arabia in September 2005. Speaking before a carefully screened group of upper-middle-class Saudi women, the kind of women who would normally be sympathetic to America, Hughes introduced herself as a “working mom” and proceeded to enlighten the Saudis about ways in which they were being oppressed by Islam. “I believe women should be free and equal participants in society,” Hughes said. “I feel that as an American woman, my ability to drive is an important part of my freedom.” Many American women, Hughes added, “can’t imagine not being able to drive ourselves to work.”15

To her amazement, Hughes felt a wave of derision and hostility from the audience. She subsequently discovered that the women didn’t feel oppressed by Saudi driving laws because, like other well-to-do women in non-Western societies, most of them had drivers. Thus they were no more outraged than affluent American women would be if they were informed that they were denied the privilege of taking out the garbage or mowing their own lawns.

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