Religion & domestic abuse

SINCE the Islamic revolution of 1979 in Iran, writing on Islam and Muslims has become a hugely profitable industry in the West. Work that is denunciatory — even if it is mere gossip — gets published. The more anguishing fact is that some Muslims have also joined this club. A few weeks ago, I happened to read an article in the Washington Post (October 23, 2006) written by Asra Nomani, author of a controversial book, Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam.

She thinks the western detractors’ depiction of Islam as a religion of violence is not unfounded. She cites a verse from the Quran which tells Muslims not to befriend Jews and Christians, and another that asks them to go out and slay the “pagans” (9:5). Much more disturbing to her is the verse (4:34), which authorises a husband to beat his wife if admonition and separation of sleeping quarters have failed to overcome her recalcitrance.

Ms Nomani refers to several translators and interpreters of the Quran who have tried to soften the impact of this verse. It has been said, for instance, that if the husband has to beat his wife, he must do so only very lightly, never so hard as to leave black and blue marks on her body, and never to hit her face. Better still would it be to tap her back gently and make the exercise more symbolic than real.

Ms Nomani believes these qualifications will not do. “Defenders of the faith” will say that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance, and that it has elevated woman to a much higher station than that which she had before. Yet, they cannot get around the verses in question. Ms Nomani seems to be looking for interpretations that will in effect annul the verses which trouble her.

How Muslims interpret the verse concerning wife-beating will, she says, show whether Islam can be made compatible with the 21st century. She is persuaded also that the authorisation to beat one’s wife is the main moving force behind some Muslim people’s disposition to violence. She goes on to make the startling assertion that “as long as the beating of women is acceptable in Islam, the problem of suicide bombers, jihadists, and other extremists who spread violence will not go away.”

At this point, I feel called upon to attempt two tasks: first to contest Ms Nomani’s preposterous claim that there is a connection — causal, not merely coincidental — between wife-beating at home and militant behaviour such as suicide bombing outside, and that formal permission to beat one’s wife makes Muslims particularly predisposed to violent conduct. Second, I shall offer a suggestion for interpreting scriptures.

Law in ancient Rome authorised grandfathers, and in their absence fathers, to impose physical punishment, including death, upon such members of their family, male or female, as might have engaged in dishonourable conduct.

The Torah and the New Testament do not specifically address the subject of wife-beating. Jesus himself went out of his way to enhance the status of women. But during the next several centuries the Church fathers reversed this trend. The more militant among them depicted woman as a “wrecker,” “bringer of evil,” “begetter of demons,” friend to Satan, and as the cause of man’s fall. She was doubtless inferior and, therefore, subordinate to man. It was his right to command, her obligation to obey. She must be meek and forsake all thought of self-esteem and self-assertion. The Church as well as the state allowed physical disciplining (that is, beating) of disobedient wives and daughters. Both also authorised burning at the stake of women accused of practising witchcraft, sorcery, or “black magic.”

Wife-beating has gone on in all ages and places regardless of the religion the people concerned professed. Citing an old law, William Blackstone, a renowned English jurist (1723-1780), wrote that a husband could give his wife “moderate correction” as he might give his apprentices or children. He hoped the practice would cease as the country advanced to a higher level of cultural refinement. Well, it didn’t. The law continued to permit wife-beating until fairly recent times.

In 1868, an American judge ruled that a husband had the right to whip his wife provided that the “switch” (stick) he used was no thicker than his thumb. This provision was widely known as the “rule of thumb” in both America and Britain. The law in question has been withdrawn in all of the American states, but the practice goes on.

Writing in Time Magazine (September 5, 1983), Jane O’Reilly observed that wife-beating reflected woman’s status as man’s property. She reported that nearly six million American wives were subjected to violence every year and some 3,000 of them were beaten to death. The police nationwide spent one-third of their time responding to reports of domestic violence. An FBI report had it that 40 per cent of the women killed in America were killed by husbands. But note also the finding of Murray Straus, a specialist in the study of the American family, that more than 280,000 husbands were beaten by wives each year.

Ms Nomani is not alone in thinking that men beat their wives because their scriptures endorse it. Some clergymen belonging to the Church of England, including the current Archbishop of Canterbury, have taken the curious position that words denoting the masculine gender (such as “He,” “His,” and “Lord”) should no longer be used with reference to God, because this usage slights women, makes men think they are superior, and encourages them to beat their wives. In my reckoning, these English bishops, no less than Ms Nomani, are simply wrong.

Men who beat their wives do not do so because their religion allows it. They do not do everything that their religion requires them to do. More often than not, they follow it selectively, implementing injunctions that suit their convenience and avoiding the ones which involve hardship of one kind or another. It is then misleading to say that all of a Muslim’s actual conduct is a mirror image of Islam, or that Islam is what Muslims do. The same holds for other religions and those who profess them.

Much of a person’s conduct is governed by his culture of which religion is only one part. Religion is not the sole maker of culture; nor is culture the maker of religion. The relationship between them is more likely one of interaction. How did the notion of woman’s subservience to man, and that of his right to “discipline” her if she is impertinent, become embedded even in cultures where the scriptures do not specifically endorse them?

It seems to me that the man-woman relationship developed in response to the logic of force. Fairly early in history it transpired that, being taller and heavier, the generality of men were more proficient than women in the arts of combat, involved in providing protection, hunting, and food production. Thus it was that man emerged as his family’s protector, provider, and commander. That is how the Quranic verse on the subject (4:34) explains it also. “Because Allah has given the one (husband) more strength than the other (wife), and because they (husbands) support them (wives) from their means, therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient.”

But what happens if an actual situation does not correspond to the one envisaged here. What if a husband is wicked and instructs his wife to do things of which God does not approve? I imagine her obligation to obey will then cease. And, what if he is not strong or enterprising enough to protect and maintain her, or if she is stronger and shrewder than he and the house is run out of resources that she, not he, generates, or if both work and bring incomes home so that each is equally the other’s sustainer?

It is probable that in each of these situations the man’s right to command and the woman’s obligation to obey will bear reconsideration and revision, and there will be no talk of his “disciplining” her unless he wants to be thrown out. I venture to suggest that this revision of the traditional pattern of the man-woman relationship will have God’s approval. Note also that in many Muslim, as well as western, families it is the wife who in actual practice is the more assertive and dominant partner. She may not be physically as strong as her husband, but she may have been endowed with sources of strength that God has chosen to deny him.

I should now like to offer a suggestion or two on the subject of interpreting scriptures. First, a distinction needs to be made between commands, recommendations, and permissions. In the verse we have been discussing the husband is only being permitted, not required, to adopt a certain course of action. He does not have to adopt it.

He may find more enticing ways of changing his wife’s mind, or he may decide to give in to her. If her stubbornness is something he cannot live with, he may divorce her. He does not have to beat her.

Let us go back for a moment to that other verse, the one about slaying the pagans (9:5). If we read it in conjunction with the verses that precede and follow it, that is, if we consider it in its proper context, we will readily see that it applies to a state of war that may return upon the expiry of the treaties that had suspended it for a time. If these treaties have not been renewed, and if the “pagans” are back to war, what are Muslims to do except to go out to fight and slay the enemy (if they can)? In other words, the injunction in this verse applies to a particular situation that prevailed at a certain time. It is not to be seen as a command to Muslims for all times to come to fight “pagans” regardless of the state of their dealings and engagements with them.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, US.

Email: anwarsyed@cox.net

Nature and extent of autonomy

THE perennial unrest in Balochistan that took a violent turn in 2004 — as it had on quite a few previous occasions — persuaded the government to form a parliamentary committee to look into its causes and suggest appropriate remedies. The unwieldy 38-member committee split itself into two subcommittees — one to report on the immediate problems of the people and the other on their political aspirations.

The seeds of failure of the committee and its subcommittees were sown at their very inception. They were formed to examine the grievances of the least populous province and the political aspirations of its people and, by implication, of the other two smaller provinces as well. The chairmen of the main committee and the subcommittees — Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Mushahid Hussain Syed, Wasim Sajjad — however, all came from the ruling party and the largest province, Punjab.

The selection of the chairmen itself brought to the fore the chief cause of discontent in the smaller provinces, and in the ranks of the opposition as well, that they were not considered responsible or trustworthy enough to head the committees. National interest and patriotism are taken to be the preserve of Punjab and the ruling party only.

For want of sympathy, or by design, the chairmen procrastinated. Chaudhry Shujaat left the scene after a protocol visit or two, declaring his pious wishes for the peace and prosperity of Balochistan. Mushahid Hussain’s report (perhaps ready but not published) could have only gone to the archives for it was overtaken by rocket-fire and bombings culminating in the death of Nawab Akbar Bugti.

The second, and more important, subcommittee on autonomy, it seems, hardly ever met, and if it did its proceedings were too desultory to attract press coverage. It was only earlier in the week that newspapers quoted its chairman, Wasim Sajjad, as saying that an agreement in general had been reached and “whatever differences or misunderstandings” persisted, those too would be resolved for it was all within the family (of parliamentarians).

The boycott of the subcommittee by the members of the opposition, one and all, did not seem to reciprocate the sentiments of the chairman. To them, its deliberations were no longer relevant as the passage of time and the intervening tragic events had brought the federation to a pass where it could be saved only through fair and free elections supervised by a neutral, caretaker government.

The ruling establishment had, indeed, squandered a golden opportunity to appease Balochistan and to settle the autonomy question, first by appointing chairmen of the committees who were not sympathetic to the cause and then by letting the proceedings drag on. At this stage, even if Wasim Sajjad were to make a report on autonomy, as he says he will even if the opposition members do not return to the subcommittee, his report, like Mushahid Hussain’s, can only go to the archives which, crudely put, means into the dustbin.

How one wishes that had the president appointed some leaders from the opposition, say Asfandyar Wali and Prof Khurshid Ahmad, to head the two subcommittees, Nawab Akbar Bugti and hundreds of others — tribesmen and troops alike - would not have been killed, gas pipelines would not continue to explode and the integrity of the federation would not have been made a topic of debate in the press and parliament.

It is hard to imagine the very parliamentarians who failed to make even a beginning with regard to autonomy agreeing on its quantum when the ideas range from reviewing the Concurrent List to confederation. The effort should be to find a solution somewhere in between these two extremes which can be done only in a larger, more earnest and representative forum.

Curtailing the Concurrent List, or even abolishing it altogether, may somewhat reduce the centre’s interference in the affairs of the provinces but it would in no way enlarge their jurisdiction which is the purpose of the whole exercise. At the other extreme, sovereignty in a confederation vests in the constituent units who agree to surrender limited subjects to the central authority for convenience or the common good.

The persistent and acerbic spokesman of the confederal system, Mumtaz Bhutto, harks back to the 1940 Lahore Resolution in which the constituent units of the Muslim-majority independent states to be created in the northwest and east of the subcontinent were envisaged to be “autonomous and sovereign”. That, Mumtaz Bhutto and other nationalists of Sindh and Balochistan contend, was the original compact. What followed was mere manipulation. To them, confederation may bind the country together which the federal arrangement could not.

The historical background of the freedom struggle and the separation of East Pakistan apart, the fact remains that Pakistan started out as a federation and under successive constitutions (starting with the 1935 act) it has tended to be more unitary than federal in character. This trend can be halted and even reversed but making the provinces sovereign in a confederation with the right of self-determination (as G.M. Syed’s son Jalal Mahmood Shah suggests) would remain a pipedream or lead to civil strife if the idea gains momentum.

World history, too, goes against the proponents of confederation. Confederations tend to morph into federal unions but not the other way round. The United States is successor to the Articles of Confederation. Germany was a confederation in the 19th century. Modern-day Switzerland is still called a confederation of Swiss cantons but is more unitary than federal in character.

The point to make is that those who propose to restrict provincial autonomy to the shortening of the Concurrent List and those who aspire to make Pakistan a confederation are equally to be blamed for progressively reducing the provinces to the status of mere administrative divisions of the country. That is what they really are at the moment.

While asking for more powers the provinces must not ignore the fact that whatever powers they had, those too have been effectively taken over by the centre because their own political and administrative institutions had become too weak to handle them. Take law and order. The provinces, especially the smaller ones, are unable to maintain it without the help of the centre’s paramilitary forces as the provincial governments have stuffed their own police force and courts with political or personal nominees who lack motivation and training. Take the legislative assemblies. They have hardly made any contribution to legal codes or public welfare but stories of their extravagance and waywardness abound.

To win and then maintain autonomy, the provinces need an independent and assertive leadership. For that to come about, the people must directly elect the chief executive of the province. A chief executive — governor or chief minister — who is chosen by the central command of the party or by the chief executive of the country has to do their bidding or succumb to their pressure. Those below him cannot but follow. This was as true of past parliamentary regimes as it is of this not-so-parliamentary one.

The added dimension now is that the provinces themselves seek the centre’s intervention and the centre itself has acquired a foothold in the provinces through the local government and police laws. The irony of it all is that power has travelled up to Islamabad and not devolved to the grassroots as the people were made to believe under the devolution plan.

Autonomy is too complex and sensitive a subject to be decided now when all eyes are set on the general elections. It should be left to the next parliament which is expected to be more representative of public opinion and less under presidential control.

Royal progress

SEGO versus Sarko looks like being one of the most exciting spectacles French politics has seen in years. Segolene Royal’s victory in the Socialist party’s first primary election gives her a solid base from which to face her most likely challenger, Nicolas Sarkozy of the centre-right UMP, in the battle for the presidency next April. Ms Royal’s telegenic appeal brought big crowds to her rallies and a surge in party membership. That counted for more than her lack of experience compared to her veteran (male) rivals Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Laurent Fabius.

Ms Royal’s detractors on the left see her as a shallow Blairite who is short on ideas and long on presentation. She is fairly vague on big issues such as how France’s social model can survive the harsh winds of globalisation, or tackling unemployment and sluggish growth. But she intends to raise the minimum wage and wants to penalise companies planning to relocate abroad where labour is cheaper — a measure inconceivable on this side of the channel.

But un-socialist ideas about military service for young offenders and questioning of the hallowed 35-hour week suggest a capacity for fresh thinking, as does her populist proposal that politicians be held to account by “citizens’ juries”. Ms Royal’s femininity has been an obvious asset, not least in provoking sexist remarks that discredited their authors. Voters are attracted by the sense that she is a provincial outsider (despite being a graduate of the elite ENA school) who is challenging Parisian party dinosaurs to change with her bold call for more “participatory democracy.”

Like David Cameron in Britain, Sego has so far been stronger on values than actual policies. In some debates she was embarrassingly shaky on European and international issues, including such sensitive topics as Turkey’s EU membership and Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Overall, the PS remains divided after Lionel Jospin’s humiliation in the 2002 presidential elections when Jean-Marie Le Pen of the National Front knocked him out in the first round, leaving the left vote split uselessly in the second. Ms Royal is certainly the only PS candidate likely to be able to beat Mr Sarkozy, though he is a far more experienced politician and a better speaker. Still, her chances may be helped by tensions over challenges to “Sarko” in the UMP: it is just possible that the discredited Jacques Chirac will stand for a third term at the age of 74. Ms Royal, embodying a desire for change, needs to put flesh on the bones of her attitudes and ambitions in the coming months. It’s going to be fascinating to watch her do it.

— The Guardian