Feminists storm 'Should Wife-beating be Allowed?' debate in France and get attacked!

[Sunsoo]

And the response is sickening:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/16/femens-topless-condescension-towards-muslim-women-only-helps-sexism

I cannot believe people think that these women are just as bad as the men whom attacked them!

Also, why the fudge was this debate even allowed to happen? Violence is illegal in France. End of discussion!

I actually might stop reading the Gruan since they've published this article.

I'm also in UAE, fitfatty - you've been here a lot longer than I have!

lush Scremers you are not making any sense. I haven't heard anything to say that these people (many of whom were women) were in any way 'promoting' wife beating - as far as I can tell they were discussing the treatment of the subject within their religion. What's wrong with that?

What is it that you are actually trying to say? None of the above makes sense.

And your comment on anti-discrimination law - what do you mean? I'm talking about debate/thought policing, not barring entry to a premises or service...

You are not familiar with the services element of discrimination legislation or its scope then? Perhaps you should read it...

Well the process of debate will not be constructive at all if you shut it down, will it Scremer?

lush Well the process of debate will not be constructive at all if you shut it down, will it Scremer?

Quite the contrary, I am suggesting opening it up, in terms of complying with discrimination legislation.

Inviting female academic lawyers who are experts on Sharia law in France would be an obvious starting point. Yet another bunch of men talking is hardly an open debate.

Yes I am, familiar with anti-discrimination law, Scremer. I just don't understand how you are linking it to this debate that the so-called feminists invaded?

And I am trying to say what fitfatty said - that debate on any subject should be allowed, so long as the object of the debate is not to incite hatred or violence. We don't know what was being said at this debate, so I don't assume that hatred or violence was being incited.

The problem is that Imam are male, and are not necessarily very competent or well educated. We are not generally talking about great minds that would succeed on an open, competitive worldwide platform here. We are not seeing Muslim legal clerics for instance writing peer reviewed legal articles on their own legal system. It is in many ways a very infantile debate. The problem is too that the debate is heirachical and too often based on leading questions, ie ones that suggest the answer sought before the debate even has a chance to proceed.

With the exception of the Imam's are male bit, I would disagree with you. Yes the morons in Saudi talking about whatever pops into their heads aren't smart, but there are some very brilliant minds, both male and female religious scholars and lawyers that are constantly changing laws and beliefs here. The media likes to put the juicy stuff out, not the stuff where the UAE and Qatar have spent hours debating something as uninteresting as inheritance laws, or the fact that the UAE has just passed some major laws concerning the protection of women and children (a bit behind the west yes, but still happening). Many of these men and women would and should be listened to on a worldwide platform, but there's many reasons they aren't.

Yet another bunch of men Who said it was a men-only event?

Yet another bunch of men talking is hardly an open debate.

To be fair, it probably wasn't a debate that would have made an ounce of difference or even received any attention if Femen hadn't drawn attention to it.

Quite fatty.

And scremers, I also have to disagree with you re the inadaptibility of Shari'ah. Yes, the laws themselves are pretty inflexible but Muslims often take a very different approach to them than we in the west take to our legal systems. With Shari'ah it's about the letter and not the spirit of the law, and so some extremely creative ways of getting around the more restrictive Shari'ah rules have been developed. It will depend on the country and the culture as to how much the spirit of the law is followed and so, once again, it comes down to culture and context rather than what the scriptures actually say.

thefitfatty With the exception of the Imam's are male bit, I would disagree with you. Yes the morons in Saudi talking about whatever pops into their heads aren't smart, but there are some very brilliant minds, both male and female religious scholars and lawyers that are constantly changing laws and beliefs here. The media likes to put the juicy stuff out, not the stuff where the UAE and Qatar have spent hours debating something as uninteresting as inheritance laws, or the fact that the UAE has just passed some major laws concerning the protection of women and children (a bit behind the west yes, but still happening). Many of these men and women would and should be listened to on a worldwide platform, but there's many reasons they aren't.

I do agree that at some point, results have to be measurable, and you would be surprised at how well known legal changes in the Arab world are. But what we really need to see is more criticism of Sharia-based legal systems, and constructive criticism that results in real change at that. We need to stop excluding people from that debate on the grounds that they are not a particular ethnicity or gender (ie it needs to be open to more outside influences) and we do need to see an exclusion of people on the basis of lack of qualifications. Right now, we see an effective exclusion of one of the leading legal academics on Sharia law, because she is white and female, from any of these debates (she is not me, I would never claim to have even a tenth of the knowledge she has on the subject).

The UAE and Quatar are outliers, and while they have introduced some changes, in Quatar at least the actual system for putting into effect changes in legislation is simply far too slow and complex. This is indicative of a poor parliamentary system, and even Quatari lawyers I know agree on this, but they also agree that nothing can be done about it and it will just have to be put up with.

Again, that brings me back to measurable results.

lush I'm afraid I find your comments increasingly erratic and I cannot make any sense of them. If you could try to rephrase them so they are a little more concise, I will do my best to answer them.

It requires some real brilliant minds to resolve these problems, people who are not afraid of change and who have vision and foresight, and that is simply not happening. I am a lawyer here in the ME and I help structure Shari'ah-compliant projects. I am one of those 'brilliant minds', apparently!! ;)

I would say I've been pretty consistent, Scremers. I honestly don't understand what anti-discrimination law has to do with this debate. Please explain.

By the way, scremers, what is your claim to expertise on any of these subjects? Not trying to be rude, just curious.

I'm not sure people here are quite up to criticism of Shariah, no matter how constructive. Slow is absolutely the pace here and I certainly agree that more needs to be done, and more voices heard. However, I don't believe that can be achieved without debate, even debates we disagree with.

lush your comment was in the context of the men debating the point, so, if they are having the debate, they are speaking about it, not just keeping their opinions to themselves. Speaking in favour of such abhorant actions is an action too and might encourage others.

Hurrah for the tit swinging feminazis I say.

lush You say culture rather than scripture is the problem. How then do you explain the UAE Federal Supreme Court's assertion that UAE law permits a husband to physically chastise his wife. www.hrw.org/news/2014/08/04/uae-weak-protection-against-domestic-violence

Dr Ahmed al-Kubaisi, head of sharia studies at UAE University and Baghdad University, told the paper that under sharia, beating one's wife was an option to prevent the breakdown of the family www.wluml.org/node/6718

Mistress, UAE law permits the beating of one's wife. It's abhorrent.

But I don't understand how it makes my statement about culture/scripture any less true? The judge's interpretation of the scripture, and the UAE law's interpretation of the scripture is still set within a cultural context. This is an Arab country.

I think your comments come dangerously close to an advocation of censorship, Cheezy, and therefore you should be banned from this debate.

MistressMia, again, this comes down less on Islam and more on the culture. There have been changes since the human rights report and laws are being passed to further protect women and children. Things are changing here slowly but surely, and much of that is because of debate and influence from the West.

By the way, scremers, what is your claim to expertise on any of these subjects? Not trying to be rude, just curious.

I teach international comparative law at pg level and am qualified in the subject.

thefitfatty I'm not sure people here are quite up to criticism of Shariah, no matter how constructive. Slow is absolutely the pace here and I certainly agree that more needs to be done, and more voices heard. However, I don't believe that can be achieved without debate, even debates we disagree with.

I really think Shariah needs far more constructive criticism, both from within and outwith. What we tend to see is remarkably active debate with few discernable practical results, and all too often that debate ends in empty promises of minor compromise, based on the usual assertion that it is a wonderful system of law, pointless examples of how it does this and that and allows such and such, and so on. You can see it on this thread before the debate has even progressed.

I don't think it will be resolved. Imagine if in the west, we had based our legal system on the teachings of the Catholic church, and still did so. Instead of legally qualified judges, we had Catholic priests. That we had legal systems in countries far more advanced than our own that we were aware of, but decided not to copy because of religious ideals?

I get the impression that most debaters on this thread don't even know that most western legal systems are based on the civilian legal tradition that 3000 years ago had devised systems of commerce, trade and equality rights that make much of Sharia law today look archaic in comparison.

Men of all religions and none beat their wives.
The difference is that a Muslim can point for justification to the Koran - which unlike the Bible can NOT be changed or ignored by devout believers.

There is some freedom to discuss and change the Hadith, but not the Koran. This makes a Muslim Reformation far more difficult to bring about than the Christian Reformation the West had.

Oh, do you?

My oh do you was to lush , sorry

I don't even know what international comparative law is, to be honest! I find, however, that laws put into practice are very different from laws considered in theory.

It sounds like those who have actually lived in the Middle East or have experience of Muslim culture have a rather different view on this subject than those who don't.

At the end of the day, I think these people (who were not necessarily all men) were having a debate on a subject which is very current and sensitive at the moment, and which is very relevant to them as Muslims in a non-Muslim country. We don't know what exactly was said at this debate, just that they were discussing wife-beating and the place of women in society. On the basis of the above, I see no good reason why the debate should not have been allowed, or why Femen should have interrupted.

"I really think Shariah needs far more constructive criticism, both from within and outwith. What we tend to see is remarkably active debate with few discernable practical results, and all too often that debate ends in empty promises of minor compromise, based on the usual assertion that it is a wonderful system of law, pointless examples of how it does this and that and allows such and such, and so on. You can see it on this thread before the debate has even progressed."

Totally agree. But it's the mindset. In many eyes the world of God is perfect and cannot be changed (believe me I butt heads with this ALL the time!) However, while its hard to debate Shariah, it's much easier to attack the cultural issues that allow for such extreme interpretations. However so many people confuse Islam with the underlying culture that the religion is what ends up getting attacked, which ends up with followers getting offended (when the religion might not have been what was at fault).

And while I agree that our legal system is the result of 3000 years of civilian legal tradition, it wasn't so long ago that much of that was heavily influenced by the church and monarchs.

In my opinion, it's easier to attack the culture and change the culture, and that should be the first step. Leave Islam till the culture is sorted, I think you'd be impressed how peoples interpretations of the Quran will change.