“A strong culture permits diversity; a strong culture permits freedom of thought, deviation from the framework. When the Abbasid period was at its height, it became a culture of self-confidence. When there is confidence like this, you permit space and freedom. Lack of self-confidence leads to the lowest cultural point, from all aspects – human rights, women’s rights. In the Arab empire, there was more freedom than in the Arab world today.” – Salman Masalha, Israeli Arab intellectual and poet.
EMAIL OF THE DAY: “I’m afraid you have once again approached Muslim culture from an improper assumption. The issue of homosexuality and women’s issues has a certain quantum to do with patriarchal society; however, this is not the primary ideological thrust for the mindset of the people. The real issue is one dealing with private vs public space. Homosexuality has existed in the Muslim world since time immemorial, irrespective of Islam’s injunctions upon it. The humiliation experienced by the Iraqi prisoners at the hands of US troops, especially female soldiers, is a function of the fact that their nakedness was involuntarily exposed in a public realm. Discretion and modesty is still held at a very high premium in that part of the world.
The violation of these prisoners’ modesty is the key factor, tantamount to a woman being stripped of her clothing at a football game or some other public spectacle here. It is simply not done.
You can try to push the issue onto the Iraqi’s in typically Orientalist fashion, as if the only reason they have issue with the way they were treated is that they come from a backward, unenlightened culture, and that they should let the magnanimous white man (and woman) do to them whatever they wish because “white makes right.” Well, Andrew, formal colonialism is fortunately over; it would be a shame if you and your acolytes are trying to introduce its latest incarnation. The late Edward Said was correct in the title of one of his books, ‘Blaming the Victims.’ It seems that is what you wish to do as well.
The reason why these pictures will have a more deleterious impact in the Muslim world is because the Muslim world still holds sacred one’s own body and the ability to be free of exploitation, especially by so-called liberators. The Muslim world sees the current situation as being a Hobson’s choice: being a slave to Saddam or being made a whore by their ‘liberators.’ Neither appears to be too appealing.” – more feedback on the Letters Page.
The Dish 