Hvad har de to lande tilfælles? Læs Hirsi Alis indlæg.
Iøvrigt har man helt misforstået Koranen iflg. Peter K. Nielsen?
Hamam Hamoudi, the head of Iraq's constitution committee, refuses to
discuss the article that worries the Muslim women. He also refused to
put in the draft constitution that men and women have equal rights,
creating a bizarre situation whereby the women had more rights under
Saddam Hussein's regime than in post-Saddam Iraq. Mr. Hamoudi insists
that women will have full economic and political rights, but the
overwhelming evidence shows that when Shariah--which gives a husband
complete control over his wife--is in place, women have little chance
to exercise any political rights. Does Mr. Hamoudi realize that it took
the removal of Saddam and the establishment of a multiparty democracy
for men to vote, while if his draft constitution is ratified, women
will need the permission of their husbands to step out of the house in
order to mark their ballot? I thought that President Bush and all the
allies who supported the Iraq war aspired to bring democracy and
liberty to all Iraqis. Aren't Iraqi girls and women human enough to
share in that dream?
Under Shariah, a girl becomes eligible for marriage from the moment she
starts to menstruate. In countries where Islamic law is practiced,
child-brides are common. Do the drafters of the constitution grasp what
this will mean for the school curriculum of girls or the risks of
miscarriages, maternal fatalities and infant deaths? These and other
hazards that affect subjugated women are common phenomena in the 22
Arab-Islamic countries investigated in the Arab Human Development
Report. An early marriage also means many children in an area of the
world that is already overpopulated and poor.
The draft Iraqi bill of rights favors men in other respects, such as
the right to marry up to four wives, and the right to an easy divorce,
without the interference of a court, simply by repeating "I divorce
you" in the presence of two male witnesses. A wife divorced in such a
fashion will receive an allowance for a period of three months to one
year, and after that period nothing. On the other hand, if a wife wants
a divorce, she must go to court and prove that her husband does not
meet her material needs, that he is infertile and that he is impotent.
Once a divorce is finalized, if there are children, the custody of the
children will automatically go to the father (for boys at age 7 and for
girls from the start of menstruation). Inheritance based on the Shariah
means that wives will get only a small portion of the property of their
husbands and a sister will get half what her brother gets.
Canadian women are told that the Arbitration Act of 1992 was passed in
order to provide citizens with the opportunity to resolve minor
conflicts through mediation and thereby save valuable court time. They
are reassured that Muslim women in Canada have nothing to fear because
parties must enter into arbitration out of their free choice, and that
there are enough limits to safeguard the rights of women. The Muslim
women's arguments that "free choice" is relative when you are
psychologically, financially and socially dependent on your family,
clan or religious group seem to fall on deaf ears. The populations of
battered Muslim women in "tolerant" Canada's women's shelters seem to
be ignored. In Canada, battered Muslim women say that their husbands
told them that it is a God-given right to hit them. If the current
Iraqi constitution goes through, Iraqi wife-abusers will be able to add
"It is my constitutional right to beat you."
An Iraqi constitution is necessary, and the need for urgency is
apparent, but urgency is a bad argument for passing a bill that strips
half the nation of its rights. In Ontario, minorities come first and
individual women within minorities last, living as second-class
citizens and suffering in silence.
Ms. Hirsi Ali, a member of the Dutch parliament for the Liberal Party,
was born in Somalia. She took refuge in the Netherlands in 1992 to
escape an arranged marriage, and has had armed bodyguards after
receiving death threats from Muslim extremists
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