Honor Diaries: must-watch film protested by CAIR

[2xx1xy1JD]

Here's the extended trailer for the must-watch documentary "Honor Diaries":

The women's rights activists in the film are amazing. I had known of some of them (Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Raheel Raza) before, and learned of the others from this trailer. They are clear in their view of how this misplaced notion of "honor" is really just about patriarchal control over women and explicit in showing just how harmful it is. These women have faced serious threats of violence for speaking out, yet they continue to do so, forcefully. They are my heroes.

The organization purporting to represent Muslim civil rights issues, CAIR, had decided that this film needed to be protested, although their rep had some difficulty explaining exactly what was wrong with the film other than a vague "it's funded by an Islamophobic source!" (which isn't particularly Islamophobic at all, but that's another story).

Here's the link to the clip of the CAIR rep on Megyn Kelly, courtesy of the CAIR Chicago website: http://www.cairchicago.org/2014/04/02/c ... creenings/

We've had threads here where people ask "where are the voices of the moderate Muslims? Why doesn't the media cover them?" Well, here we have a documentary where several of the women featured identify as Muslim, where they are bright and articulate and passionate, and where they get silenced by a group claiming to represent the interests of American Muslims, and by universities who are quick to respond to any claim of Islamophobia by CAIR.

[FundieWatcher]

Sounds interesting. Definitely want to check this out tonight.

[2xx1xy1JD]

I just watched the whole documentary.

Whoever tries to say that it is Islamophobic is nuts, or they haven't actually watched it.

It is NOT a message of "Muslims bad", as one CAIR rep alleged. In fact, several of the women go out of their way to say that the whole focus on "honor" is not limited to just Islam, and that you can be a faithful Muslim without it.

In the second half of the documentary, they go into detail about being silenced - not just by other Muslims, but also by non-Muslims in the West who are unwilling to listen to them and to take their concerns seriously. Some of the examples were appalling, including teachers and police officers not taking abuse seriously. There were chilling cases of girls and women either showing obvious signs of abuse or actually reporting abuse and threats, and nobody doing anything. Some of these women later ended up dead. There is nothing culturally sensitive about refusing to provide these women with the same rights to free speech that other western feminist have and can take for granted, or to fail to protect all girls and women from violence.

[nastyhobbitses]

I just watched the whole documentary.

Whoever tries to say that it is Islamophobic is nuts, or they haven't actually watched it.

It is NOT a message of "Muslims bad", as one CAIR rep alleged. In fact, several of the women go out of their way to say that the whole focus on "honor" is not limited to just Islam, and that you can be a faithful Muslim without it.

In the second half of the documentary, they go into detail about being silenced - not just by other Muslims, but also by non-Muslims in the West who are unwilling to listen to them and to take their concerns seriously. Some of the examples were appalling, including teachers and police officers not taking abuse seriously. There were chilling cases of girls and women either showing obvious signs of abuse or actually reporting abuse and threats, and nobody doing anything. Some of these women later ended up dead. There is nothing culturally sensitive about refusing to provide these women with the same rights to free speech that other western feminist have and can take for granted, or to fail to protect all girls and women from violence.

This is why I really like the organization Southall Black Sisters. They're a UK-based group that advocates for the rights and advancement of black and South Asian women in Britain, and their campaign to prevent forced marriage and other forms of violence against women heavily emphasizes that honor killings, forced marriage, and other such forms of abuse should absolutely not be treated as a "cultural practice" in the name of misplaced tolerance, and should be condemned and taken seriously by law enforcement, healthcare providers, and government authorities. It's really sad that so many women are caught between family members who think that it's OK to do terrible things to them, and authorities outside their family who say "oh, no, that's just your culture, I can't help you."

I don't like when certain elements in Western feminism act like all Muslim women from Malaysia to Morocco are oppressed, or condemn things like women choosing on their own volition to wear a hijab or dress modestly (this is why I'm not as worked up about the Duggar girls wearing skirts and sleeves as others may be, except for when it's impractical for them to wear what they wear or how ostentatious they are about how OMG MODEST they are), or arranged marriage when both concerned parties consent to it (key word being consent, meaning they're competent adults and they want the marriage), but I also think that "it's tradition/cultural practice" is a flimsy, unacceptable excuse for allowing women to be abused and killed.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Exactly! I think it comes down to the basic elements of respect and allowing all women to have a voice and express their own concerns. Treat someone as a subject, not an object.

That doesn't mean automatically agreeing with everything that someone says - nobody is immune from criticism.

What's infuriating, though, is when these women are denied a voice at all, and even those who should be their allies somehow believe that they don't exist, and can't have independent POVs.

I ranted about this a bit on the Terror in Paris thread in Wide World of Snark, but this post from Libby Anne (Love, Joy, Feminism - a blog I usually like) is a prime example:

patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2015/01/charlie-hebdo-and-freedom-of-speech.html#disqus_thread

In the mammoth comment thread, you've got a number of comments saying that even if the magazine was known to be left-wing, anti-racist, etc., it's still a bunch of white men with unexamined privilege pushing stereotypes that oppress women and minorities. Here's the thing: they made these statements without actually checking who worked at Charlie Hebdo, or speaking to any actual minority women in France!

Zineb El-Rhazoui wasn't on the list of those killed, because she was in Morocco during the attack. She was a journalist with Charlie Hebdo. These commenters don't think that she could exist.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/terror-att ... -1.2206462

Marianne - who has made it perfectly clear that she's a French lesbian with disabilities whose father-in-law is an Iranian Muslim - has made it perfectly clear why she believes that the accusations of racism, homophobia, ableism and anti-Muslim hatred were garbage, and why her father-in-law loves the magazine. Those views don't seem to count either.

[sparkles]

The trailer alone was chilling. I've got the doc queued up on Amazon Prime.

[nastyhobbitses]

Exactly! I think it comes down to the basic elements of respect and allowing all women to have a voice and express their own concerns. Treat someone as a subject, not an object.

That doesn't mean automatically agreeing with everything that someone says - nobody is immune from criticism.

What's infuriating, though, is when these women are denied a voice at all, and even those who should be their allies somehow believe that they don't exist, and can't have independent POVs.

I ranted about this a bit on the Terror in Paris thread in Wide World of Snark, but this post from Libby Anne (Love, Joy, Feminism - a blog I usually like) is a prime example:

patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2015/01/charlie-hebdo-and-freedom-of-speech.html#disqus_thread

In the mammoth comment thread, you've got a number of comments saying that even if the magazine was known to be left-wing, anti-racist, etc., it's still a bunch of white men with unexamined privilege pushing stereotypes that oppress women and minorities. Here's the thing: they made these statements without actually checking who worked at Charlie Hebdo, or speaking to any actual minority women in France!

Zineb El-Rhazoui wasn't on the list of those killed, because she was in Morocco during the attack. She was a journalist with Charlie Hebdo. These commenters don't think that she could exist.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/terror-att ... -1.2206462

Marianne - who has made it perfectly clear that she's a French lesbian with disabilities whose father-in-law is an Iranian Muslim - has made it perfectly clear why she believes that the accusations of racism, homophobia, ableism and anti-Muslim hatred were garbage, and why her father-in-law loves the magazine. Those views don't seem to count either.

I agree with you. While I consider myself pretty far on the left, I get very annoyed at what I view as a very paternalistic streak that a lot of so-called liberals have when talking about minorities/women/etc. There's a lot of being offended on people's behalf and discounting any woman/minority/whatever who may think differently as "brainwashed" or just ignoring them completely, because they don't fit the narrative. I once was very outraged to see a whole hullabaloo on Tumblr where a pretty well-known blogger (important to note that he is a white man) posted something about Islam (I forget exactly the context), and a Muslim woman from a predominantly Muslim country came out and disagreed with him. Another blogger told her that in her country, women are oppressed and uneducated, so her opinion was probably just fed to her and she was wrong for disagreeing with White Male Well-Known Blogger (who is usually raked across the coals by the same sorts of bloggers for the crime of being a straight white male). :angry-banghead: And let's not get into all the feminist blogs and comments I kept seeing that acted like allowing little girls to play with Barbies or watch Disney movies or want to be a housewife would lead to the downfall of the feminist movement, and that women who chose to ascribe to traditional gender roles, or chose not to identify as feminist, were all stupid and bad and probably just wanted to be abused. I will proudly identify as a feminist and a hippie-dippy pinko left winger until the cows come home, but I hate, hate, hate those sorts of activists who preach freedom of choice and speech and thought, and then turn around and spit on people who don't choose or think their way.

Yeah, I've quit a lot of internet-based activism and discussion save for FJ and a few other sites, because I got so tired of paternalistic crap like that.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Yes, paternalistic is a good word for it.

I recall reading a sociology thesis critiquing Holocaust education trips that included this gem:

It was beyond the scope of this project for me to interview MOL participants, but it would be

quite interesting and important to learn about how non-European Jewish youth

experience this trip. Without first-hand accounts, I can only hypothesize their discomfort

at being forced to identify with Ashkenazi Jewish history.

Well, no, you can't.

If you really thought it would be so interesting, you could have damn well gotten off your ass and spoken to them. They aren't unicorns - they exist and it's really not that hard to find them, and have a conversation.

Anyway, instead of reading about someone else hypothesizing on their discomfort - I spoke to my Iraqi husband, who went on one of the trips. Then I spoke to my Yemenite neighbor and Libyan friend. They are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves, they have lots to say on the subject, and they were pretty disgusted that someone was trying to attribute these views to them when their actual views were completely opposite.

[Mama Mia]

Couldn't agree more with you regarding the paternalistic, racist, classist, elitism that drives so much discussion on the far-left.

Drives me insane that some people can't seem to understand that expecting all blacks/women/Latinos/poor people/Muslims to hold the same views is just another form of oppression.

You can allow for a huge range of personal and cultural expression in global society, while still being outraged at parts that are clearly detrimental to individuals in a particular culture.

It also really bothers me because what it's really saying, to me, is that it's ok to blast away at mainstream white western cultural norms -- because somehow "we" are advanced enough to take it. But anyone speaking against any other sort of cultural practice will somehow shatter the exotic other in their little anthropological bubble.

I

[nastyhobbitses]

Couldn't agree more with you regarding the paternalistic, racist, classist, elitism that drives so much discussion on the far-left.

Drives me insane that some people can't seem to understand that expecting all blacks/women/Latinos/poor people/Muslims to hold the same views is just another form of oppression.

You can allow for a huge range of personal and cultural expression in global society, while still being outraged at parts that are clearly detrimental to individuals in a particular culture.

It also really bothers me because what it's really saying, to me, is that it's ok to blast away at mainstream white western cultural norms -- because somehow "we" are advanced enough to take it. But anyone speaking against any other sort of cultural practice will somehow shatter the exotic other in their little anthropological bubble.

I

THIS. To me, a lot of the far-left reaction to criticizing certain cultural practices is akin to saying "Oh, you don't like cake? That must mean you hate all food and think everyone should starve!" Or alternately, "Oh, you don't like cake? That must mean that you want to go murder all pastry chefs!"

And I definitely agree that the paternalistic, elitist attitude is especially annoying when it turns into infantilizing other cultures. I believe that the most informed criticism of negative cultural practices most often comes from people within that culture and that we should support people within that culture trying to solve the problem in a culturally relevant way before we westerners swoop in and go "HEY WE KNOW BEST", but a lot of people seem to hold this frankly condescending view that any and all criticism is bad and is an indictment of the entire culture, when 99% of the time, it's anything but that.