Get Herald RSSBefore her speech in Salomon 101, Arab feminist and pro-Israel activist Nonie Darwish spoke with The Herald about American foreign policy in the Middle East, anti-Semitism and resistance to progress in the region.
Herald: The title of your lecture tonight is "The road to peace: women's rights in the Middle East." How do women's rights tie into peace in the region?
Darwish: A lot of people look at the Middle East and at the Arab-Israeli crisis, the oppression of women, the dictatorships, hate speech, poverty, illiteracy all as separate issues. I really believe they're all interconnected and all due to the radical forces that want to regress and keep the Middle East status quo. They don't want to let go, and it leads to intolerance - intolerance for women, intolerance for Jews, intolerance for minorities, for Christian Arabs, for Kurds. They're just anti-progress. And I think this resistance in my culture to change is just hurting everybody, and it's really going to be hurting moderate Muslims more than anybody else because they're mostly the victims of radical Islam.
I lived for 30 years in the Middle East, and I witnessed female genital mutilation, oppression of women, polygamy - polygamy is a right for men, not women. There are a lot of laws that are extremely oppressive to women, but the only difference between other societies and Muslim societies is that they teach us from birth that it's God's will.
If you're a good Muslim, you have to accept polygamy. If you're a good Muslim woman, you have to accept the inferior status. You have to have permission from your husband, because if you're not an obedient wife, you can be beaten.
There are Arab feminists, but they're all called infidels, they're all called traitors, they're all called not good Muslims. I'm trying to speak here from the safety and security of America, but other feminists are dying and put in jail in the Middle East. And it's not the government - it's the radical Muslims.
If women in these cultures gain more rights, do you think they'll be more likely to challenge their male leaders and bring change to society in the Middle East?
Actually it's not about challenging men, because the problem is from the laws. Sharia laws are the problem, not the men. Of course, the men like it, because they're superior in that position, but put aside what men like and dislike, if you go to court you lose. And that's the problem.
What do you think is the solution to this problem?
The solution is that the Arab and Muslim women who are living in the safety and security of the West must start speaking up. And that's why we're speaking from the West.
I'll tell you why nobody cares about the plight of Muslim women. It's because Muslim women themselves are not speaking up. And the reason they're not speaking up is because of this feeling that if they speak out, they must be bad Muslims. And that's because of the way they were brought up. It's intellectual tyranny.
I understand that you were exposed to a lot of propaganda as a child. Can you talk about how this influenced your life and your views?
I grew up in Gaza, and peace was never taught to us as an option. We never even thought about it. It was always Jihad and martyrdom. I was a Jew-hater as a child, because that's how I grew up - fearing Jews, hating Jews, because everybody else around me did. And then I came to the United States, and I started realizing that the way we were brought up (in Gaza) - there were a lot of lies about other cultures. And that's when I started trying to know the truth for myself. And let me tell you, it wasn't easy to change after 30 years of living like that. It's almost like you're separating yourself from your past completely.
What do you think about current U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East?
A lot of people always blame everything on America's foreign policy. I don't. What does America want from the Middle East? America wants a stable Middle East with a stable government. They don't want leaders like Saddam Hussein who set oil fields on fire. (America is) very interested in the Middle East because (they) need an economic transaction to happen peacefully, and that transaction is 'here's our dollars, here's our technology, give us your oil.'
I don't believe that America's interest in the Middle East is to occupy. If the Middle East problem were easy, we'd all find a solution. It's not going to be an easy job at all.
