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The Paradox of the Muslim Feminist

(National Post-Canada) George Jonas - Efraim Halevy, former head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, told the European Parliament that Turkish women are "some of the most militant, and spearhead the effort to Islamicize Turkey today." Muslim women manifest emancipation by saying no to secularity where men are secular, and to religiosity, where they're religious. When a Muslim society already embraces secularism, as Ataturk's Turkey or the Shah's Iran, women "wear their hijab as a symbol of their personal emancipation." "Many of the women of Turkey have turned to a more fundamentalist approach to Islam as a means of women empowerment," Halevy says. When Iran's Islamic Revolution began, "the women of Iran teamed up with the Ayatollahs led by exiled Khomeini and spearheaded the demonstrations that led to the downfall of the Shah." "Only after the exile of the Shah did the Ayatollahs turn on the women, their erstwhile strategic ally."
2010-06-25 09:35:41
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