I'm Baaaaack! A month in Europe and Africa was amaahzing, as
Seth would say. Upon returning I posted
a little blurb about Morocco which triggered the following discussion,
submitted for your approval :
Me:
"I just
recently (a week and a half ago) spent 7 days in an overwhelmingly Muslim
nation - Morocco. I felt safer in Marrakech Rabat and Fes, than in Paris or Madrid.
The people were friendly, generous, and warm hearted. Isn't it time to judge
people by their actions rather than by external labels applied by others? By
that standard, most Muslims fare quite well and Donald Trump is an profoundly
pathetic failure."
Colleague:
"Agree but still disturbed by recent
Pakistan Muslim decree that it is permissible to "lightly beat" wives
who disobey rules set up for them. What's up with that"? Mixed messages
for sure."
Me (social scientist pen in hand):
"Again, Pakistan
isn't Morocco. the ethnic populations are different. Morocco's Berber
population are of totally different stock than Indians and Pakistanis who are,
in many cases of the same lineage centuries back. Berbers are most closely
related Mitochondrial DNA- wise to the Lapps of Finland, and are neither Arab
or of the Indian sub-continent. What you describe is more indicative of the general attitude of
males toward females in that part of the world. I (and you) have both dealt
with parents with roots in that region in our years in education, and you are
aware of the general attitude and male superiority displayed by some of them.
Look at Sikhs, of the similar ethnicity, yet their religion tempers that streak
to the point of essentially gender equality. But both Hinduism and Islam, unfortunately tend to amplify it.
Recall all the gang rape cases seen over the last ten years in India and in
some cases blown off by courts as "She was asking for it." I hate
stereotyping, and generally find it vile and unrealistic, but the Indian
mainstream press is rife with examples of Indian Hindu males behaving exactly
as Pakistani Muslim males. Religion certainly plays a part, but societal and
cultural norms of the ethnic group would seem to indicate a proclivity for
under respecting and protecting women which may in fact date back to the
domination of the region by Britain and the emasculation of males of sub-continental
ethnic groups by the abhorrent British attitude that they (colonial subcontinental
Aryans) were, as a race, inferior. Left with that centuries old discrimination,
who do they take it out on? You can figure the rest. British poor males and American
poor males acted similarly two centuries ago, some still do, and the Pat
Robertsons and Warren Jefts of our nation still apparently feel that way. Don't
blame Islam for the totality of women's subjugation; other factors are at play
here, too. Hell, we have a presidential wannabee who has just about as little
real regard for woman as persons!
