Autore Tema: Dounia Ettaib
Oggetto: Dear Ms Pandith, dear friends,
Inserito il: 18/03/2010 20:11:33
Messaggio:

Dear Ms Pandith, dear friends,

I'm very honoured to be present at this meeting with you, and for this I thank heartily the US Consulate in Milan and the Università Cattolica for this chance. This is a very special chance to speak about the Muslim Communities in Italy to a Muslim representative of the greatest democracy in the world, the United States of America.
The American example is a light for every country in the World. President Barack Obama is a symbol of hope for the entire world, he is the symbol of the redemption of all minorities. He showed the world that every man and woman, despite foreign origins, can do something great for his own Country. And love their Country, and serve their Country (because politics is above all a service to the people). America is the land where all cultures and all religions live together in democracy. When we think of America, we usually think of a Christian, mainly protestant country. And we forget about millions of Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims living in United States. As President Obama said in his Inaugural Address in 1\20, 2009 : "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth".

Concerning Islam, we cannot forget the words of Us Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton : "Islam is the fastest-growing religion in America, a guide and pillar of stability for many of our people"
And for this it is necessary a "new beginning" as president Obama said in Cairo. A new beginning also by the Muslim communities toward the West. In the last days we have seen the elections in Iraq. We know the pain that the Iraq war, as every war, was bringing: but we have also seen the fall of the criminal tyrant Saddam Hussein who martyrised his own people. We have seen the Iraqi people finally choose his representatives. We hope the same thing for the people of Afghanistan, for the women of Afghanistan. We hope and pray for the brave Iranian youth fighting for democracy against a regime which got the Sacred Name of Islam muddy. We suffer when we see our religion used by cynical dictators: we hope for a democratic Islam. We are sure that is possible.

The Holy Quran said "There's no compulsion in Faith". This is God Himself speaking about democracy. Democracy is a gift of God. In early Islam we have seen the organization of Shura, in Arabic "Consultation". It ss the Islamic form of Parliament. The 159th verse of al-Imran sura orders Muhammad to consult with believers " Thus it is due to mercy from God that you deal with them gently, and had you been rough, hard hearted, they would certainly have dispersed from around you; pardon them therefore and ask pardon from them, and take counsel with them in the affair; so when you have decided, then place your trust in God; surely God loves those who trust". The first caliphs, the "righteously guide" were chosen by shura, i.e. democratically. There is democracy in Islam: those who said that democracy is not possible in Islam are the followers of the theories of those extremists who think that democracy is a form of polytheism that deifies people. This is wrong. These theories insult the Holy Name of Islam.

In Italy the situation of Muslims communities is difficult. The coming of Muslims in modern Italy is more recent than in others European countries. Italian Muslim community is small, if compared to the French or British Muslim communities. And inside some Muslim communities there are problems.

I'm interested in problems concerning Muslim women in Italy. My association, Dari, works with the Muslim women. I had supervised different cases of domestic violence. I've seen women frightened by their own husbands, beaten, segregated. We can't highly speak about Islam to non Muslims and expect that non Muslims believe us when they see these things. We cannot speak about Islam as "religion of peace" when in the Islamic world the violence is endemic. Islam gave to the world a great civilization in the past. In particular, Islam gave to the world great thinkers, philosophers, mathematicians, among them there were women. We knew the name of Rabiya al Adawiyya, but we must remember that 124 women became spiritual leaders in Sufi orders. Also the wives of Muhammad, Khadijia and Aisha, were leaders. In the classical age of Islam we had women educated, literate, leaders. We must return to this originary spirit of Islam.

And now we enter the central point of my intervention: Muslim women need an education. Every one of us is horrified thinking of Afghan women, buried into the burqa. But the burqa, the niqab, the chador were only symbols: symbols of the submission of the women, symbols of the superiority of the man over his wife, symbol of an inequality between man and woman. Western people see this custom as exotic, far from their cities and their nations. That’s wrong. In every western country, everywhere we have a Muslim community there are women oppressed by this submission. And almost always they are illiterate women. When I founded my association, the DARI. or the Association of Arab Women in Italy, I thought that the primary goal was to free women from the slavery of a tribal, patriarchal and non religious male chauvinism is culture. In my work I met a lot of women segregated speaking hardly their Arabic dialect. They didn’t know the Italian language and this handicap keeps them from knowledge of their rights.

A similar problem exists also in a Muslim country like Morocco, my fatherland. King Mohammed VI, a Sharif, or Descendant of Prophet Muhammad, passed a new family code, the Mudawana. This was a real progress for Moroccan women, because the Mudawana defends the woman’s right in Morocco. Unluckily a lot of women living in the hinterland and not in great cities like Casablanca didn’t know this new Family Code. And this because thy are illiterate, and men have interest to maintain them illiterate, because in this way women will be submissive more easily. But we get wrong if we think that this happens only in Muslim countries. On the contrary, in some Muslim country like Morocco we see serious tries to improve women conditions. In some western countries we don’t see the same. As DARI’s president we see women in a cage here in Milan or in some quiet town of the North Italy. It often happens that the subdued wives don’t get any paper. This condition is more tragic if we think that a linguistic wall divides them from the world around, that speaks a different language. When the women aren’t able to read and speak, they also aren’t able to beg help from Italian people or Italian law. They don’t know Italian law, and this condition barred them from the one help really necessary in this situation: the help of the law.

We can't tolerate this. And for this I have founded my association, the DARI. We can't think changing the situation of Muslim women if we are not able to fight against woman’s submission, in Italy. If we aren’t able to help Muslim women living near us, we could never help every Muslim women in Afghanistan or in Iraq. And the only weapon to fight this segregation and violence against women is culture. And in fact a primary goal of DARI is a massive literacy campaign. First the Muslim women must be able to read and write: in Arabic and in Italian. This is the first step. When they can read and write, they can know the law, and, consequently, their rights. This is also a step necessary to integration. When the Muslim women will be integrated, they will get the chance to open their mind to other cultures. This makes the person free. And in second, when a literate Muslim woman will be able to know her history, she'll see in her past the queen and the thinkers. This will be good for Muslim women and also for Islam. It is the true face of Islam. The correct knowledge of their mother language, Arabic, will help them in knowing their religious rights: we know that Classical Arabic is very different from the dialect spoken by the women. For an example, the question of the veil is a misunderstanding of the a Quran passage (surat an-Nur 31), in which the Sacred Book tells women to cover their farj, word often translated with “beautiful part of the body” but that in classical Arabic means “fissure” and is a clear allusion to genitalia. Then they must know Italian language (or English in UK, USA and Australia, or French in France, or German in Germany and Austria) because this is their primary help with the law. According to Italian and European law men and women are equal. This equality clashes with the polygamy. For example. But unluckily also in Italy there are cases of polygamy. If women would know that polygamy is illegal in Italy, they can take courage to denounce husbands-owners. But for this step these women must be able to read and write in Italian. And often it happens that their husbands prevent their women to learn Italian. A dear friend of mine tells me the story of a woman who goes to lessons of Italian language secretly, with the pretext to go at the school to take her child. But when her husband understood where she really goes, he prevented her to go to the lessons.

The contribution of women to Islam can be really great. We see, today, Muslim women speaking at this university about Islam. We know how the contribution of Muslim women to democracy is great thorough the Muslims world. A woman, a fragile flower broken in her youth, became the symbol of the will of democracy of young Iranians: we can’t forget about Neda Agha Soltan. But behind Neda we have seen a lot of young girls crying freedom. How is this possible? It is possible because the education widespread among Iranian women: in Iranian universities there are more women than men. And from the university and from the culture starts the will of freedom, like in the tragic june 4, 1989 when Chinese students protested for liberty in Tiananmen Square. Today in Iran it is like in China in 1989 (we hope with a better end), but a great part of these students are women. And for this it is urgent an education for Muslim women here, in Italy. In a western democracy it will be easier for a woman to get the rights she deserves. And the change of Islamic world can start by the women in the West. The Muslim women in the West can truly change the Islamic world, they can bring to the Islamic world the democracy about which the Holy Quran himself speaks. We must fight against the segregation, the mutilation, the domestic violence and every problem that afflicts the women in general, and Muslims in particular. We must give the women the chance to study and acculturate. If somebody says that the West must open himself to Islam, we say that also Islam must open himself to the West. Prophet Muhammad said: “Look for learning, even in China”: And if the West got something from which we can learn, why refuse it?

I would like to end my little intervention with a consideration. In the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America we find “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable Rights; that among these, are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”. Equal: men and women were created by God equal. The first inalienable Right is the Life: also in the Holy Quran we find a phrase in which God Himself says that who kills a human being kills all mankind. The second Right is Liberty. God gave us Liberty. Gave us, in His wisdom, also the freedom to refuse Him, because “there’s no compulsion in Faith” God knows how the compulsion is silly, because it brings hate toward religion, not love. The history teaches us about this. But the last Right is the less mentioned: the Pursuit of Happiness. It is a Right that every man and woman wants. A lot of Muslim women don’t have the Right to Pursuit their Happiness. They are segregated. A lot of italian people say “It is her culture, we must respect”. That’s wrong! Muslim women are like every woman in the world, they want their happiness: and their happiness starts from the possibility to choose. A lot of Muslim women cannot show their face. They’re not happy to be veiled ghosts, without identity, as the afghan women behind the burqa (and remember Si Hamza Boubakeur, rector of the Mosque of Paris, said “the veil, in Islam, is a question of custom and not a coranic imposition” and more recently also the recently late Shaykh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, imam at al-Azhar, condemned the niqab and the burqa). The Muslim women have right to their Happiness, i.e. to choose their life, to study, to work, to be considered a complete human being and not an eternal minor. The Muslim women, as every other human being in the world, want their rights.

Let’s work all together to give to Muslims women the right to the Liberty and the Pursuit of Happines, and the world will have a great ally for democracy.

Dounia Ettaib