A habit of violence grown ordinary : constraints on Muslim women's participation in war - 1

At least part of the argument which connects political Islam with violence against women is based on the Western demonization of Islam. By uncritically linking Islam with violence and terrorism, the genuine and very varied concerns of Muslim populations are delegitimized. To appreciate these concerns, we must separate, first of all, the generalized myth of violence from the reality of various violent acts in the name of Islam; second, practices which are Islamic from those based on tradition and misogyny; and third, Islam as a basis for law and society in the majority of Middle Eastern countries from Islamism as a political movement.

In order to make themselves heard, Islamist movements have on occasion used violence as a political weapon. Palestinian Islamists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, for example, have adopted the tactics of terror against the Israeli occupation, including attacks on civilians. This shock approach was felt necessary to signal Palestinian anger at the slow pace of the Oslo peace process. In Egypt, Islamist groups have mounted attacks against foreign tourists, with the intention of discouraging visitors to the country and thus causing a crisis for the Egyptian economy. During the 1980s, Islamists in Lebanon carried out suicide bombings against Western and Israeli targets and kidnapped foreigners, to draw attention to what they considered to be legitimate grievances.

To explain their actions, Islamist movements--and they are by no means monolithic--claim that they seek to create an alternative to the Western model, based on the guidelines set out in the Qur'an and on the original Muslim community founded by the Prophet Muhammad in seventh century Arabia. But Islamists are also interested in identity and in power. Islam makes sense, as Mernissi says, "because it speaks about power and self-empowerment". (48) And it is in light of these concerns that we should understand their attitudes towards women. The invention of supposedly "universal" human rights codes has created in Muslim societies a sense of threat. There are easy and more difficult responses to the various intrusions. The easier way of dealing with them involves invoking male authority over women--in matters of dress, movement in the public space, and access to education and employment. A much harder question is how to organize society in a way that reflects Islamic values, enjoys legitimacy and political stability and reaps economic advantage for its population. However, such concerns tend to become secondary when violent conflict enters the picture.

Case studies

The two case studies chosen to illustrate my discussion are Palestinian women in the West Bank and Gaza Strip; and Shi'i women in Lebanon. Both groups of women have participated in significant ways in the long-running conflicts in which their societies have been caught up.

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict has its roots in the early part of last century, when Britain acquired the mandate for Palestine, (49) the Zionist movement in Europe began to agitate for a homeland for the Jewish people and the British government made certain, contradictory promises to both Arabs and Jews. (50) During the 1920s and 30s, Jewish immigration into Palestine accelerated and clashes occurred between Arabs, Jews and British. In 1947, the United Nations proposed dividing Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state, but this was rejected by the Palestinian Arabs who still, formed the majority of the population. The following year, the British withdrew--in considerable disarray--and the Zionists proclaimed the state of Israel, increasing the size of their state from the 54 per cent proposed by the UN Partition Plan to 72 per cent of all Palestine, despite the fact that the Arabs still had rights over 93 per cent of the land. As a result of the violence of 1948, over 700,000 Palestinians were forced to flee from their homeland; they became refugees in neighbouring countries and in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which was all that remained of historic Palestine. (51)