interview with an English feminist who lived in Pakistan for 17 years

some excerpts from this very interesting article..

Q: How do you see the fact that controlling women is so central to the agenda of conservative religious groups, Muslim as well as others?

A: In conservative religious discourses women come to be seen as custodians of community identity and authenticity, as bearers of tradition. Possibly this is because of their role in bearing and rearing children. Hence, defining and controlling women comes to be seen as central to a revivalist religious agenda. Along with this comes a host of burdens that are sought to be placed on women as bearers of the normative communitarian ideal. Let me cite an instance to substantiate this argument. One sight in Lahore that never ceased to amaze me was men wearing baseball caps and T-shirts displaying the US flag, riding motorcycles with their wives or sisters, heavily draped in black burqas, sitting behind them. No one ever seemed to question the men's identity as Muslims, but I presume if the women sitting behind them refused to veil up they would be damned as bad Muslims or even worse.

.. We in the network do not agree with the standard Islamist perception of privileging religion as the only structure through which society should be organized.

This is a politically far-right position which we are opposed to. Our position is that there are multiple ways of being and that they should all be allowed to exist. Within each of our communities we need to allow for proper democratic dialogue and discussion of what is or is not beneficial, within a human rights framework, but this is something that many Islamists are vehemently opposed to. However, Islamism is not the only way of imagining Islam, and I see very promising possibilities of working with progressive Islamic theologians who do not share the same basic premises as the Islamists. One good example is Nasiruddin Nasaruddin 'Umar, the vice-rector of a leading Islamic University in Indonesia, who is a man but is also very feminist in his approach. We've even translated one of his books on women and Islam.

Q: Feminists are often accused by the Muslim religious right of 'conspiring' to divide the community, setting women against men and thus playing into the hands of what are routinely branded as the 'enemies of Islam'. How do you respond to this sort of accusation?

A: I could cite the names of several progressive male Muslim theologians who share the same social vision as us to counter this silly argument.

We also have a number of like-minded men on our decision-making bodies.

We aren't an exclusively women's group and nor do we champion women's exclusivity. We talk of gender justice, not simply justice for women. We are not seeking to replace one form of gender injustice-rule by men-by another form.