NEWS: Hurts So Good

POLITICS: Hurts So Good

In the spirit of starting with "I'm not racist, but...", please don't consider this post as being anti-religion, but sometimes you get the feeling that some religious types really resent, not so much being told what to do, but being told what they can and cannot impose upon others. Damn those human rights organizations! (Seriously, how dare they?)

In the West, it tends to be issues like gay marriage and abortion rights that are red flags to a certain kind of religious bull. In Yemen, apparently, it's about the right of men to beat up women.

Yes, indeed. In a ... what's the right word? ... provocatively titled article ("There Must be Violence Against Women", published in the Yemen Times, Maged Thabet Al-Kholidy states firmly that in certain situations, "violence against women is a must."

Here are some things we learn from reading Al-Kholidy's thoughts.

First:

Got that? The existence of violence against women doesn't mean that we're witnessing anything involving gender inequality or absence of women's rights. Just so we're clear, 'K?

Next, if a man beats his wife following the stages of dispute resolution in the Qu'ran, then what we may be seeing is a failure to communicate:

Whoa there. If he beats her, it's because he misunderstands a word? Might it be possible to, well, correct this misapprehension? Just a crazy idea.

Next, assuming we're going to allow a bit of terminological ambiguity to slip past us, we can at least be assured that those men administering the beatings have pure motives.

Well, OK then! Consider me reassured!

Further reassurance is just around the corner:

Phew! I was a little concerned.

I mean:

Exactly! If ever a Napoleon-Dynamite "Gosh!" was well-deserved, there's one right there! Where I live, you can't walk the streets without being bowled over by angry women marching from police station to police station, from courthouse to courthouse. It's a public menace.

So, lastly, let us:

Just remember, as long as there are limits, it's all good, OK?

[Hat Tip: Theocrazy, via Saraah.]

As a child, I once tried to beat up my older sister. Eventually, my bruises healed.

It is so difficult for the western mind to understand why these women don't rise up and defend themselves. When religion, law, and misinterpreted tradition are stacked against them, there's almost nothing they can do for themselves.

I don't know of a solution. I don't like the idea of forcibly changin someone else's culture, but I also hate the idea of gender discrimination (nice phrase that means, in this instance, beating women cuz they're women).

cultures evolve at different rates. remember that not long ago women in the US were in similar straits, and some still are. this is not a defense, I think our evolution in this regard is a good thing. it's only because of our global connectivity now that we see others behaving in ways that we find objectionable. i would venture to guess that a society such as that would follow a path that led to a more just condition, but with the world now able to heap condemnation on them they might dig in their heels, in the name of "self-determination."

it's not easy being here and seeing such things occur, but what do we do? invade and make them like us?

as information becomes more widely available women in these conditions WILL learn that there are alternatives, and actions they can take. it's hard to counsel patience when someone is getting physically abused.....

wow. so he's saying that the Qur'an actually says something different due to the evolution of the Arabic language from when it was written to what it is today, but that they shouldn't care about this?

i mean, i can understand the idea of not changing what is written and the idea of translating something can lead to a loss in meaning, but to be totally cognizant of the difference and to advocate ignoring what the original meaning was in favor of the new meaning kinda seems like, um, what's the word... oh, right, HERESY! and don't the followers of the god of Abraham have a bit of a dim view towards heretics? doesn't their god have a dim view on heretics? granted, those unaware of the mistake are supposed to get some leniency, but by publishing this, and advocating such actions, Al-Kholidy's seems to be fucking everybody who reads it, by their own religious standards.

i think he's trying for an Asshole Fuckface nomination, but not really very hard.

scylis assumes that everybody understands that domestic violence is bad, mmkay, so chooses not to address that well understood idea.

I know this wasn't meant to be funny, but this

cracked me up.

And yeah, there's not a whole lot to say about this given the argument's absolute failure to recognize logic.

...

...

The fuck?

I was aiming at a little bit of levity at that particular point, I admit.

The first "this" should have read "the article in general"...sorry, should have been more clear.

I am going to send my father-in-law and my stepfather this article. Maybe they'll move to Yemen!

As long as they photo's and postcards back.

Let's try and not take the comments out of context. It's no good starting out with "If this also does not work", if the qualifiers for that are excluded.

Let's not forget, that the first steps in such difficulties, are removing one's self from the situation to allow it to settle, in the hopes that either party will calm down about whatever the issue is, and failing that, mediation from a learned party. Those things really do need to be remembered. As the article mentions, minunderstanding between classic and contemporary language must be taken into account when considering such texts. Many people currently understand the word 'jihad' to mean "Getting medieval on someone's ass in as extreme manner as possible." In it's classic form, the word means 'struggle'. Doing one%u2019s utmost to realize a goal. Nothing more, nothing less. Someone can struggle against many things, which might not necessarily involve pysical violence, for example, someone can struggle to lose weight, or to stop smoking, or struggle with an exam question, and in classical Arabic, that is the kind of context when the word jihad would have been used, or understood to have refered to. There are many words in the English language where the contemporary use and interperetation is very different to earlier uses. For example. Gay. It is now taken to mean 'homosexual', it used to be taken to mean 'happy'.

Of course, telling a sunni or shia Muslim that their interperetation of Al Qur'an, (based on centuries of scholarly debate) is inaccurate from the original classic text, is not the best way in establishing a reasonable dialogue on a subject.

The article says "beating" is a misunderstanding of language.

But that violence against women is necessary.

That left me a little confused.

It actually said:

and prefaced that with:

So obviously, there is the classical text, which is now misunderstood to mean physical chastisement, rather than it's original meaning, but there is also the issue of context, and what the author is saying.

In some circumstances, physical violence is a sad necessity. For example, if someone is being attacked by their spouse/partner. Violence may be necessary as defense. In such cases, as the first quote showed, there are limits. Al Qur'an frequently warns Muslims 'not to exceed the limits' (in many topics/areas of life) Indeed, contemporary non-Islamic law, allows people to use 'reasonable force' in their self-defense, and this, is what I believe that the author was refering too.

Yeah...but the author is not talking about self-defense, he's talking about the necessities of physical violence against women.

Correction. He's talking about the occasional necessities of physical violence against women (as a response to certain (unspecified) situations/provocations)

Try and bear in mind that there is a considerable difference in social guidelines and attitudes at work here, and what one society finds abhorrent, is totally common-place and acceptable to another. That does not mean that one is right, and one is wrong, it just means that they are different, so need to be considered and treated as such. For example. 50-60 years ago, if a child was misbehaving in public, the 'villiage bobby' would give them a 'clip round the ear' and send them home. Any police officer trying that today, would be accused of, and likely charged with, assaulting a minor. Let's not forget either, that when said skallywag got home and says "PC Jenkins gave me a clip round the ear, Dad..." that would likely have lead to another clip round the ear or a belting from the father, as punishment for behaving in such a way as to require police involvement. Again, nowadays, a parent would be on the phone to, or down the police station, trying to press charges, utterly irrelevent of the fact that their child had been punished for actually doing something wrong in the first place.

A lot of the rules which countries like the Yemen operate under, regardless of how self-righteous they may claim to be, are quite removed from the original principles of Islam as laid out in Al Qur'an.

As mentioned before, context for said 'violence' is key, and there is a considerable difference between chastising someone as a punishment, and abusing someone out of sadism. What one culture sees as justification for chastisement, another will see as unreasonable, and vice versa.

I did not read anything at all in the original article where the author was promoting sadistic/un-justifiable violence towards women, they were simply commenting on a) linguistic evolution, and how that can impact on understanding a scripture, and b) that sometimes, violence is a necessity (for whatever that reason might actually be, but was not elaborated on in the article), and, in the cases where violence is a necessity, it should always be 'within limits'.

In what context (that would require a defensive editorial in a newspaper) would violence against women be construed as okay, inkonnu? I think THAT part is the part the TFOK was ridiculing. Self-defense is one thing, but would that inspire or require a newspaper article? I think not.

Your analogy of children in our recent past to women in Islamic society may be logically correct, but I think the argument is abhorrent. In effect you say that what we figured out was not acceptable in our society then, with respect to children, is okay in Yemen, with respect to women.

I didn't read anything in it about self-defence.

And, since the author's point is to make violence against women sound perfectly reasonable in a particular context, of course he's not exactly going to make it sound like he's promoting "sadistic/un-justifiable violence". That would defeat the purpose of his exercise.

I also didn't read anything from him about when it's reasonable, "in context", for a woman or women to inflict violence upon a man.

He says: "the husband yields to beating the wife slightly" -- note that we never find out how slightly.

Then he follows that with: "They do this because of a misunderstanding in the Quran" -- suggesting that violence arises from a misreading.

Then he ignores his own interpretive reading and goes on as if the "slight beatings" are "necessary" somehow.

How is it "key"? If you're advocating moral relativism, I suppose that's all well and good. But here in the real world, bullying is bullying regardless of who does it and where.

So, Spike, when exactly is "limited" violence against women "necessary"?

Usually when she has been naughty. Tho I find that tying them up and leaving them there without any attention can sometimes do far more to get them to behave than a spanking. I mean if she did not want the spanking she would not have been wearing leather cuffs and a ballgag anyhow right?

Right?

I'm not the only one who thought of this am I?

Those are very different things, as I know you know. Consensual rough sex has no place in a discussion of nonconsensual physical abuse.

Ok lets boil this all down to a more serious and simple discussion and go from there.

What good reason do you see for using violence against a woman at all?

To be honest men are almost always bigger and stronger so unless your having to rush in to stop a woman from strangling or stabbing a child or old person to death a man is pretty much assured of the ability to simply walk away from the problem and or let things calm down.

So again why is violence necessary sometimes?

It depends in which culture you're talking about. In western society, then strictly self-defense only. However. Western values are not the ones under discussion here, so they cannot be judged by western values.

You say that it was unnacceptable for the 'villiage bobby' to give a child a clip round the ear. That's fine, that's your opinion, and you're entitled to it. However. I would point out, that it is that kind of 'softly-softly' policing (certainly in the UK) which is a major contributing factor as to why so many of Britain's youth are habitual criminals (theft, petty violence etc), who know that they are above the law, and the worst that will happen to them if caught, is that they will get a verbal caution, and then asked to abide by a behavioural order, which are barely enforced. If the law was able to deal out harsher sentances for minor crimes, it might have served as a deterrent, and things might not be as they are now.
Also, I'm not saying that that attitude towards women in Yemen is okay, simply that that is the situation, and it is up to that country/society to move forward themselves.
What I was saying, was that what is unnaceptable to one set of cultural values, is considered acceptable by another, and both need to be respected, not one subjugated by another.

Unless you believe in petty stuff like universal human rights...

I don't know what this means. I think it means you were a little bit drunk. But no, I'd prefer they did NOT send postcards or photos.