Category Archives: Femin Ijtihad

To the women in my life,…

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To my mama who gave me my independence since I was 9 years old to decide the terms of my life and be a free bird in this world. Without these travels (inner and outer), all of this would not be. Because of you, I have been able to live so consciously and responsibly.

To my Masi’s in Singapore, I just love you all so much. Family is everything for me. Thank you for being there for my mama when I could not.

To the Sabri women, I can give my darkest days to you and you will still love me for it.  If I can recall my favourite life moments, its just sitting around the breakfast table talking and laughing for hours. Simple moments are the most beautiful. I inherited a family that I feel has always been mine.

To Anna who has been this year’s wonderful gift. I will never forget Real hot chocolates and musings. We have created so much together in our work – finding fun in reading court Judgments and strategizing gender justice in context. I hope from this passion, we will come to see where these paths will later take us. More so, you have been like another half of me – and it feels so comforting to know you are a walk away and that you’ll always be there. When the Spring comes, the gardens will be filled with endless talking!

To Helena - you don’t know how much you shaped my thinking, cause a self-reflection that has enabled me to see beyond my paradigm. Through our conversations, I became a better person, lawyer and activist.

To Sara, Deya, Manisha and Nishma thank you for staying close despite your busy schedules. You are each a solid pillar to our efforts. You are the Volunteer-spirit. But more so, you are also a part of my life I will always have a space for. It is my dream that one day I can spend a whole weekend with each of you, from Nepal down to Culcutta and east-wards to Palestine. Nishma, I’ll transit in London on my way.

To Kirthi and Shahla thank you for in a short time integrating so well into our work. I do wish that you will carve your own space in our work that is yours. I think you both have exceptional futures ahead which I hope will inter-twine with mine and ours.

To Hangama and Zarqa Jan thank you for giving me a chance to work so closely with you. You made year 2012 for me. 2012 was a year to learn from your work and extraordinary resilience. Under your guidance, you have given me so much flexibility to be creative, to try new things and to share these experiences with Femin Ijtihad. I will never forget the friendships at WCLRF. You gave me a chance and this experience I will never forget. I am always here for this!

To Nadia and Sush - My biggest excitement for this year is re-uniting with the two of you in Ireland. It is such a wonder, coming together again in a completely different phase of each of our lives. I have been sad because living away, the time difference, and knowing that life has changed is difficult to accept. But it does make meeting each other much more exciting. Nadia, needless to say you just have always been. Sush, thank you for spending those 4 nights with me in London – it really was picking up right where we left off in 2009. What I learned from those nights was how much life was a flow of events, one colliding into the next. With you I could trace back each event which could not happen without the one that preceded…and it took me all the way back to the roadside fortune teller outside Shiva’s Temple. Somehow you came at a defining moment. You were sitting with me at the cross-roads. In 5 years, we may discover how London/Ireland was another cross-road..na?

To my women’s rights class and Professors of Human Rights and Islamic Law and Women’s Human Rights –

I never learned so much, wanted to absorb so much, and give so much. I am channeling this from my classes into our activism. Grateful to SOAS for being an academy of such excellence.

To my other friends,

Thank you for your presence (presents) and enrichment in my life. For each laughter and each tear shared. For the worries that left on a wing of a bird called Friendship. For ideas and musings. For dancing and being free. For late nights in the library. For travelling words and overwhelming poetry. For giving me little bits of what life has to offer.

To Shoaib,

You are not a woman. But you are pretty damn amazing for a man!!!!

Love,

Hurt is part of love too

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Friendships  My beautiful friend, Meghan Lazier, had connected me with Aspire Foundation (thank you!) and today London opened to me with an introduction to my very own Mentor! Anna and I met her and we spoke about Organizational Strategic Planning. I am excited to put some structure to our passion and thoughts. There is an energy in us that needs a little bit of stream-lining. 

Sara B, another FI-ghter wrote something so sweeet saying “Omg! Natasha I never met you! But I miss you! Is that possible?” It is a beautiful relationship we all share with each other. I hope age, distance, cynicism and the weariness of war and peace and war/peace and all in between, will not taint the innocence of friendships formed through mutual passions and love.

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Advocacy Project Another lawyer/blogger/writer/activist, Kirthi Jayakumar, joined F.I. and we are working on a project together on prosecuting sexual violence in war. The project, albeit framed on a micro-legal level, is driven by frustrations with war. At one time rape and sexual violence was framed as collateral damage. Soldiers were cheered on to boost morale by taking women, for release of sexual frustration, but also as a tool to humiliate, to punish, to enslave. And the physical destruction of bodies only scrapes at the surface of a lifetime of mental and psychological agony that impact generation upon generation; from survivors to their children. The scars they hold, the fight to survive, the resignation to life, the choice to self-prostitute, the battle against ostracization, the love for their children (of war), the physical ache that never ails, the dismissal of past, the fight for a kinder future. Cessation of hostilities in war is only the beginning of a new war in peace-time. Women still apologize for their suffering, make amends, cancel histories, re-live moments to find agency.

Awareness, Advocacy. And Arming each other with the right legal tools to characterize conflict, and bring perpetrators to justice is so crucial. It is the least we could do. The project aims to consolidate best practices and develop a skeleton for activists who are interested in accessing models or blue-prints for such cases.

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War and waiting The last nights I had weird dreams of a child-friend who passed away recently in Afghanistan. Between my heart-racing and tears, there are also tensions of guilt, frustrations, and anger that life in Kabul could not save her frail body. Not law, not money, not aid, not development could take her away from the fringes of Kabul, that which is crumbling slowly, yet she was taken eventually. Of course we get angry with the state of the country, the chance it had, the way we abandoned it when we tried to save it. I am not sure how Shoaib feels about this, what emotions sit behind the layers. We hope we can stay for as long as it lets us, I suppose……

If we unravelled the heart, the hurt is part of love too.

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Nice Stuff

Nicer readings, come here to stories of conflict and love as there are beautiful reads to greet the first months of 2013.

Come here to make pretty things during library breaks!

Connect with other women at Aspire Foundation :)

World Radio Day is coming! Radio-Activists – SOAS Radio has some fascinating podcasts for streaming.

Research and Activism

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Notable lessons I took from a PHD Research and Activism Seminar. This is particularly informative those involved in women’s rights programming activities. I hope we can move to designing programs where answers are derived from sincere and honest conversations, as opposed to, being trained by someone of knowledge!

  • Needs Assessments: Instead of taking objectives to the field, develop the objectives from the field. This enables a more participatory approach to assessing needs and responding to them.
    • NL: I think sometimes when we assert that certain rights are immutable and inalienable, we may forget the contexts where these rights are ‘asked’ or ‘contested’. There are nuances to these problems that make the contestations and the asking difficult. We can be mindful that we should not simply be stating “you have rights from violence, you have rights to inheritance etc..” Our publications and programs should instead query why violence occurs, why usurpation of property occurs, by who, and whether the ‘rights’ language is necessarily relevant and timely for the cause. What dialogues can we facilitate and participate in to explore the frustrations behind rights-violations?
  • Mapping the political context; by targeting the institutions that shape the context of research. What is this institution saying about this issue? In fact different institutions may offer different lens and methods of approaching an issue.
  • Instead of identifying ‘opposers’, think of building them within one’s spectrum of allies. Develop goals with them. Even if goals are not aligned, find meaning in conversations even if it leaves the subject with ambiguities. Professor Mir Hosseini always talk about being comfortable with ambiguities. We need not know all the answers NOW.
  • How does our identity as a speaker/trainer create our positionality? Positionality is a power dynamic, real or perceived. By the terms ‘feminist’, or as a ‘lawyer’, etc..one already assumes a knowledge that you seek to impart to others. There are ethical considerations behind this; of how attempting to ‘train’ or ‘educate’ others, you yourself create a hierarchy where feminist knowledge gives one an upper hand over the other?
    • How may FI programs, or the language (on our website) create this feeling amongst beneficiaries? Like “to train, to educate, to teach”….What about “to converse, to hold a dialogue, to discuss, to find ways collectively”? Perhaps this may change the way we design programs.
    • There is an interaction between knowledge and the subject of knowledge. There is a power starting from the power of the pen, which may translate as a sense of superiority over a subject and therefrom over lives, performance and knowledge.
  • The great reminder: We should not be complacent with our knowledge and passion!
  • Also an acceptance that in reality, not all fora will accept us. Professor Welchman speaks of feeling hurt by politics of exclusion for variety of purposes (difference in class status, difference in appearance, difference in religion, difference in regional origins..etc) But she encourages us to be non-territorial, inclusive and unyielding both in perseverance and humility.

Then some interesting notes from Gender and Armed Conflict class by Professor Heathcote:

  • When using the word women, have to think about the differences that exist, singular deployment is a problem.
  • Who do we mean when speaking about women?
  • When are we speaking about women?
  • Where? Cannot just Be a global category. Temporal and geographic.
  • Standpoint; what is your standpoint, where are you doing from, how are you going to deal with difference and difference of women in your work? How do you accommodate differences, where were the connections, or shared experiences?

Social Experiences of Human Rights Activists

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The last two weeks has been quite memorable social experience. I had some friendly calls with activists in Libya, then also connected with various SOAS alumni activists in the human rights field, who came just to give support and encouragement. I met Cecilia an Argentinean activist/bubble-of-energy who directs Conciliation Resources, “Conciliation Resources is a peacebuilding NGO supporting people at the heart of conflicts who are striving to find solutions. We work with them to deepen our collective understanding of the conflict, bring together divided communities and create opportunities for them to resolve their differences peacefully.”

Of course last week Professor Lynn Welchman and Professor An Naim both gave two inspiring lectures on life as a researcher and activist, the meaning of scholarship. Actually beyond the intellectual efforts, the history and stories of both these two incredible people is outstanding. I hear a frustration, sometimes sadness, stories of friendship between the events they cite. Even categories of human rights in legal speak become tamed as life stories come alive. Their insight and passion (beautiful combination) left so many of us returning to our lectures, seeing the next months beyond just a Master degree, but as something more for the world. Isn’t it a poetic justice, somehow?

Maybe this quote helps:

“Then why do you want to know?”

“Because learning does not consist only of knowing what we must or we can do, but also of knowing what we could do and perhaps should not do.”

― Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

Actually sitting with one of my Professors, I admitted being emotionally drained by the nit-picking and hair-splitting of laws. It was not quite what I wanted to admit. Then it appeared to me how we are all stuck in some sort of crisis, I as a woman, as a Muslim woman, as a Muslim woman activist, as a human being. It wasn’t clear why I still needed to interpret-and re-interpret and adjust and re-adjust a reading of a text in order to conclude that harm against women is wrong. Any harm. It was a startling irony to me. We were conversing about a conversation; conversing about written words to argue for non-violence. It seemed so distant from lived realities yet somehow this conversation about text, words, scripture, or divinity was important. It is an entry point to constructive dialogue with power-holders, the keepers of religion and honour, of culture and tradition, of puritanism, — but then also of love and compassion, of kindness and appreciation – and today I thought about the white beneath the black. There is love and compassion in textual construction and interpretation. The project of feminists working in Muslim-majority contexts are bringing this forth, bringing this into the fold of definition and of performance.

This week, I also sat in a PHD research seminar on NGOs as cultural mediators in South Africa. It was interesting how she spoke of using stories in reality to reflect on discriminatory customs. This reminded me of the Musawah Global Life Stories project; where through a series of stories about the lives of Muslim women all over the world, the practices of guardianship (wilayat) by men and obedience (tamkin) by women are filtered, exposed, and re-understood. The Women Children Legal Research Foundation in Afghanistan, where I work, is involved in stories of Afghan women for this project. I am really curious to see the findings of these “ethnography” AND particularly how this will be strategically used to push for legislative reforms. It is incredible!

Some new FI reads:

Legal brief on freedom of expression in human rights work

Techniques on Engaging with Men in Women’s Activism

Meet the FI Team!

Lots of Love,

Natasha

The thought of representation and gender equality

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There are days for just analyses. Femin Ijtihad has posted two analysis on the thought of representation and gender equality in Islam and Muslim societies. These are some excerpts.

Syed Jamil’s article on the representations of Muslim women in neo-colonial imagination, Islamic canonical texts, and the feminist response.

“…this essay does not seek to establish the ‘Truth’ regarding Muslim women as it exists in the world of social reality. Rather, it seeks to examine how various representations of Muslim women, as networks of signs where the signified is infinitely delayed, are constructed and to what effects and consequence these representations are mobilized” (432).

So long as we confine our conception of the political to activity that is openly declared we are driven to conclude that subordinate groups essentially lack a political life or that what political life they do have is restricted to those moments of popular explosion. To do so is to miss the immense political terrain that lies between quiescence and revolt and that, for better or worse, is the political environment of subject classes. It is to focus on the visible coastline of politics and miss the continent that lies beyond (Scott 1990: 199)’” (438).

“This is the unspoken ground of the unsaid on which patriarchy traces the narrative of women’s subjugation: the existence of a deep-seated and insubordinate – almost subversive – consciousness directed against the patriarchal order” (438).

How can I explain the relationship between gender inequality and Islam?

It’s important to recognize that gender discrimination is not particular to the Islamic world, nor does it reflect essential “Islamic” values or practices. Rather, gender inequality in the Muslim world is often the result of historical, political, cultural, and economic factors, and many discriminatory laws, traditions, and practices that maintain the second-class status of women in Muslim societies are not necessarily related to the core messages of Islamic sacred texts. Therefore, there is no essential reason that  “Islam” and women’s rights can’t exist side by side.

Think about:

- Are discriminatory practices towards women in my community justified as symbols of Islamic identity or explained as key parts of ‘our culture,’ in contrast to Western culture and values? Are women in my community considered guardians of specific Islamic values?

-Who makes the argument that gender inequality is essential to Islam? Why do they feel that making this argument is important, and what are the best ways to approach them?

-What alternatives are there within the Islamic tradition, across all sects, to these interpretations, and how can they be promoted?

-How can I be heard and respected as I participate the debate over ‘what Islam means’ within my community?

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I was so proud of the F.I. team, Sara Bergamaschi, Sarah Jones and Deya Bhattacharya, in their recent representation at the London School of Economics for a panel presentation.

Contemporary debates and historical identities: Evolving conceptions of pluralism in Islam and the future of women’s rights in post-revolutionary Libya

For some contemporary jurists, concepts like ijtihad create space for innovative interpretations of shari’ah, and allow a jurisprudence that protects gender equality. Conservatives resist this as an assault on Islam’s theological purity and historical identity. Through interviews conducted with activists and analyses of the theological structures in Islam that frame this debate over reform, we intend to critique the current state of gender equality in Libya and gauge the potential effects of this intellectual conflict on the political inclusion of Libyan women.