Aziz Poonawalla: February 2009 Archives

This is an interesting development:

The militants active in North and South Waziristan agencies have been directed by Mulla Omar to immediately stop their attacks on the Pakistani security forces.

 In a letter to the militants, who have forged a new alliance, Mulla Omar admonished them not to fight the Pakistani security forces and kill their Muslim brethren, a reliable source told The News on Monday.

"Mulla Omar first sent an envoy to the local Taliban and then wrote a letter to the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) admonishing these leaders and told the TTP that fighting Muslims could not be described as Jihad so they should immediately cease attacks on the Pakistani security forces.

He told them that if they really want to participate in Jihad, they must fight the US and Nato troops inside Afghanistan because their attacks on the Pakistani security forces are undermining the objectives of the war against the invaders and cause of the Taliban movement.

"If anybody really wants to wage Jihad, he must fight the occupation forces inside Afghanistan," the source quoted Mulla Omar as having told the TTP leaders. "Attacks on the Pakistani security forces and killing of fellow Muslims by the militants in the tribal areas and elsewhere in Pakistan is bringing a bad name to Mujahideen and harming the war against the US and Nato forces in Afghanistan."

"Our aim is to liberate Afghanistan from the occupation forces and death and destruction inside neighbouring Pakistan has never been our goal," he added.

Could this be related to the surrender of the Pakistan government of the Swat Valley to Taliban rule? With an enclave of Taliban within Pakistan itself, how committed is Pakistan to fighting in Afghanistan anymore?

In Slate, Fred Kaplan asks whether the fact of a Taliban enclave in Swat now means that the Afghanistan war is unwinnable. After all, the purpose of the campaign in Afghanistan is to deny the Taliban a safe haven from which to plot their attacks. Kaplan argues,

There is nothing wrong in principle with trying to negotiate deals with Taliban factions. Gen. Petraeus has openly said that such deals will have to be a part of any successful strategy in Afghanistan. However, Petraeus and other officers make two points about such negotiations: First, it's futile to go down that road with hard-core Taliban; second, to the extent negotiations succeed with any faction, we need to enter into them from a position of strength.

The deal in Pakistan breaks both rules: Pakistan's political leaders are trying to craft a deal, indirectly, with the hard-core Taliban, and they're entering into it from a position of obvious weakness.

This is why the deal is not only ill-fated but potentially disastrous: It reveals the severe weakness of the Pakistani state. The politicians pursued the deal only because the state cannot control its own territory. Unless Sufi Muhammad can convince his son-in-law to accept peace and obeisance to secular authority in exchange for a parcel of land where Islamic law carries some weight, the deal is more likely to convince the militant Taliban simply to press on for more favors still.

And it is precisely because the Taliban are in a position of strength that mullah Omar can make the magnanomous gesture about not targeting Pakistani troops in jihad - in other words, they aren't a threat. And that's a pretty ominous portent indeed.

Related - sepoy at Chapati Mystery provides an overview of the situation in Swat and links to several important analyses. Mark Salter (former advisor to John McCain) argues that Afghanistan can be won, but completely ignores Pakistan as a factor in his analysis. The editorial page of the New York Times makes no such mistake, arguing that Pakistan is indeed the key to success in Afghanistan. 

FACT: All Starbucks outlets in the Middle East are operated by MH Alshaya WLL, a Kuwaiti company.

FACT: Kuwait plays host to many small jihadist cells, including members of Al Qaeda from neighboring Saudi Arabia

FACT: Alshaya also operates in Saudi Arabia

FACT: Starbucks terminated its relationship with its Israeli distributor in 2003, citing "ongoing operational challenges." There are no Starbucks outlets in Israel, but dozens in its hostile Muslim neighbors.

FACT: A Starbucks is currently in operation within view of the Kaba in Mecca. It opened a week before the Islamic hajj in 2007. Starbucks has given the cold shoulder to Israel while deepening its relationship with Muslim countries known to harbor terrorists. The company has gone so far as to open a store in Islam's holiest city, tacitly endorsing the religion.

FACT: Its green-and-white logo shares design elements with Saudi Arabia's green-and-white flag. A crescent motif is also clearly evident, with the arms of the Starbucks girl the tips of the crescent, embracing the star (the star and crescent motif being a widespread symbol of Islam and featured on many muslim countries' flags). The image of the girl's hair could also be interpreted as a burka, covering her completely and hiding her form. (See image at right)

(hat-tip to Willow at Talk Islam)

The horrific decapitation murder of Aasiya Zubair by her husband Muzzammil Hassan last week - which spurred nationwide sermons in US mosques about domestic violence - was a wake-up call to the muslim-American community about the taboo subject of spousal abuse. There were dozens of khutbas in mosques all across America that same Friday - I've posted the text of one such khutba in Chicago and video of another in San Francisco but that barely scratches the surface. On the whole, the way in which the muslim-American community came together around this tragedy and sought to make Aasiya's death actually count for something, was both inspiring and humbling.

Unfortunately, the way the murder was reported as a "beheading" (instead of the term "decapitation" which was used to describe the murder of a Chinese student at Virginia Tech last Wednesday) has fed a perception that Aasiya's murder was related to Islam rather than an act of domestic violence - specifically, that it was somehow an "honor killing". These are harmful notions because they place Aasiya's murder into the realm of exotic, terrorist violence rather than within the context of a serious problem affecting millions of women in the United States, of all ethnic and religious backgrounds.

The simple truth is that Aasiya's murder was an act of domestic violence taken to an extreme. The rationale for this assessment is somewhat ironically explained best in an article by Phyllis Chesler for the Middle East Quarterly, in which Chesler purports to argue the opposite. Chesler provides a handy table that describes the differences between honor killings and domestic violence and in nearly every particular,  Aasiya's murder fits the domestic violence category:

Honor Killings	Domestic Violence
Committed mainly by Muslims against Muslim girls/young adult women.	Committed by men of all faiths usually against adult women.
Committed mainly by fathers against their teenage daughters and daughters in their early twenties. Wives and older-age daughters may also be victims, but to a lesser extent.	Committed by an adult male spouse against an adult female spouse or intimate partner.
Carefully planned. Death threats are often used as a means of control.	The murder is often unplanned and spontaneous.
The planning and execution involve multiple family members and can include mothers, sisters, brothers, male cousins, uncles, grandfathers, etc. If the girl escapes, the extended family will continue to search for her to kill her.	The murder is carried out by one man with no family complicity.
The reason given for the honor killing is that the girl or young woman has "dishonored" the family.	The batterer-murderer does not claim any family concept of "honor." The reasons may range from a poorly cooked meal to suspected infidelity to the woman's trying to protect the children from his abuse or turning to the authorities for help.
At least half the time, the killings are carried out with barbaric ferocity. The female victim  is often raped, burned alive, stoned or beaten to death, cut at the throat, decapitated, stabbed numerous times, suffocated slowly, etc.	While some men do beat a spouse to death, they often simply shoot or stab them.
The extended family and community valorize the honor killing. They do not condemn the perpetrators in the name of Islam. Mainly, honor killings are seen as normative.	The batterer-murderer is seen as a criminal; no one defends him as a hero. Such men are often viewed as sociopaths, mentally ill, or evil.
The murderer(s) do not show remorse. Instead, they experience themselves as "victims," defending themselves from the girl's actions and trying to restore their lost family honor.	Sometimes, remorse or regret is exhibited.

In addition, in this case Aasiya Zubair was Muzzammil Hassan's 3rd wife, and the previous wives also had reported a pattern of domestic abuse. It is the shame of the Pakistani American community that this abuse, which was known in the community, went unreported and Muzzammil was not prevented from remarrying twice. Zerqa Abid, the cousin to one of Hassan's previous wives, took the community to task for its failure, and addressing this cultural reluctance to talk openly about domestic violence was the rationale for the nationwide khutba project last week, which inshallah will now be an anual event.

So, it is clear that Hassan was a serial domestic abuser. Furthermore, both his previous wives filed for divorce on those grounds. Both wives were not attacked for "dishonoring" Hassan, however, so the argument that Hassan engaged in an honor killing of Aasiya because she filed for divorce makes no sense.

Finally, the victim's sister (who resides abroad) revealed that Aasiya had been a victim of Hassan's violence from the start of their marriage, and had $3000 in medical bills from last year alone. It is clear from this that Aasiya's murder was the violent climax of an abusive relationship from the very beginning.

It is worth noting that Daniel Pipes, who is hardly sympathetic to the muslim-American community's attempts to distinguish themselves from extremism, is not prepared to unequivocally call Aasiya's murder an honor killing based on the classifications above.

Still, there are some who insist against all the evidence that Aasiya was indeed a victim of honor killing. The president of the New York chapter of NOW, Marcia Pappas, referred to the murder as "a terroristic version of honor killing". In response, a whole bevy of New York women's and domestic violence organizations addressed an open letter to Pappas making the case that this was indeed domestic violence. Professional reformer Irshad Manji also jumped into the fray, quoting Pappas' mention of honor killing and demanding outrage. A story on NPR's All Things Considered gave the honor killing angle some play, but this was followed by a segment on Talk of the Nation a few days later which gave a much more balanced discussion (featuring Asra Nomani and Imam Mohamed Majid, vice-president of ISNA.  Of course, the Islamophobic right has also taken the honor-killing ball and run with it gleefully, but these sources are beyond reason, using Aasiya's murder as a foil to further their alarmist agenda against Islam and their fellow muslim citizens.

The question is, why does it matter whether we call this an honor killing or domestic violence? Simply put, because it is a form of denial, ascribing the violence suffered by women to an unknowable Other rather than something that has to be dealt with right here at home, from wothin our communities rather than some alien export. As Amy Siskind says in her column on Aasiya's murder at The Daily Beast,

But do these discussions about honor-killings and multicultural relativism instead distract from the most important point? By elevating Aasiya's beheading here, are we unwittingly ascribing a "violence against women-lite" to the 2 million victims of intimate-partner violence in our country each year? Or as Nina Miller, co-founder of The New Agenda, puts it: "I fear that in emphasizing the honor-crime aspect of this case, it could create the appearance that we think this form of violence is worse than 'garden variety' domestic violence. I think the real danger to us, in terms of advocacy, is making it sound like honor-crimes are worse than crimes committed by non-Muslim men."

The Presidential Address was covered on Twitter of course, via hashtag #nsotu, whereas Jindal's response was tagged #jindalwarmupact. What struck me was how much emphasis Jindal put on his own biography at the outset - yes, he's clearly running for President in 2012.

I was overall quite pleased with Obama's address (as you might expect). As far as Jindal's response, I respect his convictions but his remarks seemed anachronistic and almost helplessly out of touch with the reality of how serious the economic crisis is. The mantra of "government is incompetent, government is too big" was utterly incongrous with his repeated invocation of the Katrina aftermath, which if anything is a textbook example of the fundamental flaw in the GOP ideology.

David Brooks was on PBS' News Hour immediately afterwards and made much the same critique:

DAVID BROOKS: Uh, not so well. You know, I think Bobby Jindal is a very promising politician, and I oppose the stimulus because I thought it was poorly drafted. But to come up at this moment in history with a stale "government is the problem," "we can't trust the federal government" - it's just a disaster for the Republican Party. The country is in a panic right now. They may not like the way the Democrats have passed the stimulus bill, but that idea that we're just gonna - that government is going to have no role, the federal government has no role in this, that - In a moment when only the federal government is actually big enough to do stuff, to just ignore all that and just say "government is the problem, corruption, earmarks, wasteful spending," it's just a form of nihilism. It's just not where the country is, it's not where the future of the country is. There's an intra-Republican debate. Some people say the Republican Party lost its way because they got too moderate. Some people say they got too weird or too conservative. He thinks they got too moderate, and so he's making that case. I think it's insane, and I just think it's a disaster for the party. I just think it's unfortunate right now.

The reaction from conservatives to Jindal's response was also one of general disappointment. This is the new Reagan Reborn who will lead the GOP out of the wilderness? Well, I for one have to admit that given a choice between him and Sarah Palin, it's no contest.

Related - full transcript of Obama's speech from the LA Times, and the transcript of Jindal's response. Also, Gov Bobby Jindal deliberately misquoted the President to score a cheap shot in his response.

This khutbah (sermon) was delivered by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf of the Zaytuna Institute in San Francisco on Friday 20th February as part of the nationwide effort to raise awareness about domestic violence within muslim communities.



Related: khutbah on domestic violence by Hesham Hassaballah in Chicago the same day (also as part of the nationwide program in US mosques).

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