Homa Arjomand
homawpi@nosharia.com
www.nosharia.com
416-737-9500
March 8,2008
8 March Centennial Against Political Islam for Secularism In Solidarity
with Imprisoned Iranian Activists
Happy International Women’s Day, I am honored to be here among you to celebrate
the 100 years of women and society’s struggle for
eliminating discrimination. Our movement, the movement for equality between men
and women, has taken a long, harsh path to bring out fundamental changes
in society; our struggles have been carried out essentially around
positive platforms, for the establishment of progressive norms and
principles.
The International women’s Day is not only a day to celebrate
achievement gained but also it is a day to become more vocal and
active in organizing political campaigns internationally, to seek
changes on the basis of the criticism and rejection. It is a day of solidarity
worldwide to overcome the obstacles ahead. It is the right time to
emphasize on mobilizing the forces that are present in society, take into
society the critical outlook, as well as the ideas, express the general
outlines and principles of the society and at the same time, as an active political
tendency amidst the ongoing struggle in society, offer practical and clear
platforms for reform.
On this valuable day, I would like to stress on the general
principles and framework that we have gained in our movement for
total equality. We make certain to follow those principles in our daily
struggle and when we lead various social/political campaigns.
The
followings are the principles that our movement for equality has adapted:
- Maintain the international mode of the movement for extensive,
unconditional, guaranteed and equal political and civil rights
and liberties for all,
-Continue the fight both at social and political level
- Defend secularism for achievement of modern and progressive social and
cultural norm. Insist on religion to be declared as private matter of
individuals
-Critically challenge feminism and liberalism as these two comply
with the Islamists movement and they are the strong defenders of
multiculturalism and the notion of cultural relativism. They are for
collective rights of so called minority verses the rights of
individual within that community. Our differences over the
universal
rights of women are certainly substantial and serious and must be
explained and emphasized in a clear and well-reasoned manner.
- Involve the progressive part of feminism, the grassroots’ section to
stand in front line of every social struggle for the full and
unconditional equality of rights of women and men,
Women’s right movement is traditionally is known as an international
move for the abolishing discrimination and various divisions and
categorization. It is an on going move. With no doubt we need to purse all
the above demands internationally. Any giving ground will affect women
across the world, as any achievement would give women in general more
power and courage to fight for more political and social rights. For the
past 100 years of struggle, experience has proven that any time we
mobilized and led the forces on a global scale, we achieved victory easier and
also it became possible for women, in various countries and cities and
even in tiniest communities, to overcome the barrier for their certain
demands.
We also believe women’s oppression and discrimination need to be
fought at social and political
level as our struggle is not only
limited to employment nor is limited to women only. That is why the
movement has to direct its shift to social and political level; which
means involving governments and people in general; which means
mobilizing people and involving various organizations, service providers, key
personals and parties. Campaigns can only become a force for the change, if
mass people directly participate and play a part in it.
The growth of religions and religious industries, in particular
Islamists, has become a tangible fact to push back women’s hard earned civil
and human rights. This is a cause for serious concern for human rights’
activists, specifically when it comes to women’s rights, serious
efforts must be made to push back this current global move; Pushing back religiously
and religious reaction is not possible except through the fight against
reactionary religious beliefs and practices. Therefore defending
secularism must become one of the main tasks of our movement. We need to
cherish and uphold the universal human and civil rights, we need to make sure
it is going to become uniform worldwide. And this is not certainly an easy job,
as we have experienced it through our fight against Sharia court in
We need to critically challenge feminism and liberalism as these two
comply with the Islamists movement and they are the strong defenders of
multiculturalism and the notion of cultural relativism. Culture is more
important to them than the universal rights of women and children. I must
say public education is the main key around this issue. Multiculturalism
segregate people base on their race, color, nationalities and religions. People
in that community have no choice but to follow the culture and tradition that
have been adopted there, in many case the culture they have to follow is far
backward than in their own countries. In Those communities women and children
in particular youth suffer the most as they are left under the rule of
Imams with tradition and culture of 1400, years ago, as the result veil is put
on little girls, the girls are raped under the name of marriage, polygamy
is happening and women are becoming the second class citizen, and off
course honor killing is promoted. We need to free ourselves from
multiculturalism and all concept of cultural relativism as it has become a
huge and complicated barrier for equal and universal rights of women and
children; but that can not be possible
without constant confrontation with feminism and liberalism. Feminist movement
is very strong in the west. Their entire focus and struggle of this movement
has been for changing, improving, and implementing the law for equality within
the present system. However, this movement when it comes to
eliminate gender division, its solution will not be far from the parties
in power. By other hand, they can not identify the root of this inequality;
they don’t see it as part of Capitalist system and its important rule for more
profit. It is important to know the gender division in
the production process has an important economic and political factor
in ensuring the profit of capital in this system. Gender division is
creating labour flexibility, competition and therefore friction between
workers and by which pushes down the living standard so as long as we live
in this system absolute equality can not be achieved. This unclear vision
present itself indifferent when it comes to forcefully participate
in political struggle to push back the reactionary religious attack
against women’s right. Feminist, in particular the social feminism, when
facing the struggle of women against the attack of Islamists did not take
long to take side with Islamists, as we witnessed it in our fight
against Sharia Court, faith -based arbitration, religious schools, imposing
veil on children, honor killing and so on, in best scenario some of its
activists became passive and some became
in opposition with us in favor of Islamists’ , under the pretext of
freedom of choice, minority rights, religious rights they in
fact with the help of media and parties in power defended Sharia court
in Canada, in case of religious
school and public funded Islamic schools, not to our surprise, their
discussion was if Catholics are allowed to send their children to
their religious schools why not allow Islamists. They argued it is
discriminatory to prevent them having their own schools, to them it was OK
to take the child’s freedom away from her, it was OK to prevent the
child from getting engaged in sports, dance, and swimming. To them it was
perfectly normal to deprive the child from possibility to integrate and
establish norms of mainstream society. It was OK to impose backward
tradition on children and veil them, segregate girls from boys, forced them to
go hungry for the month of Ramadan and to circumcise them. Instead of joining
our struggle for one school system for all, instead of fighting for
the law in favor of eliminating discrimination against children,
regardless of their background, religion or nationality they insisted to
justify the Islamists’ move. To them it is very important that children carry
on their parents’ religion and nationality.
In our
movement there are activists who are from countries and communities so called
Islamic and are raising global awareness about the life and condition of women
in those countries. These activists are presenting a clear picture of how women
under the Islamic Regimes are subjected to the most brutal form of misogyny and
gender apartheid. They have taken a significant role and they are now in the
front line of resistance. We are the
voice of women living under Islamic Law; one of our aims is to defeat the
Islamic regimes. Unlike what is pictured
by the main stream media and Right- Wing parties claiming immigrants and
refugees are honoring their so called tradition and culture!!.
In our
struggle against Islamists current, we need to have feminist movement, (the
grassroots part of it), with us. This is the part that is involved in front
line and has a great role in reaching to people and involving people in
struggle. Their activities are known to the most abused women, and the victim
of domestic violence. They are known to care and understand new immigrants
particularly have tendency to empower isolated women. All these abilities make
them expert in running social campaign.
In the
campaign against Sharia court we managed to involve people, all service providers,
grassroots organizations, schools, universities, survivors of abuse, writers,
politicians, teachers and industrial workers with their organizations not only
in