Cultural and Political Relativism

by Sami Alrabaa

Had the world listened to cultural and political relativists and appeasement analysts before the II World War, the Allies would not have attacked Nazi Germany and put and end to a racist regime and rescued the rest of Jews in concentration camps.

No abuse of universal human rights can ever be justified by cultural constraints of any kind. The civilized world deserves this name only it fights abuse of human rights and human dignity wherever it takes place. Force is sometimes needed to remove human rights abusers. Relativists who oppose the use of force are accomplices of the oppressors.

The UNICEF declared a picture of a 40-year-old Afghan sitting next to his bride of 11 as the picture of the year.

This picture is representative of millions of cases throughout the Arab and Muslim world, in particular in Arab countries at the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld writes in her blog, “Saudi women are not allowed to drive or change the color of their clothing or shake a man’s hand (which some mullahs view as “adultery of the hand.”) She cannot marry without permission, retain custody of her children after a divorce, or “annoy” her husband. She is also forbidden to “speak in public.” A popular Saudi television preacher has stated that “a girl who is not beaten from an early age grows up to be a rebellious woman, difficult to control” and that “a woman who leaves her home without a veil is like a woman who goes out naked.”

In a propagandistic move to polish his despotic regime, the Saudi dictator Abdullah issued a decree pardoning a girl who was sentenced to 200 lashes by the religious establishment for sitting in a car with someone who was not her close relative. What a big human gesture?! How about the thousands of women who have received similar sentences by the Wahhabi establishment - a brutal fundamentalist judicial authority - for committing the same “crime”? Reuter said on December 17, 2007, “ For a woman to be in seclusion with a man who is not her husband or a relative is a crime in Saudi Arabia, whose legal code is based on a strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islamic law”. There is no independent judicial system in Saudi Arabia. The Wahhabi establishment enacts sentences allegedly according to al-Shari’a (Islamic law) whose clerics interpret whimsically. The Saudi judicial system is a mix of tradition and bits and pieces from al- Shari’a. By the way, George W. Bush calls Hugo Chaves of Venezuela a dictator, but he calls the Saudi despot a “Friend”. It seems that the millions of dollars which the Bush family received from the Saudis made him blind towards human rights. We should not wonder when many Arabs and Muslim call Bush and his administration “hypocrite”.

Men in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are proud of marrying teens. “When you marry a little girl you mould her the way you want. She is innocent, clean, and does what you want.” Said Mohammed, a 63 year old Kuwaiti, who married a girl of 13. Men prefer to marry an uneducated woman. “These are spoilt and difficult to dominate.” Mohammed added. With a lavish dowry men can buy any girl. And they are free to do what they please with their purchase.

Many Arabs regard women as breeding machines. Women are sex objects whom men can ride whenever they have lust. In many cases she is a house maid and a slave. Loving the wife is non existent. Love is considered a kind of pornography. It is used in songs, stories, and movies. It is a word which you use with your mistress and alien women, but not with your wife. Nawal, a former colleague at Kuwait University, told me as her husband was consummating their marriage, and said to him “habeebi” (love) “slow down”, he stopped the intercourse immediately and divorced her on the spot. He said, “Only prostitutes use this word.”

Since time immemorial, the strongest among human beings have survived. The strongest have suppressed the weak. This is, however, still the case in many Arab and Muslim societies.

People in the West look at societies in the south as exotic folks. They enjoy stories of these folks like fairy tales. They are entertaining and amusing. After the story, it is business as usual. Calls for removing gender oppression and social injustice are interpreted as interfering in the cultural texture of these far-off folks.

Many Westerners are opposed to the presence of NATO troops in Afghanistan. They even massively supported the Talibans before 9/11.

Millions of children in countries of the Third World die from hunger and disease and many of them work to stitch balls and make toys for children in the West. But who cares?

On the other hand, Madeleine MacCann, the British little girl who disappeared in Portugal some months ago has been the center of interest and empathy all over Europe and the Western world at large.

The Western media love such stories. And people love such stories too. Westerners in general are ethnocentric. When a Westerner is kidnapped or arrested in a country of the Third World, Western politicians find the time to fly to that country and do everything possible to gain their release. And the media report about all that in detail. The millions of people in the Third World who are daily killed or arrested arbitrarily are not met with the same zeal. Think of the Bulgarian nurses who were imprisoned and tried in Libya for allegedly infecting kids with the Aids virus. Think also of the two British girls who were arrested in Ghana for smuggling drugs.

I think it is not enough to propagate human rights and donate money for the poor in countries of the Third World over Christmas. It is the moral duty of everyone to demand stopping atrocities inflicted on women and the deprived, if need be by force. Atrocities in the name of culture must be stopped.

Future generations will remember us as egoists and hypocrites. We are well informed about atrocities, yet we keep silent. Christmas is not only gifts, it is also “love your next human beings.” This love must be translated into concrete help.