Shariah

I found myself reaching into the depths of my anger yesterday, Bush, as I read about the continuing existence and practice of Islamic law in some parts of the world, and of the apparent desire on the part of some fundamentalist Iraqis to return to it, as their new constitution is debated. Punishments, as I'm sure you know, include lashings, amputations, stoning to death... I read of one instance where a man was sentenced (for runnng a brothel) to 80 lashes, followed by ten years in prison, followed by execution. For adultery, in Iran, a woman can be stoned to death by rocks that "should not be too large so that the person dies by being hit by one or two of them; they should not be so small either that they could not be defined as stones."

Well, I obviously know nothing about Islamic law, but to me a lot of what I read sounds fishily like male ego at work. Threaten my power or authority (as in the case of two teachers who joined a demonstration in Saudi Arabia), and you'll get 1,500 lashes, to be administered in front of your family, students, and colleagues. Steal my wallet, I'll cut off your hand. Steal my wife... And I'll see her sentenced to death to avenge my honor. "Honor killings", in Pakistan and elsewhere, have been in the news in recent weeks: apparently, even if a woman is raped, she's required to produce four male witnesses, or is otherwise presumed to be the guilty party. It all harks back to the medieval (and probably pre-medieval) notion that "our" womenfolk are chattel, belongings, along with the sheep and the goats and the household furniture, and therefore have no standing as human beings in their own right.

I think that most of us non-fundamentalist Islamic folk would condemn these practices as barbaric, Bush. And yet, what leaves me particularly uncomfortable is the notion that it all comes back to the idea of ownership--and the power we ascribe to it. About protecting what's mine, and being sure that no other man lays his hands on it. Which seems to me is basically what you're preaching in your promotion of this "ownership society" you keep talking about with such pride. What I'm talking about in this instance is perhaps the dark side of that notion, but no matter which side you look at, one coin is still one coin. Ownership, to my mind, appeals to the baser side of the human consciousness, not to its higher values.

And it's not that we, in our supposedly civilized Western society, have evolved away from all of that old darkness. Speaking from my own experience, I remember very distinctly, as a young man, suffering from insane jealousy when it came to the women I loved--a jealousy that surely emanated from that same sense of ownership, of seigneurial rights that, when transgressed, aroused fits of anger I was barely able to contain. There were times I myself could surely have killed, had I not been restrained by fear of the consequences, and by then current social mores. And, when betrayed, I would be more likely to have killed the woman than the man: that's where my anger was directed. I confess to this unpalatable reality without pride, Bush, but rather in the interests of truth.

If the genes that govern the male ego (can genes govern egos, Bush? I'm not entirely sure; but I know what I mean, and I suspect that you will, too), if those genes are still so powerfully active in my mild-mannered, formerly British self, I suspect they're active in most other men as well. Our less noble nature will easily assert its possessiveness, when it comes to those things we think we own, whether property, women--or the truth.

So I say let's look beyond ownership, Bush, if we're looking for those core values that define what we stand for as a society. Let's define ourselves, as men, by something other than what we own. With all those good things we are blessed with, why not let's model something other than greed and possessiveness in this world?