On fatwas, tulang besi and tomboys...

I was making a comment on this article published by Tulang Besi on his blog in response to the outroar concerning the fatwa on tomboys. The page is at http://www.malaysiawaves.com/2008/11/ivy-josiah-and-friends-advocating.html

It is remarkable than in our Malay Muslim society here in Malaysia that compassion and understanding are frequently absent in our actions and responses dealing on issues such as this one. Yet, we will always boast that we are the society renowned for its gentleness, politeness, courtesy.

As Muslims, we have every right to question a Council of mainly men who govern the lives of millions of Malaysian Muslims, appear to be unanswerable to no one, make decisions which appear to be uninformed and without consultation with those who might be affected by such fatwas.

Frequently, my observation is that we are all too eager to drop the hammer on to someone's head, to pass judgement on what we perceive to be against the norm, and to punish those we feel have transgresed. This time, the issue is being a tomboy or in this case, misclassified as "pengkik".

There is an unhealthy tendency to take the easy why out whenever there Should every immoral and unhealthy trend be solved with a fatwa then? After which we put our hands together and say "problem solved!" Are we that simplistic? Rather than put forward our hands to help, we rather use a fatwa to deal with the problem. We really should ask these men and women on the fatwa counci: how are you going to enforce this ruling? Arrest and charge every women having short hair, wears trousers, looks mannish, acts like a man? How? Are you going to tell your daughters that they are forbidden to wear trousers, cut their hair or anything else related to manlike behaviour, like I don't know, play sports like football?

Tulang Besi in his blog, willy nilly linked divorces and family disintegration. He claims that the "rise in homosexuality is very strongly connected to the rise in rate of divorce and family disintegration" and that children with both parents won't 'adopt' homosexuality. Please provide evidence that this is so. And while you are at it, if you have solved the problem of homosexuality with a fatwa, how about divorces? Are you going to solve that too with a fatwa?

TB's attack on the issue of women's rights and his personal attack on Ivy Josiah is an embarrasment and reflect a limited and privileged understanding of women's rights and his views are in fact contrary to Islamic teachings. He claims that "Women’s Right is convenient tool to be used in order to undermine religion and decency. Many-a-time, it is also used as a tool to defend revolting and nauseating practices such as adultery, promiscuousness, homosexuality and, yes, “pengkik”" The teachings of Islam and the practices of the Prophet Muhammad clearly advocated the emancipation of women. In fact the rights of women are clearly recognised as being one critical to the advancement of our religion. He states that "In truth, that’s what Women’s Right is all about: a. To undermine the family institution in a society, b. To promote sick and negative values in a society, c. To promote social reengineering agenda in a certain society."" He also says later that "we want to follow a Women Right’s leader, she should be married and have actually raised children."

Let's call this for what this is. It has nothing to do with religion, it has nothing to divorces or families disintegrating. I believe that these views as articulated by TB and those of similar sentiments are sexist, homophobic, discriminatory, patriachal and honestly, naive.

Enough said.