Let those voices be heard!

I was recently invited to speak at a meeting called in solidarity with the Palestinian people. The meeting, in Johannesburg, was called by a coalition of women’s organisations and was for women only.

I felt quite pleased and honoured, for a number of reasons. One reason is that there have been numerous attempts over the years to form such coalitions of South African Muslim women that would serve the interests of and speak in the name of these women.

The Muslim Youth Movement (MYM) Gender Desk (as one speaker at another meeting held by a rival coalition noted) had, for many years, held the formation of a national Muslim women’s coalition as one of its objectives and I, as a leader in the MYM, had vigorously supported the idea. So, knowing that there are some attempts being made in this direction were very pleasing (this was before I realised there were rival coalitions – but that’s the subject of another discussion). It was also exciting that women were getting together to talk not just about “women’s issues” but about the “affairs of the ummah”. And, of course, I was honoured to be invited to address this gathering of women. (I must add that I was thrilled when I saw what a large gathering it was: hundreds of women from various parts of Gauteng, from organisations doing all kinds of great work.)

Then, a couple of days before the event, I noticed an announcement of the meeting with a list of speakers. (I usually check when I’m invited who the other speakers might be; this time I didn’t.) And, shock, horror, I realised that all five speakers that were to address this exclusively female congregation were men! I couldn’t believe it; it didn’t make any sense.

Were there no (Muslim) women that could speak about Palestine? There must be, for I have met and heard many of them. I have even heard some of them speak in a mosque. I am sure they were not a figment of my imagination, my fantasy that women actually can speak about politics and other such things. Some of them, as I recall, have really loud voices and shout as if no one was listening to them. Well, maybe no one was, judging from the speakers’ list for this event.

To say that I was disappointed would be a bit of an understatement. Not that I have anything against men, of course. I’m all for men taking a stand and talking politics and other important issues that the world has to face. Too few do. But, this was an event organised by women, for (only) women, and yet there would be no women’s voice to be heard.

Perhaps I’m overreacting; perhaps these women were just tired of listening to each other and needed some fresh voices. Well, my ego would likely prefer that interpretation; it’s nice to think of one’s self as having a “fresh voice”. But my head – which tries to outwit my ego and usually succeeds – said that couldn’t be it.

So, there we were, five male speakers, in this hall packed to capacity with women. Two of the speakers spoke from behind a curtain. I thought it might be because they didn’t want to share a platform with me. (On this occasion, my ego clearly won the tussle and wiped the floor with my head.) The other three of us ignored the curtain. (Incidentally, when the two purdah-ed speakers concluded their talks, they emerged from behind the curtain and walked through the female audience towards the exits at the back of the hall.) A good thing too, since one speaker had a slide presentation which would have lost its power and its point behind the curtain and another had a set of brilliant posters to show the audience.

But, the make-up of the panel was not the only insult to the women. One of the speakers – and I’m not saying whether he was a veiled speaker or not – began his presentation with a patently anti-woman and Islamophobic “joke”. You must have heard the one about the Afghan (although the speaker said Iraqi) man who, before the war, used to walk so many paces in front of his wife but now walks even more paces behind her. When asked about the change, he said, “landmines”. As I said, profoundly sexist and profoundly Islamophobic. But, the audience laughed. As they did for others of his sexist jokes.

Why would women want to listen to a man who insults them and then expects them to laugh at the insults? Why do they then laugh? I suppose one could ask, in another context, why a black person would listen to a white person making racist jokes, expecting him to laugh and why he would then laugh. Power, perhaps? The belief that this man (or white person) is more knowledgeable and, hence, his jokes must be worthy of a laugh? Of course, with an all-male panel, one should expect that women start to believe that men are the more knowledgeable.

Following this event, I reflected a little on the need for groups like the MYM Gender Desk, forcefully promoting the notion that women have a right to speak and be heard. A brochure from that organisation, for example, says, under the heading “Let the women be heard!”: “Women have not had much of a say in the interpretation of Islam, and their voices have been suppressed in mosques and other institutions. There therefore exists a ‘voicelessness’ of women in Islam. We work towards ensuring that the woman’s voice is heard.”

Interesting concept, that: the idea that the woman’s voice must be heard. We might remember that, barely 10 years ago, a Muslim radio station went to court to try and ensure that it could merrily have its programming without a single woman’s voice being heard on air. When the powers-that-be at the station realised that this might result in their losing their licence, they quickly found a fatwa that said it was halal for a woman’s voice to be heard.

But allowing Muslim women’s voices to be heard is more than an exercise of having female tongues moving; it means that women should be able to express themselves and be listened to by all of us on issues that affect the community, on our political, economic and social lives. Many, many Muslim women, in their daily lives, are very influential in the work that they do, shaping the lives of people and influencing the structures of societies. It’s such a pity, then, that they don’t get the same reception in the Muslim community. We do ourselves – as a community – a great disservice by silencing them.