The Caged Virgin - Ayaan Hirsi Ali [12]
There is a strict taboo in Muslim families on talking about birth control, abortion, and sexual violence. That taboo is a direct result of our religion. A girl who is pregnant keeps quiet about it at home. The unifying power of her religion works only negatively, as pure repression. The result is not unity or solidarity, but inner conflict and terrible loneliness. The only way out is the abortion clinic, where Islamic girls are frequently helped, a suffering they again bear in silence. Sixty percent of all abortions in the Netherlands involve immigrant women, many of whom have an Islamic background.
So it is clear that the fear of Islam is already present in the Netherlands. Politicians and policy makers in that country are already too afraid to confront us Muslims with our illusions. And thus the fear of offending leads to the perpetuation of injustice and human suffering.
Three
The Virgins’ Cage
Arab culture has spread to non-Arab societies by way of Islam, but is in many ways far behind that of the West. The three main shortcomings are insufficient individual freedom, inadequate knowledge, and a lack of women’s rights. These problems may also be seen in non-Arab countries that have embraced Islam and have begun to follow the Koran and the Hadith as political and economic guides for how a community should be organized. In countries such as Pakistan and Iran, and to a lesser extent in parts of Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, and Tanzania, after the introduction of Islam, a significant regression occurred in individual freedom, the acquisition of scientific knowledge, and the rights of women.
There are prospects for improvement, but progress is slow. The United Nations reports on Arab Human Development, prepared by Arab scholars, are first steps in the right direction, and they identified the core of these problems. The Arab world’s current wealth comes exclusively from the oil that is extracted by Western corporations. Its economic growth is the lowest in the world, with exception of sub-Saharan Africa; illiteracy is widespread and persistent. Only about 330 foreign books are translated per year in the entire Arab world (compared to 5,000 in the Netherlands alone and close to 400 in the United States). The situation for human rights is equally dire. Arab authorities use force against their own people, and population groups employ violence against each other. People are oppressed, and the position of women is, in my view, nowhere as bad as it is in the Islamic world. United Nations reports state that women are virtually excluded from any public and political life, and that legislation with respect to marriage, divorce, inheritance, and adultery puts women at an extreme disadvantage.
The same disadvantaged state of affairs in the Islamic world is reflected to a lesser degree in the position of Muslim immigrants in Western Europe. Muslims who have immigrated to Western Europe have brought their convictions and traditions with them. It is striking that in the West, Muslim men are overrepresented in prisons and Muslim women are overrepresented in shelters for abused women and the social-assistance system. Many Muslims fare poorly in school and in the job market. They only rarely take advantage of the opportunities offered in education and employment, and they do not sufficiently benefit from the freedoms that were unavailable in their countries of origin.
What is blocking the progress of Muslims? Why can’t they close the gap between themselves and the Western world? Why can’t they participate in Western society the way other immigrants do?
According to some experts, Western imperialism and unfavorable climatic conditions are at the root of the lagging development of Muslims. Many Islamic states were created too suddenly and artificially and became dictatorships. The dictators having been installed and maintained by Western states, thereby retarding Muslim development. However, historian