In the Company of Women

#14 Kulhareeji
South African jews were in the forefront of anti-apartheid movement just as american jews were a significant presence in the US civil rights movement.

It’s very interesting.. in college in the 80s in England, I knew a guy (David Lipschitz). He was White Gay Jewish South African. At that time London was a hot bed of political apartheid protests, stuff… so you can imagine how this guy must have felt being there… I later learned that he changed his name to David Lifton. Good move.

Congratulations to you Jawahara, and I want an autographed copy.

If I have read about another desi female talking about the hardships of being female, desi or one religion or another...I am going to throw up. ....ewww...I just hurled. :(

#11 Ah shucks, there, not their, etc..

#6 Hello, how about paki identity or hindu identity? Are their other identities besides our common humanity? Then why not a muslim identity or a muslim women`s identity? It`s like a Venn diagram where each circle touches and overlaps many other circles. The author`s collective experiences, in her own estimation, apparently overlaps those of other muslim women. What`s wrong with that?
Great writing happens when you write unencumbered by ideologies. Sounds like that`s what the author has done. What you`re recommending on the other hand is so inauthentic.

Re: # 6



.......... i think you are totally wrong about the ``shibboleth`` of identity - it is not ``trite and superficial`` and most ``great`` writers including student-torturers like shakespeare, dickens and joyce restricted themselves (almost entirely) to their experiences as part of some ``artificial grouping`` of one kind or another ........... groupings are not artificial - just as you and i, inspite of our best efforts, cannot help acting like pakis (and making a fool out of ourselves), most writers are what they are and cannot, and should not, write about things and people that they do not know or understand ........... a crow walking like a stork looks ludicrous ........

............. do you think coetzee could have written ``disgrace`` if he hadn`t been a south african and had first hand experience with apartheid ?....... do you think anyone other than vs naipaul could have written ``a house for mr biswas`` ? .... what about ``a bend in the river``, which is perhaps one of the finese books i have ever read - i doubt a writer born in stratford and who never went further than london could have written it ! .............. and i just finished reading ``a god of small things`` for the second time - what a great book - now, do you think it could have been written by somone who did not have a distinct identity as an indian woman ? ......... without their unique experiences as part of some distinct group ``generic`` humans are as capable of writing as chimpanzees .....

yes, shakespeare`s universal appeal is contrived, manipulated by anglophone imperialists and highly exagerrated ! - i think he is insufferable and should not be inflicted on innocent children !

..... and when you try to write with an adopted and cultivated half-baked identity you come up with crap like: ``you`re a better man than i am, gunga din!`` ..... of course, he is a better man .... you idiot !

Congratulations and all the best. I look forward to reading the book.

Dear Jawahara,

Congratulations on being part of an anthology that helped you overcome the existential

isolation of a creative writer. It seems you have multiple identities. Which one do you

feel as your primary one...being a muslim? being a woman? being a human being?

I find it interesting that there was a time communities were matriarchal and we had words

like mother tongue and mother land and only those children were considered jewish

whose mothers were jewish but then men took over and like their property tried to own

women and not only asked them to take their names but also transformed their gods

from female goddesses of the east to the male gods of the west...now in christianity

christians consider their god as FATHER rather than MOTHER. In my opinion middle eastern

culture had become patriarchal that is why Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all

patriarchal religions. Do you believe a time will come when Pope will be a woman and a

Muslim woman will be able to lead prayers in Kaaba?

I liked the passion in your article. Congratulations....sohail

#1 Nasah: I think you are lumping all Muslim women into one monolithic whole. Like any other group there are many, many different types of women. I don`t think you will find apologists or women unaware of the realities of what it is to be Muslim...and a Muslim woman in particular, in this book. Yes, there are problems as you describe in your email. It does not mean we do not live other lives and have other realities than just being brutally oppressed. It`s like someone bringing up the salt pan workers of Gujarat every time we talk of India, Inc. Both are realities (and there are many in between), both exist.

Ms Saidullah: I question this shibboleth about the ``muslim identity`` or the ``muslim women`s identity``. I question it because I think that like any other distinction based on religion or ethnicity or nationality or language, it is trite and superficial. The greatest writers in the world, the one`s whose words resonate in our hearts despite centuries of elapsed time between the time they wrote and the time we read them, have been those who have not been content with restricting themselves to any such artificial grouping. Shakespeare comes to mind when I say this.

Perhaps if you tried writing with your identity as a human being as the starting point as well as the ending point of your book, and used your first hand experience as a muslim woman as being only incidental to it - you will end up writing a great novel as well.

A few islands of hope in the Ocean of Gloom.... All the best

good luck, writer!

i will reserve my comments until i have read your essay ......... but i am sure that by that time this board will have degenerated into the usual indo-pak dungfest (since bj has already shown up, i can read the chai pati and fortell the coming cyclone in the tea cup) - but at least you have managed to sell one book ...........

......... good luck

I am no writer – but the way I see it, writing is highly personal. As human beings – with all the limitations which accompany being one – writers can be a bit like trees – their roots digging in one area of earth and it being virtually impossible for them to be seen moving too far from where they grow. I suppose the trick is to tap into the right current underneath – like you seem to have done here with the women – and the “Muslim” part seems quite incidental. The trick seems to be not getting stuck in the rocks!

That would make the writing VERY tedious!

There are alternative scenarios, of course – that writers could be just plain lazy!

Now that is a-muse-ing!

``For those who think of Muslim women as black-swaddled, faceless, silent and repressed, this book will shatter myths. It is a snapshot in time and history of women who refuse to be defined by the larger world around them and who refuse to give in to pressures. They are the voices of resistance, more so because most live normal, every day lives even as they struggle on a daily, ongoing basis. And, because of that......(Jawahara)

.....if they don`t get brutally killed for resisting....as this story would describe one of ``Muslim women as black-swaddled, faceless, silent and repressed`` in Denmark.

COPENHAGEN: Nine Pakistanis living in Denmark were on Tuesday found guilty of taking part in the so-called honour killing of an 18-year-old woman who married without the consent of her parents, the media reports said..

Ghazala Khan was shot dead by her brother with two bullets in the heart in September 2005 just outside the train station of Slagelse, west of Copenhagen.

The prosecution qualified the murder as an honour killing, the ninth in Denmark in the past decade, but the brother insisted the death was accidental.

Khan`s husband, whom she had wed secretly, was seriously injured in the attack, thought to have been carried out in the belief that her marriage had tarnished the family`s honour.

Seven members of the dead 18-year-old`s family, including her father who ordered the killing, and two family friends were convicted of murder and attempted murder.

Their sentences are expected to be announced on Wednesday.

Strict security measures had been taken for the trial. The case had prompted an intense debate in Denmark on arranged marriages and so-called honour killings.(Reuters)

In my view -- for the `` Muslim women as black-swaddled, faceless, silent and repressed`` from India to Denmark to Canada to USA -- there is absolutely no need for the pluralism shit -- as an excuse for ‘multiculturism’ to tolerate decadent practices of Muslim Sharia –

India should ban and abolish the goddam decadent Muslim Personal Law -- without ifs and buts -- as a dastardly weapon of gender cruelty employed against the Muslim female by the Muslim male -- and must force the Muslim family to abide by the same secular laws that the whole country abides by.....

The same should be done by the Western countries for Muslim women – that is to liberate them from the backward tyranny of fathers, brothers and uncles – keeping the female in virtual ‘family’ slavery -- in the West.....period.