(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
How Can Poor Elderly Use Their Highly Saved Funds to Travel to Saudi Arabia to Rock the Devil? How can a college professor hide his face, or consider his head as one of the body's private parts that needs to be hidden?
How can world leaders set up conferences and talk about increased poverty, emigration, environmental pollution, epidemics and wars, without a single one of them seeing themselves in the mirror? Without any of them taking root for the problems that kill millions of people? They are quick enough to point their fingers at others, or at the victims of their patriarchal, religious systems that they defend with skin and hair.
Why do we punish victims while letting the perpetrators go free – and even make the latter global heroes?
The fanfare played in the media that manages this system has an important role to play: they overwhelm the atrocities. Political and religious leaders meet in the UN General Assembly to save humanity from poverty, terrorism, pollution and climate change, and to promote sustainable development. They use new words, but the essence is still exploitation and colonization. Capitalism is still the only system people use, and there are no alternatives. It is the only thing that has proven to be sustainable in our society over time.
The destruction of of our mentality, our productivity, and our commitment to independence and freedom are complemented by being fed with deceptive scientific theories and religious terror. In this way, we continue to be slaves to foreign aid, consumers of foreign ideas and goods, and dependent on the wealth, donations and loans of the rich.
This system has been sustainable and therefore dependence, debt and inflation are also maintained. The gap between nations and classes has doubled as armed political and religious groups. This puts women in a weaker position than men, because of everything from poverty, violence and harassment to the demands of hijab and niqab use and trade of their naked bodies in the media and cheap art.
Talking about rising poverty has become more common as long as it is not linked to the established class system. The word "class" creates nervous associations with socialism, and threatens the interests of the powerful business owners – it can even transform the safe, faith-based society in which we live into chaos, atheism, violence and revolution. Religious (read: political) leaders refuse to see the links between poverty and governance. It seems as if poverty is falling from the sky on the orders of God – just like gender inequalities, which they deny are linked to class differences or racism. As if discrimination on the basis of race, gender, color and religion is separate from other forms of discrimination, even though they are closely queued at the local government offices.
Under the Vatican's dome stands the father of modern (and postmodern) civilization and capitalism. Patriarchate stronghold with power over the small family of the home and the larger human family. In 93 of the UN member states, the Lord in the White House and NATO governs, while the Pope decides only on life and death after death. Except that he has a great influence on the decisions of political leaders when needed. In other words, worldly power is not completely separate from the religious in any country, including in my own, where the sheikh of al-Azhar plays the role of pope.
Maybe the problem is that women have to hide their face while their body is a commodity in the free market?
No one doubts that the real power in the human world is money, weapon power, intelligence and media power – not spells, prayers and incense. There is no civil, materialistic, secular state that does not pray to these gods to strengthen their power over the land and family. Culture, art and science only play a role as a tool for the authorities. Nothing is exalted except the names of men from the privileged classes in all fields: art, literature, science, religion, politics, law, philosophy and medicine. Thus, patriarchy has elevated itself throughout history and defeated "the mother." The political and religious forces transformed her from Isis, the goddess of wisdom and knowledge, to Eve, the devil's sinful ally. Since then, the woman has been a body without a head and without a mind. A being with impaired sense of reason. The denial of the woman's head was accomplished by hiding it under a hijab.
The debate over the niqab in Egypt is now entering a new phase, just as it did in the Middle Ages, after it was banned from being used at the University of Cairo and in parliament. There have also been extensive discussions after more than a thousand pilgrims were trampled to death in Saudi Arabia in September, when they were about to stone the devil. It is right to ban the use of the niqab to facilitate communication between teachers and students, and it is right to ban the niqab to prevent electoral fraud – while thousands of dead pilgrims are excused with an administrative error.
It is not laid just right for anyone to go into the depths of the tragedies that recur in our country. Some people seem to fear that the roots of gender discrimination and socio-economic discrimination will be dug up. They also seem to fear that the prevailing religious thinking will be criticized, or that people should start talking about renewal. Do we just have a problem with niqab at university and in parliament? Is the only problem related to "stoning the devil" that the streets of Saudi Arabia are narrow?
Or is the real problem perhaps that we are destroyed by religious and political propaganda, both in the education system and in the media? That we live under a false democracy? That election results depend most on money? Maybe the problem is that women have to hide their face while their body is a commodity in the free market? That profits on arms, sex and espionage trade are unlimited? That girls are covered and married to older men? That men should have benefits based on gender, such as multiple wives and all that their right hand possesses? That millions of children born out of wedlock grow up on the streets?
Is the real problem perhaps the laws and ethics? That the victims are punished while the perpetrators are acquitted? That we have religious parties in a secular state? Isn't the real problem discrimination based on gender, creed, class, status, family and identity?
Translated from Arabic by Vibeke Koehler.
