In the wake of the “Arab Spring” revolts in Egypt, the Maghbreb and some parts of the Arab world (it might be better termed Berber Spring than Arab Spring, as it began in largely Berber North Africa), many of the “progressive” policies put in place by dictators have come under attack by new political factions.
In Tunisia, where the revolutions began, the previous ruler had done a great deal to advance feminist causes in his country, possibly at the urging of his wife. Many of these Muslim leaders were educated and trained in the West before they came to power, and during the course of their instruction they absorbed a lot of what is known as progressive policy today. In fact, sometimes they were ahead of the West in that regard because, being authoritarian dictators, they had little standing in their way when they chose to implement new policies.
A report released by Consultancy Africa Intelligence describes in detail the policies implemented by Ben Ali and his predecessor in Tunisia:
Directly after Tunisia’s independence in 1956, the president of the new Tunisian Republic, Bourguiba, issued a personal status code (PSC). As a result, the role of Islamic law in this domain was ended or at least curtailed, and a more egalitarian family was established. This code was then, and still is, famous within the Muslim World and beyond for its abolition (or re-interpretation) of classical Islamic precepts.(2) For example, until this day, Tunisia is the only Arab Muslim country that prohibits polygamy and that secures equal divorce rights for men and women.
In the years that followed, other codes were issued which aimed at women’s emancipation as well. In 1959, Tunisia proclaimed a constitution, protecting the equality principle, and measures were taken to enhance female participation in society: women were granted active and passive voting-rights (1957), an effective programme of family planning was introduced (3) and women were granted a right to education (1980). In 1985, Tunisia ratified the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which, on the basis of the constitution, prevails over Tunisian national law.(4) These measures together are generally termed le féminisme Bourguibien.(5)
Despite the nod to voting rights (even the Soviet Union held “elections”), this was all accomplished without the hindrance of democracy, so it was quite easy.
More:
Ben Ali equally took a number of measures to improve the situation of divorced women. The first concerned maintenance upon divorce: although the PSC was the only family code in the region obliging the man to pay maintenance to his ex-wife upon divorce, this was often not enforced in practice. In order to improve this situation, Ben Ali created a state fund to secure payment of maintenance to mother and children after divorce (1993). The second measure concerned the nationality code, allowing women to pass on their nationality to their children. This was crucial to prevent women who had married a foreigner losing custody upon divorce on the grounds that the child had a foreign nationality (1993). The third measure provided that couples could choose to marry in community of goods, as opposed to the general practice where the spouses do not share any goods, even if these are acquired during marriage. The community of goods could prevent women who did not earn a living during their marriage ending up with empty hands upon divorce (1998). Fourth, the mother who has custody over her children obtained the right to stay in the marital home after divorce (2008), even if this belonged to the father.
Hmmm, sounds just like home. Looks as though Ben Ali modeled his country’s divorce laws on California code. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the Arab Spring began with a slap to the face of a young man by a female authority.
Ben Ali, according to the report, used feminism as a means to gain legitimacy even as he committed human rights violations. As is so often the case, the excuse that one is “protecting women and children” often serves as a license to commit egregious violations of human rights.
…Under Ben Ali, state feminism served a different goal: in a context of outraging violations of civil and political rights, the protection of women’s rights became a means to gain legitimacy, both on the national and on the international levels.(12)
The governments of Bourguiba and Ben Ali cautiously protected their feminist politics. They installed official institutions that promoted state feminism, such as the Tunisian women’s organisation UNFT (Union Nationale de Femmes Tunisiennes, established in 1957), a research centre for women’s affairs (CREDIF),(13) and a special Secretary of State dealing with issues concerning women and the family, later transformed into a Ministry. In the meantime, all voices of contestation were silenced through censorship and by making life difficult for those who dared to disagree. (14) But despite (or because of) this repressive context, state feminism was indeed contested.
Finally, the author of the piece, who is evidently a feminist (or feminist friendly) herself, admits that most feminist achievements in the region were achieved not in spite of oppression, but because of it:
Tunisia is currently at a crossroads between authoritarianism and democratic rule. In this context, women’s rights form a crucial stake. This is not only true because the feminist laws issued under the previous regimes were imposed on the Tunisian population in an authoritarian way, making a democratic renegotiation of these laws inevitable. That women’s rights form a crucial stake in the current context is also due to the fact that the authoritarian feminist laws were very progressive, while the current government is relatively conservative. This situation has caused an intense fear among Tunisian feminists for a roll-back of the achievements in the field of women’s rights, however undemocratic these achievements may be.
Feminism needs authoritarianism for obvious reasons: men must be forced by those with more power than they have to submit to the women in their lives. Feminists may sometimes claim to support freedom and democracy, but the smart ones know that both must be curtailed in order to achieve their version of equality.
Ultimately, however, as Tunisia demonstrates, the symbiotic relationship between authoritarianism and “progressive” policies such as feminism create an environment that is too much for the people to bear, and unrest breaks loose. When that happens in the West is an open question, but given our economic stagnation, I can only see the pressure rising from here on out.
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Tunisia’s score in Freedom in the World, Freedom House’s assessment of political rights and civil liberties, improved from 7 (political rights) and 5 (civil liberties) in 2011 to 3 (political rights) and 4 (civil liberties) in 2012 and remained unchanged from its 2012 scores in 2013.
I guess feminazis at Freedom House are having an aneurysm over the fact that Tunisia only established women’s rights in the absence of freedom.
One is the best possible score for either political rights or civil liberties; seven is the worst possible score for both.
I think the world will really fear if something like this happens in the west.
Essentially, Tom Ball tried the same thing. If we start getting that hear; you will see our wealthy and their politicians leave. However, the one thing that I feel deflects this is our belief in our system as Americans in this country.
My attorneys secretary told me to be “patient and believe in the system.” We have too many convinced in the innocence and nobility of our traditional law sets; that they are convinced they have not been replaced by feminists and their overseers. If they ever truly existed at all. I strongly suspect that the only appeals that make any difference for us are the ones that they wish to promote, feel are not that important; or are too afraid to deny. It is that last one that must be pushed for men in this country; and obviously the world.
Feminists have been given free reign to slap men without consequence in hundreds of ways these last 2000 years; don’t believe what you hear in public school classes. Women have been pulling most strings in the background for centuries.
I strongly feel that the technology that supposedly freed women; will ultimately free men. This is what they are afraid of. God said it; “your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
Whether you believe or not, that statement is very likely to come true. Feminists took communist ideals, and tried to apply them the world over for one gender alone. Western women are very likely to pay a heavy price. I feel their unwillingness to confront Islamic abuse of women was not out of fear; but compliance. They knew that the leaders they had helped install needed their support.
This is a shining example of how white lies, are still lies. We can never forget that a lie, no matter how pretty; can still kill you.
The grand irony is that even though the Arab Spring began as a Leftist movement for Democracy against authoritarian rule, they ended up with a more theocratic version of the old leadership. IOW, be careful what you wish for, you might get it…especially in a “free”democracy. Morsi stands on unstable ground because even though he represents ALL of Egypt (he was elected by a majority of fundamentalist Muslims), he is leading the country to satiate his base supporters only. (sound familiar?) The majority wants (a form of) Sharia Law imposed.
So while the original heroic young protesters (and Obama) expected Egypt to move to the (hip, cool and peace loving) Progressive-Left, there was obviously a Silent Majority that favored the Theocratic-Right. Oops! So much for the “Freedom and Justice Party”, at least for Muslim women in Egypt.
I’ll admit now though that my brain got twisted in an ideological knot after finding out that a Marxist Activist group recently bombed a US embassy in Turkey. What was that all about?
And our media gives us a female as personification of these uprisings, TIME cover could not wait to show how the princess are fighting, SHE is the person of the year 2011.
http://msnbcmedia4.msn.com/j/TODAY/Sections/Today%20SPECIAL%20SERIES/2011/2011_TODAYCelebrates/POY.Final.cover31.grid-6×2.jpg
One of the (many) dirty little secrets of feminism is that feminism and faux female independence can only really exist alongside both a large welfare state and a police state. The reason for the former is that women can only really get by without relying on men at the personal level if the state forces more redistribution of resources from men to women at the macro level.
A police state is also necessary because women who live separately from men feel more vulnerable to crime and predation, so they look more to the government and big brother to protect them. So hence we have to have more police, more draconian laws to criminalise primarily men, more infringements on due process for (mainly men) accused of crimes etc.
Like all statist philosophies, feminism can only survive by remaining in denial or evading responsibility for the jackboot thuggery that is at the heart of the preservation of their philosophy.
Something about “america is the great oppressor of third world peoples” again, even though marxist governments have oppressed and killed more people worldwide than anyone. Just the usualy leftist tactic of crying out in pain as they strike you but the US media wants to blame Al Qaeda for the attack instead.
Some People think that leadership comes by authoritarianism. I have really never seen this work .
We see this upward gravitation to authoritarianism in schools , HHS , Groups and Police . Shaming Language and even writers being told How to write . Behind the steel curtain was a great example of authoritarianism
I’m a big fan of Group dynamics , Its a hobby . I watch groups see how they function see how they pick Leaders .
Leaders Inform and provide answers Not confusion . Truthful answers are easy to come by but, Sometimes hard to swallow .
The Mra is an eclectic mixed Bag of Bright and well informed men . We need authoritarianism like we need a whole in our heads .
The best answers come from Groups working towards Problem solving , Men do this well . Solve problems . We write the answers down, store them and spit them out in forms of story and truisms and affirmation.
My biggest fear is the MRA becomes a group of idealogs , The leader will to step up as a theologian of political soundness but, Never being able to solve a problem , Sound familiar Guys .
Women have great idea’s on When you should cut the grass but, how to cut the grass , Well you would need to actually do it to figure that one out .
As I have pointed out elsewhere – “Sultwalk” is a plea for more authoritarianism. That’s why they don’t suffer the usual fate of protestors – being gassed, tazed, thrown into prison 50 to a cell, and released without charge. They are demonstrations in favor of *more* police, *more* cameras.
To put it another way, ‘women’s liberation’ can only really exist alongside male enslavement. It is only by restricting men’s freedom and co-opting a larger proportion of male economic output that society can effectively subsidise women’s freedom and faux economic independence.
One of the biggest lies of feminism is the claim that it is only about women having control over their own lives and bodies, when in reality it is actually about women having control over men.
Authoritarianism will redistribute power/goodies to Team Woman– oh, wait, it’s Shariah.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2271218/Allowing-woman-31-walk-free-groping-12-year-old-boy-criminal-sign-outdated-chivalry-says-Peter-Lloyd.html
“”Amanda Wheeler – a 31 year-old from Cheltenham who was found guilty of sexually assaulting several young boys.
The mother-of-three got drunk at a party before kissing and groping a 12-year-old on a bench in November 2011.
She then performed a lap-dance and straddled a group of male children, before biting a 13-year-old boy on his neck and coercing him to perform a sex act on her.
She denied the charges, but was found guilty during a recent trial and faced several years in prison.
However, in the latest blow for British justice and men’s rights, she walked free from Birmingham Crown Court with only a suspended prison term and a smirk on her face.
Why? Surely it can’t be…Because she’s a woman.
Addressing the court during sentencing, Judge Patrick Thomas QC incredulously stated that: ‘Although these were paedophile acts…it was a one-off…they were [also] acts of drunkenness, selfishness and childishness’.
He then claimed that sending her to jail would be wrong because her victims have ‘largely recovered’ from their traumatic experiences…as if that makes a difference.””
In most places feminism is an aspect of liberal cultural imperialism. And liberals are the top Western cultural imperialists.
I have been greatly interested in The Arab Spring. We are told that Democracy is breaking out all over North Africa, as if the banks of The Nile, were the banks of The Hudson, yet given that its starting point in Tunisia was one man rejecting Feminazi authoritarianism, it would appear that the idea that North Africa is yearning for western ideology is delusional spin. They may like our Ipods, but they hate the West and all the West stands for, so far as I can tell – which is entirely understandable. After all, no one likes to have to acknowledge that they are inferior, intellectually and technologically, and the offer of Democracy as a palliative can only emphasise that inferiority.
I have never left the First World, and so my experience of North Africa is only what I can read of. In that respect, I had been an occasional reader of the Facebook pages – open to the world – of a young, handsome, otherwise unemployed, North African. Before the Revolts, he was certainly pro-Muslim, yet his writing and uploadings were – how shall I say – intended to be seductive and welcoming. After the revolts, he abandons writing in his fairly, often playfully allusive, fluent English, and adopts Arabic script; gone is the seductive elements, to be replaced by strong Islam, and politically motivated links. He may be talking Democracy (for all I know – I don’t read Arabic Script) but clearly Sharia would be more to his taste, than Liberalism.
The problem seems to be Malthusan. The population of Egypt (for example) is now nearly eighty million – almost doubled in a few decades. Poverty and Religion generally seem to go together (except in America – I digress: any British politician who talks religion is heading for unelectability; he would be seen as Tony Blair rightly said, as a ‘nutter’). Feminism seems usually to thrive where GDP is greatest. In that respect I was perhaps surprised to see recently that the GDP in Sweden is almost as high as yours, and considerably higher than ours; $41,000, $48,000 and $31,000 respectively. Comparative poverty has its advantages.
A further thought: It is often easy to see the Middle East as backward, but there is considerable wealth, yet unevenly spread and in isolated pockets. By way of comparison; my sometime girlfriend – a minor academic – taught in one of London’s Universities. Most of her students were from overseas. Some – Erasmus students – were ordinary, typically poor young students, but many came from wealthy Third-World families, where Daddy would buy an appartment in London for the duration and the student came to college driving their own BMW – my girlfriend travelled by Tube. The student was thus far better off than the teacher. Compare that with my time as a Law Student; all the students were English and one boy actually had a car – a clapped out Triumph Herald convertable. Walking forty-five minutes to college – and back, come rain or shine, and across the meadow, keeps one fit.
It is those London (and New England and Sorbonne) educated students from Third World families, who will be most amenable to western ways. Most of their fellow countrymen, will however be unlikely to have travelled much beyond their home town, and more will be more likely to have been educated in The Madrasas. It is of course from the wealthy families that the political elite are selected. The failure of the Werstern elite, to grasp the unpopularity of multiculturalism must surely be attributed to the fact that unlike the, all but western, wealthy immigrants with whom he or she associates – Uncle Tom’s is I believe the expression – those living on the sink estates, find their neighbours largely alien.
“I can only see the pressure rising from here on out. ”
There’s no doubt about it – as pushback increases, so too will the excesses of the authoritarian state.
Has any authoritarian or totalitarian system ever retreated without revolution and/or collapse? I’m hard-pressed to think of an example.
One of the (many) dirty little secrets of feminism is that feminism and faux female independence can only really exist alongside both a large welfare state and a police state. The reason for the former is that women can only really get by without relying on men at the personal level if the state forces more redistribution of resources from men to women at the macro level.
A police state is also necessary because women who live separately from men feel more vulnerable to crime and predation, so they look more to the government and big brother to protect them. So hence we have to have more police, more draconian laws to criminalise primarily men, more infringements on due process for (mainly men) accused of crimes etc.
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The welfare state part is a crime against men. The right to feel safe part should be a basic human right. Just sayin.
I have no problem with “authoritarian” behavior. I just want it to be me exerting it, over my own home and family.
One of the biggest lies of feminism is the claim that it is only about women having control over their own lives and bodies, when in reality it is actually about women having control over men.
I’d add, it’s about women controlling reproduction of the species writ large – which controls the men by default through coercion of moral conscience and natural deference towards the “givers of life”. She who controls gestation of the species progeny, has the “authority”.
If she doesn’t want to bring a potential human to term because it inconveniences her life style that’s her perogative, her “right”. While MRA’s fight the windmills of family court, false accusation, gender discrimination, etc. – Feminists fight for the right to abort late term pregnancy and other state’s rights intrusions into abortion policies and practices. Because when women control reproduction, they have the ultimate power; the power of LIFE or DEATH. Hitler, Stalin or Mao and eugenicists throughout history don’t got nothin’ on our independent and empowered liberal female class of Sandra Flukes and their male sycophants.
Even the proud authoritarian Ruler of Russia has to hire an American R & B singing group to inspire his women to reproduce more little Komrads. Russian women want empowerment and independence from men and his children, and the men are obviously fine with that.
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/putin-brings-boyz-ii-men-russian-libido-article-1.1253594
The welfare state part is a crime against men. The right to feel safe part should be a basic human right. Just sayin.
No body has a right to feel safe.
Keyster
Putin should study game and the nature of women. What he needs to do is introduce a nonhormonal male birh control pill and annouce men will decide which women will be mothers. “If the man in your life deams you unworthy no amount of lies will change that.” Knowing women the birth rate will sky rocket because to be a mother will be a huge status symbol of a woman deamed worthy and chosen by a man to be a mother. All of this direct incentive shit to women will never work women don’t sex for supplication.
greyghost:
Putin should study game and the nature of women.
He’s living with the consequences of (Marxist) feminism and the decline of the family structure, much like America and Europe. When you march women off to work for the State in large numbers, (or “empower” them to work, as Amero-Euros have) – your birthrate will decline precipitously over several generations time.
When you support fatherhood for men (opportunities for work) and motherhood for women (nurturing of children), and the family structure, you can at least keep up with the death rate. Now we have men and women competing against each other for work to sustain their “life style choices”, in a society that views children as something “to be burdened with”…or detracting young women from being more like men.
This has never happened before in the history of civilization; the male sex and the female sex competing AGAINST each other for resources, for a livelihood – rather than cooperating as a bonded pair to reproduce at least 2.1 children per couple. Getting married and having children is no longer the biological imperative it once was. “Equality” with men as a group is…while expecting superiority of an individual man more suited to her liking.
Dramatic shifts in demography in the coming decades will set the stage for the Millenia to come and the history of mankind. Yes, there will be great wars again.
Keyster
You have just technically explained why a male pill will work. It sets the dynamic up as the men are the finale say so in motherhood. A large part of the women in careers stuff is the fact that women wrongly assume they will be mothers later.
Also women in competition with men is not ral competition in the west do to double standards to equalize the outcome of the competition in all levels of society. That kind of thing needs to be removed also.
“The welfare state part is a crime against men. The right to feel safe part should be a basic human right. Just sayin.”
WTF? Who the hell has a right to feel safe? Others are not responsible for any individual’s subjective insecurities. Society does not have an obligation to ensure that people never have to experience unpleasant feelings like fear. Do you also have a right to never feel sad, lonely, depressed? Do let me know what other unpleasant feelings people have an inalienable right to never experience.
I am clearly not saying that governments should not apprehend or punish dangerous criminals. But the whole ‘law and order’ meme too easily morphs into more laws and regulations to criminalise more victimless activities and erode due process for those accused of crime. There is a fine line between dealing with real dangerous criminals and creeping authoritarianism. And those who have an excessive fear of crime are easy pray for scaremongering designed to promote more authoritarianism and social control.
GreyGhost said
No body has a right to feel safe.
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Fair enough. I wish I was in a country where I could carry self defense weapons myself.
If you carry a gun you are more likely, not less likely, to get in a gun fight. Better you should avoid activities and places where you are likely to need a gun to defend yourself. I will posit a clear right to have a gun to protect your home. a shotgun is the most effective for that; not a hand gun.
“Feminism needs authoritarianism for obvious reasons: men must be forced by those with more power than they have to submit to the women in their lives. Feminists may sometimes claim to support freedom and democracy, but the smart ones know that both must be curtailed in order to achieve their version of equality.” Do you not know what equality means? It means the state of being equal. It doesn’t mean one party dominates the other. That is a myth about feminism put about by insecure people afraid of losing what little pathetic pockets of power they have.
Patriarchism hurts men. I’m a man and I don’t like it. I don’t want to keep some woman sequestered in a house. I don’t want to live out some mythical version of the 1950s that never existed. I don’t want to enter into submissive/dominant relationships with people.
There cannot be a logical relationship between egalitarianism and authoritarianism, as I have pointed out before. If egalitarianism means anything, it means a breakdown in authoritarianism.
This is part of a deliberate reactionary attempt to pit men against women. Whoever falls for it is an idiot. There is almost nothing one can say about one half of mankind that is not a stereotype and an oversimplification.
If you claim that laws are geared toward women in certain situations, you may have a point. But what on earth does that have to do with the Arab spring? Why do your analyses always lack a wider economic and social context? Just like the paranoid Jew-hater sees the shadowy Jew behind everything, the paranoid woman-hater sees women as the wellspring of all evil. It’s nonsense.
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