Senator Jaffer speaks before Standing Comm: Foreign Affairs & Int'l Trade
Date: Thu, 03 Jun 2004 16:04:15 -0700
We're going to Mrs. Jaffer. I just want to let our members know that she was once a special envoy of our Prime Minister in Sudan.
Mrs. Jaffer.
The Honourable Mobina Jaffer (Senator from British Columbia, Lib.:
Thank you very much.
Bismi Allahi alrrahmani alrraheemi, in the name of Allah, all humanity, we have created you from a single pair of male and female and made you into nations and tribes so that you may know each other. That is chapter 49, verse 13 of the Koran.
The Koran asserts the universal essence of humanity on the one hand, and on the other its diversity in terms of individuality, gender, nations, and tribes. The reason for this distinctiveness is so we may know each other.
The Koran also recognizes plurality, and its awareness is encouraged so we can see the essence that unites humanity. A common purpose and understanding can be achieved only through acceptance and knowledge of diversity. In fact, the creator can be known only through the diversity of Her creation.
Honourable Chair, thank you very much for asking me to come before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade to speak on the subject of Canada's relations with Muslim countries. As a Muslim woman, it is my privilege to appear before you on this very important issue.
I am an Ismaili Muslim woman and my spiritual leader is His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan, the 49th hereditary imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims. As you know, the two major sects of Islam are Shias and Sunnis. The Ismailis constitute one of the Shia sects.
I have prepared a title page that I am hoping... and may I be so presumptuous as to ask you when you travel to countries to look at how women are being treated. I have them in French and English, if I may pass them out. My title page, which I would like you to look at when you travel across the many countries, has on it what education is provided, choices, interpretation of the Koran, and then what reaches equality for women.
The bridges that we have built between Canadians and Muslim countries are growing stronger and more numerous. Canada is very well respected in Muslim countries for its multicultural policies, its consideration towards citizens from all civilizations, its desire to build sustainable partnerships with them and its commitment to pluralism.
Canada's commitment to pluralism is truly unique and serves as a model to the rest of the world.
I was asked to speak to you today about my own experience as a Muslim woman.
I will begin by telling you a bit about my past. I grew up in colonial Uganda, a non-Muslim country, and I still remember very clearly the day when, at the age of four, I was physically removed from a school for white children. I can still see the anger on my father's face. I heard him say: "I will build an even better school for girls, for my daughters".
Education. With the assistance of His Highness the Aga Khan, my father built Aga Khan Kindergarten, a school that continues to exist and at which my sister, Bergees, a Canadian teacher, recently taught. From Aga Khan kindergarten I went to Aga Khan primary school, where every day I would see a picture of my grandfather, whose portrait is still hanging there and who made a substantial contribution to that school. My secondary education was at Aga Khan secondary school. The Aga Khan financed all Aga Khan schools, which continue to exist in East Africa today.
I believe my teachers, whom the Aga Khan personally chose in Britain, were some of the best in the world. As a child, it was ingrained in me that education was the key to freedom and an independent life. The previous Aga Khan, Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah, had emphasized on numerous occasions that if you have school fees for one child and you have a boy and a girl, educate the girl, as by educating the girl you educate a family.
As a young girl, I looked up to Afghani and Iraqi women doctors, as well as Iranian women professionals, who came to work in Uganda. We aspired to go to Lebanese and Iranian universities. Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and even Egypt, were places where women were encouraged to be professionals.
Education was seen as a way to be independent, and it was to be my own salvation. All that I was able to bring with me as a refugee from Uganda was my education. By fleeing Idi Amin's tyranny, I had lost all my assets, including certificates of education, but I had my education. My education was portable.
That is why I believe today that the area where our country will be best able to leave its mark is the education of girls in Muslim countries. An overview is contained in appendix A of my brief. I have prepared in both French and English something that I would like you to look at because of the limited time, as to what exists in the different Muslim countries.
As for headdresses, as a child I saw my grandmother and other women around me abandoning long dresses and headdresses. The world for women was opening up. We were being integrated into mainstream society.
My mother was the first Muslim woman in East Africa to complete university. After she married, she studied in England and at Kent State University in the U.S., and my father raised six children in Uganda. She is presently a social worker in British Columbia.
In my world, whether I was living in Uganda or studying in England or the
U.S., I saw only a few elderly Muslim women wearing the hijab. It was a time when we did not need to identify ourselves as Muslim women.
Paris Match magazine asked the Aga Khan about the hijab: What does the Aga Khan, a Europeanized Muslim, think about the debate on the wearing of the Islamic scarf in France?
He responded: How do you expect me to forbid someone from openly associating themselves with their religion? The law today is acting on the form, not the underlying significance of this practice. One should not impose oneself in an aggressive manner, but should live serenely within one's faith. If pressuring someone to change their beliefs is considered offensive, why should someone change their beliefs just because these beliefs consist of a free individual right? The separation of religion and state implies multiculturalism before anything else.
Then, suddenly, as I became an adult, doors started closing for Muslim women. Historians may tell you differently, and I of course will defer to them, but for me, the world of Muslim women changed with the Iranian revolution, when it was decreed that women had to wear headgear and could not exhibit any hair. Women were thrown into the notorious Evin prison if they did not comply. As a refugee lawyer in Uganda, I have represented many of these women. We began to see our world through the purdah and the burqa.
There was a rise of fundamentalism.
The Aga Khan addressed this issue of fundamentalism when he stated: If fundamentalism means the destabilization of a society, I am certainly opposed to it. We have taken up the annoying habit of linking each sporadic act of terrorism to the Muslim world. It is a painful confusion.
The Muslim world is made up of 1 billion believers, living in 30 to 40 countries, speaking 500 languages and dialects, people who come from countries which became Muslim some at the time of the Prophet, others 300 years later some speaking Arabic, others that do not. There is no Islamic entity where 1 billion believers interpret and practice their faith in the same manner. The truth is that you from the west, perceive so badly the Muslim world, that you judge it as though it was only one single block. We have a better understanding of you in the west than you do of us, because you colonized and governed us for some period of time. The destabilizing activities are a reality, but are minor compared to the mass of silent believers that we are.
It is sort of like if I said "The IRA commits acts of terrorism in England; therefore, all Catholics are dangerous terrorists." You tend to confuse the religion of people and their political goals. While many fundamentalists have clear and precise political objectives, far less often are their objectives uniquely centered about proselytizing. In some cases even, the West has gone as far as peddling their own ideologies by manipulating the Mujahedeen to remove the Soviets from Afghanistan, and have used extremists to counter the communist threat. The free western world must establish a distinction between political ambitions and the religion of Islam. It cannot be denied that the ideological frustrations of the Algerians, the Jordanians or the Libyans have created extremist movements, but this should not smear the credibility of the entire Muslim world.
In the discussions that you will have in Muslim countries, I would encourage you to ask the questions about education that I have included at the end of my brief, and also about the choices made on behalf of women. Are women themselves making these choices or are they being made for them by others?
Indeed, Muslim women do suffer in the hands of bearded fanatics who drape themselves in the cloak of Islam, yet the position of these zealots is untenable when weighed against the tenets of the faith.
The Koran recognizes the various capacities of women. Examples of these include the tender conversation between God and the Mother of Moses when she is asked to give up her son in order to protect his life so that he may liberate the oppressed. Before his mother places him on the River Nile, she satisfies the nurturing instinct of a mother by feeding him first.
A similar example is the gentle and intimate exchange in the Koran between the Creator and Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Whilst all alone, Mary exclaims that she wished she were dead as a result of the prolonged pains of labour at childbirth. The Creator consoles her by urging her to drink and to eat fruit provided for her and assures her that the pain will come to pass.
The leadership and diplomatic virtues of the Queen of Sheba are also extolled as she deals with King Solomon. She is shown as a ruler in her own right, and there is much that any female leader, Muslim or not, can learn from her example. She makes many decisions through consensus and guides her male advisers. Her ruling out war against King Solomon in order to protect her people, despite the obvious might of her armies, demonstrates some of 0the characteristics of the female leader described in the Koran.
For many non-Muslims and Muslims alike, the majority of whom do not read classical Arabic, these parts of the Koran are revealing and conveniently ignored by Muslim fanatics that are often portrayed in the popular media.
The one question that we all have to ask is who interprets the Koran in the Muslim faith?
Lastly, the question remains, who in society interprets the shariah law?
Only a small fraction of those who call themselves Muslims can read in their mother tongue, and even fewer can read Arabic. Many educated young people are literate in the language of the society they grow up in: Russian in the central Asian republics of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kurdistan, Chinese in Xinjiang and other Chinese provinces, and English and French in some parts of Africa and Southeast Asia.
There is a sad legacy of colonization. Many Muslims, if they wish to follow
shariah law, are dependent on a small class of elite men to interpret the Koran.
You will, of course, see on your travels that women are notably absent in the historical development of shariah law. This absence is a function of a culture of patriarchy that has reached many faiths and societies.
The struggle for the rights of women is not isolated to one sector of humanity, but should be a collective cause, irrespective of religious orientation.
The cause of the rights of women is the cause that requires the participation of men. Men should rightly act to protect the rights of their mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters. What thinking parent would cripple the future of their daughter or son by denying her or him the best education possible? I believe it is only when women are educated that they will have choices that will enable them to interpret the Koran, which will in turn empower them to attain equality.
This committee's assessment of Muslim countries and Canada's relationships with them will be exceptionally important. It will assist Canada to build partnerships with Muslim communities, foster a greater understanding of the diverse and different cultures in the Muslim world, and build a solid relationship based on harmony and trust.
I respectfully suggest that you ask the same questions of women and minorities in these countries, as you will help our country and others in developing foreign policies that will ensure enduring partnerships.
I have perhaps been presumptuous, but I have prepared some questions in English and French on the status of women in those countries. I will distribute these, which you may want to carry with you when you go to the different countries.
As a Muslim woman, and as the first Muslim senator in this country,
I want to thank you tremendously for the study you are carrying out, because I believe this study will not only help us in Canada but will also help people across the world.
Recently, I was asked by the European Parliament to present a paper on liberalism and fundamentalism which I also have here for your perusal in both languages.
Lastly, what I would like to leave with you is that the work you are doing is very important; you are not only building harmony in our country but also harmony in the world, for which I commend you.
I want to leave one thought with you. When I was little and practicing the piano, I never enjoyed music, so I would annoy my grandmother and mother by sometimes just playing on the black keys and sometimes just on the white keys. It was only when I was preparing this paper that I really understood what my grandmother was trying to tell me. To build real harmony, you have to play on both the black and white keys; you have to understand both the Muslim and the Christian world.
Thank you very much
Senator Jafer / Pluralism
Just wondering about the 'Her' used to refer to the creator. There has been a big debate about refering god as 'He'. It is said because of the male dominance and all the prophets been male have made god to be 'Male'.In fact, the creator can be known only through the diversity of Her creation.
Any views on this..........
Creator - a she
According to the Ginanic vision, Gur Bhrama(Nur-e- Nabuwaah or the Pir) is the Creator. The Pir is our spiritual mother and in this sense, the Creator is a 'she'. I am not sure though whether in this particular context it is considered in that manner.