hello full moon - this is a very open, straightforward post saying what i feel....
my mind is very open - that is why i came on this site so that i could get opinions directly from Muslims rather than newspapers (see my first post). but although i feel one should be courageous in life i don't believe one should be foolhardy.
i never, ever blame the victim in cases of rape - it must be an horrific thing to have happen to one yet there are some cases where although i feel absolute sympathy and horror for what the woman has had to go through --- i also feel that the situation was avoidable.
for an example, this poor girl (and i DO sympathise with her, really i do) went to interview some Afghan Muslims who were trying to illegally get into the UK. she went to talk to four of them, on her own, at night in a field near the border in Calais - and she was raped. i am so, so, so sorry for her but i think it was foolhardy, really deliberately putting knowledge you have of certain cultures and risks to the side for no reason.
People may say that is racist or Muslimist or whatever - but you know what people do it all the time! and it depends not on the individual but on the understanding of that culture and the tendencies within it... if you, as a woman, was standing in London waiting for the tube late at night and you saw one carriage with a lone man and one with a lone woman - which would you choose???
does that make you sexist? does it mean that the woman is necessarily a better person than the man. for all you know the man could be a saint. but judgement is NECESSARY for personal safety.
what i understand, so far, about Muslim countries can only be based on what i have read about them. i would consider going to a Muslim country if (and only if) I had a male escort whereas i would be happy to (and have travelled) to any other country including so-called "third world" places.
does that make me close-minded --- i do not believe so. i am prepared to listen to all you have to say about it. i am also prepared to listen to what i hear/read in the newspapers --- neither point of view i can verify, can I? so when i read about women being spat on for walking into a restaurant alone in Saudi or when i read about a child of fourteen being buried in a hole in the ground in Somalia and pleading for her life while fifty men stone her head and another one thousand look on... her crime being that she reported a rape but didn't have the four necessary "witnesses" (as if) and is therefore being stoned to death for adultery.
is it sensible then to put myself, as a lone traveling woman, into that sort of culture? i do not believe so - so i choose not to. but with the caveat mentioned above that this is a decision based only on what information i have been able to have access to!
as i said above - how can i know otherwise? you now inform me (indirectly perhaps) that i will be fine as you were fine. well, that i will bear in mind as i bear the other information in mind.
i am aware that i cannot have all the facts but i would castigate myself - not just my attacker if i chose to travel in a Muslim country alone and was attacked, regardless of the fact that i was the victim because one should NOT be foolhardy.
beyond that, without the necessary four witnesses i am unlikely to get justice and/or worse may happen to me if i try to. this is a decision based on the facts i have, that's it.
you may call it emotional - but it is not "emotional". it is cultural. many of my friends are "jains" - these are people who believe in non-violence to the extent that some still wear cloth over their mouth so as not to inhale insects and indirectly kill them and also sweep the path in front of them for a similar reason.... culturally they shrink from violence to both animals and humans. but just one look on this forum and you can be well aware that Muslims do not shrink from violence - sorry to pick on curioustraveler but quotes such as "he is off to kill infidels - good on him" come to mind. or even your own posts (i think) where you only lament the deaths of Muslims as opposed to others or infidel or however one likes to phrase it as a Muslim?
of course, people are individuals but individuals are influenced by their culture. i have read in Iran that when they arrested the women who were not conforming to the sharia law after the ayatollah got in - they would not directly kill them because of some hadith (or something) that said it was illegal to kill a virgin.... so the officers would forcibly marry the girl, rape her and then kill her.
this is the issue - not the individuals - but the culture of law. i read about a man who killed his own daughter in Afghanistan because she had grown fond of (no intimacy of any sort was ever suggested - the man was married and uninterested) her superior in the charity for which she worked and he was English. It is not so much that her father killed her (that can happen anywhere - as you point out) it was the fact that he was LET OFF. no punishment. it was accepted that he did the right thing and he sits there (in the article) happy and proud that he did it.
that's the issue for me - that in the eyes of the law, it just isn't a problem to kill or rape a woman. the individuals are not the point.
and that as a woman the law itself is against you - this became a huge international case so i am sure you know of it already but only because she sought to fight against it: that young girl whose brother committed a crime and the punishment was for seven men to rape his sister!
that is a legal punishment!!! and yet you think i am close-minded for saying i would not choose to travel in a Muslim country on my own?
?
i know what i do think. what i think is that i will not travel in a Muslim country on my own. regardless of how nice certain individuals may be - i believe it would be fool-hardy to do that.
i understand that plenty of women live in Muslim countries and therefore it is not an obviously impossible situation. and rape happens all over the world - as does violence - as do many unpleasant things but knowing what i know (only from second-hand reports in newspapers etc.) i would not choose to travel there. travelling relies on a degree of trust - you are often vulnerable and trusting on others... you also need to be aware of cultural differences. therefore whilst i was very happy to hitch-hike in Australia (and had nothing but great experiences) i would NEVER have chosen to hitch-hike in America because it is "unusual" whereas when i travelled in Australia many people did it and many people picked up hikers too... in America, i think normal people do not stop for hikers (or hitchhike) and therefore you put yourself at risk.
I am happy to go and eat in restaurants on my own - all over Europe and America and India and other places - but i know of a friend of my mother's who went to Pakistan on her way back from a posting in China (she worked for the foreign office), she is tiny and French and was meeting another foreign office colleague. Well, the colleague said she would come to pick her up in a few hours after she got off work so my mother's friend (this was in the '70s) thought she would wander out to see some of Islamabad (i think it was) and she had hardly got out the front door when children (CHILDREN!!!) started throwing stones at her because she was wearing trousers and a shirt and no headscarf. this is cultural! this is nothing to do with individuals - it is having a sense that it is OK to harm, to be violent, that's it. that is what i see.
i am open - i am very open to hear other points of view that's why i joined this site...............
