Poirot

"Never mind, that the indigenous society in question has existed very well without these offerings for millenia."

On what bases do you make that assumption? The majority of these indigenous societies were not doing "very well" for millenia by our modern standards - they were living in extreme poverty with absolutely no healthcare, clean water, electricity, education or anything similar and they lived in extremely violent societies, effectively under martial law, that were constantly at war with one-another.

We can see this in a place like Somalia, where the West managed to leave its technology (guns and RPGs) to do the work of spears and shields in the ancient tribal warfare that Somalia has seen.

Which leads me to another point - culture is not something that has to be static, necessarily. Culture is fluid, it's constantly changing based on a huge amount of factors. Why is it so wrong to call for the culture of the Middle East to change in order to treat women better?

popnperish,

What you believe is right is not an absolute.
It's your idea - strongly influenced by your own psychological perspective and derived from your own culture.

How do you know that middle-eastern women don't have sense of strength and pride in their lot?
You surmise that they feel downtrodden because you judge their situation from your own reality.

Did you ever suppose that women of other cultures see themselves not as individuals entitled to individual opportunity (as we do in the West), but as a complementary half in the partnership of man and woman in the raising of children?
People of other cultures view things differently.

In any case, how do we know our Western hotch-potch of hastily evolved and cobbled together value judgments are going to stand the tests of time and change?

Peter Hume
What I mean by equal is having equal rights under the law. Obviously there are biological differences between men and women but that's not what I'm talking about.

Poirot
Are you a women? If so, your question is reasonable. If you're a man, there is a whiff of sexism about it. Whatever, I appreciate there are many Muslim women who are reasonably happy with their second class citizenship, particularly if treated well by their husbands, fathers, brothers and sons. But I have read Ayaam Hirsi Ali's two books, 'Infidel' and 'Nomad' and believe her when she says there is a lot of repression and unhappiness amongst Muslim women.

popnperish,

It's interesting that the acceptability of my question with you rests on the distinction of my gender - by the way, I'm a woman.

It's not that I'm totally unsympathetic to yours and eyejaw's points, I'm just extremely wary of the deleterious impact of Western values and practice on other cultures.

NQD,

I agree that culture is not static - nor is its quiet evolution conducive to shocks such as that inflicted by colonialism or its modern equivalent, globalisation.

I make the claim that indigenous societies existed for millenia without these offerings simply on the basis that they are still here.
Man is a warring species, so let's not get precious about conflict in indigenous societies....conflict abounds no matter how "civilised" the protagonists.

Colonial man moved into other cultures for gain and now and modern globalised Western man is continuing the tradition - if there is nothing to gain, he doesn't bother. Hence, his intervention in Iraq and Libya and his total disregard for the plight of Zimbabweans.

Poirot
It all comes down to the question: What is the greater good? Respect for a culture or human (specifically women's)rights? I opt for the latter if there is a conflict.

Poirot

You did not just say "existed", you said "existed very well." Mere survival does not constitute existing "_very well_". Of course colonialism was a selfish enterprise, but it was based on a completely different system of morality from the one we hold today, it was a morality that prized nationhood above all else and did not believe in the concept of the "inherent dignity of man" or "human rights", but rather say things like rights as endowed by citizenship and statehood - you had the rights that your state provided and the more powerful your state was, the more rights you held.

It is important to remember that this did lead to the idea of human rights, as people without a state were eventually recognised to have some form of rights too. For all its flaws, colonialism led to the situation we have today, where we mostly recognise some universal rights, one of these being the right of women to be treated equally and be given equal opportunity.

Linking in to your discussion with popnperish, the flaw in your argument is that while it may be true that some women in the Middle East enjoy their status, they never had a choice in the matter and the ones that don't want to be mothers and homemakers have to just suffer.

The Western, colonial mentality that gave rise to a global culture which tries to alleviate these sorts of conditions would give them the choice - if they want to be in a partnership with their husband forming a nuclear family unit, so be it. If they instead choose to be the CEO of a bank or the president of their country, they could do that too. In Saudi Arabia at the moment, they can't even be in the driver's seat of a car. I don't see how any amount of cultural relativism and respect for indigenous practise could justify that.