[Anarchafeminists] WLUML statement on Libya. Please circulate widely

[Gail Chester]

>Forwarded from the international Women in Black list by Cynthia Cockburn, who says, 'I think it is important to see WLUML's (Women Living Under Muslim Law) views on the Libyan transition.'


>From: marieme Women Living Under Muslim Laws 
>Statement on Libya 25 October 2011


>WLUML is deeply concerned that the first public 
>act of the Libya's National Transition Committee 
>has been to proclaim on October 23rd, 2011, that 
>henceforth, a number of laws will be considered 
>annulled and that 'sharia law' is to replace 
>them. Libyaâ?Ts National Transition Committee is 
>an interim government ­ what it has 
>responsibiility for ­ and what its first action 
>should have conceerned, is to put into place a 
>mechanism for elections for the new government 
>after the fall of the Gaddafi regime. WLUML 
>feels the urgent need to reflect and raise a 
>number of questions regarding this statement on 
>â?~sharia lawâ?T: First, if we accept that 
>democracy means the law of the people expressed 
>through their votes, it is disturbing that the 
>first act of this transitional government (which 
>has denounced and follows a very autocratic 
>one), is governing by decree, rather than by 
>consulting the people through democratic means. 
>Laws should not be annulled by the will of a 
>ruler or rulers; they should be changed after 
>due democratic consultation, by the will and 
>vote of the people. Doing otherwise is to 
>replace one undemocratic ruler by another, and 
>to confuse democracy with monarchy, autocracy or 
>oligarchy. WLUML will support any move by 
>independent Libyan women organizations to demand 
>that democratic rules be applied. Second, when 
>we consider which laws have been de facto 
>annulled and changed for religious ones, we see 
>that these are laws that directly affect the 
>rights of women in marriage, divorce, 
>guardianship, polygamy, inheritance, etc... i.e. 
>family codes or laws of personal status. Women 
>are directly targeted by this change in laws and 
>will lose many acquired rights in the process. 
>Finally, what is this 'sharia law' being invoked 
>in the Libyan statement? WLUML knows from its 
>own research* that laws said to be Islamic, 
>considered in conformity with 'sharia' vary 
>enormously from country to country - hence 
>proving they are man-made rather than God-given. 
>Furthermore they include elements from culture 
>and traditions that have nothing to do with 
>religion, as well as colonial laws when these 
>best suit the interests of local patriarchy. 
>This is how local traditions such as muta'a 
>marriage or FGM (female genital mutilation) are 
>adopted as part and parcel of â?~religion.â?T 
>This is also how the newly independent Algeria 
>in the 1960s deprived its women citizens of any 
>access to contraception and abortion, using a 
>long abandoned French law dating from 1922. And, 
>in Mali, the family law voted by the Parliament 
>in 2009, provoked such an outcry by conservative 
>Muslim organizations for alleged non-conformity 
>to â?~sharia,â?T that notwithstanding the 
>democratic vote and the support of 
>non-conservative Muslims ­ including women and 
>secularists, the President suspended it sine 
>die. Here again, what is democracy and 'sharia' 
>in a country that has also signed women's rights 
>international conventions? >From the religious 
>point of view alone, the Qur'an itself can be 
>read in >different ways: Tunisia took the 
>historic decision in 1956 to forbid >polygyny 
>(aka polygamy), as legislators pointed out that 
>the Qur'an clearly >indicated both that equal 
>treatment between wives is required and that 
>it >was not possible for a man to treat several 
>women perfectly equally; >Algeria in 1962 used 
>the same verse to allow a man to have 4 wives 
>and >legitimize polygamy. Which of these 
>contradictory interpretations is >'sharia'? We 
>denounce the loose use of the term 'sharia' to 
>give a false religious legitimacy to patriarchal 
>interpretations of religion, as well as to 
>patriarchal traditions. WLUML calls on women's 
>organizations and progressive people around the 
>world to remain alert to the contradictions 
>between pretending to be a democracy and 
>decreeing the application of undefined religious 
>laws. We also call for the utmost protest when 
>governments and political groups justify their 
>patriarchal moves in the name of 'sharia'. * 
>Knowing Our Rights: Women, family, laws and 
>customs in the Muslim world - 3rd edition, 
>London, 2006, http://www.wluml.org/node/588 
>_______________________________________________ 
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