Sorry, We Could Not Quite Find The Time For Sexual Revolution!
By Deniz Bozkurt
12 January, 2015
Countercurrents.org
Last week Germany was shaken with the news arriving from Cologne about a spree of sexual assaults against women perpetrated by about 1,000 Middle-Eastern and North-African-looking, drunk men gathered around the main train station and the cathedral of Cologne on New Year’s Eve. Reportedly, of the 379 reports filed by women in Cologne almost 40% were sexual crimes, including two accounts of rape.Among the 32 suspects of the attacks, which were followed by the suspension of the police chief of Cologne, are 22 asylum seekers.
The incident itself is terrifying enough, however the keywords that made the incident even more debated have been Middle Easterner, North African, andasylum seeker. Germany has already been witnessing strong anti-immigrant sentiment ever since late-2014 when the numbers of asylum applications to Germany rose by 60% due to the ongoing wars in Syria and Libya. The anti-immigrant sentiment has represented itself with the weekly—sometimes even more often—marches held by the “xenophobic” (quoting Merkel) group called Pegida (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West), which demanded more restrictive immigration laws. The demonstrations of the group have so far been concentrated mostly in East German cities like Dresden, Berlin and Leipzig. However, after the attacks in Cologne the group organized a march in the city which took place on January, 9.
Of course, Pegida and anti-immigrant sentiment is only one side of the country. There are popular pro-immigration groups, which beside holding counter-demonstrations against Pegida each week, have created projects like refugees-welcome. The German government, until now, has been very welcoming, as well. Both sides of the coalition—Merkel’s Christian Democratic CDU/CSU and Social Democrat SPD, agreed upon receiving asylum-seekers to the country despite some disagreements about limits, quotas and conditions. With her strong stance on the immigration crisis, Angela Merkel did not mind receiving harsh criticism and even hostility from other member countries of the European Union, especially after the Paris attacks. Yet,even her strong stance seems to have diminished: On Saturday January, 9, her party CDU announced their support forthe idea of tightening the law on refuges committing serious crimes, in response to the public outrage following the Cologne attacks.
German extreme-right and anti-immigrant groups seem to gloat over the attacks as a confirmation of their xenophobic ideas against asylum-seekers arriving from Muslim countries. Their blogs and online newspapers are filled with articles and comments that tie the attacks to the inherent and inexorable evil in every Muslim. Yet this connection is not only found in the writings by extremists, xenophobic, and Islamophobic.An editor of Deutsche Welle, the state-run broadcasting service of Germany, clearly writes that many young men arriving from Muslim countries would consider German women, “who can go out at night, dance and drink” to be whores, and their integration to German society would require more than translating the constitution into Arabic.
Furthermore, the events in Cologne appear to reveal the unspoken hesitancies in the minds of pro-refugee individuals with regard to newly-arriving Muslims to the country. Being a Turkish citizen, I am often met with the politically-corrected and nicely-polished rhetoric of my European friends and acquaintances in topics regarding the Middle East and Islam. But ever since the Cologne attacks, some, relying on the mutual trust and understanding we have developed, have expressed their frustration and concerns regarding the issue, which derives from their daily experiences, as well as from what they have been reading in the media about Islamic countries. The behavior of young male refugees in daily life, the lustful look in their eyes, the lack of refugee women in social life are all matters of discussions that eventually lead to the idea that Islam is essentially evil and sexist.
I have no intention, whatsoever, to defend Islam against all these accusations. Personally, I am strongly convinced that Islam is sexist, its teachings are an insult to any woman. Arriving at this conclusion did not really take me too long, having spent almost a quarter of a century in a country which has become more and more radically Islamized confirmed my belief on a daily basis. But, I have to add that my antipathy towards Islam is not less than my antipathy towards any other religion and dogma: the fatwa of the head of Religious Affairs Administrations of Turkey claiming that being sexually aroused by your biological daughter is not a sin sickens me no less than the scandal of Domspatzen.
And I have no desire to defend the guilty. Anyone who threatens, let alone abuses, people sexually should be severely punished with no exception. My aim is to demonstrate that neither rape culture nor radical Islam would be the destiny of Middle-Eastern and North-African countries, without Western intervention and support.
Let me begin with brief recent histories of the relationship between the US and the countries that are most strongly associated with radical Islam in Western minds.
Saudi Arabia, for example, has been one of the firmest allies of the US in the region since mid-1940s, when Saudi Arabia found itself vulnerable to attacks by Axis powers. By then, the vastness of Saudi Arabian oil resources had already been discovered, which whetted the appetite of the US. Eventually, Washington decided that it was for its own interest to provide Saudi Arabia with military protection in exchange for free access to Saudi oil. This scenario would also prevent the spread Soviet influence in Saudi Arabia, which was for the benefit of both parties. Although the countries have recently experienced some controversy over Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iraq war and after 9/11, the two countries have remained strong allies until today. It was only a year ago that Obama praised the late Saudi king Saud—who had over 30 wives—as a “candid leader.”
It sounds like a ‘normal’ example of international relations, forming alliances over economics and military, as long as one disregards the accounts claiming Saudi Arabia has been supporting ISIS, just like it was argued that the country was behind 9/11. But let’s for a minute forget about supporting ISIS or 9/11 and remember that the official Saudi religion is Wahhabism, a very strict branch of Sunni Islam that both ISIS and Saudi Arabia follow. The atrocity of Wahhabi practices is well summarized by Kamel Daoud: “Black Daesh [ISIS], white Daesh [Saudi Arabia]. The former slits throats, kills, stones, cuts off hands, destroys humanity’s common heritage and despises archaeology, women and non-Muslims. The latter is better dressed and neater but does the same things.”
Well, Saudi Arabia is not the only example, of course. Probably the most striking history of Western support for radical Islam at the expense of secularism comes from Afghanistan. One may agree or disagree with the Saur Revolution, and claim that Soviet presence in the country was imperialistic or its support for the PDPA was too dangerous—a claim that I would by no means support. No matter what one’s stance on the issue is it should be acknowledged that the Saur Revolution overthrew a monarch and established a republic, where secularism and women rights were major, if not main, concerns of the government. What is still being called the communist oppression in Afghanistan back then was mostly the repression of reactionary political Islamists.
But neither secularism nor women rights could be established in the country, since a civil war broke out between the government forces—later to be supported by the Soviet troops—and the US-aided reactionaries, namely the mujahedeen. Mujahedeen won the war against the Soviets, yet their armies soon turned their US provided arms against the dear ally of the US, Saudi Arabia, and then, the US itself. Oh, have I forgotten to mention that the mujahedeen of Afghanistan, led by Osama bin Laden, were the predecessors of the Islamist fundamentalist groups like al-Qaeda and Taliban? My mistake.
One might, as well, wonder what American support for radical Islam has to do with Germany or any other European country—very legitimate question, indeed. Though I believe that only pointing at their firm alliance with the US both during and after Cold War would be sufficient to create a link between them and the support for radical Islam simply by neglecting it; January, 15th, 1980 would demonstrate something greater than negligence, a real contribution to the US support to mujahedeen
by England, France and West Germany.
Many other instances, instances from current events, from the ongoing war in Syria to rapid Islamisation of Turkey may be explained in relation to Western support or negligence. It is not my intention to discuss each and every example, and come to a simple conclusion that says Western governments are to blame. The picture is a lot more complex than this. Yes, Islam is a religion that oppresses women, and Quran explicitly says that women are inferior to men. But so does the Bible. However, while traditionally Christian countries have found the democratic and peaceful environments to revision themselves in accordance with the novelties of modernity and achieve more or less a secular understanding, they have supported the crudest practitioners of Islam in other geographies to maintain their economic and political interests, which eventually prevented the emergence of secular understandings or continuity of the existing ones in those regions.
Hence it came to a point where the prophecy of the ‘colonizer’ fulfills itself: Neither Middle Easterners nor North Africans are essentially sexual oppressors, harassers or rapists. The dogmatic world view and the cruelty towards women are not the inevitable fate of these geographies. They are simply the results of a colonial history followed by the promotion of radical Islam against anything that goes against western interests. So is the “refugee crisis” we are facing now. Even though the attacks in Cologne and other cities are abysmal, they are the effect of a history which did not constitute a safe background and time for sexual revolution.
Deniz Bozkurt is currently a student of the Masters program in American Studies at the University of Leipzig, Germany. Her previous publications include articles and translations from dissident voices for the Turkish newspaper Birgün.