Mernissi Goes West
"Haram is what religious law forbids... But evidently, when crossing the frontier to the West, the Arabic word "harem" lost its dangerous edge... Westerners had their harem and I had mine, and the two had nothing in common" (Mernissi 12) When Fatema Mernissi traveled to Europe to promote her new book she came to the realization that outside the Arab world, the word harem took a new meaning. To the west it meant a "peaceful pleasure garden where omnipotent men reign supreme over obedient...[sexually available] women." And while Mernissi's interaction came from personal experiences and historical reality, the "Western Harem" was built and molded by artistic images from famous painters such as Picasso and Delacroix as well as "Hollywood moviemakers, who portrayed harem women as scantily clad belly-dancers happy to serve their captors." While Mernissi's approach to understanding the Western view on the Muslim culture did not serve the same purpose as Edward Said's distorted lens, at the end it seems to be an image of it.When she was young, Fatema Mernissi learned from her grandmother, that "You must focus on the strangers you meet and try to understand them. The more you understand a stranger [as well as yourself]... the more power
"(22) Mernissi assures that there is not doubt by the Muslim people, that equality is a part of the Koran, the problem is that Shari' a, because sexual inequality is rooted in it. According to Mernissi, "while Muslim men describe themselves as insecure in their harems. But thus far, no fundamentalist leader has been able to convince his supporters to renounce Islam's central virtue - the principle of strict equality between human beings, regardless of sex, race, or creed"(22). But by applying Said's lens we are able to see that the view of Western journalists was shaped by fictitious paintings from the West's finest painters, and operaras, as well as "Hollywood. What is debated is whether Shari' a, the law inspired by the Koran, can or cannot be changed. receiving sexual pleasure without resistance. But despite of extremism, women have emerged as strong political figures in countries such as Pakistan, Turkey , and Indonesia. from the women they reduced to slaves. "Fear of women and male self-doubt- is missing the Western harem. "But even the most fervent extremists never argue that women are inferior, and Muslim women are raised with a strong sense of equality"(23) Even though women are raised with this strong sense of equality, Western cultures still believe that women have an inexistent role in Muslim society. therefore unlikely to enthusiastically satisfy their captors' desires.
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Acceptance Essays
