Hmmm... This is the second time in a month or so we've seen something along these lines...
Egyptian author Dr. Nawal Al-Sa'dawi called for amending the Egyptian constitution and eliminating the article that declares Islam to be the official state religion, "because we have among us Copts, and because religion is a matter between man and God and no one has the right to impose his faith, his God and his rituals on others. Therefore, I am one of the die-hard opponents of a religious state, because our God should not be involved in politics in any fashion.
| "Freedom of religion? Blasphemer! She must be killed!" |
"However, the Copts lived happily and in paramount fairness under the wings of Islam," commented the interviewer. Al-Sa'dawi responded: "We are the sons of one homeland, and we are partners in it, so that no one has to live 'under the wings' of anyone else."
| "Subversion! Sedition! We must reason with her, lead her to the path of righteousness! Where's my gun?" |
As for the "Islamic culture," Al-Sa'dawi said that it was "part of a general culture based on Christianity, Judaism, and the Pharaoh's heritage. There is no pure culture, but an intertwined relationship among the cultures. I am against differentiating between a Western culture and an Eastern culture. We live in one culture, which is a culture of capitalism, patriarchy, classes, and inferiority that, regretfully, also uses religion as a tool for domination." Al-Sa'dawi stated that she "knows more about the Koran than Sheikh Al-Sha'rawi: I learned the religions, and compared the Koran with the Torah and the New Testament. Sheikh Al-Sha'rawi never did that; he entrenched himself in the Koran, which is impossible to understand without comparison with other books." Al-Sa'dawi added: "We are defeated intellectually because we do not have creative people. There was always a connection between creativity and rebellion, between creativity and opposition. But we are born, live our lives and die in fear. Therefore, we do not have rebellion and we do not have opposition
Our crisis is at the same time political and cultural. I do not differentiate between politics, economy, culture, feminism, and sex. They are all interrelated and when one central pillar collapses, the whole building collapses." |