Unveiling Muslim women: A trajectory of post-colonial culture

Dialectical Anthropology

Volumn 25, Issue 3-4, 2000, Pages 321-332

  Rahbari, Reza ^a  

^a BRANDON UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

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EID: 34247302349     PISSN: 03044092     EISSN: 15730786     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/a:1011619318503     Document Type: Review

References (66)

1. A collection of works contained in the book Women in the Muslim World, L. Beck and N. Keddie, eds. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978) is a significant current example of this claim. In their introduction to the book the editors argue that "by current Western standards and possibilities something is lacking in the lives of most Middle Eastern Women". They come to conclude that the effective solution for the problems of Muslim women is a break with tradition so that "the majority of women, children, and also men become freer than they are today."
2. F. Fanon, A Dying Colonialism (London: Pelican Books. 1970), p. 26.
3. F. Fanon, A Dying Colonialism (1970), p. Ibid., p. 28.
4. A. Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized (New York: The Orion Press, 1965), pp. 103-104.
5. W.T Ngugi, Decolonizing the Mind (London: James Currey Ltd., 1986), p. 17.
6. W.T Ngugi, Decolonizing the Mind 1986), p. Ibid. p. 29.
7. These anti-colonialist writers' admonishment may find a parallel in the recent feminist critique ofWestern liberalism. According to this critique, beyond the image of the suppressed women, depicted by liberal feminists as culturally condemned to performing less than fully human activities, emerges, as Grimshaw states, "a sort of conception of what is distinctively human." See Philosophy and Feminist Thinking (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1986), p. 39.
8. This notion of self, Ursula Vogel writes, "conceives of women's emancipation as a movement towards already established models of excellence." See "Rationalism and Romanticism: Two Strategies for Woman's Liberation," in Feminism and Political Theory (London: Sage Publications, 1986), p. 34.
9. Aihwa Ong argues that the contempt shown for non-Western women's condition often intersects with the hegemonic world view of Western colonial discourse. In representing non-Western women, against "Western standards and goals - rationality and individualism -, they tend to devaluate the cultures and histories of non-Western societies." See "Colonialism and Modernity: Feminist Re-presentation of Women in Non-Western Societies," in Inscriptions (3/4): 79-94.
10. Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized, p. 120.
11. Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, p. 18.
12. Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized, p. 121.
13. A. Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism (New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1972), p. 21.
14. W.T. Ngugi, Decolonizing the Mind, p. 3.
15. E. Said, "Representing the colonized: Anthropology's Interlocutors," in Inquiry (15) (1989, Winter), p. 207.
16. E Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979).
17. F. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press, Inc. 1968), p. 209
18. Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized.
19. Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, pp. 32-33.
20. K. Marx, Marx and Engels Reader, R.C. Tucker, ed. (New York: W.W.Norton & Company, 1978), p. 476.
21. K. Marx, Marx and Engels Reader, 1978), p. Ibid., p. 339, n. 4.
22. K. Marx, Marx and Engels Reader, 1978), p. Ibid., p. 252.
23. K. Marx, Marx and Engels Reader, 1978), p. Ibid., p. 358.
24. K. Marx, Marx and Engels Reader, 1978), p. Ibid., p. 251.
25. K. Marx, Marx and Engels Reader, 1978), p. Ibid., p. 336.
26. A. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (New York: International Publishers, 1971), p. 261.
27. A. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks 1971), p. Ibid., p. 260.
28. A. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks 1971), p. Ibid., pp. 246, 261.
29. A. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks 1971), p. Ibid., p. 268.
30. A. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks 1971), p. Ibid., p. 242.
31. A. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks 1971), p. Ibid., p. 259.
32. A. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks 1971), p. Ibid., p. 242.
33. A. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks 1971), p. Ibid., p. 247.
34. M. Foucault, History of Sexuality, Vol. 1 (New York: Vintage Books, 1980), p. 82.
35. M. Foucault, History of Sexuality, Vol. 1980), p. 1 Ibid., p. 136.
36. M. Foucault, History of Sexuality, Vol. 1980), p. 1 Ibid., pp. 81, 87.
37. M. Foucault, History of Sexuality, Vol. 1980), p. 1 Ibid., p. 89.
38. M. Foucault, History of Sexuality, Vol. 1980), p. 1 Ibid., p. 144.
39. M. Foucault, History of Sexuality, Vol. 1980), p. 1 Ibid., p. 137.
40. M. Foucault, History of Sexuality, Vol. 1980), p. 1 Ibid., p. 80.
41. M. Weber, Economy and Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), p. 215.
42. M. Weber, Economy and Society 1978), p. Ibid., p. 211.
43. M. Weber, Economy and Society 1978), p. Ibid., pp. 37, 215.
44. M. Weber, Economy and Society 1978), p. Ibid., p. 86.
45. M. Weber, Economy and Society 1978), p. Ibid., p. 88.
46. Ibid.
47. Michel Foucault, "What is Enlightenment?" in P. Rabinow, ed., Foucault Reader (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984).
48. The Use of Pleasure, The History of Sexuality, Volume 2, and The Care of the Self, The History of Sexuality, Volume 3 (New York: Vintage Books, 1985).
49. For Foucault's other works relevant to his concept of ethics see: Michel Foucault, "Preface to The History of Sexuality Volume 2," and "On the Genealogy of Ethics: An Overview of Work in Progress," in Foucault Reader, pp. 333-373.
50. "The Concern for Truth," "An Aesthetic of Existence" and "The Return of Morality", in S. Lotringer, ed., Foucault Live (Interviews, 1966-1984), trans. J. Johnston (New York: Semiotext(e), 1989), pp. 293-331;
51. Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, L.H. Martin, H. Gutman and P. Hutton, eds. (Massachusetts: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1988);
52. The Final Foucault, J. Bernauer and D. Rasmussen, eds. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1988);
53. "About the Beginning of the Hermeneutics of the Self, Two Lectures at Dartmouth," Political Theory 21(2) (May 1993): 198-227.
54. Final Foucault, p. 11.
55. See Foucault Reader, pp. 338-339, 356;
56. The History of Sexuality, Volume 2, p. 10.
57. Foucault characterizes the modern practice of self formation as the hermeneutics of self geared at self-decipherment, and the modern moral self as determined by the ethical force of the will to truth, directed to the individuals' intentions and inclinations. The emerging idea of the moral will entails a moral obligation to tell the truth by verbalizing and communicating thoughts about oneself to others and by presenting the self to the permanent gaze of the other represented by the systems of governance and control. As I have pointed out elsewhere, Foucault's portrayal of modern ethics is both historically inaccurate and irrelevant. In particular, one may question whether the will to truth, as it is claimed by Foucault, has such a generalized binding effect on the modern consciousness? Furthermore, by situating the genealogy of modern ethics in the historical context which begins with the institution of the religious practice of confession, it is not at all clear, once such original impetus has been lost, what precisely has come to replace the motivating force and ascendance of the will to truth in the secularized mind of contemporary individuals. M.R. Rahabri, Modernity and Morality: A Study on the Moral Foundations of Modern Societies in the Works of Durkheim, Weber, Foucault, Habermas and Kant (PhD. Dissertation, Toronto: York University, February 2000 (unpublished)).
58. Cfr. Foucault Reader, p. 350.
59. G.W.F. Hegel, Hegel's Philosophy of Right (Oxford: Oxford University, 1942), p. 235.
60. Ibid.
61. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, pp. 210-211.
62. The entire ethical characteristic of capitalism in its origin, Weber contends, is now replaced by the rationalization of action which in his terms signifies a "deliberate adaptation to situations in terms of self-interest." See The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, translated by A.M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons (New York: Free Press, 1947) p. 123.
63. Weber contends that while in the past a strong ethos and a way of life common to whole groups of people shaped the advent and development of capitalism, today the capitalist system needs no ethical basis and functions purely as a technical and self-perpetuating machine. In this state of affairs the support of religious forces is replaced by the force of the economic determination of life, so that "whoever does not adapt his manner of life to the conditions of capitalist success must go under or at least cannot arise". See The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons 1958), p. 72. This affirmation shows that the "ethical" foundation of contemporary capitalist societies amounts to nothing more than a 'utilitarian' action orientation which as Weber rightly affirms is devoid of inner bonds and thus properly speaking of any sense of morality and moral obligation.
64. See for a relevant literature in Persian, Akbar Ganji, Ghosts' Darkhouse, Pathology of Transition to the Developmental Democratic State (Tehran: Tarh-e No, 1999);
65. The Fascist Interpretation of Religion and Government (Tehran: Tarh-e No, 2000);
66. and Abdollah nouri, Hemlock For Advocate of Reform: The Complete Text of Abdollah Nouri's Defense at the Special Clerical Tribunal (Tehran: Tarh-e No, 2000).