Freakin' Fundamentalists: Stonings here, lashings there, misogyny everywhere

"I swore never to be silent whenever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented"

— Elie Weisel

The freakin' fundamentalists are at it again. This time, in Somalia, where the stoning of women goes on unabated. On November 18, a 20-year-old divorcee who, because she had a boyfriend, was stoned to death for "adultery". (Yes, these wackos call it "adultery", even if a person is divorced.) On November 6, it was a 33-year-old man who was stoned to death for adultery. His girlfriend is scheduled to be killed the same way once she gives birth. Last year, these same fanatics murdered a 13-year-old girl for "adultery" after she was gang-raped. And one thousand people turned up to cheer—or at least watch—the killing.

Yeah, I know Islam is really a religion of love and compassion and all that. Only problem is, like with all other religions, whenever fundamentalists take power, it's anything but. Believe me, love and compassion rarely have anything to do with justice in places like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, the Taliban-controlled areas of Pakistan, and parts of Nigeria that have introduced Sharia law.

Of course, the average Muslim is not a fanatic. Some of the best times of my life have been had with Muslim friends in Muslim countries such as Turkey, Syria, Indonesia, and Malaysia. And some of the nicest and most hospitable people I've ever met have been Muslim, both in Muslim-majority nations—like those just mentioned—and in countries such as India and Sri Lanka, and, especially, in Xinjiang, western China.

Almost everybody my wife and I got to know in these countries were believers. But they were moderate, rational, compassionate, and they sure as hell weren't into stoning people to death.

However, the fact is that many people in the Muslim world are ruled by fanatical fundamentalist regimes. And I have no tolerance for such vile oppression and injustice, particularly not in the name of religion.

It may not be politically correct to speak truthfully about this subject, but the truth itself is not always politically correct, now is it?

Again, I repeat, I have no problem with your typical everyday religious believer, no matter what their religion. My problem is with any and all fundamentalists.

And you better believe that it's not just Muslim fundamentalists I think are messed up. Fundamentalist Jews, Christians, and Hindus are all, it would seem, obsessed with medieval forms of punishment, human relations, and life. We're talking about forms of faith where hate, anger, and Tarantino-esque vengeance seems to drive everything.

A few examples:

- Ayatollah Khomeini (and Cat Stevens, for that matter) condemning Salman Rushdie to death for a few passages in a book he (they) took to be blasphemous.

- American Evangelist Pat Robertson getting in touch with his inner misogynist while stating that, "Feminism is a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians."

- Pat's fellow Evangelist Jerry Falwell letting lose with a few beliefs of his own, these ones in the more homophobic vein: "Homosexuals are brute beasts" and, "This vile and satanic system will one day be utterly annihilated and there'll be a celebration in heaven". He added, “AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals, it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals”.

- Then there are the Jewish fundamentalists (Orthodox Jews) in Israel who take to the streets to stone passing cars and their drivers for operating a vehicle on the Sabbath.

-Or how about the Hindu fanatics in India tearing down ancient mosques, igniting orgies of rioting, and going on paths of killing and destruction?

- Finally, in a seemingly more innocuous example, though possibly the most destructive of all, take your Catholic fundamentalists. I'm not talking about the fringe extremists like Mel Gibsons' dad, with their pre-Vatican II beliefs in a Latin Mass and their passionate antisemitism. No, I was thinking more along the lines of, say, the Pope.

As the population of Africa continues to grow uncontrollably, having doubled in the past 27 years to a total of one billion people today, the Pope continues to mindlessly condemn all forms of birth control, showing absolutely no concern for the coming humanitarian catastrophe. There’s also his opposition to the use of condoms in the fight against AIDS.

Now if that isn't doctrinaire fundamentalism—placing archaic, irrelevant church doctrine above all else, including human lives—what is?

Sexual Obsession
If there's something every fundamentalist—no matter their religion—has in common, it's an obsession with one thing above all else: sex.

To get back to the Somali stonings, imagine killing someone, particularly in such a horrific way, simply for some act of consensual sex. Or, even worse, for the "crime" of being raped. "Barbaric" is an over-used word, but sometimes it really is the only one that fits.

It's A Man's Man's World
Of course, these same nimrods who execute people, mainly women, for "illicit" sex are all too willing to rape others in times of war. Though, strangely, in such cases they never seem to want to execute themselves for the crime of adultery, or even rape.

Let's be clear here, Somalia is in no way an anomaly.

From the 75-year-old Saudi grandmother sentenced to four months in jail and 40 lashes for being alone in the presence of two men who were not immediate family members, to the death sentence handed down to the 18-year-old Iranian women for the "crime" of being raped by her brothers and forced into sex slavery by her parents (eventually overturned), to the thousands of women wasting away in Pakistan’s prisons for, once again, the "crime" of being raped, horrific injustice in the name of Sharia law is anything but an anomaly.

Respect
It's not just the criminal cases that are shocking, however. Oppression and injustice are an intrinsic part of everyday life under fundamentalist rule. In Saudi Arabia, for example, women not only can't drive, but they can't even travel without permission from their husbands or fathers. Under Taliban control, girls can't even attend school and women are prohibited from working outside the home.

Incredibly, these fundamental fanatics claim this is all due to the great amount of "respect" they have for women. Kind of like the "respect" South African whites showed to blacks during apartheid.

Rather than respect, I'd say the one thing all religious fundamentalists have in common is their desire to oppress women. It would seem that when it comes to being a hardcore religious fanatic, what matters above all else, aside from the obligatory obsession with sex, is the absolute need to subjugate women. Okay, so perhaps the Catholic hardliners aren't really about subjugating women, but they're certainly not about equality.

Then there's the homophobia. If there's one thing every fundamentalist on the planet can agree on, it's hatred towards homosexuals. Women simply must be kept down, but gays must be persecuted, if not killed. No religious fanatic worth their salt is going to let a day go by without metaphorically, if not literally, spitting in the face of homosexuals. All in the name of God's loving grace, of course.

Some might say that for the most part, non-Muslim fundamentalists are a lot less violent than their Muslim counterparts. But that's simply looking at the modern world. Take a look at history and you'll see fundamentalist Christians slaughtering so-called infidels, (and each other,) with glee for much of the past two millennia.

Again, all in the name of God.

Postscript: I used that opening quote from Elie Weisel because it fit perfectly. However, I'm fully aware of Weisel's own hypocrisy when it comes to fulfilling the belief expressed in that quote. When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict he has most definitely taken sides, but certainly not with the oppressed.

Mike Cowie is a freelance writer who writes about politics, music, film, travel, and much more. You can read more of Mike’s views on his Web site.