Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jul 04, 2008 Letters
DEAR EDITOR,
There are many important points made in Mr. Sheik Mustapha’s letter published in the Kaieteur News of July 2nd (“An invitation to Mr. Justin DeFreitas”).
First, to quickly dispel a few things: I am not “hiding in the newspapers”; I do have a Quran in my library, and Mr. Mustapha is wrong to think I am too “lazy” to look up the verses he recommends, even though I know those verses would never be applicable to me.
It is strange that Mr. Mustapha thinks efforts to “liberate” Muslim women are rather like “pouncing” on them and making them a favourite “punching bag”. What a weird set of words to use in defining women’s liberty. . . Reminds me of the old time calypso by the Mighty Sparrow: “Every now and then knock them down.
Dey love yo long and dey love yo strong. Buss up dey eye, bruise up dey knee, then dey love yo eternally. . .” The end of that song, where the woman asserts herself, is, of course, the most significant part.
Mr. Mustapha says that our “womenfolk are the epitome of immorality” and we need to “save” them. Exactly which women, sir, are you accusing of immorality, and what criteria do you use to pass such judgment? Who says your ideas, even if you get them from the Quran, must be adhered to by everyone else in our free society?
And how dare you accuse any woman of being immoral simply because that woman does not live up to your personal expectation of who she should be?
Further, Mr. Mustapha, the women I know do not need men to “save” them. These persons are quite capable of saving themselves according to their own rules, and not by those imposed by any man.
No woman is my property to do with as I see fit. They are all free individuals; and we, as a society, have got to be wary of those who would try to steal that freedom by imposing backward and archaic rules made up by ancient, insecure desert tribesmen.
I have close relatives who are Muslims. I know that Muslim women in Guyana are free as any other woman. The point in my letter, to which Mr. Mustapha took umbrage, is that fanatical interpretations of any religious faith, including Islam, can result in widespread negative repercussions in any plural society.
Regular readers know that I have no issues with religious faith. I do, however, have serious problems with the fundamentalist, fanatical, unreasonable and ignorant versions of such belief systems, because they always try to bring an end to human progress on every meaningful level.
What amuses me now is how Dominionist Christians have gotten Muslims involved in a “vociferous” letter writing campaign on matters of which Mr. Mustapha says “are of little or no significance to the Muslims generally.”
This is indeed an interesting alliance, and it will have consequences, which I am sure I will not be unhappy about. Fundamentalist Christians would do well to read CH 2:62 and CH 5:72 of the Quran.
Even if I were able to accept Mr. Mustapha’s invitation to parley, I would be afraid to. After all, I am a secular humanist and an agnostic who has read CH 4:89 of the Quran; and I must confess that I do like my head where it now is — on my shoulders.
As for Sheik’s promise to give me the right to have women walking around (privately) in “their birthday suits,” — only in my dreams buddy, only in my best dreams.
Come on, Sheik — man, you mean to tell me that wouldn’t do anything for you? Never ever? Look, who you think you foolin’?
Justin de Freitas
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
Apr 19, 2024
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