The plight of Women

A society may be judged by the way it treats women. Sometimes they are treated as beasts of burden. Jaqui White describes the load carried by the little women she met in the Himalayas: "I Just wanted to emphasize that one of the salient points of the story of the diminutive women carrying Coca Cola straight up the Himalayas was that the Coca Cola was in BOTTLES, not cans. The bottles are tremendously heavy. I am sure those baskets weighed easily one hundred pounds if not more..".

An especially sad mistreatment is the stoning of women in Islamic countries. Especially outrageous is the case of Amina Lawai of Nigeria. Amnesty International sent out an appeal for signatures to a petition on her behalf. I gladly signed it and posted it for other WAISers to sign. I am sure many did. I was distressed to receive this message from a European (I prefer to leave him unnamed) dismissing her case in a few words and using it as a pretext to attack the US:

"Amina Lawal is undoubtedly poor and ages like the rest of us; however, so far she has managed 30 years; let us hope that she continues to do so. Islam, like Christianity, is plagued with latter-day interpretations of what Muhammad and Christ actually said. As far as I know, "stoning" as a punishment for adultery does nor appear in the Qur'an, but is based on Hadith (or Sunna) that were written some 250 years later after the Prophet's death. As such, they were, and still are, subject to as much modern ideological interpretation as the Old and New Testaments. Some Muslims comment that that they do not have as much claim to being the words of Allah as does the Qur'an, and thus the penalty of 'stoning' is more defined by man than by Allah. One must decry modern application of barbaric punishments by Muslim states, as in the case of Amina Lawal. However, the same cry should also be raised about the equally barbaric practice of legalised murder by Western countries dominated by radical political lobbies proclaiming their devotion to Christianity. In so doing , by their application of barbaric punishment presumably they also show that they do not respect the teachings of Jesus?"

My response: Historically of course the stoning of women is far older than the Hadith. The Muslims inherited it from Orthodox Judaism. There is an argument about the death penalty. Some appose it, just as the Quakers opposed all wars, in disregard of the doctrine of a just war. In any case, it is incomprehensible that that one would compare a person who has committed first-degree murder with this poor Nigerian woman. I strongly recommend that the author of this message show some compassion and sign the petition.

Ronald Hilton - 9/10/02