Transcripts For CSPAN2 Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here 20131019

At www. Commonwealthclub. Org. It is my pleasure to introduce our distinguished speaker, a veteran of more than 20 years of Human Rights Research and activism, a professor of law at ucdavis, she grew up in algeria and the United States. She served as Legal Adviser at Amnesty International and has taught at rutgers and the university of michigan, she is widely published on the issues of fundamentalism and counterterrorism. Would you please welcome professor karima bennoune. [applause] thank you so much for being here today. Is an honor to be here. I thank the commonwealth for inviting me, for coordinating this event and for the lovely introduction. What i want to do today is share with you a few excerpts from my book your fatwa does not apply here Untold Stories from the fight against muslim fundamentalism and i want to explain as well why i wrote this book. It was a very big project. I interviewed about 300 people at muslim heritage, 30 muslim majority countries from afghanistan to molly. I did this to learn about their work combating extremism, their own experiences of persecution at the hands of fundamentalists. The people that i met in these three years were incredibly diverse. That is one of the most important things to note about the project so i interviewed religious scholars and bloggers and housewives and sexual rights activists. I interviewed people who excused themselves to pray in the middle of interviews and other people who posted the birthday of the prophet mohammad with a glass of wine. Tremendous diversity. I interviewed an imams daughter who promotes the un Womens Rights Convention which the u. S. Hasnt ratified yet, but she does this believing that the Womens Rights Convention is entirely reconcilable with her own muslim faith. I interviewed maria bashir, the only one chief prosecutor in afghanistan who has 23 bodyguards and despite the threat, despite the actual attempt on her life continues to prosecuting cases of violence against women and corruption and all the while fears the United States and the International Community may be about to sell out afghan women in the bid to, quote, reconcile with the taliban and the question that i asked myself time and again is why are these people not more wellknown internationally. Everyone known to Osama Bin Laden was but very few people know about all of those on the ground who are challenging people like him and what i set out to do in this book is to change that or at least contribute a little bit for that change. I did this for very personal reasons because my own father was an anthropologist at muslim heritage and risked his life throughout the 1990s to stand up to extremism in his home country of algeria and what i remember is even when he was driven by his home and forced to stop teaching at the university do to Death Threats from fundamentalists groups he remained inside algeria and continued to publish pointed criticisms of the fundamentalists and the government that they fought. In a three part series published in the newspaper in november of 1994, a very terrible time in what was called the dark decade in algeria he produced an article called how fundamentalism produced a terrorism without precedent and in that article he denounced what he called the terrorist radical break with true islam as it was live by our ancestors. The algerian democrats as they call themselves, and many others, unfortunately received little support at the time including from the International Human Rights Community where i was working and it often seemed the International Community could not understand what was happening on the ground in algeria because generally they did not grasp the threat to human rights from the ideology of islam is some, free 9 11 era. Let me stress the ideology of islamism which is an entirely different thing than the religion of islam which is practiced by so many people in so many ways, more than a billion people in the world but i think this misunderstanding of the nature of the threat of the ideology of islamism to the people that muslim heritage themselves actually persists today and i would argue we can see this at the moment in the press coverage of what is happening in countries like egypt for example. Doing this kind of work on the front lines without international support, without Even International comprehension of the challenge that you face is an incredibly lonely endeavor and i have seen this firsthand with a somalian lawyer told me in december of 2012 at a time when the entire northern half of her country was under jihadists occupation, she said International Solidarity is very helpful. When you live such a crisis alone it is more difficult to bear. What my book is really about is trying to break this wall of loneliness and silence by connecting the people doing these struggles on the ground to people around world to stand for similar values of tolerance and the quality and against discrimination and violence. Before i tell you a few stories we should Say Something about what i mean when i use the term front muslim fundamentalism which is a controversial term. I give in the book the definition by the algerian sociologists lucas who writes about fundamentalism not just within islam but fundamentalisms which she defined as Political Movements of the extreme right which in in the context of globalization manipulate religion in order to achieve their political aims. The pakistani postcolonial the arrest has likewise described this as the radical politicization of theology so what we are talking about is a political project, not a spiritual or religious one. I have to be careful if theres a monolith called fundamentalism which is the same everywhere especially in a short talk like today. These movements have their own diversitys, some do not use or advocate violence and others do. We can cautiously generalize about certain shared characteristics. The most significant of which in my view are number one a believe in the imposition of something called sharia, what i call muslim laws are in fact unitary monolithic and hard to be imposed on all moslems everywhere. Second, the ultimate goal of creating what they deem to be Islamic States and many muslims would dispute entirely their definition of what an Islamic State should be like. That state is to be ruled by that unitary version of religious laws that they advocate. These movements have been on the rise since the iranian revolution in particular and we find them manifesting as political parties, art movements, even nongovernmental organizations. In response to these movements and contemporary period, western discourse has sometimes seemed to offer only two choices. That is the openly discriminatory or flawed characterization of all of this that suggests that somehow islam is inherently fundamentalist for all muslims are fundamentalists and so on and that is not only offensive but just plain wrong and you sometimes hear this in the u. S. On the left as well sometimes you hear responses that too publicly correct to even broach the topic of fundamentalism at all. In my view neither of these responses is accurate or helpful and both do engraved disservice to the people who are living on the front lines. What i am trying to create is another way of talking about this in the west. I should say it is a backdrop to all of this that i am painfully aware that there has been a rise in discrimination against muslims in the last few years in this country as articulated in the far rights attacks on president obama as a punitive muslim which seems to have become a kind of offense. My view is even this does not mean silence on the topic of muslim fundamentalism is appropriate productive and in fact my contention is one of the key ways to challenge discriminatory notions about people of muslim heritage is precisely to display their diversity and one of the ways to do that is to tell stories of those who are practicing muslims, those who are agnostic of muslim heritage or even atheist or muslim heritage who have been victims of fundamentalism and chosen very bravely to challenge fundamentalist movements. That is the project of my book and with the remainder of my time my want to introduce you to a view of these people and it is difficult to pick favorite stories because they have all become very dear to my heart. Let me start with a story from the first chapter which is called creativity versus the dark corner and this is a chapter about artists, visual artists, performing artists who ive met in places like pakistan and algeria, people who are refugees from somalia and it is no accident i think that virtually every context i visited or studied, artists were on the front lines challenging extremism either through simply continuing to perform their art or to its very content. One of the people ive met early in the research was someone who was the artistic director of the workshop in pakistan, since 1992 he and his family and Production Company that they ran which was named after the playwrights father brought 24,000 performing artists from 86 countries to perform in pakistan and simultaneously promoted the work and performance of local pakistani artists as well in the areas of dance and music. They brought joy to generations of pakistani art lovers. At the height of the hearty violence in pakistan in 2008, he became a target and they began to receive threats to call off their events which they were told were sinful by those who were calling them and threatening. They refused to heed these warnings. In 2008 a jihadis bomber struck their eighth performing Arts Festival with three separate bombings producing what faisan described as a rain of glass that fell injuring 9. And the potato chip vendor came into the venue carrying i e ds along with packets of crisp. It is very upsetting in particular to faisan because there were so many children in the audience and the boy was caught, his devices. So it is a terrible decision, their festival had been hit, people had been injured, there was a threat the attacks continue. Should they call off the performing Arts Festival. And faisan told me at 1 00 they decided for ladies and gentlemen this is not going to work. This festival is going to continue. And if we got down to the islamists there will never be anything and we will be sitting in a dark corner. What happened . Thousands of people, more than they ever had in the audience before poured into the venue. And the opposition to the bombers, and that festival will go on and continuing to the scheduled conclusion. And the young woman coming and with small children, and there was a bomb here yesterday. And i used to come to the festival with your mother. And have these images in my mind. And tv only way for children to have a cultural life, and be there at this event. Lost their sponsors and could not put on the festival. And the first event they were able to do in the very same venue. In the spot where the bombs went off. And performing a musical called the not. And it is about animals and no one in this venue will come, everyone in the auditorium was packed. The time in pakistan where taliban were targeting girls, blowing the girls schools a year these schoolgirls were dancing and singing and playing my sand water buffalo on stage. And being forward, could lead on to the stage at any moment if necessary. And everyones tails and burst into applause and some were weeping and the sense of hope people had when the childrens theater is still possible. And the tremendous sense of hope, because faisans teenage daughter told me, in spite of everything that happened she wanted to become a theater director like her father. When i was leaving the menu, came across the drawing space in the event. And some do a lot, no fear. The longest chapter in the book, the chapter on womens rights, everywhere i went women were in the forefront in the struggle against extremism. She argues the strategy needs to be political that takes debate off of the religious terrain where they wish to trap us. Now, across the age spectrum, i met akbar, 19 years old at the time i met her in afghanistan, a gej student, who just founded young women for change, that did something remarkable in july 2011. They argued a street prozest against harassment of women saying i have the right to walk freely in my city, and harkening back to the comments in the fliers, they made the argument that street harassment a antiislam up because no one inferior of character disrespects women. They inserted in human rights terms that women are equal to men and deserve the same dignity. Now, before the march took place, she gave interviews on afghan tv, and subsequently, received threats via email, facebook, and over the phone, but she refused to give up, the only fear was that she would put other women in danger. They held the march, and it was a success. Fifty women and a few male supporters walked through the dusty streets of kabul, passing out fliers against street harassment. Now, all along the rout, they were harassed and cat called at various points. Some supported them. She saw it as a victory, and one thing in particular that really struck her, and this was that the afghan prelim, assigned to monitor the protest, a bit skeptical, when they saw the harassment, they were affected by it taking the pliers from her and passed them out, and, in fact, shouting back at those who were heckling the women. Now, she was very worried about the future of her country and what will happen when International Troops leave next year, and theres good reason to be worried, and i hope we continue to engage with and remember afghanistan, but somehow she remains positive about the future. Now, she said, and this is a striking thing to hear a 19yearold to say, i may not be alive to see the day, but i think dreaming is important. Our daughters will be able to walk in this country. I think i have, what, about five minutes . Five minutes left. I will tell one more story, and i wish i could tell so many more, but you can find them in the book, and find them on the books website, if i captain get to all of them. I want to end with a story from my fathers home country of algeria, and in the 1990s, the arms fundamentalist groups battled the states and primarily target thed the civilian population. They killed between 100 and 2 00 thousand people. I want to start with one whose life is a reminder of how urgent the need is to counter extremism and support those trying to do that. Now, she said to her father, i will study law, and you will always have your head high. She was a 22yearold law student with the dreams i had back in the 1990s. She refused to give up studies despite the fact the fundamentalists group threatened anyone who continued university education. On january 26, 1997, 16 years ago, she boarded a bus in algierss when she was studying to spend time with family, and she would never finish law school as a result. When the bus arrived, it was stopped at a check point happened by the Armed Islamic group, carrying a school bag, identifiable, she was taken from the bus and killed in the street in front of the other passengers. The men who cut her throat told the others who watched, if you go to the university, the day will come when we will kill all of you just like this. Now, she died at 5 17 p. M. , which we know because when she fell in the street, he watch broke and still reads 5 17, and her mother showed me the watch. The secondhand still aims upward to 5 18 that never came for her. She told her mother before her death, mom, put this in your head, nothing will happen to us, god willing, but if something happens to us, talking about herself and her sisters, also students, if something happens to us, you and dad, you must know that we are dead for knowledge. You must hold your heads high. As is the case with so many of the countless thousands of algiersians murdered by fundamentalist groups in the 1990s and smaller numbers killed in the harsh counterterrorist response, no one is brought to justice. Most were amnesties under the 2005 charter for peace and reconciliation. I should say here, clearly, that while i believe that the only way to advance towards real democracy and human rights in these regions is to defeat fundmentallism, especially because it seeks to exploit any and every democratic opening. I also believe that that defeat has to be accomplished in ways that themselves republic human rights and International Law like peaceful struggles detailed in my book. I return to the memory that her watch stop at 5 17, a truly unimaginable loss, but as i did the research, and as i wrote what does not apply here, i found hope like her name that means hope. I found hope in two things. The first is a strength of her family to continue telling her story despite official amnesia, and whats going on with their lives, in fact, overcoming grief, we want to law school in her sisters memory, and today practices as a lawyer in algiers, only possible because the arms group did not take power in the country. I also find something that is a source of hope, much more broadly, and that is that, for me, she livedded on today wherever women and men fight against fundamentalism peacefully like protesters did this summer in turkey or tunisia. For me, her hope lives on wherever people continue as she did to strive for knowledge, even in the face of extremism, and as she said, to keep their heads held high, and i hope i would ask you, if you are moved by the stories, please help me honor the people by sharing them and sharing what does not apply here, and, ultimately, what the book is really about comes from the slogan which is the association of is limbist victims and terrorism and the center and heart of the work called the duty of memory. I think what that is about is about learning from this history so that we and others do not have relive it. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you. Now its time for the question and answer period. Im your moderator for today. We have a large number of questions, and so lets begin. To what extent are local islamic fundmentallism movements used as a vehicle for advocating political or social change, and are there other avenues to press for changes thereby bypassing the movements . We have swung asking what is the attraction of islamic fundamentalism . Who are these people . What happens with Government Protection . Are there arrests . Trials . What happens to violence against islamists . Thank you very much for the good questions. Certainly, in certain contexts, the movements consider to be advocating political change, sometimes social change, although more often, i think, the social aspect, the project is about charity than shifting the distribution of wealth, and what weve seen is that when the movements come into power, what they dont have is a political agenda for running a modern society, and i think this is what happened in egypt, and i think of a wonderful quote from an egyptian womens rights advocate saying, look, saying over a broken pipe wont fix it, but you have to, you know, saying islam is the solution, it looks great on a poster, but what do you do then when you try to provide health care and what do you do, then, when your job they represent a worsening of the refor example, and i think of a journalist i interviewed, and she was somebody who was a staunch opponent of ben ali, and at first, hopeful that when they took power in tunisia would represent a step forward, but she said that within about six months, she underthat they didnt mean to have a transition at all, but for them to be in power now running the same system as they were not revolutionaries in her view. You know, the attraction of the movements, i think, in any context using rhetoric of religion claiming to speak in the name of god is appealing to people, and what a wonderful activist said to me, and i want this on tshirts, appropriate here too, is no one has the right to appoint himself the spokesperson of god. Thats absolutely right, but sometimes the movements do that, and that can make them very attractive. Government protection, this is very big question in the context where the fundamentalists are in nongovernmental roles attacking the population. Very often governments have not done required of them, the case in algeria in the early 1990s, and i tell the story in the book where there was a season in early 1993 where the arms group started argumenting intellectuals, and every tuesday morning, early in the morning, one newspaper described a researcher falling to the bull bullets of the arms group, and they pounded on the door of our house, and we couldnt figure out who it was and never did figure out who it was, but my father was absolutely terrified, not for himself, assumed the risk he took, but because i was with him in the apartment. He called the police, and no one answered the phone. Now, to be fair to the algiersian police, they were slaughteredded in large numbers, the first to be killed in egypt now as well, and so i recognize that some Police Actually took very serious risk as did soldiers in that context to protect the population. Very often, the regimes are interested in protecting their own interests, and they, too, are fright ped of the truly democratic opposition, and so may not have all the motivation they should have to protect that population, and thats why i think the International Community needs to speak up. I spent a summer in tunisia, an assassination while i was there in july, who was a deputy in the constituent assembly, outspoken critic of the government, and now we find out from press reports, it seems, that he knew, were warned by foreign intelligence agencies that he was targeted, and they did nothing to protect him and some on the ground, i cant prove it, but some suggest they were involved. I think they are the International Community, absolutely, has to speak up, putting pressure on authorities like the tunisia authorities to protect these people who are doing this so important work of challenging extremism. Long answers, but great questions. On the issue of speaking up, the next questions address that in their own ways. This set of questions has to do with speaking up, so who is responsible for the lack of voices heard from islamic world criticizing the fundamentalists . Thats one. With a big population of muslims in the u. S. , why do peace loving anded moo ratmuslim people do not denounce the atrocities . This question, a good one, often the issue of authenticity arises with a cultural idea. Do you find speaking out are dismissed for not been authentic . If so, how do they make voices heard . I was warned there were great questions. They are all great questions. The first question about the lack of voices. I would say transnationally, there is no lack of voices. Voices do not get the microphone, and that was really part of what my work was about, trying to meet so many of the people who may be working in languaging other than english, whose work is not making it here, and somebody asked the other day what can we do to help . One of the key things is to get the peoples work in russian, farsi, arabic, and translated and heard here. Thats so very important. It is hard sometimes to make yourself heard when you write in english, and so at the time of the 10th anniversary of 9 11, 2001, an event i felt strongly about, lived in the area for ten years after 9 11, i wrote a peace called with the why i hate al alqaeda, my denunciation of the extreme terrorism that has claim lives of so many both in the 9 11 attacks and others that get less attention of where i couldnt get it published. I tried so hard to get it publishedded. It was finally adopted by a feminist International Law blog that saw the light of day and now in the book. There are many people there trying to make themselves be heard, but if you, you know, blow something up, its easy to get on tv. If you take an extreme position, if your position is moderate, look at the complexity of the situation, try to understand, it is much more difficult in this headline driven world to be heard, and i think we have to change that. Ill Say Something contradictory, but i do believe one of the professors said something brilliant once, you have to think two things at the same time, and i think thats really true. At the same time, i would like to say that while a lot is being done and a lot is done that we dont know about, much more must be done, and i appeal in particular to those of us in the arab and muslim diasporas to be courageous in speaking out as the people who i met in the book taking so many risks. Its difficult to do this. Its a threatening environment sometimes with all the discriminatory language we hear in contexts against muslims, and i would say americans generally wonder what can you do to facilitate the critical discourse, most is in combating discrimination against muslims to create space in which people can ceo press themselves. Theres work being done. I was just in houston, and i met they came early on a saturday morning to see me, their level of commitment, 8 a. M. On a saturday morning, those in the Pakistani Community founded alliance for tolerance and compassion, bringing pakistanis who a shiite and sunni to counter violence and terrorism in the country and to really build a coalition around this opposition to extremism and violence, and i think the little efforts are important even though much more can be done. Authenticity, im glad this was asked. This is a huge issue that comes up. I think now in our mind and in this era, we have a certain idea what it means to be a muslim, whether its positive or negative stereotype, its a stereotype nonetheless. If youre a muslim woman, you cover your head. Everyone from the middle east or north africa would call themselves first and foremost a muslim rather than a citizen of their country or a man or a woman or a member of their ethnic group or so on. I think we really generalize and stereotype both sort of in ways that are positive and negative, but they still end up being generalizations that dont reflect the complexed lived reality on the ground, and people of muslim heritage have as many diverse relationships as in other religious backgrounds. Some believe, some dont. Some practice; some dont. Some practice in different ways, but its not the way they choose to identify themselves saying im pakistani, turkish, algeria, south asian, and so on. I think if there is one single thing im asking people to do is to recognize the incredible rich diversities of those we simply now call muslim. A member says i worked in International Development for almost 15 years living in afghanistan, e just a minute, and iraq. The dialogue is ongoing all these years. Prior to 9 11, activists called for intervention in afghanistan because of the treatment of women, and nothing happened. Havent we reached a point of going beyond dialogue . So i guess i take the question as whether i think the use of force is necessary, and i should say, yes, i believe that sometimes the use of force is necessary in contexts, and theres jihad groups who believe to be at war with the state or alleged or armed occupiers killing large numbers of of the civilian population, but i also believe, the point i tried to express at the end, that that use of force, whether a local or international one, has to be carried out with respect to International Law, both human tearian law in terms of avoiding civilian casualties and so on, but respecting the u. N. Charter rules on when force may be used. If we use force, we must follow through, and this, to me, is the tragedy of afghanistan. I actually make a distinction between the conflict in afghanistan, which i believe was legal and the conflict in iraq, which i believe is not. In the u. S. , especially on the left, they assimilate the two conflict. They are different. Where we got afghanistan wrong was then going into iraq not spending the money on the ground for development that people were so thirsty for. I went to afghanistan in 2005, and so many people were so glad that the taliban was overthrown, this is ordinary people, taxi drivers, not just activists or womens rights advocates, but we took our eye off the ball and didnt follow through, and now i really fear the situation were going to leave afghan in. One of the afghan women whom i interviewed for the book, a prom innocent activist, who lost family back in the terrible conflict in the 1990s when the International Community forgot what happened in her country and completely disengaged. She said to me, look, when the International Troops leave, if the International Community does not continue to care about what happens here, we will find ourselves in a worse situation than we were in before. My great fear is that, you know, womens rights and social issues will be seen as the bar beginning chip that the west makes peace with the taliban, an oxy moron, the taliban, if they ared moderate, why are they taliban. My fear is our rush to get out of afghanistan with some form of honor in tact, that were willing to make those concessions, and, in fact, leave a very terrible situation on the ground. I think of another woman i interviewed that had an afghans National Human Rights Commission saying they talk about leaving organization with their dignity, but they mean their dignity, not the dignity of the afghans dignity. Its equally important. In fact, the two things are related. Sorry, that was a very long answer, but i think its a very important question. So i think this question is answered by the entire book. Thats my two cents, but ill ask it anyway. What should or could moderate muslims do in the face of islamist terrorism . There are so many Creative Things that can be done. Let me give you one other example of what people did on the ground, a story i didnt tell, which is about a womens group in algeria back in the 1990s that means refuse, but it was the acronym of the organization. What they would do after bomb attacks is go out and protest at the bomb crater. They would show the police said, we cant protect you, back to the question of brex, we cant protect you, protect us or not, but we are staying. They filled up the craters with flours and mobilized thousands and thousands of people over time, not political activists, but ordinary people who just had enough, went out, had mass demonstrations in a dangerous time when the demonstrations themselves, could, and sometimes did become targets, and while the efforts of the al allen e forces were important, the mobilization was absolutely critical. You know, thats just to give you one example of what people do on the front lines, but i do think we have to do much more every single time there is an attack here to be speaking out on the internet, having websites, issuing statements, and were right. You know, in the arab and muslim organizations, organizations work against discrimination that tend to speak out, for example, when theres u. S. Violations of muslims here or israelis here, and i support all of that, but we need to be just as vigilant and just as outspoken. I mean, it shocks me almost every week theres scores of iraqis killed, ordinary men and women, killed in fundmentallist terrorism, and i dont hear, you know, us being as vocal as we should be about that, and over time, you become enneurod to that. A friend called it the third world body count, happens every week, and you dont notice after a while. If we respond with a forceful statement each time, over time, that could begin to make a difference, and as rightly put, the rest of the answer is in the book. Which is fabulous, by the way, i couldnt put it down; i really couldnt. I was in tears for parts of it as well because the people interviewed are so incredibly brave. In circumstances that are just beyond our imagination, you know, we really have it pretty good here, living in a curby society, and these are folks who are really putting their lives on the line to struggle against extremism. Now, part of the solution, one of the suggestions here is, is it the solution to get to the source of funding a fundmentallist, as in follow the money . Absolutely. This is very critical. Many of the fundmentallist movements receive Copious Amounts of funding from the gulf in particular, and this is another place of the u. S. Needs to ask questions about its own policy and why we support these gulf regimes, why we call them moderate when they are anything but, for example, in saudi arabia, women cant drive. One of the things you hear angerly from people across the regions is we dont want to be like the the gulf. They have a right to live the way they want to live, but we are not like them. We dont want to live like them, and in the gulf context, you know, theres no ways of living that are imposed on people that do not reflect at all how people lived 2030 years ago. I heard the stories again and again, and in egypt the issue of internal funding in the last election was a huge issue to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds. This is a very circuit issue in tunisia as well. The cause of fundamentalism are my dad was an anthropologist and he would always say there are an external and internal consequences, androgynous and exhaustion this causes a you have to look at all of them. I am not putting the blame on extra oil funding but if you look at our own role in the past and the funding we poured into the mujahedin in afghanistan because they were fighting the soviet union, how extreme their ideology was, supported some of the most extreme groups like the one headed by a that had terrible consequences on people in afghanistan when the cold war was over but also across the region because this affected men from as far away as indiana, and algeria, a huge issue and try to sit in this, quote, jihad and got training and learned to use weapons and went back home to their countries and the problem of armed jihad is some metastasized. I think following the money is absolutely critical. Moving on to win, you talked to a lot of women. What will it take for women to realize that contribution to this process . Let me read the question, as the twig is beat so goes the tree, women are the first cause and the socialization of those who grow up to murder women and young girls . Interesting question. I certainly think women are implicated in all aspects of this problem just as men are but i would say so many women have seized the responsibility and spoken out against fundamentalism and organized against fundamentalism and i met them from a diversity of regions and saudi arabia, gaza, and stories we heard, west africa, and many women have given the critical roles they can play and part of it is they need support. And to fight that battle, theres a small section on women on lesbian activists, how they actually be find themselves, different descriptor, how they defined them here and there on the ground, in a very difficult environment. And organizing a support group for queer people to meet each other for social life, and publications, and the elderly bt community. And creative ways to take on this issue and what they really need is networking to have a transnational network of support to compete with transnational network of support and funding. One other example in the presentation is the network of women living under muslim law which is a wonderful transnational network in west africa to south asia and beyond in the i s for a populations that allows women nowadays through the tactic, strategies, and get others to campaign on their issues. And from malaysia in fiji and sullen. And the model is one that needs to be supported to facilitate and facilitate the question referred to. What is the difference between the Muslim Brotherhood and fundamentalism . What is the difference between organized Muslim Brotherhood, the more conservative fundamentalist movement. This is something i struggled with, what legal academics could be called strategically centralized, it this phenomena while still recognizing the particularities of this movement. The Muslim Brotherhood is transnational Political Movement and social movement, started in egypt but you see it now in many different countries, and to nietzsche, allied to the Muslim Brotherhood, they are often described as i think it is a misnomer, the most conservative, it is quite a radical project. And the way they lived, and they argue to have the most rigid interpretations of islam and sometimes seem to defend from outer space. I am not sure where they are coming from. Something important to note is controversial, if you talk to a lot of people on the ground in north africa who are confronting fundamentalists, what theyre frustrated by is in the west we referred to the Muslim Brotherhood and its ilk as a, quote, moderate because theyre not as extreme as the openly armed and people on the ground doing this work will say actually it is the Muslim Brotherhood in to nietzsche opening the door, opening the door for the Armed Movement that is pushing us in the direction of a more radical interpretation of islam and just because these are even worse does not mean you should lose the label moderate. What does the term moderate means . And it is a very email recently where she suggested moderate means you kill your fellow muslims who dont kill westerners. You are not engaged in al qaeda like terrorism. While it is important on the one hand, to be careful and make distinctions, many people on the ground see the relationship between these movements and these networks and that is vital to understand. We would like to remind our listening audience this is the Commonwealth Program called your fatwa does not apply here. Todays speakers professor your fatwa does not apply here and coauthor of your fatwa does not apply here. Unfortunately we have time for only one last question and that is how are women and moderate muslims fairing in syria and egypt today . You saved the easy question for last. How are women staring in egypt today . From what i have been hearing from the women i interviewed in the book there is a great deal of frustration about the lack of International Understanding about what they are facing on the ground. Many of those people are critical of repression by the government or the army but they are also extremely critical of the violence of the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters and critical of the brotherhood threats against christians, violence against christians, violence against christian institutions, violence against muslims who are known to speak out and oppose them. A few weeks ago there was a very moving oped in the new york times. I was thrilled with their from an egyptian journalist describing what his life was like now due to the level of threats he is getting from members of the Muslim Brotherhood and it reminded me so much of algeria in the 1990s so i think it is so vital that we look at all this range of threats to human rights in egypt and in part together engage with something i talk about which is the challenge that the ideology of islam is in itself poses for human rights and that was the ideology the muslim rose the Muslim Brotherhood of to impose when it was in power and that was not the ideology people revolted for in 2011. They wanted more freedom and what they got was less especially less freedom for women. As to syria, i would say that is a complex topic, somewhat beyond the scope of my ability to respond at the end of the presentation but i would say i would say that i have heard disturbing reports of Sexual Assault against women in styria, very grave rapes and so on perpetrated by state forces but also by armed groups and as i said in egypt we have to look carefully at the threat to human rights posed by the Syrian Regime and those are grave threat indeed but also by some of the rebel group some of which are allied to al qaeda and people and religious minorities and so on in syria are very frightened of what it would mean if those rebel groups took over and for me the most important thing is the debate about syria cant be a simple one between whether we use force or we dont mean we dont do anything else and the International Community has to remain absolutely engaged not only with the issue of chemical weapons which is the critical one but the ongoing killings of syrians and ultimately trying to produce a situation that in fact leads to greater human rights protection in syria including 4 women and we have seen transitions in the arab world in the past few years that women often have a lot to lose in the transition sell any transition is not necessarily a good one. Thanks to professor karima bennoune, author of your fatwa does not apply here. We thank our audience as well and those listening to us on the radio and on the internet. And cspan. I would like to remind our audience that there will be a book signing after the talk show feel free to stick around and get your copy signed by karima bennoune. You can find out more on karima bennoune. Com. That is karima bennoune. Com. Karima bennoune. Com. This meeting at the Commonwealth Club of california subletting 110 years of enlightened discussion is adjourned. [applause] [inaudible conversations] visit booktv. Org to watch any of the programs you see your online. Tight the author or book title in the search bar on the upper left side of the page and click search. You can share anything you see on booktv. Org easily by clicking share on the upper left of the page and selecting what format. Booktv streams live online for 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. Booktv. Org. This fall booktv is marking our fifteenth anniversary and this weekend we look back at 2005. David mccullough at 1776 was a bestseller that you. I am speaking of the army that marched with washington and i want to just read you very briefly the way i introduced the army in the early pages of my book 1776. The great majority were farmers and skilled artisans, shoemakers, carpenters, well rights, blacksmiths, coopers, taylors and ship chandlers. Colonel don blubbers regiment from marble head were destined to play as important a part as any, were nearly all sailors and fishermen. It was an army of the accustomed to hard work, hard work being of the common law then. They were familiar with adversity and making do in a harsh climate. Resourceful, handy with tools, they could drive oxen or hold up the stump or tie a proper not as readily as a butcher horse mend a pair of shoes. They knew from experience, most of them, the hardships and setbacks of life, preparing for the worst was second nature. Rare was the man who had never seen someone died. To be sure an appreciable number had no trade, they were drifters, tavern lowlife, some of the dregs of society but by and large they were good solid citizens, as worthy of people as ever marched out of step, mary men with families who they tried to keep contact as best they could. It was the First American army and an army of everyone. Other bessel with Thomas Friedmans the role described and economics by Steven Levitt and watch all the programs that have aired on booktv over the last 15 years online at booktv. Org. Here are some programs to watch this weekend on booktv. Throughout the weekend, and booktvs recent visit to eat, pa. Also a 4 45 eastern a look at the smartest kids in the world with at 18. At 11 00 p. M. Dumbing down the courts, how politics keeps the smartest judges off the bench tomorrow at 5 00 p. M. Eastern we bring you a collection of programs about the Federal Reserve chairman. At 6 45 from theec