Nonie Darwish was born in Egypt, where her father was a senior military officer and a close associate of President Nasser. For his activities in fomenting Palestinian terrorism, her father was assassinated by the Israelis in 1956.Later, she moved to the United States, where she became a Christian and wrote the bestseller, Now They Call Me Infidel (2006). She says her mission is to "promote reconciliation, acceptance and understanding" between Israelis and Arabs.This is an extract from an address she gave in October to a hostile left-wing audience at the University of California (Berkeley).As an American woman of Muslim Arab origin, I cherish the freedoms America has given me, a right all too scarce in the Middle East where speaking for human rights, women's rights, democracy and even peace with Israel, is a taboo with serious consequences.In America, I learned that no ideology or religion is beyond questioning. Ideologies that don't answer the hard questions will face intellectual bankruptcy. I would like to stress that this is not a discussion about the good and peace-loving Muslims, but about an ideology of violence and hatred that has brought oppression, unrest, violence and terror to the Middle East and has now spread to the rest of the world.
InsultRadicals have made the slightest criticism, critical thinking and free inquiry an insult to Islam. Arab feminists, reformers and intellectuals are intimidated, threatened or killed. Even the late Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, was stabbed in Cairo in 1994 by a radical Muslim who claimed he insulted Islam. That is why we all must welcome open discussion.
I'd like to start with my background. I was born and raised as a Muslim in Cairo, Egypt, and the Gaza Strip, a time when President Nasser was committed to unifying the Arab world and destroying Israel.
In the 1950s, my father headed the Egyptian military intelligence in Gaza and started the Fedayeen, which means "armed resistance and self-sacrifice". They made cross-border attacks into Israel and caused death, damage and destruction. There were assassination attempts on my father in response to the terror.
One night Israel sent commandos to our heavily guarded home, but my father was not home. All the Israeli soldiers found were us, women and children. The Israeli soldiers left us unharmed.
I attended Gaza elementary schools. It is there that we learned hatred, vengeance and retaliation; peace was never an option, but a sign of defeat and weakness. Jews were portrayed as less than human. I was told, "Don't take candy or fruit from a stranger; it could be a Jew trying to poison you."
They filled our ears with fear of Jews; that made hatred come easy and terrorism acceptable, even honourable.
After two years of intense Fedayeen operations, my father was killed in the first targeted assassination in Gaza in 1956. I was eight years old. My siblings and I were asked by top government officials, "Which one of you will avenge your father's blood by killing Jews?" I felt very uncomfortable with the question. We were speechless.
After my father's death, my mother had to face life alone with five children in a culture that gave respect only to families headed by a man. In the '50s few women drove cars, and my mother was criticised and called names for buying a car to take us to school.
Arab women are expected to sacrifice their family by giving up their husbands and sons to martyrdom, but are given little respect to live their lives with freedom and dignity.
I lived for 30 years in oppressive dictatorships and police states. I witnessed honour killing of girls (our maid), oppression of women and female genital-mutilation. We regularly heard the cursing of non-Muslims from the pulpits of mosques. As a young woman, I visited a Christian friend in Cairo during the Friday prayers, and we both heard the verbal attacks on Christians and Jews from the loudspeakers.
We heard, "May God destroy the infidels and the Jews, the enemies of God. We are not to befriend them or make treaties with them." We also heard the worshipers respond, "Amen".
I heard "cursing prayers" all my life from the pulpits of mosques - and, believe it or not, if you grow up with cursing prayers, it can feel and sound normal. My Christian friend looked scared, and I was ashamed. That was when I first realised that something was very wrong in the way my religion was taught and practised.
I moved to the US in 1978. In my first visit to a mosque in America, we were told not to assimilate in America, and that Islam is here to become the dominant religion. I was told to cover up in Islamic clothes; but how could I do that when I had never worn Islamic clothes in Egypt? Women in Egypt until the 1980s did not wear Islamic clothes.
In August 2001, I visited my birthplace, Cairo, Egypt, and was stunned to see how radical Islam had taken over. The level of anger and hate speech was alarming. I saw extreme poverty, pollution, hazardous material and garbage along the Nile. There was high unemployment, inflation and widespread corruption.
But when I read Arab media, all I saw was Israel and America-bashing. Citizens were unaware of Muslim-against-Muslim atrocities in Iraq, Algeria, Sudan, etc.
The Arab media have failed to defend the human rights of ordinary Arab citizens. They have no understanding of their role in defending the interest of the public; this mentality was created from an Islamo-fascist environment that rejects change. The Western media was also under-reporting the threat.
I was happy to return to the US on the evening of September 10, 2001. The next morning I saw the second airplane hit the twin towers, I knew
jihad had come to America.
Muhammad Attah [leader of the September 11 hijackers] was from Cairo, the same city I came from. I called several friends in Cairo. They were all in denial and said, "How dare you say that Arabs did this? Don't you know this is a Jewish conspiracy?"
These were not radicals, but ordinary Egyptians who otherwise are very nice people. I hung up the phone and felt alone and disconnected from my culture of origin.
Global warThe global war we are fighting against Islamo-fascism and
jihad is not just about bombs and hijacked planes; it's also about tyranny and oppression of women. Oppression of women and support of terror are two facets of the same fundamentalist mentality. Islamic law - Sharia - that terrorists are fighting to impose upon the world, would create a global state of gender apartheid.
Under criminal Sharia, punishment could be flogging, stoning, beheading and amputation of limbs - cruel and unusual punishment by Western and humane standards. Leaving Islam is punishable by death. If the state fails to kill an apostate, his death is guaranteed at the hands of a street mob.
That makes Islam more than a religion; it is a one-party state, and also an elaborate legal system, called Sharia, that can put you to death if you leave Islam. [Even] the majority of Muslim countries don't practise criminal Sharia because they cannot stomach it.
I have lived under family Sharia for 30 years of my life. This is practised in all Muslim countries. It allows only men the right to an easy divorce, and to have up to four wives. It allows wife-beating. A woman can receive only half the inheritance to which a man is entitled, and her testimony in court is only half valid.
She is respected only when she shields her body, face and even her identity. As many as 75 per cent of women in Pakistani prisons are behind bars for the crime of having been raped. Sharia codified into permanent law a 7th-century Arabian Peninsula tribal culture for every Muslim in any culture for ever.
Under Sharia, the Muslim Khalifa or Amir, meaning leader, is exempt from being punished under Sharia. Islamic Sharia law is a dictator's dream handed to him by Allah.
On Arab television, I once saw a Muslim preacher telling little children that lying is not allowed except under three conditions:
1) Lying to non-Muslims when it is in the best interest of Islam.
2) Lying to Muslims if it will end conflict between them.
3) Lying to one's wife to improve the relationship.
Lying thus has become an obligation in international relationships, Muslim relationships and family relationships. Any wonder why Muslims were silent after 9/11? Those who expose the lying game are considered traitors. By allowing lying, Muslims have created a culture unable to distinguish between lies and truth; truth has become a convoluted game of saving face for the best interests of Islam.
DesecrationThe Times of London reported that Muslim students in Britain are being taught to despise non-Muslims as "filth". The Arabic word for this is "Nagas". That is why many Arabs believe that the existence of non-Muslims on Muslim land is a desecration or occupation.
US soldiers, at the request of Saudi Arabia, sacrificed their lives to protect it from Saddam. Under normal conditions that could have been met with appreciation, but instead, the Arab street reaction was "How dare the infidels desecrate Muslim land!"
That is why America's defence of the Muslims against the Serbs, the Afghani Muslims against the Soviet Union, feeding the Somali Muslims starved by their own leadership, all did not get the US any credit in the Muslim world; just the opposite. The more America tries to help stabilise the region, the more it is despised.
Arab-Muslims do not want to be rescued by infidels. This is a proud culture that is easily shamed by feelings of dependency on non-Muslims. That is how the West is perceived.
Western feminists must embrace a single standard for both the West and Muslim society. Feminists and everyone else concerned with human freedom must support Muslim dissidents, both male and female, who are risking their lives in a battle for women's rights under Islam.
I ask for the support of the American left. You should be our natural allies because we are the reformers and defenders of freedoms in the Middle East.
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