Gerecht's performance this weekend on Meet the Press has attracted considerable attention:
DAVID GREGORY: Fast forward to this morning. Gentlemen, we put this on the screen from The New York Times. "[American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay] Khalilzad had backed language [in the constitution] that would have given clerics sole authority in settling marriage and family disputes. That gave rise to concerns that women's rights, as they are annunciated [sic] in Iraq's existing laws, could be curtailed. ... [The] arrangement, coupled with the expansive language for Islam, prompted accusations from [a Kurdish leader] that the Americans were helping in the formation of an Islamic state."
Mr. Diamond, is that a change of position?
LARRY DIAMOND: It would be, I think, a substantial change if it's true. We need to wait and see what exactly is true. All of these are just reports. Let me say, I don't think we have--and I think Reuel would agree with this--we don't have the power anymore to foreclose this, to veto this. We're not a veto player there anymore. But neither do I think the United States should be endorsing it. And I think our clear stand should be in favor of individual rights and freedoms, including religious freedom, as vigorously as possible. So I hope the ambassador on the ground is standing up for that principle.
MR. GREGORY: Mr. Gerecht, the consequences of this?
REUEL MARC GERECHT: Actually, I'm not terribly worried about this. I mean, one hopes that the Iraqis protect women's social rights as much as possible. It certainly seems clear that in protecting the political rights, there's no discussion of women not having the right to vote. I think it's important to remember that in the year 1900, for example, in the United States, it was a democracy then. In 1900, women did not have the right to vote. If Iraqis could develop a democracy that resembled America in the 1900s, I think we'd all be thrilled. I mean, women's social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy. We hope they're there. I think they will be there. But I think we need to put this into perspective. [emph supplied]
I will give Gerecht this -- he's a bit more credible on this score than the johnnie-come-latelies who have recently discovered that Sharia law doesn't matter. For more than a year on the "expert panels" circuit, Gerecht has been making the case for aggressively supporting democratization in MENA, not just in Iraq, even though it will most likely involve Islamist parties gaining significant political power. And he's also been one of those pointing to ">Shi'a jurisprudential traditions (of which Sistani is a leading example) as in many ways more promising than Sunnis' in helping Islam to come to terms with the 21st century.
Gerecht argues against the sort of policies pursued with respect to Algeria when the government halted the electoral process as Islamist parties were winning victories at the ballot box. He argues that political transformation will not happen through liberal reformers taking over -- they won't get the votes -- or hoping that the current entrenched authoritarian regimes get hit by a bolt of enlightenment and suddenly transform themselves into liberal systems. Instead, transformation to a more democratic order will only occur if the Islamist politicians and clerics are made part of the system.
Gerecht is of the "give them enough rope they'll hang themselves" school. Leading Islamist political groups in most countries right now don't really have a platform -- they're mostly just opposing the current regime with vague calls for a system based in Islam which would magically be more harmonious and virtuous. Gerecht's theory is that when the Islamists have to face the hard facts of governing, they'll also have to face the reality of keeping voters happy. So democratic accountability will serve to moderate the Islamist parties over time.
I have a lot of sympathy for the broad approach of bringing the Islamist parties into the system rather than continue to try to marginalize them -- that's just putting off the inevitable and increasing the odds that when regime change finally happens it will be violently revolutionary with decades of turmoil to follow. I have also long shared Gerecht's admiration of Sistani. I must add, however, that I think Gerecht puts an excessively high premium on political freedoms relative to other freedoms.
But I'm far less relaxed about the mechanisms by which Sharia law is incorporated into a system -- it's hard to keep it limited to just dealing with "social" rights and freedoms. The temptation becomes great to have the clerics involved in the "judicial review" of the whole shooting match, which is what the really critical debate has been about over the past few days in Iraq. It's all well and good to say that the system has to be consistent with Islamic law -- the key is who decides and under what mechanism. Billmon, in his recent series on the realpolitik of Iraq's constitutional process, details the threat of a slippery slope to theocracy when clerics start getting rights of "judicial review."
The other Iraq-specific objection I have to Gerecht and his fellow-travelers is that Iraq is decidedly different from other countries in the region on the women's rights front. It's one thing to take a gradualist approach to securing and expanding women's rights as the political, social and economic cultures evolve. For example, some Arab "feminists" have had more success achieving changes in women's status laws through an appeal to Islamic principles than Western-style liberal concepts. But it's another thing altogether to take a giant leap backwards, as is being proposed in Iraq, and expect women to start all over in a gradualist process. If the proposed reversal of women's legal status is accepted, it will serve as a strong rationalization of the severe extra-legal restrictions and intimidation that, since the US invasion, have been increasingly felt across all spheres of women's lives.
Gerecht seems to think that as long as women have some minimal rights of political participation, they'll be able to eventually demand and reclaim the legal, social and economic status they enjoyed under the previous regime. But he ignores how, once the overall status of women has declined and their ability to protect themselves reduced, those minimal participatory rights to which Gerecht refers are unlikely to be very effective vehicles for making themselves heard.
Butterflies and Wheels provides the example of this problem in practice -- this week's local elections in the North Western Frontier Provinces in Pakistan. Women are legally entitled to vote, and in fact over a quarter of the candidates are women. But tribal elders took it upon themselves in some areas to ban women from voting. The national government seems to have tried to intervene to halt the denial of women's suffrage, but one would expect that there was a significant suppression of women's participation, and a number of irregularities were noted in women's (segregated, of course) polling places.
Even where women's participation is not so severely circumscribed, it's a giant leap to assume that they will be able to effectively reclaim through the political process their prior status and freedoms. A recent study of women in parliaments in Egypt, Syria and Tunisia identified a number of reasons why they have had "little legislative or political influence." First, of course, is that in most such legislative bodies, they represent a small percentage of total members. But other factors are also involved that won't be "cured" simply by mandating a certain percentage of seats go to women.
- Second, female MPs tend to avoid focusing on gender-related legislation such as women's labor rights and family laws, and instead direct their efforts to less controversial [read safer] matters....
- Third, because most women MPs belong to the ruling party, and in some cases have gained their seats through presidential appointment, they overwhelmingly support regime policies and rarely challenge the government through questioning ministers or a vote of no confidence. [This has certainly been the case for most of the women who won seats in Iraq's interim parliament as part of the national electoral lists, and it would be surprising if that pattern did not continue under the new constitution .]
- Finally, women do not coordinate among themselves on legislation, further diluting their influence. [Lack of coordination is not surprising, given the second and third factors identified above.]
If the clerics dominate "social" law and acquire strong influence over the legislative and judicial systems, then whatever pretty "equality of rights" language may be contained in the constitution will be worthless window-dressing. "Just be patient little ladies" or "go spend decades fighting to get back what you used to enjoy" isn't an adequate response.
We're looking at a tragedy, quite simply. Larry Diamond is almost certainly right -- the US doesn't have a "veto" anymore. The outcome may, by now, be unavoidable. And in the great grand "perspective" of trying to tamp down the further spread of inter-tribal warfare, sacrificing the lives of the women of Iraq may be collateral damage. But Larry Diamond had the good sense and basic humanity to hope that the US would not endorse this "compromise."
Gerecht & co should be ashamed of themselves for so lightly dismissing the terrible costs that will be borne by Iraqi women in the years ahead.
cross-posted at Liberals Against Terrorism
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