Universalism, One Middle East and a Whole Lot of Women's Rights

By Noor Suwwan

Abstract

As Universalism aided by globalization becomes the new promise of mature democracies, different narratives on women‘s emancipation have merged into one mega-narrative. That overshadows local discourses and their multi-variability. The result is the presentation of a Western-led, Universalist narrative on women emancipation with the certainty of truth. This article presents an argument in favor of the hypothesis above by taking the Middle East as a case study. It aims to explore the question: is the women's emancipation agenda in the Middle East imported from the West? It begins with analyzing the speculation itself and establishing if Universalism is the new democratic promise. It then questions whether universalism itself is a problematic approach for social emancipation projects. The article then explores the relationship between Universalism, the Middle East and Islam. It then takes three main women's issues as case studies to test for the presence or absence of an overlap between the Universal narrative on women issues and the Middle Eastern public sphere, thus attending to the main question of the article. The objective of this article is to explore rather than answer, and in doing so hopefully trigger further research on the topics under investigation.

Is Universalism the new Political Promise of mature Democracies?

Of late, Universalism has become the new political buzzword of mature democracies. Universalism extends political, social, economic and human rights to all people, everywhere (Feldman, 2018). It categorically promises inclusion to individuals who are outside of democracies’ boundaries and hence, by definition, excluded from it. A compelling moral image with no shortage of subscribers, no doubt. But one that also challenges deeply entrenched forces of nationalism, fundamentalism, religion, cultural differences, group identities, individual agencies and more radically; the current world order itself (Feldman, 2018). Indeed, Universalism at its core is a renegotiation of the Westphalian state system, in which every state ideally maintains its own sovereignty, independence and a commitment from other states to not interfere in its internal affairs. Rights promised to one state’s citizens by a different state is a breach of its sovereignty.  

Universalism also challenges the anarchy of the world by offering a hierarchy of values (Prozorov, 2009). Even if Universalism never gains momentum to produce a one world system in a realist sense, it still carries the ability of creating a one world narrative, a one world story, and a one world set of answers to every question. The fundamental problem with that is: who gets to decide what that narrative is? The closest answer from a realist lens seems to be: those who can enforce it. Indeed, the problematic premise of Universalism is the inevitable dominance of one group’s moral judgment over all the others, discounting moral relativity theory. Following this logic, it’s clear that a homogenizing Universalism will only tempt the most powerful global democracies. It is for this reason that Universalism as a political thought has been critiqued for being ‘the particular’ packaged as ‘the universal’, stripping it of its acclaimed moral superiority (Feldman, 2018). It has also been dismissed as neo-imperialistic, interventionist and verging on totalitarian by plenty of IR scholars (Prozorov, 2013)

The emergence of Universalism as a political goal can be linked to the shift from realism to liberalism as the dominant lens of IR that actors have been adopting steadily since the end of the cold war (Walt, 1998). One of the liberalist theories is that economic prosperity is the basis for international peace and stability and is to be achieved mainly through cooperation between different actors (Walt, 1998). Legitimate actors to liberalists include not only state-actors but also multilateral institutions (Snyder, 2004). All things considered, a uniform global governance response to global challenges is a relatively new addition to the way the world works, as the covid-19 pandemic so dramatically revealed. It is through global governance that we see a shift from International Relations to World Politics. The linguistic shift from IR to world politics is in itself controversial in the discipline (Prozorov, 2009). Climate change, nuclear proliferation and transnational criminal networks are additional examples of challenges that can only be tackled through global governance. Since liberalism’s aim is to provide human security as opposed to state security, all emancipation projects automatically fall under the category of global governance as well. This can be seen in the insistence of multilateral institutions such as the UN and the IMF to champion emancipation projects globally, through social activism, humanitarian aid or economic incentives. This clearly places emancipatory projects under the category of ‘World Politics’ and adds a Universalist dimension that isn’t necessarily beneficial to the local social movement.

No state has championed Universalism more than the United States. In fact, it is this Universalism that leading IR scholar – Dr John Mearsheimer – calls Liberal Hegemony. He explains that liberal hegemony is the central principle guiding the foreign policy establishment of the United States (Mearsheimer, 2017). The goal of liberal hegemony is the exportation of democracy to other states, which according to democratic peace theory should decrease the chances of conflict (Mearsheimer, 2017). Amongst the liberal hegemonic experiments archived in the US’s records are the Iraq invasion of 2003, the color revolutions in Eastern Europe and most infamously the instrumentalization of women rights in Afghanistan. Hence, it is unclear whether Universalism is the new political promise of all mature democracies, but that’s clearly irrelevant. What is relevant is that Universalism – or liberal hegemony – has consistently been the doctrine of the foreign policy institution of the world’s most powerful state, past and present. And maybe the only one that really matters. Shifting the discussion from Universalism to Americanism. 

Is Universalism a hindrance to social movements? 

A lot of negatives can be said about the concept of ‘othering’. But one positive that can be said is that it is due to this ‘othering’ that identities emerge (Prozorov, 2013). So if Universalism succeeds in creating a difference-blind world system, either through a verbal narrative or a political reality, it will take away the very construct of identities themselves. A difference-less society is an identity-less society. This is because our identities exist in relation to what we are different from. What Universalism does is pretend that all differences can be dissolved, removing that in reference to which identities emerge and in turn substitute it with only one thing; a global human identity. A radical task that Arash (2005) calls practically impossible (Abizadeh, 2005). Nevertheless, a by-product of this difference-blind society would necessarily be an expectation of equal outcomes, since no contextual differences theoretically exist. So all social movements of one cause would necessarily have to produce the same outcomes, no matter where. 

Similarly, Universalism – in a final analysis - aims to politicize human rights. The problem is that it is precisely the basics that we don’t collectively agree on; the basic human rights, the first principles, and the inherent moral value in actions. This is exactly why we have liberal institutions whose main objective is to keep the peace in a multi-cultural society that doesn’t agree on first principles. And ultimately, this is how democracies can afford to be tolerant. The question here becomes: how can we export to the world that which we ourselves don’t agree on; first principles and their derivatives. This is how it becomes clear that Universalism is both illiberal and non-democratic.  Following suit, universal social movements that are not democratic are not representative and hence are top-down, forced emancipation projects. Making them social movements minus the social part. 

Universalism, the Middle East and women's rights

In the literature, there’s certainly a sense of a Middle Eastern exceptionalism[1] when it comes to the Universal women rights movement, as it lags behind on almost all indicators (Global Institute of Law, 2021). Almost inevitably, the Middle East is given as the example in the universalism vs. cultural relativism debate. It provides one of the most visual examples of a return to identity as the exclusive basis for political organization, as opposed to a universal human identity (Shapro, 2019). Nowhere is this more visible than in the extreme example of ISIS. In fact, it is plausible that a return to identity-exclusive politics in the Middle East could ultimately be a result of failed attempts at exporting democracy, ‘freedom agendas’[2] and more recently Universalism/Americanism.  From the lens of postcolonial theory, this Eastern rejection of Western models has been called ‘the cultural turn’ (Shapro, 2019). Similarly, this perceived exceptionalism was reinforced in the aftermath of the 1993 Vienna UN conference on Human Rights, where plenty of Middle Eastern states were amongst the most outspoken critics of the initiative (Halliday, 1995). Their initial response was a critique of the UN and Western powers for imposing their ‘Western values’ on them (Halliday, 1995). 

And if Middle Eastern exceptionalism wasn’t enough to explain why there wasn’t an organic adoption of so-called universal notion of human rights in the region, there’s always Islamic exceptionalism. Islamic exceptionalism is a concept forwarded by Shadi Hamid of the Brookings institute that makes a case on the exceptional historic and current relation between Islam and politics (Hamid, 2016). Of Shadi Hamid’s most iconic arguments to contextualize Islam’s history is that historically you had to take land to have land (Hamid, 2016). While Islamic religious scholars add that a multi-faith community with one religion that is spiritually expansionist was simply not the order of the times (Alawadhy, 2013). Only hence was a new religion-state necessary. To Shadi, Islam’s exceptionalism adds all the more reason to not expect it to follow Christianity’s trajectory – reformation, enlightenment and privatisation – as it did in Western countries (Hamid, 2016). Seemingly, the deeply buried argument here is that just because the relevance of religion as the basis for extracting the notion of rights, moral value judgments and first principles is no longer valid in Western societies, there is no reason to assume that this is the case too in Middle Eastern societies. 

On the contrary, one of the main arguments explaining the supposed ‘incompatibility’ of the Muslim world and the prevalent universal narrative of human rights is exactly to be found in the hesitancy to derive value judgments from sources other than from the divine, no matter how appealing a social justice message is to a God-seeking society. Islam is often singled out as an all-encompassing, one-stop-shop for all moral inspiration (Halliday, 1995). It is described as a manual for ‘how to live a life’. But that is hardly unique to Islam. In fact, no religion has ever been properly marketed without a user’s manual that outlines to the subscriber its ‘know-how’. In fact, when Nietzsche announced that ‘God is dead’, he meant to warn Western society that now they would have to create their own values (Maden, 2022). This opened the way for a very contentious topic among psychologists on whether or not it was possible at all for human beings to independently ‘create’ their own values (Hendricks, 2022). It is exactly this strand of thinking that Islamic scholars tilt towards, hesitating so loudly in openly endorsing Universal narratives on Human rights. Its basis is to be found in the humility that people of religion often demonstrate in ‘accepting’ God’s word, without a totality of knowledge, as Dr Jordan Peterson put it. However uncomfortable that may be. 

It is here that we find the basis for the puzzling insistence of an otherwise modernizing Muslim society on not organically calling for the same universal ‘rights’ of women elsewhere. From property laws, to polygamy, to the patriarchy itself, the schism between the forced, Universalist narrative on top and the organic, local narrative below is quite apparent. Even if seldom written about. To take the view on top, all the answers concerning female rights have already been concluded, as if through a mathematical or scientific formula, and presented with the certainty of the incontestable truth. To take the view on the bottom, the answer seems to be: there’s something wrong with the questions. What the literature isn’t capturing is that there’s not so much a shortage of an organic debate on women issues in the Middle East, but more of a fatigue from the demands of faceless NGOS, IGOs, and media outlets for ‘progress reports’ on foreign indicators  (Al-Ali, 2002). There simply seems to be a mismatch between the demanded indicators on top and the social discussions at the bottom. 

Take for instance the case of property laws. The globally accepted narrative is the need for equality for women in owning, inheriting, holding and operating property. What is almost universally a perfectly reasonable, apolitical goal is in fact somewhat contentious in Muslim societies. Yet, this is not because Islam is exceptional in its views on women holding or operating property. The impasse actually arises from inheritance laws themselves as an important domain within the jurisprudence of – for lack of a better word – Islamic ‘law’. The importance to Muslims of a close observation to Islamic prescriptions to how inheritance should be administered is captured in the high number of citizens who prefer Sharia courts over civil courts, on family law matters (Wormald, 2013). The oversimplified notion that Islamic inheritance laws are inherently misogynistic are being addressed by prominent Islamic figures. For instance, one of the most cited examples of misogyny in inheritance laws is that males inherit twice as their female counterparts. To this, Dr. Omar AbdelKafy – a prominent religious public figure– responds by outlining that there are 4 cases where women inherit less than their male counter parts, 10 cases where females inherit the same amount as males, 30 cases in which females inherit more than males and other cases where females inherit and males don’t (AbdelKafy, 2016).

Similarly, the practice of polygamy[3] is another contentious topic that sits at the centre of hot debates in both Muslim and Middle Eastern societies. The global narrative is that polygamy is a violation of the fundamental rights of women and should be systematically abolished (Musawah, 2021). Similarly, a Gallup survey revealed that polygamy is considered morally acceptable by only 20% of Americans (Gallup Survey, 2020). While this is a view that plenty in Muslim societies second (Pew Research Center, 2013), the legality of polygamy itself isn’t necessarily challenged within Muslim societies. This, too, plenty of Muslim preachers respond to (Iqraa, 2014). The tension is deflated mainly by two arguments. First, legality isn’t synonymous to recommendation, endorsement or encouragement. It’s not so clear that the body of the Law itself should be attacked for every legal action that is considered socially deviant. Here, moral value judgments are simply irrelevant because it is precisely an independent, DIY moral judgment production that is at the center of the objection against Universal notions of human rights. Second, cultural, societal and collective settings are exceptionally relevant to the practice of polygamy. There is no shortage of evidence that throughout the world, the practice of polygamy still exists in certain societies without much controversy.

Lastly, the concept of the patriarchy itself isn’t necessarily as obvious an argument in the Middle East as the most visible Western narratives assume they are. For instance, the global narrative on the patriarchy seems to converge into one: the Patriarchy was a structure in which men exercise dominance over women, as a result of which they structurally disadvantage them beyond our domain of understanding and all of that is intentional. While there’s no doubt that women movements in the Middle East  have just as much pushed against institutional patriarchy to counter its negative by-products as any of their global counterparts. Rather, it is the intentionality of the patriarchal system to disadvantage women that isn’t as central a narrative as it is in Western societies. Even though there is a clear gap in the literature on this trend, a speculative reason could be the perceived endorsement of Abrahamic religions to the patriarchy itself. Put differently, the argument could be something along the lines of: if God himself is perceived to endorse the patriarchy or at the very least not oppose it, then maybe it’s not as bad as it sounds. 

Conclusion 

The case studies presented in this article offer a seldom presented three-dimensional view on some women issues in the Middle East that offer some depth on why the Middle East has been lagging on women issues’ indicators. The three case studies – while not exhaustive – present new arguments, new sources for capturing the social discussions and debuts new hypotheses that could provide a basis for further research that can add to the literature. The case studies give an idea of just how complex the discussions are on the ground, with regards to the notion of rights in the local context. It also indicates that there is a significant level of divergence between the local narrative and the global one. For this reason, this article concludes that there is no doubt that the women issues narrative itself is ultimately a Western import.

References

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All images used in the article  have been taken from Canva

[1] Plenty of articles have been written about the Middle Eastern exceptionalism before, during and after the Arab spring, such as: ‘Is the Arab world ready for democracy’ and ‘There is no hope of democracy in the Middle East’. 

[2] The ‘Freedom Agenda’ was George W. Bush’s infamous rhetoric during the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. Read more on: https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/freedomagenda/. 

[3] Read more on global perspectives on Polygamy on: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/12/07/polygamy-is-rare-around-the-world-and-mostly-confined-to-a-few-regions/