Feminism or Multiculturalism?

Johann Hari makes an interesting point:

Do you believe in the rights of women, or do you believe in multiculturalism? A series of verdicts in the German courts in the past month, have shown with hot, hard logic that you can’t back both. You have to choose.

The crux case centres on a woman called Nishal, a 26-year-old Moroccan immigrant to Germany with two kids and a psychotic husband. Since their wedding night, this husband beat the hell out of her. She crawled to the police covered in wounds, and they ordered the husband to stay away from her. He refused. He terrorised her with death threats.

So Nishal went to the courts to request an early divorce, hoping that once they were no longer married he would leave her alone. A judge who believed in the rights of women would find it very easy to make a judgement: you’re free from this man, case dismissed.

But Judge Christa Datz-Winter followed the logic of multiculturalism instead. She said she would not grant an early divorce because – despite the police documentation of extreme violence and continued threats – there was no “unreasonable hardship” here.

Why? Because the woman, as a Muslim, should have “expected” it, the judge explained. She read out passages from the Koran to show that Muslim husbands have the “right to use corporal punishment”. Look at Sura 4, verse 34, she said to Nishal, where the Koran says he can hammer you. That’s your culture. Goodbye, and enjoy your beatings.

Multiculturalism posits that all cultures – particularly minority ones within a society — should be respected and allowed to flourish. In theory, this seems like common sense. As a Jew, I can take comfort in the fact that my religion and culture is respected (or at least tolerated by anti-Semites who think negatively of Jews and Judaism) in the United States.

But a problem arises when a social practice of a minority culture conflicts with a dominant social norm. Many Jews, for better and worse, solved the issue by partially assimilating into the cultures of their Western countries. For example, we don’t putpeople to death for blasphemy or adultery (as the Tanakh, the Jewish Bible, commands). Most importantly, we don’t expect non-Jews to cater to our cultural and religious norms. However, a significant number of Muslims are not assimilating — even partially — when they emigrate to Western countries, and such refusals place them in conflict with the rest of society.

The case Hari cites is an extreme example, but there are other situations as well: Some Muslim cab drivers are refusing to transport passengers with alcohol or dogs. (Jewish cab drivers, to continue with my earlier comparison, don’t refuse customers who carry pork products.) Many young Muslims in America are not becoming part of the so-called “melting pot” as millions of immigrants did before them. Great Britain, which has already been the victim of suicide bombings in subway stations, is facing the same problem.

Making moral, ethical and political decisions frequently involves a choice between competing priorities. As Hari notes, individuals and societies are going to have to make a choice if traditional Muslims continue to violate the dominant cultural norms: Do we allow these Muslims to practice their religion and culture even if they infringe on women’s rights, or do we believe that protecting women’s rights is more important than allowing a minority culture to operate as it wishes? Feminism or multiculturalism?

To me, the answer is simple: Enforce the law, whatever it may be. The fact that one is a member of a particular religion or culture does not give one the right to break the law. If any immigrants are offended, then they should leave. After all, they made the choice to live there. When in the West, do as the Westerners do.