Forced Entries -- The Subject of Violence

• Published in: Black renaissance 2000-01, Vol.2 (3), p.22
• Main Author: Lazreg, Marnia
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bouhired, Djamila; Civil rights; Constitutional law; Gender; Human relations; International; International law; Interpersonal communication; Law; Personal relationships; Politics; Women; Womens rights movements
• ISSN: 1089-3148

Since 1989, when the main Islamist party, which is now banned, was formed, women had consistently been treated as abstract categories. Moderate as well as radical factions of the Islamist movement had addressed women as: 1) symbols of a colonial deculturation that needed to be rethought; 2) symbols of an authentic culture that must be rebuilt; 3) symbols of a corrupt, "secularizing," neo-colonial "government" that must be overthrown (thus, in 1994 women were assassinated because they did not wear the veil, and another group responded to this assassination campaign by assassinating women who wore the veil); and 4) casualties of a corrupt West who had to be rehabilitated by force if necessary. For their part, secularists also have taken women as the symbols of their search for democracy. In all these instances, women are not treated as people of flesh and blood but as abstract categories. This means they have lost their humanity, as the process of abstraction is by definition a process of dehumanization. Once dehumanized, women can be killed routinely. They can be hacked with swords, power drills, and axes. They can have their breasts cut off while their babies are still suckling at them. And finally, they have been kidnapped for illicit sex by men. Once categorized, women can be erased in the same manner as one can erase a symbol or a category. The sacrificial view of women upheld by nationalists during the colonial era has finally been implemented today in the government's campaign against the Islamic movement.