Violence, Terrorism and Fundamentalism: Some Feminist Observations

Valentine M. Moghadam is director of women’s studies at Illinois State University and 2001–2 Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

The horrific events of 11 September, the discovery of a transnational network of Islamic extremists, and the United States’ bombardment of Afghanistan compel us to think seriously about the causes of religious terrorism, the broad implications of violence and militarism, the nature of Islamic fundamentalist movements and the gender dynamics of political violence. What are the religious, ethnic, political, social and economic factors behind the deployment of terrorism as a political strategy? Why do Muslim countries produce movements that seek religio-political objectives through violent means? What link, if any, is there between terrorism as a political strategy and militarism as a state strategy? How might the violence of political movements and the violence of states reflect not only dysfunction in domestic and international relations but also highly problematical concepts of masculinity? And are there any urgent alternatives to terrorism and militarism?

 

These are, I believe, some of the pressing questions that confront and require serious attention from researchers, policymakers and decision-makers. I cannot begin to provide answers to or explanations for all of the above questions and issues. I will, however, address the gender aspects of terrorism and violence and describe some feminist alternatives to them. And because political Islam has been implicated in the events of 11 September, I will briefly explore the roots, gender dynamics and characteristics of Islamist movements.

Fundamentalism

The Islamic fundamentalist movements of the twentieth century may be understood first in terms of general historical and sociological concepts that pertain to similar movements, and then in terms of the specific historical, social and political contexts in which they emerged. Like the Protestant fundamentalist movements of the United States in the early twentieth century, Islamic fundamentalist movements have resulted from the contradictions of modernisation and social change, including urbanisation, proletarianisation, secularisation, and religious and social marginalisation. In a social order that seems to be turning upside down, certain social groups experience an anxiety that leads them to seek to recuperate the more familiar values and norms. The (re)turn to religion and the family are typical responses to rapid social change and to the disruptions and uncertainties that modernisation brings about. Religious fundamentalists are almost by definition extremely conservative on moral, cultural and social issues, and in almost all cases they are situated on the right wing of the political spectrum.

 

In the Middle East and North Africa, Islamic fundamentalist movements emerged in the 1970s, expanded during the 1980s, and peaked in the early 1990s. Certainly, they reflected the difficult transition to modernity under way in the region, and the conflict between traditional and modern norms, relations and institutions. Moreover, in common with radical movements elsewhere in the developing world, Islamist movements resulted from political and economic dysfunction, insecurity and alienation. Several contributory causes may be identified in their emergence:

Economic Factors

National and global economic conditions loom large in the causes of religio-political revolts. These include distorted development, the unrealised promise of national development, and the persistence or growth of domestic and international inequalities. Some fundamentalist movements have targeted both their own nation-states and the world capitalist order as sources of injustice, claiming that the solution is an Islamic order. In Algeria and Egypt, for example, Islamists gained adherents by providing “Islamic markets” or “Islamic social services” that were cheaper or more readily available to low-income households than those of the government. In Iran, Islamists initially utilised a strongly anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist discourse. Once in power, they nationalised industries and banks, banned the charging of interest, and offered subsidies to those on low incomes. Disparities and inequalities within countries have been associated with corruption, declining oil revenues or misguided resource allocation priorities (such as huge military purchases). They also arose from the austerities that accompanied the adoption of structural adjustment policies. It should be noted that political Islam emerged as the global political economy shifted from a Keynesian to a neoliberal orientation, and it followed the collapse of talks on a new international economic order.

Political Factors

Salient among these are authoritarian rule, the absence of democratic or participatory political institutions, limited alternatives for pursuing political reform, and lack of trust in government or other institutions. In Middle Eastern countries, dissidents and opponents have often faced state repression, even when their methods were entirely non-violent. It should be noted, too, that many regimes fostered Islamist groups as a means of undermining socialist or communist movements in the region. This occurred in Iran, Egypt and Turkey, with rather dire consequences for the regimes in question. Even Israel initially encouraged Hamas in order to subvert the privileged authority of the Palestine Liberation Organisation among the Palestinians. The United States encouraged an Islamist rebellion against a left-wing and modernising government in Afghanistan, and spent the 1980s militarily and financially supporting the Afghan mujahideen. A related political factor in the rise of Islamic fundamentalist movements, of course, was the non-resolution of the Palestinian problem, which many Islamist groups have explicitly identified as their raison d’etre.

Gender and Social Change

These also underlie the emergence of Islamist movements, distinguishing them from other radical movements (especially left-wing ones). As is well known, the role, status, comportment and couverture of women constitute a major preoccupation of Islamists, who claim to seek greater independence from Western hegemony via a return to a more conservative or “authentic” culture. In fact, fundamentalists called for veiling because Muslim women had been taking off their veils. The fundamentalists urged a return to traditional family values and female domesticity because women had been entering public space and the public sphere, which for so long had been the province of men.¹ Some of the moral and gender preoccupation of the fundamentalists is theologically rooted. But much of it, I believe, can be explained in terms of the inevitability of gender conflict at a time of tension between the waning patriarchal order and the emergent feminist movement. An analogy here would be to class or race conflict, when subordinate groups are making social and political demands and privileged groups are resisting change. In all cases of conflict—whether class, gender, or racial—its roots are both ideological and material, and entail a struggle over power. In some countries, such as Iran immediately after the 1979 revolution and Algeria during the rise of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) between 1988 and 1991 and in the civil conflict of the 1990s, unveiled women were the targets of seriously punitive Islamist action.

 

As mentioned above, Islamic fundamentalist movements reflect the tensions and contradictions of the transition to modernity and the conflict between traditional and modern values, norms and social relations. Women’s rights are at the centre of this transition and this conflict. In the Middle East and North Africa, governments have dealt with the Islamist threat in various ways, sometimes by accommodating fundamentalist demands and sometimes by confronting the organisations directly. Early on, the Tunisian government confronted the an-Nahda movement and banned it; Syria put down its growing Islamist movement violently but effectively. Accommodation was initially the response of the governments of Egypt and Algeria, who conceded women’s rights to the Islamists as a way of placating them. This concession took the form of reinforcing the patriarchal principles of Muslim family law. Only when the Islamists took up arms and sought to overthrow the government, or used violence and terror in a way that threatened the power and authority of the state, did Egypt and Algeria turn on the Islamist movements, their leaders and members. More recently in Morocco, a (non-violent) conflict has emerged between the socialist government and feminists on one side and a fundamentalist movement on the other. The point of contention is a proposed national development plan for the advancement of women and reform of the shari’a-based family law, changes that are bitterly opposed by the Islamists.

Islamist Concerns

Islamist movements may differ from each other in terms of tactics, strategy and even discourse. However, they are similar in their approach to gender, public morality and preferred legal system. Although economic factors are critical in explaining their emergence, economic policy is not of overriding interest to them, and Islamists exhibit no particular expertise on economic matters. Islamist movements propose no specific economic model and seem able to cohabit with different types of economic system. The evolution of the economy in the Islamic Republic of Iran—from radical populist in the early years to statist during the 1980–8 war with Iraq and more recently to neoliberal—is a case in point. In Algeria between 1988 and 1990, the FIS denounced Western-style capitalism as anti-Islamic (as had Iran), set up “Islamic markets” offering cheap consumer goods and food, and declared it would ban interest-bearing loans once it came to power. Yet it had nothing to offer as a solution to Algeria’s serious economic problems except to promise to “make the poor rich without making the rich poor”.²

 

Islamists have stronger views on the legal framework, moral order and gender regime—all of which are to be based on the shari’a, or Islamic canon law. Although Islamists have suffered from and confronted authoritarian regimes, no Islamist movement or theorist has offered a model of democratic governance. Indeed, many Islamists (e.g., in Iran and Algeria) have expressed strong opposition to multi-party democracy. Islamist movements seem willing to coexist with various types of political regime, as long as the shari’a is firmly in place.

 

There are, of course, some notable differences among existing fundamentalist movements. Although they generally eschew modern norms and advocate early Islamic practices, some movements are in fact more modern than others. This pertains especially to those in Turkey, Tunisia and Iran, many of whose leaders and members were/are middle class and educated, with a more modern outlook than would be found, for example, among the Taliban of Afghanistan, Islamic Jihad of Egypt, or Hamas of Palestine. Although nearly all Islamist movements and states advocate or practice violence, some seem more willing than others to engage in outright terrorism and the deliberate killing of civilians (e.g., the Islamist extremists of Algeria, Egypt and Palestine). Many Islamists seem concerned exclusively with their own national problems and uninterested in exporting their movement or in joining another one elsewhere: Lebanon’s Hizbollah may be an example. Others are of a more internationalist inclination and engage in transnational Islamist organising, mobilising and direct action, including terrorism. Such Islamist internationalists were first encountered in Afghanistan in the 1980s, where the religious call to jihad and martyrdom—not to mention arms from the Central Intelligence Agency, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan—attracted men from an array of Muslim countries. Subsequently, some of these “Afghan Arabs”, especially those from Algeria and Egypt, returned to their countries to wage a war against their own regimes. Others joined a transnational Islamist movement that came to be known as al-Qaeda, the terrorist organisation allegedly responsible for 11 September.

Al-Qaeda

We know very little about al-Qaeda, but I will venture a few observations about the network. In common with some other Islamist groups, al-Qaeda:

 

● Uses the language of Islam and the Qur’an in its public communiqués.

 

● Refers to political problems and issues (e.g., the Israel/Palestine conflict, US troops in Saudi Arabia, repressive Arab states).

 

● Denounces Western hegemony.

 

● Evinces a patriarchal and misogynist position on women and gender.

 

● Projects the symbolism of the warrior, heightened masculinity and male bonding.

 

● Is militaristic and willing to engage in terror.

 

But in al-Qaeda, each of these features appears magnified and exaggerated. What seems distinctive about al-Qaeda are the following characteristics:

 

● It is not rooted in a nation-state but is transnational and appears expansionist.

 

● Its objectives are ambitious, indeed grandiose.

 

● It is well funded and able to mobilise financial resources easily and effectively.

 

● Its leaders are more educated and privileged than is typical of Islamist groups.

 

● It seems to operate like a cult, with Osama bin Laden as the charismatic (and apparently narcissistic)³ leader, and with members undergoing what may be ideological indoctrination.

 

We may discover that, its transnationalism notwithstanding, al-Qaeda is more like the now-defunct Sendero Luminoso, Red Brigades or Khmer Rouge than a typical Islamic fundamentalist movement. And like Unita in Angola, Renamo in Mozambique, the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, or any other violent, fascistic and militaristic organisation, it may be more about politics and power—and the use of terror to obtain these—than about the return to religious authority, a pristine moral order and the comforts of tradition. For example, after 11 September, several far-right leaders and associations in Germany publicly welcomed the terrorist attacks, and one person identified by the US government as providing financial support to al-Qaeda is a well-known figure in European far-right politics.⁴

 

An obvious, if disconcerting, observation is that all the movements and organisations I have mentioned are masculine and masculinist. They consist almost exclusively of men, place a high premium on violence and war, and are patriarchal in their attitudes and practices towards women. An article in Newsweek, for example, based on interviews with the wife of one of the men detained as an al-Qaeda operative, suggests a milieu that is highly traditional, in which women are confined to the home, domestic chores and their many children.⁵ They neither participate in nor have knowledge of their men’s activities, and do not seem to be consulted on important matters. They appear to be socialised as very dutiful and loyal wives. Bin Laden himself is said to have several wives.

 

This patriarchal attitude pertains as much to the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army, the Chechens and US militia groups, as it does to any of the Islamic extremist organisations I have discussed. And sadly, such organisations do not have good models in most of the governments of the world or in the international state system, which is unequal, hierarchical and militaristic. Although al-Qaeda, like other extremist movements, no doubt fights for the sake of fighting, it does voice some legitimate grievances. The violence of the Israeli state and the illegality of its occupation of the West Bank are well known. Yet Israel has not received the sort of multilateral actions that were taken against Yugoslavia over the Kosovo problem. When sanctions and bombing are reserved for countries like Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan while Israel receives barely the proverbial slap on the wrist, the moral bankruptcy of global governance is manifestly clear. And when the United States, the United Kingdom, NATO or the United Nations Security Council chooses to drop bombs rather than seek alternative means of resolving conflict, such recourse to militaristic solutions evinces the masculinist bias of states and of the world-system, and perpetuates all manner of violence. In such a context, how can terrorism possibly be counteracted?

The Feminist Alternative

Our world desperately needs new economic and political frameworks in order to end the vicious cycle of violence and bring about people-oriented development, human security and socio-economic justice, including justice for women. Such frameworks are being proposed in international circles, whether by some UN agencies, the anti-globalisation movement, or the global feminist movement. Women’s peace groups in particular constitute an important counter-movement to terrorism, and they should be encouraged and funded.

 

Feminists and women’s groups have long been involved in peace work, and their analyses and activities have contributed much to our understanding of the roots of conflict and the conditions for conflict resolution, human security and human development. There is now a prodigious feminist scholarship that describes this activism while also critically analysing international relations from various disciplinary vantage points, including that of political science. The activities of anti-militarist groups such as the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (Wilpf), Women Strike for Peace and the women of Greenham Common are legendary, and their legacy lies in ongoing efforts to “feminise” peace, human rights and development. At the third UN conference on women, in Nairobi in 1985, women decided that not only equality and development but also peace and war were their affairs. The Nairobi conference took place in the midst of the crisis of Third World indebtedness and the implementation of austerity policies recommended by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Feminists were quick to see the links between economic hardship, political instability and violence against women. As the Jamaican diplomat and scholar Lucille Mathurin Mair noted after Nairobi:

 

This [economic] distress exists in a climate of mounting violence and militarism … [V]iolence follows an ideological continuum, starting from the domestic sphere where it is tolerated, if not positively accepted. It then moves to the public political arena where it is glamorized and even celebrated … Women and children are the prime victims of this cult of aggression.⁶

 

Since the 1980s, transnational feminist networks have engaged in dialogue and alliances with other organisations in order to make an impact on peace, security and conflict resolution. The expansion of the population of educated, employed, mobile and politically aware women has led to increased female activism in the areas of peace, conflict resolution and human rights.⁷ Around the world, women have been insisting that their voices be heard, on the streets, in civil society organisations and in the meeting halls of the multilateral organisations. Demographic changes and the rise of a “critical mass” of politically engaged women are reflected in the formation of many women’s groups that are highly critical of existing political structures, that question masculinist values and behaviour in domestic politics and international relations, and that seek to make strategic interventions and formulate solutions that are informed by feminine values. An important proposal is the institutionalisation of peace education.

Agents of Change

Prominent women’s peace and human rights organisations include the Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, who are credited with helping to bring down the dictatorship non-violently and to highlight issues of justice. Another is the Women in Black, which began as an Israeli campaign against the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and has spread to other countries, for example, Italy, Germany and Serbia. In the Muslim world, women have fought on another front, the struggle against fundamentalism. The Women Living under Muslim Laws (WLUML) is a feminist, anti-fundamentalist, transnational network that promotes the human rights of Muslim women. At the national level, Algerian women’s groups have been strongly anti-fundamentalist, while the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (Rawa) has drawn attention to the violence and misogyny both of the jihadis (its term for the mujahideen remnants in the Northern Alliance) and the Taliban.

 

Examples of women’s peace and conflict resolution initiatives abound. One is the historic women’s peace petition presented to the United Nations in October 1997. That petition, a non-governmental initiative that had 150 organisational co-sponsors from around the world, demanded that all governments transfer a minimum of five per cent of their military budgets over the next five years to health, education and employment programmes. South Asian feminist networks and the Pakistan–India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy created linkages in civil society across the region’s most divisive and dangerous frontier. Despite initial resistance within the forum, the feminist analysis of the connection between sexism and war was eventually accepted unanimously. In Sudan, women mediated in an inter-tribal conflict between the Dinka and the Nuer and helped broker an agreement. In Northern Ireland, women activists calmed tensions during the annual “marching season” and mobilised enough support to ensure feminist representation in the parliament. The Association of Women of the Mediterranean Region (AWMR) convened a major conference on peace in the region. In Israel/Palestine, despite the continuing violence on both sides, the Coalition of Women for a Just Peace presses on with its work. In Jerusalem in late December 2001, it bravely held a March of Mourning that was led with a large banner reading, “The Occupation Is Killing Us All”.

 

Many women’s groups draw on motherhood, maternity and femininity as discursive resources and strategies. Indeed, maternalist politics—the political use of motherhood and feminine values of nurturing and care—has a long history. It describes the work of Wilpf at the beginning of the twentieth century, of the Women Strike for Peace group in mid-century, and of organisations in the late twentieth century such as the Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Israel’s Four Mothers Movement and the Mothers against Silence, and Turkey’s Saturday Mothers (who quietly protested against arrests and killings associated with the Kurdish problem).

 

Maternalist politics constitutes one model of female activism, seen largely in peace, anti-militarist and human rights movements. But there is another model as well: that of women in armed struggles, in liberation movements and in revolutions. Whether these two models are completely contradictory or simply two dimensions of women’s lives, experiences and collective action is a difficult question. Feminists rely on women to lead the way in peace, conflict resolution and human rights, while also accepting that women will be active participants in liberation struggles. There is, however, a distinction to be made between legitimate resistance movements and terrorist organisations or movements that rely on terrorist acts such as the targeting of innocent civilians. For example, even though Palestinian aspirations for nationhood and dignity are just and legitimate, a feminist perspective cannot condone the deliberate targeting of civilians in Israel by Palestinian Islamist organisations. And even though some of the stated grievances of Osama bin Laden echo those of legitimate movements and organisations, the atrocities of 11 September reveal the man and his network for what they are: violent and criminal.

11 September

For this reason, feminists and women’s groups around the world condemned 11 September, while also warning against any unilateral military response that would result in civilian deaths—as in fact happened when the US bombing of Afghanistan began. Women’s groups also drew attention to repression by Arab governments and to certain US foreign policies that are partly to blame for the rise of militant and terrorist organisations. A Rawa representative questioned US policy in Afghanistan thus: “Say you get the Taliban out, then what? Who’s going to be responsible for rebuilding? Those who’ve waged proxy wars for foreigners on Afghan soil for 20 years? Those who’ve committed atrocities against their own people in the past?”⁸ And an Egyptian woman journalist now living in the United States argued that

 

Through censorship and intimidation, [the Egyptian government] has silenced the voices of the intellectuals and activists who could have acted as a much-needed counterforce to the hard-line and extremist version of religion the militants propagated. The government and the militants, almost in tandem, have succeeded in stunting the growth of civil society.⁹

 

The Association for Middle East Women’s Studies issued a statement expressing its horror over the loss of life and destruction in New York and Washington, D.C. It asked if military action “could possibly have any positive effect on the hatred that fueled these terrible events”.¹⁰ WLUML similarly expressed sincere condolences, saying: “We are particularly aware of the human cost of terrorism and war, frequently perpetrated in the name of religion or belief systems.” But it stressed that “vengeance is not justice”, that “misguided retaliation” is not the way forward, and that “ending terrorism requires addressing the roots of global inequality”.¹¹ WLUML, it should be noted, has been warning since at least the early 1990s about the existence of an “Islamist international” with the organisational, human, financial and military means to threaten secularists, feminists and democrats. WLUML leaders identified Saudi Arabia as a principal sponsor of Islamic fundamentalism worldwide, and denounced the granting of political asylum in the West to Algerian and other radical Islamists charged with crimes against women. After 11 September and the beginning of the US bombing campaign in Afghanistan, a WLUML newsletter accused Western governments of being primarily responsible

 

for the creation of these big and small monsters that they are now attempting to fight against. The West never cared when the Taliban attacked Afghan women’s rights … when they assaulted [the women], when they killed them. It has looked in the other direction while in Algeria the radical Islamic groups have kidnapped, raped, killed and ripped to pieces scores of women ... while in Bangladesh many women have to live with their faces scarred by the acid thrown … by fundamentalists.

And now. Is an end to western hypocrisy going to come with the resounding measures being taken against the terrorism of the radical Islamic networks? Will they be compatible with measures of justice? It does not seem just to carpet-bomb a people, the Afghan people, who in the last years have been the prime victim of a regime which has been indirectly tolerated and harboured. There must be another way of achieving justice.¹²

 

In India, women’s groups joined a coalition called Jang Roko Abhiyan (Anti-War Campaign) that condemned the massacre of American civilians on 11 September but called on the United States to accept responsibility for the fallout from past foreign policies and to refrain from military retaliation in Afghanistan which was likely to cause considerable civilian death and suffering. Even the US Feminist Majority issued a very measured statement on 11 September that pointed out the US role in the 1980s in supplying “billions of dollars to fund, train, and arm the mujahideen, which gave rise to the Taliban”. The statement continued: “Just as we must not condemn the Afghan people for the acts of terrorists, we also should not condemn Arabs and Muslims, the vast majority of whom do not support this so-called religious fanaticism. This extremism, which has now taken the lives of so many American citizens, Afghans, and others, is not about Islam, but is about the use of violence to achieve a political end.”¹³

 

11 September and the responses to it—especially the US bombing of Afghanistan—remind us that despite the long existence of feminist groups that have worked to enable women to be considered legitimate participants and to provide women’s perspectives on peace and human security, very few of the norms guiding this area reflect their contributions. This is in contrast to international norms on human rights (where feminists have made enormous gains) and, to a lesser degree, norms on social rights and economic justice (through the feminist critique of structural adjustment). As many feminist scholars have noted (e.g., Cynthia Enloe, Ann Tickner and V. Spike Peterson), approaches to security and conflict resolution remain masculinist, guided by patriarchal, capitalist and state-centred interests.

Seeds of Progress

And yet, some advances have been made at the international level, reflecting the long decades of feminist activism and scholarship. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action,¹⁴ adopted on 15 September 2024 by governments participating in the Fourth World Conference on Women, recognises “the leading role that women have played in the peace movement” and calls on the international community to:

 

Work actively towards general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control … (Para. 145[f: i])

Take measures in accordance with international law with a view to alleviating the negative impact of economic sanctions on women and children … (Para. 147[k])

Encourage the further development of peace research, involving the participation of women, to examine the impact of armed conflict on women and children and the nature and contribution of women’s participation in national, regional and international peace movements … (Para. 148[c])

 

In March 2000, the UN Security Council, in its proclamation on International Women’s Day, recognised that gender equality is an integral component of peace. In October that year, it convened a special session to consider the situation of women in armed conflict and passed Resolution 1325, calling on governments—and the Security Council itself—to include women in negotiations and settlements with respect to conflict resolution and peace-building. This is certainly a feminist success story and a step in the right direction at the international level. But real progress will be slow. It is not enough to include a small number of women at meetings on peace, security and conflict issues; this can only be construed as tokenism. Rather, feminist scholars and representatives of women’s peace and human rights organisations must be invited to the table, and their perspectives must be taken seriously. Initiatives and understandings such as these—along with systematic and widespread peace education nationally and locally—could affect “politics as usual” in the long run and help to transform international relations.

 

With conflicts continuing to rage around the world, militarism showing no sign of abatement, inequalities widening globally and terrorism fuelling insecurity but also misguided responses, it is time for women’s perspectives and their actions to be recognised. Clearly, feminist scholars and women’s organisations have much to say about the cycle of violence, war, peace and change. Their voices and their activities, analyses and proposed solutions need to be publicised and disseminated.

Endnotes

1. For an elaboration, see Valentine M. Moghadam, ed., Identity Politics and Women: Cultural Reassertions and Feminisms in International Perspective (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1993). See also the articles in the special issue of the Journal of Women’s History 10, no. 4 (January 1999), which focuses on gender and religio-politics.

 

2. George Joffe, “Hidden Strength of God’s Party”, Guardian (London), 15 January 1992, p. 3. See also Valentine M. Moghadam, “Organizing Women: The New Feminist Movement in Algeria”, Cultural Dynamics 13, no. 2 (July 2001), pp. 131–54.

 

3. Videotapes recovered from the rubble of al-Qaeda compounds in Afghanistan reveal that bin Laden enjoys being filmed, taped and flattered, as do his cohorts, one of whom is shown caressing and kissing his Kalashnikov rifle before he grins and chuckles at the camera. See Dan Eggen, “Videos Spur Attack Alert”, Washington Post, 18 January 2002, sec. A, p. 1.

 

4. Hugh Williamson and Philipp Jakin, “Al-Qaeda Links: Far-Right Has Ties with Islamic Extreme”, Financial Times (London), 9 November 2001.

 

5. “Married to the Jihad”, Newsweek, 14 January 2001.

 

6. Cited in Charlotte Bunch and Roxanna Carillo, Gender Violence: A Development and Human Rights Issue (Dublin: Atlantic Press, 1992), p. 71.

 

7. For an elaboration, see Valentine M. Moghadam, “Transnational Feminist Networks: Collective Action in an Era of Globalization”, International Sociology 15, no. 1 (March 2000), pp. 57–85.

 

8. Cited in Laura Flanders, “Afghan Feminists Speak Out”, Progressive 65, no. 11 (November 2001), p. 38. See also Valentine M. Moghadam, “Patriarchy, the Taleban, and the Politics of Public Space in Afghanistan”, Women’s Studies International Forum 25, no. 1 (spring 2002), pp. 1–13.

 

9. Mona Eltahawy, “Where Were Egypt’s Best?”, Washington Post, 14 November 2001, sec. B, p. 7.

 

10. Sherifa Zuhur, “Letter Regarding the Terrorist Attacks against the United States of America on September 11th”, 17 September 2024 [www.amews.org/articles/terroristattack.htm].

 

11. “WLUML Statement on Attacks in the USA”, 21 September 2024 [www.wluml.org/english/new-archives/wtc/wluml-statements.htm].

 

12. Monserrat Boix, “Women’s Networks: Islamists’ Violence and Terror”, WLUML Newsheet 13, no. 4 (November–December 2001), p. 7.

 

13. Eleanor Smeal, “Special Message from the Feminist Majority on the Taliban, Osama bin Laden, and Afghan Women”, 18 September 2024 [www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/printnews.asp?id=5802].

 

14. Available at [www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/bejingmnu.htm].