Baring Our Selves

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Reams have been written on the differences between Islamic and Western societies, but for sheer pithiness, it's hard to beat a quip by my former colleague, a Pakistani scholar of Islamic studies. I'd strolled into his office one day to find him on the floor, at prayer. I left, shutting his door, mortified. Later, he cheerfully batted my apologies away. "That's the big difference between us," he shrugged. "You Westerners make love in public and pray in private. We Muslims do exactly the reverse."

At the nub of debates over Muslim integration in Europe lies the question: what's decent to do in public? Display your sexuality, or your faith? The French have no problem with bare breasts on billboards and TV, but big problems with hijab-covered heads in public schools and government offices. Many Muslims feel just the opposite. For most Europeans, prayer is something best done in private, a matter for individual souls rather than state institutions. In the Islamic world, religion is out of the closet: on the streets, chanted five times daily from minarets, enshrined in constitutions, party platforms and penal codes. Sexual matters, however, are kept discreet.

Just how much was underscored late last month, with news of concerns for the safety of an Afghan child actor in the upcoming movie of the best-selling novel The Kite Runner. The family of Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada, whose character is raped, fear the film will expose them to reprisals. In Afghan tribal society, sexual violation — even its portrayal in a fictional movie — can lead to dishonor, ostracism, or worse. Mahmidzada's father told the BBC that members of his tribe "may cut my throat, they may kill me, they may torture me." The filmmakers, he says, didn't mention the rape scene would be filmed. Producers at Paramount deny such a promise was made. The offending scene was tastefully portrayed, they say, and crucial for the plot.

The West traditionally reveres free speech, with both sublime and ridiculous results. As The Kite Runner's producers hinted, it's crucial for art. It's the backbone of shining ideals like democracy and human rights, as well as the protector of rather more tawdry institutions, like reality television and Internet porn. We reward those who reveal their private lives. When Oprah Winfrey spoke out about her childhood sexual abuse, she became a goddess in a society convinced that it's good to talk. While thousands of courageous Muslims regularly speak out on taboo subjects, the reception is often not so warm. Five years ago, Mukhtar Mai, a Pakistani gang-rape victim, defied tribal custom by taking her rapists to court. In the West, she won plaudits and prizes, but in Pakistan the verdict was subsequently overturned and she was widely denounced as having shamed her country abroad. Of course it was bad, what those men did to her, I remember a Punjabi school headmistress telling me. Still, she should have known not to go telling everyone about it.

So here is a sweeping generalization, but perhaps a useful one: Western societies are cultures of personal revelation and exposure, while Muslim cultures are traditionally structured around protecting honor and propriety. On our shrunken planet, the two codes bump up against one another, throwing each other into relief. The same era that's given us the tell-all circus that is Big Brother and a cybervideo of Paris Hilton in flagrante also seems to have produced a striking rise in Western Muslims taking up the veil. The more of private life Western pop culture reveals, the more Muslim women decide to conceal.

The differences between the culture of exposure and the culture of propriety go far beyond sex and sartorial choices. One of my first journalistic assignments came from an American women's magazine. In September 1994, when Cairo was hosting a U.N. population conference, CNN aired footage of the backstreet genital mutilation of a young Egyptian girl. Egypt's conservatives claimed that CNN and the girl's family had shamed Egypt on the world stage. A year on, I was to find the girl and do an update. After a few phone calls in Cairo, I begged off the assignment: the girl was in hiding, fearing reprisals. My editors in Manhattan assumed she'd want to "tell her story." But interviewing the girl again, I had to explain, could bring as much shame and danger as the circumcision knife.

Of course, the two worlds can meet. Afghan Shah Muhammad Rais claimed that his portrayal as a domestic tyrant in the global best seller The Bookseller of Kabul by Norwegian journalist Asne Seierstad exposed him to dishonor. So he did a very Western thing, suing Seierstad for defamation in Norway. Then he went one better: Rais now has a deal with a Norwegian publisher for a book of his own. A spot on Oprah has to be next.