There are many countries where polygamy is legalized. They are found in Africa, the Middle East and countries in Asia. But in Europe, in any case that of the European Union, it is totally prohibited and one is exposed to criminal prosecution if one wants to practice it. Similarly, there are many countries in the world where female circumcision, if not legal, is at least practiced in the name of tradition. Still in Europe, anyone who ventures to practice it on a young girl is liable to prison sentences. In many countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, during the Tabaski also called "sheep festival", these animals are slaughtered in the public square. In many European countries, this practice is opposed by part of the population who want it banned.
In Muslim countries, the consumption of alcohol is prohibited. In some of these countries, one is even exposed to public whipping when caught consuming alcohol. Remember that there was a time when, in the United States, the consumption of alcohol was also prohibited. It was the time of “prohibition”, which took place from 1920 to 1933. During this period, an amendment to the American constitution prohibited the manufacture, transport, sale, import and export of alcoholic beverages.
Concerning homosexuality, it is accepted in all European countries and even marriage between homosexuals is authorized. Today, in Europe, and particularly in France, making remarks qualified as homophobic is punishable before the law. And yet it was not always so. In Great Britain, at the end of the 19th century, the writer, Oscar Wilde was sentenced to forced labor for being homosexual. In France, it was only in 1982 that homosexuality was decriminalized.
There are still many countries today where homosexuality and the consumption of alcohol are prohibited and punishable by law. Qatar is one of them. Each country therefore has its customs and traditions which evolve according to their own dynamics. So where does it come from that homosexuals and associations for the defense of the rights of European and American homosexuals and transsexuals want to go and demonstrate in Qatar to demand that this country reverse its legislation? Does Qatar have the same culture as Europe? Should the culture of this country evolve at the same speed as that of Europe? And why take advantage of the football World Cup to formulate this claim? Who forces them to go to Qatar, a country whose legislation they all know, when they can perfectly watch the World Cup on television? Who could afford to go to France or Germany to demonstrate for the rights of polygamists or to demand the right to excise their daughter?
The problem is that when Europe, or the Western world in general, adopts a norm or a practice, according to its internal evolution, it feels that it must impose it on the rest of the world. Because in the minds of many Westerners, their world is one of light which must enlighten the rest of humanity. When they hunted down homosexuals, the whole earth had to do the same. Today, their norm is the acceptance of those who are called LGBT, that is to say lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, namely people who have changed their sex. And of course all the earth must do like them. Not long ago, one of the accepted norms in the West was that Black human beings were destined to be slaves. And until 1946, in French colonial Africa, the “natives” as the inhabitants of these countries were called were subjected to forced and unpaid labor, that is to say slavery. In the name of the idea that these peoples were inferior and savage, and the West, land of civilization, had the duty to domesticate them.
When everyone respects the culture of the other, peace and harmony reign. But when a society believes that its values are superior to those of other societies, this creates a clash between cultures which necessarily leads to clashes. Terrorism in Europe was born, perhaps in part, from the will of some people to impose their religion on the rest of the earth. However, we cannot exclude that it is also fueled by a lot of frustration and resentment, even hatred, towards Western society because it wants to be hegemonic and despises all the others.
By Venance Konan
*This article has been translated from French into English by Marcus Boni Teiga
