I am over Muslim communities from the same locality celebrating Eid on three different days because they believe that “sighting the moon” in Saudi Barbaria is more accurate than astronomical observatory data. I am over British employers feeling obliged to accommodate this nonsense by giving Muslims days off at short notice due to uncertainty relating to the date.
I am over conservative members of my community trying to impose religious teachings, practices and gender segregation in community gatherings, weddings etc and expecting women to cover their hair during a prayer that none of us asked them to perform.
I am over the complete ignorance by Muslims and non Muslims (particularly UK politicians and media) alike of the fact that “Muslim communities” contain non-religious, spiritual people like me, as well as Atheist people and Agnostic people.
I am over my community b*tching about “The Satanic Verses”, even though most of them have never read it. I am over my community issuing death threats to people who merely suggest that evolution might be reconcilable with the Muslim faith.
I am over UK politicians like Ken Livingstone kissing the arses of Islamist anti-human rights fundamentalists like Yusuf al Qaradawi and pretending to know what non religious cultural Muslims [like me] need and want from life in the UK.
I am over UK politicians thinking that they will find out what I want by speaking to only bearded self appointed “community leaders” who believe that a married woman can never be raped by her husband. I am over UK politicians thinking that headscarf donning women (defined purely by their modesty and “Muslimness”) or the Sayeeda Warsis of the world represent me. Their homophobia, misogyny and dishonesty is NOT something that I identify with. I am NOT defined singularly by the faith I was born into, nor am I represented by demagogues who wish to win support for their incompetent party leader.
I am over the BBC having a show called “The Big Questions” that invites people like Mehdi Hasan and Salma Yaqoob who bully anyone who disagrees with them with charges of “Islamophobia” instead of engaging in authentic dialogue. I am over people such these being incapable of entertaining the idea that not every single criticism of Islam equates to Islamophobic bigotry. I am over the presenters of this show (Nicky Campbell and sometimes Kaye Adams) pandering to traditionalists in an attempt to appear anti-racist when in fact what they’re doing, is implying that anyone with a different culture or religion has different minimum human rights to the rest of British citizenry. Nothing new for the BBC. It has perfected cultural relativism to a tee. I am over the BBC not being aware of the fact that when debating such intellectual topics as “Does Islam need PR”, they should NOT be placing people on opposing sides of the argument physically within inches of one another when they know that the anti-secular bullies get so aggressive and abusive during pretty much every show. I am over the fact that the BBC doesn’t understand how nauseating it is for a secularist to have to explain her arguments while sitting right next to a permanent victim such as Salma Yaqoob who gets offended at people as harmless as Gita Sahgal referring to Muslims as “they”. What other pronoun was she supposed to use?!
I am over being told that my views are Islamophobic, particularly when I come from a Muslim family, have a Muslim name and am profiled at the airport every time I fly because of it, regardless of the fact that I’m Agnostic.
Fundamentalists "Muslims Against Crusades" burning poppies on Armistice Day 2010. London, UK. SOURCE: Sky News
I am over being told that my views are offensive. I’m offended by my community’s homophobia, misogyny and racism in Pakistan, the UK and elsewhere. This doesn’t mean that I have the right (or the inclination) to start burning symbols of remembrance, effigies or chanting “death to ______” or blowing stuff up. Yet people like ME are the ones being called “militant” secularists? When’s the last time a secularist burned effigies and blew stuff up? Secularists do not stunt critique by bursting into Mosques and telling DIY Imams to “Burn in hell! You’re offending me!”, even if we do desperately wish that they would stop spewing their hate.
I am over people not understanding that that secularism and atheism are not the same thing.
I am over converts to Islam like the Kristiane Backers, Yvonne Ridleys and Myriam Francois Cerrahs of the world patronising me and countless others by telling us that we have no right to be angry at our ex co-religionists. That WE are the “intolerant” ones. Painting pink fluffy pictures and telling us that what we see the majority of Muslims practicing is not “real Islam”. You may say that, but most Muslims would disagree with you I’m afraid. I am over these very same converts telling me that the misery I have seen people endure around me from childhood, thanks to Islamic dogma, the racism, homophobia and misogyny of Muslim communities in the UK and elsewhere along with the repeated moral cowardice is all a figment of my imagination. That my experiences count for nothing. I am over people who haven’t lived it, telling me how the hell I should feel.
I am over people from my community telling me that pseudo intellectual [medical doctor] hate preachers like “Dr.” Zakir Naik have anything to contribute to an understanding of theology and spirituality. It’s like taking your car to McDonalds when the brakes fail. I mean, get a clue.
I am over my community letting their sons go out until the early hours of the morning whilst refusing to extend the same privileges to daughters purely on the basis that they are female. I am over asking these parents why they do this and getting the response “because boys don’t get raped/pregnant”.
I am over my community teaching their children that their religion and culture is superior to all others, particularly when they know little or nothing but caricatures about any other culture or religion but their own.
I am over members of my community putting pre-pubescent girls in a hijab when they are not even old enough to understand or give consent to this. I am over the fact that so many parents don’t understand that they are sexually objectifying their own daughter since the intention of the hijab is predominantly to conceal the sexual attraction of women from men.
I am over community and family “honour” depending on the sexual behaviour of women as opposed to those who harm and murder women or fail to condemn the harm and murder of women. Women who just tried to claim their BASIC human rights.
I am over men and women in my community and from outside it, harping on about the “choice” to veil whilst simultaneously ignoring the plight of the women who have NO CHOICE but to veil in Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim majority countries. (Here is an excellent article by Karima Bennoune that puts things into context.)
I am over my community telling women to dress differently to prevent being raped instead of telling men NOT TO RAPE.
I am over members of my community thinking that they have the right to dictate whom their grown child marries. I am over such arranged, coerced or forced marriages disintegrating due to a number of factors including incompatibility and parents acting surprised that it didn’t work out.
I am over people insisting that their children only marry Muslims, or Pakistanis or Indians while simultaneously complaining about the religious discrimination or racism that they face in the UK. Time to look up “irony”.
I am over my community restricting the social interactions of daughters and then wondering why so many Muslim women are finding it difficult to find a life partner. I am totally over mothers telling their daughters “women have to compromise more”. You should just “settle”.
I am over my community forcing their children to conceal their social lives from them and then being disappointed and furious when they discover that their child has done totally normal, healthy things like hang out with platonic friends of both sexes, gone on a date or had a girlfriend, boyfriend or both.
I am over my community devaluing white women by calling them “loose” or “slutty”. I am over my community making sex something sinful, illicit, never to be spoken about and then being surprised when they hear of cases of the Pakistani rape gangs from Derby and from Telford abusing white British girls.
I am over people from my community assuming that everyone in their community is heterosexual, and abusing their child if he/she isn’t.
I am over members of my community being intensely shallow and putting more emphasis on marriage, money and appearance than any other aspects of their children’s lives.
I am over people being offended that my husband and I danced together at our own wedding. I am also over the fact that I was unable to kiss my wonderful husband on the lips on my wedding day for the same reason. Apparently love offends.
I am over abusive, patriarchal fathers in my community choosing careers and many other life options for their children against their will, whilst mothers stand by and facilitate the misery by saying nothing, or joining forces with their tyrannical husbands.
I am over my community performing the worst in education in Britain because of it’s unwillingness to entertain ideas or concepts that come from outside their tribe.
I am over the lack of reasoned, intellectual thought and unwillingness to propose solutions to problems that are rife within my community.
I am over my community’s unwillingness and complete failure to challenge extremism, consanguineous marriages, honour crimes and forced marriages.
I am over the people who maintain friendships with unfaithful, hyper-promiscuous married men while excommunicating women who divorce due to emotional abuse, adultery, domestic violence or for wanting to spend their life with someone who truly loves and respects them.
I am over the lack of moral courage and honesty in my community. The not speaking out when an injustice is done, the deafening silence on child abuse by religious leaders, the “what-about-ery” of “but Catholic priests did it too you know?”.
Finally, I am over the cultural relativist academics, NGOs, public figures and policy makers that say “it’s ok, it’s part of their culture, we should tolerate difference” and pretend to be anti-racist. You are the exact opposite. Human rights apply to humans, and in case you hadn’t noticed, cultural, religious and other minorities comprise of…yes…you got it…humans. Who on earth do you think you are fooling?
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Acknowledgements: This post was inspired by Irshad Manji’s Moral Courage Project and Eve Ensler’s brilliant Huffington Post article on the subject of rape.
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Note for readers wishing to republish any of my posts: Thank you for reading. Please respect my intellectual property and my copyright and leave all the identifying information intact. Feel free to “re-blog” and share my work, but please do not reprint or republish my work in any other format without my permission. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
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Posted in Asian culture, Cultural relativism, Extremism, Islam, Pakistan, Pakistani culture, Religion, Secularism, UK, Violence against women
Tagged Agnostic, British Muslims, cultural relativism, Eve Ensler, evolution, extremist, fundamentalism, homophobia, hypocrisy, identity politics, Irshad Manji, Islam, Islamophobia, Kristiane Backer, Mehdi Hasan, misogyny, moral courage, Muslim, Myriam Francois Cerrah, Pakistanis, race, Racism, Sayeeda Warsi, secularism, Usama Hasan
As a child of immigrants, I’m screwed by the community I’m associated with (Muslims). And I’m screwed by the community I live in (the UK).
The double whammy of disadvantage one faces for being a secular minded individual from a Muslim community living in the UK is really quite astounding. It’s bad enough that I have to battle with tiresome conservative values within my own immediate community, then on top of that, I have to contend with the whims of UK public policy makers who are more eager to have tea with fundamentalists than with secular minded individuals such as myself.
Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone hugging Yusuf-al-Qaradawi upon inviting him to the UK (2004). Qaradawi was and is known for his attacks on human rights including supporting the killing of apostates, homosexuals and Israeli civilians. Livingstone defended Qaradawi as a supporter of women’s rights. Activist Peter Tatchell was criticised by Saba Ahmed for pointing out (among other things) that Qaradawi believed in female genital mutilation (FGM) and compelling the wearing of hijab. Neither Tatchell’s facts nor his interpretation were challenged. Instead, we were treated to a textbook example of contemporary, patronising communal discourse. SOURCE: Life Magazine
Identity anti-racists such as the Stop the War Coalition have dismissed and continue to dismiss secular activist voices like those of Gita Sahgal or secular organisations such as Just Peace (a young organisation founded by progressive and secular Muslim activists) and Women Against Fundamentalism. Instead they befriend the likes of Muslim Association of Britain which is an offshoot of the Arab Muslim Brotherhood. It makes my blood boil. It’s a form of racism masquerading as cultural cohesion and tolerance. In reality, such high tolerance for fundamentalists in the UK just exacerbates some of the inaccurate national (and global) perceptions of what all British Muslims are like. Such alliances completely ignore the fact that people like me do exist. There are secular, non-religious Agnostic (or Atheist) cultural Muslims who have needs that can not be served by Muslim fundamentalists, conservative Muslim values, nor by the Ken Livingstones of the world.
The contradictions in the UK’s approach to fundamentalism is encapsulated in the following scenario. Salman Rushdie was knighted after coming out of hiding after 10 years thanks to a fatwa against him. So was the man who stated “Death, perhaps, is a bit too easy for [Salman Rushdie].” Iqbal Sacranie. Who by the way believes that homosexuality is “not acceptable” and served as the Secretary General of the “Muslim Council of Britain”. Just wonderful.
Being culturally Muslim does not mean that you are automatically an anti-semitic, anti-women’s rights, homophobic, pro-gender segration halali. I’ve met several people like myself through social networking sites. It is a mark of cynical politics that caricatures such as Iqbal Sacranie have in the past been chosen to represent “British Muslims”. Such individuals eventually end up having an influence over communities that were more progressive before politicians gave these individuals their stamp of approval.
On the one side, I am discriminated against by the society that I live in by getting racist chants thrown at me by football hooligans on a sunny afternoon, in the town that I grew up in. I am racially profiled at the airport causing me to be held longer than other passengers almost every time I fly. Simultaneously, I am discriminated against by the conservative (but not necessarily fundamentalist) Muslim communities which exist in Britain that cannot understand why I am not a misogynistic, homophobe whose sole mission in life is to fit every patriarchal stereotype of a “Muslim woman” that there is. As if things weren’t hard enough, on top of all this I then have to deal with politically correct non-Muslim Brits who don’t have the moral courage to say “You know what? This is bullsh*t!” Instead, cultural relativist pus festers in every corner of British society where I am told by non Muslims to accept the “free choice” of a 12 year old Muslim school girl that attempts to (unsuccessfully) challenge her school in court for not allowing her to wear a face veil (niqab) to school. It’s enough to make me nauseous.
Where do I fit in British society? Oh yeah. That’s right. Nowhere.
Anyway, that’s enough ranting for now. I will write more on this subject (perhaps in a less clumsy manner) at a later date. At that point I will also clarify why I see a contrast between characters such as Qaradawi and the diversity of Muslims in Britain (despite the largely conservative values that run through British Muslim communities). For now, allow me to direct you to Gita Sahgal’s BRILLIANT article on the shrinking secular spaces in the UK. Click on the abstract of the article below to go to the link. Thanks for reading.
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Note for readers wishing to republish any of my posts: Thank you for reading. Please respect my intellectual property and my copyright and leave all the identifying information intact. Feel free to “re-blog” and share my work, but please do not reprint or republish my work in any other format without my permission. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
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Further reading
“Cohesion, Multi-Faithism and the Erosion of Secular Spaces in the UK” Implications for the human rights of minority women by Pragna Patel. Excerpt: “This approach is being repeated throughout the UK and the organisations that have so far been closed or threatened with closure are secular organisations for black and ethnic migrants, secular women’s refuges for black and minority women, disability groups and rape crisis centres. Following SBS’s[Southall Black Sisters] lead, organisations confronting similar funding problems with their local authorities have mounted legal challenges against their councils using the equality legislation but while some have been successful, others have not. Paradoxically, the emphasis on funding faith-based groups have led some previously secular black and minority organisations to re-fashion themselves as faith-based groups – this has the effect of reinforcing the view that questions of identity within minority communities can be reduced to questions of religious values only. Discussions with a number of antiracist activists in the north of England have suggested that minority groups have recently adopted a faith-based identity in order to attract local authority funding that has been diverted from anti-racist projects to cohesion and preventing violent extremism work.”
“How to be a Real Muslim” by Kenan Malik. Excerpt: “Liberal multicultural policies have not created radical Islam, but they have helped created a space for it in Western societies that previously had not existed.”
Posted in Cultural relativism, Extremism, Islam, UK
Tagged anti-semitism, British, communalism, conservative, Gita Sahgal, homophobia, Islam, Islamophobia, misogyny, Muslims, patriarchy, Racism, secular, secularism, space, values
Personally, I too am deeply offended, not by the cartoons, but by what some priests say in Churches, Synagogues and Mosques. This does not mean that I start burning their effigies, making death threats, burning religious symbols (I refer to the flags that were burnt), intimidating people and dragging them through court.
Why is this behaviour accepted as an appropriate expression of “offence” from Muslims? Papers like Charlie Hebdo had been poking fun at Christianity and Judaism for decades before they decided to give the Muslim faith the same treatment. Don’t Muslims have a sense of humour or proportion?
SOURCE: Plantu
Posted in Extremism, Islam, Secularism, Uncategorized
Tagged anti-religion, C'est dur d'être aimé par des cons, cartoons, Charlie Hebdo, court, Danish cartoons, Denmark, extremism, France, freedom of speech, fundamentalism, intégriste, Islam, It's hard being loved by jerks, Muhammad, Muslims, Netherlands, prophet, satire
SOURCE: Bipolar Bear (blog)
Yesterday I found myself having a conversation with my mother about her sexual awareness as an 18 year old bride in Pakistan. Funnily enough the conversation started when she came into my room and said she wanted to talk to me about something serious. I agreed. She came in, closed the door and whispered “If you need to know about family planning, go to the clinic in town. You’ll be able to get medicines and advice”.
Regardless of whether or not I was a virgin before I got married, I should point out that two months have passed since my husband and I tied the knot and did the deed. Isn’t this advice coming a little late?! I informed my mother that I had already taken necessary steps with regards to family planning. To which, her response was, “We weren’t so clever back in our day. We didn’t know anything. In fact, your dad’s best friend [who was married] told your father a little bit, but we went for a walk in the local neighbourhood on our wedding night and spent the entire night talking. Everyone was concerned. They were saying ‘what the hell are they doing?’ “
The conversation with my mother continued and came on to more “women’s stuff”. I discovered that my 61 year old mother who has been living in this country since 1972, didn’t know why women menstruate. I was in utter shock and amazement. She thought that it was the body’s way of rejecting “bad blood”, whatever that means. I explained to her that each month a woman’s body prepares for pregnancy and that the lining of the womb thickens. When pregnancy does not occur, the lining sheds itself in the form of menstruation. She looked surprised and slightly embarrassed.
After this, we started talking about the disastrous effects of Pakistani men and women not having access to sex education and how this manifests in unhealthy attitudes towards intimacy and sexuality. The conversation took a religious direction at which point things started to get a little heated. I started telling her about the Islamic concept of “Ijtihad” (independent reason) and how there is a tradition within Islam to discuss, critique and debate aspects of the religion without fear of reprisal.
Eventually, we ended up on the topic of the authenticity of the Abrahamic scriptures and the way in which prescriptions translate into culture such that women end up having to behave like children trapped inside adult bodies. God forbid that a woman might have sexual desires! At this point in the conversation my mum raised her voice and stated “I will not listen to anything against my religion or any other religion! I believe in the Qur’an and the holy books [even though my mother has never read the others], I believe in God and the prophet. I am good to others. I take the good things and reject the bad!”. In reality of course, this is a fudging of facts at best. My mother does have a genuine affection for other humans and is an innately caring individual regardless of an individual’s race, religion, gender etc, but she also firmly believes that a woman who is raped, can in fact bring it upon herself thanks to the clothes she chooses to wear. She also perceives women who think and question things too much as jhagraloo (“argumentative“) as opposed to curious individuals seeking knowledge. Ironic then that the first word in the holy book my mother and so many revere is “Iqra” which means “Read”.
My mother also clearly didn’t entertain the fact that perhaps my sexuality came into being much before now? Perhaps the family planning conversation could have been had when I hit puberty? Not two months after I get married? Why was something so important left to chance? Why did I learn about sex from school textbooks, TV and my English friend’s mother? Didn’t my mother’s prophet once say “La haya fi’deen”? There is no shyness in matters of religion?
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The right wing Islamist group “Muslims Against Crusades” who burned poppies on Armistice Day planned a protest to disrupt the Royal Wedding. They backed out at the last minute, but their website stated that the protest would have been ”intended to highlight the many atrocities which have been and are being committed against Muslims in Afghanistan and now in Libya by the British regime, its army and the British royal family, who have supported such crimes verbally and even physically by their active involvement including by prince William”
It’s interesting then, that these individuals have been silent when Muslims have committed atrocities against Muslims. The voices of MAC and others of their ilk were silent when Saudi Arabia’s religious police murdered 15 Meccan schoolgirls back in 2002 by preventing them from leaving a burning building because they were not wearing correct Islamic dress.
Where was MAC’s outrage when just last year in August, a Saudi couple punished their Sri-Lankan maid for complaining of a high workload by hammering twenty four hot nails into her body?
“But these were isolated incidents right?” Wrong.
Can anyone explain why Western Muslims have nothing to say about the Shia apartheid and violence against Shias in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Pakistan and countless other Muslim majority states?
Graves of Algerian massacre victims. SOURCE: BBC News
Why do so many Muslims have so much to say about Palestine (6,537 Palestinians killed since 29th September 2000) yet nothing to say about the fact that between 150,000 and 200,000 Muslims were brutally massacred by Muslims in the 1990s in the Algerian Civil War? Thousands of women and young girls were raped and the country was left traumatised.
Arguing that these are not “proper Muslim states” or “it’s not in the Qur’an etc” is great for you, but when the clerical establishments (Muftis, Imams, Mullahs) vociferously support such brutal oppression of Muslims by Muslims across the Middle East and remain silent (for example) as they did in the case of Bahrain, Algeria and countless other occasions, it becomes accepted as part of the religion.
Why was there no outrage from Muslims before Western powers intervened militarily in Libya? One would think that 32 years was quite enough time for Muslims outside Libya to find some courage to speak up about their [Muslim brother] Gaddafi brutally oppressing their Muslim “Ummah” ? Not to mention the violence and brutality against minority faith groups and Berbers in Libya.
Now I hear Muslims from the Indian subcontinent repeatedly complaining that the West was propping up Gaddafi. That the West is to blame for the oppression of the Libyan people and that the current intervention is apparently a crusade. Really? If you thought Gaddafi was such a monster, why were you renaming stadiums in his honour in Lahore, Pakistan (1974)?
There is a finer line between extremists like MAC and Muslim “progressives” than we’d all like to admit. Pointing out the moral failures of Muslim leaders automatically gets one labelled an Islamophobe or “self hating Muslim”. If only more Muslims would read beyond the literature that confirms their bias. If only they would open their minds to a genuine history of the world as opposed to a myopic, re-written one. How do Muslims keep a straight face when harping on about Israel and Western Imperialism (forward to 3 mins 50 of the video) whilst completely failing to address the oppression of Muslims by Muslims. Why doesn’t that matter and why do non-Muslims never question this double standard?
It’s too easy, too fashionable for Muslims to speak out about oppression when the oppressor isn’t a Muslim, yet whether it is extrajudicial executions, disappearances, use of torture, rape, deaths in custody, you name it, Muslim countries are head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to cruel, dehumanising treatment of their citizens. Algeria, Egypt, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Yemen, all of these states have managed to maintain horrendous human rights records with the support of Muslim nations the world over (as well as non-Muslim states). Some of these countries have been oppressing their citizens long before any hint of Western ground-troop interference. MAC and along with Muslims posing as “progressives” are disingenuous in speaking nothing of the truth of Muslim oppression of Muslims whilst happily blaming all of the world’s woes on Western powers. It’s intellectually dishonest.
MAC’s discourse of emotive propaganda appeals to impressionable minds who have a narrow vision of world history and are easily recruited to MAC’s misinformed cause.
Regularly I will hear Muslims from the subcontinent referring to their Muslim “brothers and sisters” in the UAE and raving about what a wonderful place Dubai is in particular. Yes, it may be wonderful if you’re completely oblivious to the enslavement of labourers from the very subcontinent you hail from, or if you can ignore the customary rape of Filipino maids who are deported if they try to bring their perpetrators to justice. How is it that one can regard himself as morally superior by virtue of being a Muslim yet possess such little conscience and regard for humanity when the oppressor is a Muslim?
Many Muslims desperately need to engage in critical thinking about their own local and global communities. No-one is innocent in the world of politics. I do not for even a millisecond plead ignorance to the imperialism and moral failures of Western powers. I do not ignore the impact of this on weaker nations including Muslim majority states. However, it’s time for Muslims to take some responsibility ask themselves why they are deafeningly silent on oppression of their co-religionists by their co-religionists. If the West is really so morally redundant, why is it that so many Muslims live there and not in their country of origin? Could it be because of the economic benefits? The freedom to practice ones religion? Freedom of speech? All of the above?
Quran 2:177 “We must fulfil the contracts that we made.” (I.e. we all make contracts as immigrants or citizens to follow the law of the land)
Quran 4:97 “The angels of death will say ‘Why did you make trouble?’ They will say: ‘We were oppressed.’ The angels will reply ‘Was the earth not wide enough for you?’ “
Despite bailing out at the last minute, I doubt that “Muslims Against Crusades” (MAC) are truly aware of how foolish their endeavours are. A Muslim well versed on the holy book would know that the Qur’an 2: 177 and 4:97 direct all Muslims to follow the law of the land and contribute positively to society, or essentially, to sling their hook (no pun intended). Since MAC seem incapable of practicing what their own religion preaches and despise so many values that the UK stands for (the country that pays their Job Seekers Allowance and allows them the freedom to spread their hateful idiocy), I would suggest that MAC invest in a one way ticket to Saudi Barbaria. I’m sure that once they are faced with the brutal reality of how they would be treated in many Muslim majority states, they might reconsider their position.
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Note for readers wishing to republish any of my posts: Thank you for reading. Please respect my intellectual property and my copyright and leave all the identifying information intact. Feel free to “re-blog” and share my work, but please do not reprint or republish my work in any other format without my permission. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
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Tagged Algeria, democracy, human rights violations, imperialism, Islam, Muslims, oppression, Quran, Royal Wedding, Saudi Arabia, UK, violence, Western
