The American founder of the world’s most popular online magazine for Muslim women says Pauline Hanson’s recent burka “stunt” is symptomatic of Western democracies trying to disempower Muslim women and “look at them in an inferior lens”.
A little background on Pauline Hanson’s “stunt”:
Senator Hanson shocked her colleagues when she entered Question Time wearing the religious garment…The One Nation Leader was calling for the burka to be banned in Australia. The incident ignited a debate about dress codes in Federal Parliament and whether Senator Hanson should have been allowed to wear the garment into the Chamber.
In answer to Amani Al-Khatahtbeh: the West is most certainly not trying to “disempower Muslim women.” Sharia disempowers Muslim women. In fact, concerned citizens of the West are trying to advance human rights and equality for all. Unfortunately however, those abuses that are routine across the Islamic world under Sharia have made their way onto Western soil. FGM has become a shockingly widespread practice despite Western laws, and in the UK, “white girls” are getting raped by racist Muslim rape gangs; mass rapes still occur in other locations throughout Europe, such as Sweden and in Germany. In addition, Western nations are even being compelled to undermine their own security through the forcing of the burqa.
A panel of global thinkers and writers gathered for last night’s Melbourne Writers Festival edition of Q&A, where a young high school student asked: “In some Islamic nations, women are often deprived of basic human rights such as driving a car, voting or even punished for exposing an ankle…In a world where women are often the guilty party to the crime of rape and must endure severe punishment, aren’t freedom and religion mutually exclusive?”
What was actually wrong with that young high school student’s question? Nothing, of course. It was perfectly logical and reasoned. But instead of getting an answer, she was hit with the frequently employed tactic of making her out to be the guilty party. Oh, the horrors of being deemed “Islamophobic.” This charge or implication is now a default response to anyone who questions any aspect of Islamic practice.
Food for thought in this article: “If Muslim men like the veil so much, let them wear it.”
“West ‘trying to disempower Muslim women'”, Australian Business Review, September 4, 2017:
The American founder of the world’s most popular online magazine for Muslim women says Pauline Hanson’s recent burka “stunt” is symptomatic of Western democracies trying to disempower Muslim women and “look at them in an inferior lens”.
A panel of global thinkers and writers gathered for last night’s Melbourne Writers Festival edition of Q&A, where a young high school student asked: “In some Islamic nations, women are often deprived of basic human rights such as driving a car, voting or even punished for exposing an ankle.
“In a world where women are often the guilty party to the crime of rape and must endure severe punishment, aren’t freedom and religion mutually exclusive?”
Amani Al-Khatahtbeh, who founded the popular blog Muslim Girl aged 17, said the oppression of women in Islamic countries was often misrepresented by Western countries to “absolve ourselves of our own issues”.
“One of the biggest things that is always cited is honour killings. You would assume that this is just a problem pervading the entire, the entire region. But then when you look at countries like Australia and the US, the top killer of women is domestic violence. But we choose to refer to it as domestic violence like it’s a social issue and often really disregard it.”
The American writer said targeted judgment of Muslim women combined with a lack of cultural understanding was contributing to disempowerment around the world.
“We speak about (Muslim women) like we know what’s best for them. We just had Pauline in the parliament wearing a burqa and really hijacking an entire conversation about what that means,” she said.
The One Nation leader’s decision to wear a burka into the Senate earlier this month unleashed a stinging rebuke by Attorney-General George Brandis, who warned against the dangers of marginalising and humiliating the Muslim community in Australia.
British writer and journalist Laurie Penny agreed with Ms Al-Khatahtbeh, saying the debate over whether the burka should be banned often failed to take into account that women have agency.
“My experience as a feminist who is white is often told the other side of this story, when I try to make an argument about domestic violence and an argument about the fact one in five women in their lifetimes will be raped, I’m immediately told mostly by men why are you talking about this nonsense, and you should be talking about Muslim women far away,” she said.
“We can only talk about sexism and misogyny and violence when it’s being done in other countries far away.”
However Michael Fullilove, the executive director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy, rejected the argument that Western countries can’t also critique the culture of others.
“There’s one other missing word I think and that’s universal. And I think human rights are universal. And I don’t disagree with what a lot of the panellists have said today but I do disagree with one point and that is because we have frailties as a society, therefore we shouldn’t be calling out human rights abroad. Because there’s domestic violence in Australia, we shouldn’t be calling out honour killings abroad. The idea that our society is so hopeless and frail that therefore it’s cultural to tell people how to live their lives — I don’t believe in that.”
But Ms Al-Khatahtbeh maintained it was her personal choice to wear the burka and it shouldn’t be viewed as a sign of oppression.
“It is pretty convenient we want to believe Muslim women are being forced to dress a certain way because people don’t want to believe we want to assert our own values and do something that defies what the West wants of us,” she said…..