Presentation of Gifts to Islamophobes and Ownership of Hijab

If anyone wants to discuss the hijab, that's great. However, obscuring the voices of Muslim women by imputing on them the reasons that they dress as they do is insulting to the women who wear hijab.

Nomani used the phrase "they believe" in her piece. In so doing,  she made assumptions about people without even talking to them as individual persons about why they make the clothing choices that they do. Nomani's writing left one with the sense that her opinion about what a person trumps that very person's own views as to the same thing. Eww, really. Let individuals speak for themselves, explain themselves to you regarding why they've done various things. There are as many reasons that Muslims dress various ways as there are Muslims.

As we have seen in the backlash from many prominent female scholars, authors, and activists, there are many reasons that women wear hijab. In any discussion of the hijab, we should obviously let Muslim women speak for themselves about why they dress whatever way they dress. Nomani should speak for herself; and she should allow other women to speak for themselves.

I think that what is happening is that Muslim women are asserting their right to define their own relationship with their own hijabs. This is in the face of the way that Asra Nomani imputed on hijabis her own ideas about why people wear the hijab. Nomani attempted to broadly characterise the nature of the hijab and the women who wear it. What I have been seeing is that the women responding to her are reclaiming ownership of their relationships with their hijabs.

Discussions of the hijab or any other piece of clothing unique to Muslims should furthermore not make use of the very tropes which further anti-Muslim bigotry in places where Muslims are a vulnerable minority. This is a more important aspect of the implications of Nomani's piece which should receive more attention than a piece of cloth.

In her article, Asra Nomani did precisely this - she employed anti-Muslim tropes. As per her norm, Nomani has couched opinion on a Muslim topic in a way that lends itself handily to anti-Muslim bigots as fuel for their hateful rhetoric. (This is one explanation for the term "Muslim informant.") She echoed the claims of many prominent Islamophobes who use black-and-white thinking to equate every Muslim person's clothing style to one or another political ideology.

This politicisation of clothing is exactly what prominent American bigots have been doing in order to racialise Muslims and incite hatred against us here. At a time when non-Muslims are seeking to make the world safer for Muslims, Nomani is amplifying her voice to those who see the hijab only ever as a symbol of an extremist, politicised Islamism. That kind of rhetoric is dangerous in the current atmosphere of racism, xenophobia, heterosexism, and other hatreds which are gripping North America and Western Europe.

"Smile for Me, Baby!"

Question: Who has rights over another woman's body?

Answer: No-one.

You have no right to touch a woman. You have no grounds to demand that a woman smile for you or otherwise perform for you. You have no right to silence a woman. You have no right to tell a woman how to dress. You have no right to tell a woman what to do with her body. You have no right to tell a woman with whom she can or cannot associate.

You aren't God.

Buzz off.

France, Secularism, and Islam

originally posted Thursday, December 25, 2003

As a progressive woman, I certainly affirm the right of a woman to dress as she pleases - however, I also feel that men should cease and desist from their nauseating cries for women to constantly strip and pose for them, and to use our naked bodies so that their sorry selves can sell some corporate produce. Women are humans not commodities to enjoy and to use in marketing strategies.
All three of that which France banned could be used for political or nationalistic identification. In fact, the hijab was used exactly as such by many Iranian women during the dictatorship of the Shah. The sight of women wearing heavy makeup, smoking a cigarette, and donning a hijab was not uncommon. However, the same can be said for the turban of the Sikh, the red dot of the Hindu, the pro-Shah flag/shield of Iranian reformists, etc. Where does Chirac plan to draw the line? Or will he draw it? He is already known for his anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

Regarding the hijab, it is usually easy enough to distinguish the forced or cultural use of it: the scarf is usually loosely tied or attached and falls easily from the head; it is accompanied by a year's worth of makeup on the face, it is loosened immediately upon entry into the school or mall, the ponytail falls loose and trails below it, etc. This is not to say that every slipped ponytail is intentional or that every hijabi wearing lipstick or blush is immodest. These are generalities, and they have their exceptions; and I could also be wrong. Usually, however, when someone fights so hard for her right to wear the hijab, it is because she believes that it constitutes an integral part of her religion and code of modesty.

I am one of them.

I take serious offence that someone would presumtuously assume a position to determine just what constitutes a part of my religion, especially if it is not that person's religion. Obviously it is not: Chirac is a secularist. I also take offence when someone who is not practising Islam presumes himself to be in a position to tell me what my beliefs and practises really are or really should be, when I am practising this religion and he is not. What right have these people to dictate to practising Muslims what is our religion? None!

And when a non-Muslim secularist takes an article of clothing which I and so many other Muslim women use to protect our privacy and claims that it constitutes an imposition of our faith on him, then deems it unnecessary for us and prohibits us from wearing it while we pursue a right that is guaranteed to us by many countries, if not international law, I take even deeper offence. What then, is so threatening about us? Perhaps it is the fact that we are different and not ashamed of it. There is no sin in being different, unless one is fascist.

It seems, then, that those who view articles of modesty as items of religious identification and see objects of religious identification as threats to his own secularist value system does not even feel secure in his own identity as a secularist. One who needs to be surrounded at every stop by symbols and articles of his secularist ideology should be questioned regarding his own personal faith in the system. And one who feels the need to outlaw that which is different from him should be checked for other fascist qualities.