A woman in London has made a short movie called My Freedom, My Right. Go sister! What’s it about – reproductive rights? Freedom to work, freedom to travel, freedom to learn?
No, it’s about wearing that great symbol of freedom…the niqab.
Twenty-two-year-old Joni Clarke, resident of southeast London, has decided to raise awareness of the abuse and discrimination that Muslim women face by making a short film. The film, My Freedom, My Right, features Clarke reciting a poem that recalls comments made to her because of her niqab.
Does she say anything about comments made to women who don’t wear the niqab in say Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia?
Clarke wants everyone to be treated as ‘individuals’ and urges people to stop ‘judging a book by its cover’. She turned to Islam when she was only 17 and chose to wear a niqab after studying the history of Islam.
If she wants everyone to be treated as ‘individuals’ and urges people to stop ‘judging a book by its cover’ then she made a mistake by “turning” to Islam.
My Freedom, My Right is not only a step towards creating awareness among the people about the sufferings of the Muslim women but also aims to alleviate their sufferings.
Not as described it doesn’t.
Teaching your child not to laugh at slaves might do something to alleviate their sufferings, but it’s not the most obvious way to do so.
Well, that sounds fine. But when all we get to see is the cover, how else are we supposed to judge?
I understand why you put that there but isn’t that a bit too close to a dear Muslima?
I don’t think it’s close to a Dear Muslima. It’s so tiresome to have to remind people to actually think about this and how it works.
Dear Muslima was a power play by a famous man in a position of much more power than the woman he targeted. It was a disingenuous act designed to call Rebecca Watson some kind of “fraud,” not a person who suffers any actual harm. It was done in the service of shutting up a legitimate feminist critique from someone in a constrained position of power relative to Dawkins.
Ophelia is not powerful in the way Dawkins is. She is not trying to silence a person whose ability to speak is in precarious danger. This isn’t a temper tantrum dressed up as respectable political commentary. This is critiquing the writer’s implication that the niquab and how it is received and deployed isn’t really a problem, you just have to embrace it.
Also, the subject matter is completely different. I have a very longstanding issue with women in secular democracies who talk about wearing the hijab and the niqab as a right and a freedom while ignoring the fact that many millions of women do not have the right and freedom to refuse to wear it.
I wonder why the phrase Stockholm syndrome comes to mind.
I just saw an opinion piece in the NYTimes about evangelical Christian women.
“insistent recasting of the negative as positive, of suffering as love, marks the writing, to my mind, as Christian.” And further on: “there is an appeal in this kind of piety. The act of submission, when consciously chosen, can feel empowering, and even politically empowering. Anthropologists have seen these dynamics among Muslim women. In the 1990s, when young women in Java increasingly chose to wear veils, despite the harassment and mockery of others, the anthropologist Suzanne A. Brenner set out to understand why. She found that they saw themselves as activists: as people who were creating a new social order, free of the corruption of the West. They saw themselves as modern but godly. Choosing to submit to Islamic law made them feel powerful, independent and effective. It gave them a sense of control.”
Is there a diagnosis of “Martyr Complex”? There should be.
Besides that, I suspect Clarke is feeling big about going neener-neener to her parents.
How you judge people online? Are you, for instance, entirely unable to form any opinion about me without my sending you a picture of myself?
The dear Muslima accusation has been broadened to cover more than Dawkins by many people in many different situations. It has even been reduced (or at least linked to) in some instances to as little as being criticized for anything in the west when there is something worse in other parts of the world (mostly Muslim countries).
Having said that, I understand that this is an inappropriate comparison and I totally understand and agree with having issues with the bullshit talks of freedom regarding the hijab and niqab. But in the context of the current post, the way this is brought on made me uneasy. I guess, this makes me a tone troll even if that wasn’t the intention. And since I do agree with the underlying message, I probably would have said similar things had I been in a different mood.
Would that everyone were so clear about how we fall into these conversational pits, Jean. Now I wish I hadn’t been so snotty to you. I’m sorry.
We don’t get to choose what symbols symbolize. That is done at a much broader level.
If I choose to wear a shackle around everywhere I go, and I tell people that it’s a symbol of freedom TO ME, they won’t take me very seriously. Or if I insist that my rainbow actually symbolizes my belief that everyone should conform to the same cultural standard, that just won’t hold up either.
I think someone else around here already drew the parallel with the confederate flag. Someone can insist that the only thing it symbolizes is respect for one’s ancestors, but that doesn’t make it be so.
My responses to one of your earlier blog posts (http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2015/06/20505/ ) were critical because I got the impression that someone’s claim that they *chose* the hijab was being dismissed too quickly, as if she had not chosen to wear the hijab at all, as if she had not thought about it, as if she had been brainwashed.
This blog post (this one I’m responding to now) doesn’t leave me with that impression. Here, I get the impression that someone’s choice to wear a niqab (or whatever) is being criticized because the chooser has not fully considered the important contexts in which the same clothing is forced upon others. That line of argument is much more interesting/helpful/legitimate. It’s the kind of argument I could agree with; it’s the kind of argument I might make myself.
But I find it hard to think about any argument (even/especially one of my own arguments) without being critical. (This may be one reason why I find it so hard to say anything with conviction).
As I tried to suggest my comments re: the hijab video, many young women in the West *choose* to wear the hijab/niqab/whatever; they make this choice *after* some thought/reflection. The niqab/hijab/whatever on one of these women is not at all like the niqab/hijab/whatever on women in Saudi Arabia (for example).
Often, young Muslim women in the West *choose* to wear the hijab/niqab/whatever, *even though* their parents don’t expect/demand/support their decision.^^
The choice these women make (to wear the niqab/hijab/whatever) is not a choice that makes them disappear. In a Western context, they are wearing things that make them *more* visible, not invisible.
Let’s consider the possibility that they are being honest when they say that they are choosing to wear the niqab/hijab/whatever (especially if they come from a family where it is not demanded/expected, and live in a country where doing so makes one more visible rather than invisible). Let’s listen to the reasons they offer to justify (or at least explain) their choices. Let’s see if we share any of their concerns. Let’s find out why they think a certain interpretation of Islam addresses their concerns. Let’s find out why our position doesn’t appeal to them as much as the Islamic position(s) they end up identifying with. And when we discover that there are Islamic ideals that appeal to them more than our secular ideals, let’s not assume that the problem is just that they haven’t had anyone tell them how stupid/ignorant/oppressed/oppressive they are. That kind of argument on our part might be one reason why they turn to those Islamic ideals we find so problematic.
^^^(One of your recent blog posts might support my claim here. You recently made reference to one of Tarek Fatah’s recent tweets which showed pictures of university students in Egypt that illustrated the increase in hijab-wearing over recent decades).
It’s a bit hard to treat someone as an individual when it’s utterly impossible to distinguish her from the next individual who’s dressed like her. Or to recognize her if you see her again.
Ophelia is not powerful in the way Dawkins is.
Yes she is, she is powerful in precisely the same way through the influence that her opinions and writings have on her readers and supporters. Her success and influence may be less than Dawkins’, but it is of the same kind, and far more than the young woman she is singling out here.
It would be if that were the case, but it isn’t. If you know any women who wear the burqa you will quickly find that they are very easily told apart. ‘They all look the same to me’ is perhaps not the best way to approach this sort of problem. It would be a big help if everyone would get to know a burqa wearer before they start to comment with quite so much self assurance I think. Its not as if it is that hard to do.
Isn’t part of the point being that these clothing types are actually intended to pretty much hide the identity of the person wearing them? (This is a genuine question, I’m culturally ignorant of the background of these garments, other than in a modern context.) The only thing one can see of the individual are their eyes, and not many people would be able to distinguish individuals that way.
No, I don’t think so. At least I don’t think anybody in the communities were this is common practice would view them that way. It most;y emanates from small tribal communities where individuals would be well known to everybody. I think the point is to restrict the choices of the person wearing the garment, to assert ownership and control in a society where women are expensive and potentially ruinous commodities.
I recall Hirsi Ali’s description of her embrace of ever more severely concealing cloaks. A kind of competitive self-erasure. And, I think here on B&W, didn’t someone write about embracing an ‘Islamic’ specialness via the hijab?
She says she took up the niqab after ‘studying Islam.’ Like Dylann Roof ‘studied’ American history?