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Salma Yaqoob
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In this post 9/11 world the liberation of Muslim women and the fight
against terrorism have become intertwined. ‘The fight against terrorism
is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women’, claimed Laura
Bush in the run up to the invasion of Afghanistan.
‘Civilized people throughout the world are speaking out in horror - not
only because our hearts break for the women and children of
Afghanistan, but also because in Afghanistan, we see the world the
terrorists would like to impose on the rest of us.’
The idea that one of the weakest countries in the world was going to
impose its religious strictures on the most powerful was nearly as
ludicrous as the suggestion that George W Bush was about to embark on a
feminist mission in Afghanistan.
Behind the rhetoric the real reason for war was more straightforward.
The attacks on the Twin Towers provided the ‘Pearl Harbour’ moment
which the neo-cons embedded in the White House were only too willing to
exploit in order to remap the Middle East in the interests of US power.
For some, concerns about the brutality of war and occupation gave way
to what were seen as the benefits: the civilizing role of Western
imperialism in undermining ‘Islamic fascism’.
And, for them, nothing
more symbolized Islamic tyranny that the plight of Muslim women.
Battleground
There was nothing new in this for Muslim women. As Maleiha Malik points
out, our bodies have always been used as ‘a battleground for European
and US imperialism’:
“Lord Cromer, British consul general in Egypt in the late 19th
century, famously justified British colonial rule by arguing that it
could liberate Egyptian women from their oppressive veils.
Commenting on French colonialism in Algeria in the 50s the writer
Frantz Fanon noted: ‘There is also in the European the crystallization
of an aggressiveness, the strain of a kind of violence before the
Algerian woman. Unveiling this woman is revealing her beauty; it is
baring her secret, breaking her resistance (to colonial rule). There is
in it the will to bring this woman within his reach, to make her a
possible object of possession.’”
It is not surprising that in this context of the struggle for Algerian
independence, wearing the veil became a symbol of resistance.
Muslim women have found their lives subject to unprecedented scrutiny.
Too often we are caught between a rock and a hard place: between the
politicians who in the name of liberation are prepared to demonise our
communities at home and bomb our sisters abroad, and the Muslim men,
who in the name of protecting us, want to restrict our rights.
But contrary to what politicians and media might say, the biggest
obstacle we face to fuller integration in society is not how we dress,
but the discrimination we suffer.
A report by the Equal Opportunities Commission found that girls of
Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin - 90% of whom are Muslim - “...were
making remarkable progress at school.
They had overtaken white boys in
performance at GCSE, with a higher proportion achieving five good
passes at grade C or above. Despite lower family incomes they are also
rapidly catching up with white girls”.
This progress in educational achievement is an important signal of
successful integration. It is not a piece of cloth which holds us back,
but the “brick wall of discrimination”, which faces all Muslim women,
and not just the tiny minority who wear the niqab.
These findings were confirmed for me by my own practical experience as
a councillor in a deprived inner city ward with a large Muslim
population. A significant proportion of constituents visiting my
surgeries are Muslim women but the majority of the issues I have to
deal with do not concern family or cultural conflicts.
The problems that I am confronted with are a chronic shortage of affordable housing,
the lack of job opportunities, racism in the employment market, and the
provision of worse council services to deprived areas compared to
wealthier ones.
Demonized
Muslim women do have specific and well-documented problems of
patriarchal oppression to overcome, more often disguised with a pseudo
religious gloss.
These challenges however have been made immeasurably
more difficult by the war on terror. Muslim communities now feel
demonized, under constant attack and ridiculed to an unprecedented
degree.
In this climate the instinctive reaction is to adopt a defensive stance
and emphasize only positive aspects of Muslim faith and culture. Space
for self-criticism is restricted for fear that washing one’s dirty
laundry in public will give succour to those already fuelling
Islamophobic hostility.
It creates a climate of self-censorship at the
very time when Muslim voices, and the voices of Muslim women, in
particular, need to be heard in all our diversity.
This reaction, while understandable, is deeply damaging.
It reinforces
those who say Muslims are in denial or indifferent to addressing
oppressive practices within their own communities. In so doing it
undermines our ability to forge effective progressive alliances with
non-Muslims.
It also strengthens the hand of those who argue for
greater state intrusion, restriction and regulation of our lives.
The experience of the anti-war movement has both helped women like
myself find our voice and created space to express it.
I have chosen to
root my feminism and political activism in my Islamic understanding.
Other women will choose different paths.
In our different ways Muslim women are acting to challenge the racism
generated by this ‘war on terror’ and the barriers to our equality from
both within and without our communities We need solidarity from
non-Muslim women in those challenges.
As we celebrate International
Women’s Day it is a fitting reminder that the common ground is there if
we choose to occupy it. |
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