Islamophobia as a tool of the religious right to suppress dissent

[NonnyMouse1337]

I don't know if Maryam Namazie is gender critical or a RadFem but I have always admired her left wing and feminist stance against Islamic political and religious right wing movements. She is one of the few people on the left that denounces identity politics and it always pleases me to no end how uncomfortable she makes a lot of 'progressives' because she points out the issues with viewing all Muslim people as some monolith that needs unquestioning support, and oppressive clothing like the hijab are 'empowering' for Muslim women.

It's a really good article and I especially liked this bit -
Like ‘Britishness’, the concept of ‘Muslimness’ is fundamentally about exclusion. Britishness tends to exclude brown and black people. Muslimness tends to exclude doubters and dissenters – anyone not ‘authentically’ regressive enough, not veiled enough, not segregated enough, not submissive enough, not pro-Sharia enough, not modest enough, not angry enough and not offended enough. Everyone else is an ‘Islamophobe’, an ‘Uncle Tom’, a ‘native informant’, a ‘coconut’ or a ‘westernised, neo-colonialist.’

sister-hood.com/maryam-namazie/defining-islamophobia/

Maybe this isn't the best place to post this article, but most libfem and leftie spaces online cannot comprehend any critique of Islam and Islamic practices. Like the trans topic, they conflate anything other than unquestioning support as an indication of bigotry against Muslims.

The religious far right and the political far right are two sides of the same coin. As an Indian woman who spent the first 18 years of my life in Kuwait, I'm still immensely disappointed at the huge betrayal of the Left and Feminism in general in Western politics in its alignment with the religious far right in its desperate attempt to score points and 'appear' progressive. I can only hope the cancer of identity politics can be removed and replaced with actual solidarity.

Anyway, hopefully some others find it an interesting read as well. :)

Hmm. Most non-Muslims don’t realise that Islam is in the same place currently as Christianity was in the Middle Ages. There are currently countless sects and practices — but this will probably change in 10-20 years. Most of the world’s Muslims live in India and whether they are sunni or shia follow sufi practices. As Indian Islam has it’s roots in Iran, this will make the Indo-Iranian nexus more important to global Islam than the Saudi-Middle East nexus. This is especially important when you consider that many Muslims in India don’t even think about leaving India to go to to Hajj - they do it in India itself!

Flicking by Sky News last night I noticed Sajid Javid forcing the others on stage to commit to an investigation into Islamophobia.

news.sky.com/video/bbc-conservative-debate-sajid-javid-signs-rivals-up-to-islamophobia-probe-11744477

Some religions and cultures appear to be sacrosanct, can't be criticised, others not so much.

I want to understand why and how Leicester / Birmingham / Manchester has a mosque on every street corner when planning permission for Hindu / Jewish temples and Christian churches are requested in these areas they are more often declined than not.

I agree with you OP, I can't understand people who are critical of Christianity but defensive of Islam despite being, in my opinion, a much more regressive and harmful religion in it's current form. I lived in Leicester for a while and had loads of female Muslim friends, most of them very progressive in their beliefs, and truly lovely people. Most of them wore a Hijab or a Chador and I heard all their arguments for why this was a totally free and empowering choice, but I'm afraid it rang about as true for me as women arguing for their totally free and empowering choice to do any other practice that subordinates women (from making porn or selling sex down to giving up their name on marriage or making painful expensive fashion choices). If it was a truly free choice that was basically just a fashion statement (as some claimed) then we would see non Muslim women doing it as well. If it wasn't about subordinating women then we would see men doing it too. I only knew a couple of women who wore a Niqab and I will never believe that that was their own free choice. Their visible discomfort in the height of summer was really upsetting to watch. One of my best friends grew up in a very strict Muslim family and the abuse that she was subjected to in the name of religion is absolutely horrific. The desire of "the left" to appear progressive whilst supporting and defending some of the harshest and most obvious manifestations of patriarchy is constantly baffling to me. I'm at a point now where I honestly think that if "the left" are clamouring loudly in favour of something, there's a pretty good chance it's harmful to women but just with some shiny progressive fig leaf covering it.

Agree OP. I think the UK has been horribly spineless about aspects of religion which are problematic from a feminist perspective. And yes, it does seem to be the Left throwing women under a bus yet again to score woke points via treating Islam as untouchable.

Niqabs give me a visceral shock reaction as I cannot believe I am seeing women dressed in the UK how they must dress in countries with appalling rights for women. I feel utterly gaslit when people tell me it's choice and I'm a racist if I think otherwise. Which is why shrieks of transphobia feel very familiar to me. Little girls in head coverings makes me feel the same.

I actually think it verges on prejudice of some sort to abandon a subsection of British girls and women to any misogynist cultural practice. Feminists in more repressive countries have been calling us out on this for years but it mostly falls on deaf ears.

It’s a bit of a shock when feminist movements in really strict Islamic countries are fighting to remove the burkha requirements and improve access to education / jobs (by using religious text!), while a small number of ignorant Muslims in the West ruin it for them by becoming more regressive. Remember religous women across the Gulf used the Qu’raan to transform the UAE’s lingerie / womenswear / medicalpractices by demanding their Islamic rights to see a female shopkeeper / doctor.

This picture was posted by a FB friend yesterday, my brain exploded. To me it's a little girl being groomed and prepared for a lifetime of being hidden behind a veil, and we're all supposed to go "Aaaahhhhhhhh isn't that sweet".

Feminists in more repressive countries have been calling us out on this for years but it mostly falls on deaf ears.

Very much so. I don't like the HuffPost much anymore, but this article makes the point quite well

I think this is why the likes of Quilliam and others are trying to separate 'Anti-Muslim sentiment' (hatred of Muslim people) and 'Islamophobia' - David Baddiel was the first I heard saying this is essentially a blasphemy law by the back door and I think he's right.

All about being able to criticise any set of ideas (such as Islam) while seeking to protect the people themselves.

(Namazie's excellent - think she was no-platformed at at least one university for her efforts).

It’s not clear to mean what legal changes are being proposed or she’s objecting to.

Obviously people blaspheme against Islam all the time - most of the blasphemy against Christianity is also blasphemy against Islam.

The No Outsiders programme in Birmingham schools did target Muslim children as part of the Prevent strategy, and so is Islamophobia. Primary school kids are not taught the equality act usually in primary schools, or indeed legislation in general, because as a country we consider ten to be the age of criminal responsibility. So I what is going on in Birmingham is not some clear cut case of homophobic Muslims.

Grabthar Good article, thank you, yes it does. I am reminded of the protesting Iranian woman:

These are Iranian women before the revolution.

I think the most depressing thing is World Hijab Day, or whatever it’s called, when non-Muslim women don the hijab to celebrate an item of clothing women elsewhere can be beaten or imprisoned for not wearing.

I think this is a fairly complex issue. I wouldn't say that the hijab is repressive though I do think the more extreme kinds of covering are. There are variations in what cultures consider the right amount of body coverage and they aren't necessarily that meaningful. In most western countries we expect women to cover their breasts, that doesn't mean we are oppressing them more than cultures where that isn't the norm. I'd even go farther and say I appreciate the fact that Muslims are often more aware that a push to uncover can be about sexualisation of the female body and also profoundly oppressive, which is a idea many westerners simply can't seem to comprehend.

I do agree that there is a bizarre inability for liberals to talk in a balanced or appropriately critical way about various religions. The fact is that most people know very little about any religion, and what they do know is often incorrect, so many of the criticism you hear about Christianity miss the mark, as does the lack of criticism of Islam.

Equating right wing politics and more orthodox forms of religion might be a mistake. Sometimes it's true, but not always. There are many very orthodox Catholics who are very close to a Marxist position for example. Look at someone like Dorothy Day. I don't know enough about Islam to make comparisons but from what I can see there are some similarities in that.

Someone above mentioned the dichotomy of people looking for more freedom for women in some places while others retreat to a more conservative viewpoint. I don't think this is odd, in fact it's completely typical. Often a strong push in a culture in one direction, will lead to an equally strong pull in the other, which might not have even existed had the original push not brought it to life. It's another reason to be very careful about taking a position that won't allow for compromise or variety, it can create more of an opposition, and less real change, than you would have had by being a little more moderate. That's true whether you are trying to be more conservative or more liberal, you will see people react proportionally the other way.

Any item of clothing you can be punished for not wearing, no matter how trivial, is oppressive. If the hijab wasn’t oppressive it wouldn’t have to be enforced. And men aren’t being forced to wear them. Saying women have to cover up from head to toe to prevent being ‘sexualised’ is blaming the victim.

I can't understand people who are critical of Christianity but defensive of Islam...

Want to ask Salman Rushdie about that?

Most muslims are lovely.

Totally agree NonnyMouse. There’s a huge blind spot here just as there is with trans issues. When the Left stands with this “oppressed minority”, the people who get left behind and left out are those from that minority who dissent, who challenge, who want progress - all the things the Left is supposed to encourage. But not when the “establishment” is itself a minority.

And would you believe that it’s women's and girls rights that are so easily sacrificed on this altar, just like the way the Left enables that wrt to transactivism. Incredible, isn’t it.

This letter from dissenting Muslim/Muslim background women is always worth reposting:

www.sedaa.org/2017/09/open-letter-hijab-in-the-classroom/

Any item of clothing you can be punished for not wearing, no matter how trivial, is oppressive. If the hijab wasn’t oppressive it wouldn’t have to be enforced. And men aren’t being forced to wear them. Saying women have to cover up from head to toe to prevent being ‘sexualised’ is blaming the victim.

Absolutely this, AlwaysComingHome.

The item of clothing itself is separate from laws saying people have to wear it. There are places where the law says women have to wear a shirt, that doesn't mean shirts are inherently oppressive, or even the custom of wearing them.
The west has a very difficult time seeing that its own way of dealing with women's sexuality is profoundly oppressive, because they base the argument of "freedom" which is see as inherently good, along the queer theory/deconstructionist lines. Unless we have a good sense of how that works it makes us inclined to treat cultures that look at it differently in a hypocritical way.

I have often had an issue with how progressive people will celebrate things like World Hijab Day as well. While ignoring the subjugation of women in many countries under Islamic rule.

I live in a fairly multicultural area with many surrounding suburbs that have a high Muslim population. I see the good and the bad (as is the case with any race or religion on this planet). I can certainly understand how people get annoyed when criticism of anti social behaviour are shut down with cries of islamophobia. Particularly when those that are shouting it live in places where all they know is that a brand new restaurant with amazing food has opened locally.

I have had to hold my DS1 sobbing uncontrollably in my arms upon learning of (what was an acquaintance whom he’d met twice through another friend) was shot dead point blank in his head at 15. Gang related violence.

I have supported a brave Muslim woman attending court due to domestic violence because her own family would not. She wears a hijab, her daughters do not. She is funny and fierce and my friend.

It does not help anyone. All it allows is young men dying in vain and women to continue to be beaten.

I agree, until recently not being able to speak out about the ways in which some muslim men control and abuse some muslim women was the last bastion of acceptable misogyny. Now of course we have a renewed Men's Rights Movement in the guise of Trans-Rights (which oddly enough is often very hostile to true transsexuals) so feminists are left battling on all fronts.

I think the freedom to not cover your face is inherently good.

I think being beaten, raped or imprisoned for not covering your face is inherently evil.

Screw the false equivalences between the West and the Muslim world.

If we were that fucking oppressive we’d be emigrating, not the other way round.

The LGB rights movement has the same blind spot. Foucault adored the Revolution.

Britishness excludes brown or black people? Racist much.

Orchidoptic
Britishness excludes brown or black people? Racist much.

Well, yes a lot of the far-right political rhetoric talks about Britishness and preserving it, but we all know what they mean. Asian and African immigrants should 'go home' by their standards. The recent hostility towards EU migrants has already been there for non-EU migrants for yonks.