NASSIR Posted March 14, 2005 Ayan Hirsi Ali, The Stray Bullet! Yasmeen Maxamuud March 14, 2005 Many who watched the 60 Minutes story on Ayan Hirsi came away with the bewilderment and wonder as to the reason Ayan Hirsi has taken on the issue of Islam to defame and offend Muslim people around the globe. The film she has written and co-produced is provocative, distasteful, disrespectful and totally ignorant. Watching her interview, I came away with this, that this woman is calculated and manipulative with a personal agenda. We may not be privy to what looms in the mind of any human who holds such loathing and ill-bred views against any group, but one fact is clear, she is getting the encouragement, funding and support of anti Muslim propaganda machines who no doubt are celebrating to use a renegade Muslim to spread their anti Islamic rhetoric through lies and misinformation. She claims Muslim women in Rotterdam and Amsterdam suffer from violence abuses by their families. Are we to think in Holland , this is the only area where violence against women occurs? Does Ms. Hirsi know women around the globe are abused and suffer the wrath of society's social ills, but only Muslim women are accused of going thru such abuse with the blessing of their religion? Hirsi employs misinformation tactic where she reports unsubstantiated lies she claims exist in the Holy Quran. When non Muslim women around the world suffer abuse in their respective societies, that society is not accused of doing so in the name of their religion. In an environment that is ripe for oppressing Muslims and where the Muslim masses are suffering today solely for their religious affiliation, Hirsi is not helping but adding fuel to an already burning fire. As far as media outlets all over the western world is concerned, it is a free for all time for everyone to take limitless punches against Muslims, hence such a divisive ill-informed piece was totally publicized to further alienate Muslims in Holland as well as other countries. If a documentary film depicted images that were demeaning and disrespectful to other religions such as the Judeo-Christian religion, most media outlets would most likely not have given it space to air. It is a malevolent reality that issues confronting religion do not have an equal footing in the West and that the magnifying glass to scrutinize insult and degrade Islam is not used for other religions. Her agenda is clear, she after all got publicity she probably never dreamed of, but her fifteen minutes of fame will come to a halt, and the residual outcome will be that she contributed to the controversy and gross misinformation of Muslim women while most certainly not coming to the aid of any abused woman in her tenure. The biased Western media interpretations which Hirsi and her like subscribe to, stereotype Muslim women as one block homogenous group that suffer violence and human rights abuses. These media outlets fail to understand that variety exists through culture, custom and tradition, hence Muslim women around the globe are exposed to different life styles depending on their culture. These same media outlets would not lump up an American Roman catholic and French Roman Catholic women taking into consideration the difference in culture. The Sensational attention grapping Western media brand Islam as a backward “fundamentalist†religion taking few examples of unjust behavior by any Muslim government as a supreme example of all Muslim countries. Hirsi needs to educate herself before making such unproven, dangerous claims about the religion. Islam is the first religion that gave women equal rights through inheritance, marriage, law and equality to men in the eyes of God, while Jewish and Christian women were still considered inferior to men because they were considered the originators of sin and the property of their husbands. The bias media outlets also portray the Muslim Hijab as a suppressive force on Muslim women. Quite the contrary the Hijab is a freeing attire for the sole purpose of protecting women from violence. Islam is more concerned with the integrity of woman and the protection of her personality and dignity. Where morality is decreasing and crimes against women staggering, modesty in dressing such as Hijab would only contribute to the safeguard of women. Contrast this with western societies where women are subjected to stringent requirements to look and dress a certain way, but are not protected when violence occurs, always questioning the women's attire at the time of violence, with the insinuation that the woman must have invited the abuse because she dressed in a provocative and inappropriate manner. Hirsi is misinformed and purposfully seeks attention grapping sound bites that are logically, academically and intellectually flawed. Yasmeen Maxamuud E-mail: Yasmeen_maxmuud@yahoo.com Source: Wardheernews.com Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
