Do Muslim Women Need Saving? The Western crusade to rescue Muslim women has reduced them to a simpl

[AfricaOwn]

You're "brilliant"

[Raamsade]

guleed_ali;985903 wrote:

Both Groups ain't down with Islam so one group rejects it totally and the other wants to change it up "to fit" with today's world (the latter being the far more dangerous one IMHO). Sometimes you need to cut through all the rhetoric and break it down in simple everyday English!

And yet they still welcomed your ungrateful **** even though you didn't speak like them, you didn't dress like them, you didn't look like them, you didn't share their values and you certainly didn't share a faith with them. You or your parents came to the West with virtually nothing but you were still welcomed with open arms. The day you landed in the West, you promised to be treated as a HUMAN BEING equal before the law like everybody else. What's more, many laws were drafted to protect you from discrimination. The West didn't have to take your whining **** in, they could've taken thousands of other more grateful folks that shared values closer to those of the West. I think it is high noon that you show some gratitude. Because if you are not grateful then be honest enough and give your passport to the thousands of Somalis who cherish in the seas every year trying to get into the West.

 

Regarding the Hijab, I think the so-called Hijab revival is the fulcrum of much darker force - Wahabism or Salafism. There is no denying that the ascent of Wahabist ideals accompanied the donning of Hjiab. You can't decouple the Hijab and Wahabism in my opinion. If the issue of the Hijab was merely one of spiritual re-awakening among Muslim women and all that entailed was a lot of happy Muslim women wearing their pretty Hijabs, holding hands, waving v-signs, laughing and smiling interspersed with joyous shouts of "all you need is love," I can assure no body care. If anything, the world would be captivated by this new movement and the Islamic world would've won millions of new converts. But that is not what has transpired. Instead the rise of Hijab politics was accompanied by rise of suicide bombings, religious extremism and hatred, violence in the name of Allah, death threats, extremist groups espousing and harboring terrorism and terrorists, etc. In the face of this unassailable reality, questioning the Hijab business is perfectly legitimate.

[Khayr]

We are not equals and will not be

until we thin our blood lines

and start looking and thinking like them. They did that to the Japanese immigrants in WWII.

 

As a muslim, the earth belongs to

Allah (as was mentioned to Musa when his people were being displaced by Pharoah).

[Khayr]

Raam,

 

You are being hypocritical by saying that the Hijab (a muslim value) can be questioned and attacked while muslim migrants can't question any demo-liberal, drone loving - values!

 

Cut the B/S!

[Naxar Nugaaleed]

Did you tell the immigration official the reason your seeking residency/citizenship was because the earth belongs to allah looooooool

[Khayr]

I said to them - Since you colonized our lands and don't let us run our own countries, that you have no say. So move over and take my bags chumps!

 

By the way, what do they call

a bow tied, asss kissing negro? Still a niggerr!

 

Which is what you still are to them, no matter how hard you fight for them!

[Puntlander123]

Muslim women should be judged on a case by case basis. Not all where the niqab willingly and no all are told to wear it due to force.

[Puntlander123]

Apophis;985980 wrote:

Stalinism is not a liberal ideology, It's something utterly outside of it. And I do not idolise the man, I respect his gargantuan achievements. And my views on the supernatural have not changed, I'm still a [metaphysical] naturalist.

So u r not Muslim?

[Puntlander123]

Apophis;985980 wrote:

Stalinism is not a liberal ideology, It's something utterly outside of it. And I do not idolise the man, I respect his gargantuan achievements. And my views on the supernatural have not changed, I'm still a [metaphysical] naturalist.

So u r not Muslim?

[SomaliPhilosopher]

Looooooooooooool!!

[guleed_ali]

Raamsade;986065 wrote:

And yet they still welcomed your ungrateful **** even though you didn't speak like them, you didn't dress like them, you didn't look like them, you didn't share their values and you certainly didn't share a faith with them. You or your parents came to the West with virtually nothing but you were still welcomed with open arms. The day you landed in the West, you promised to be treated as a HUMAN BEING equal before the law like everybody else. What's more, many laws were drafted to protect you from discrimination. The West didn't have to take your whining **** in, they could've taken thousands of other more grateful folks that shared values closer to those of the West. I think it is high noon that you show some gratitude. Because if you are not grateful then be honest enough and give your passport to the thousands of Somalis who cherish in the seas every year trying to get into the West.

 

Regarding the Hijab, I think the so-called Hijab revival is the fulcrum of much darker force - Wahabism or Salafism. There is no denying that the ascent of Wahabist ideals accompanied the donning of Hjiab. You can't decouple the Hijab and Wahabism in my opinion. If the issue of the Hijab was merely one of spiritual re-awakening among Muslim women and all that entailed was a lot of happy Muslim women wearing their pretty Hijabs, holding hands, waving v-signs, laughing and smiling interspersed with joyous shouts of "all you need is love," I can assure no body care. If anything, the world would be captivated by this new movement and the Islamic world would've won millions of new converts. But that is not what has transpired. Instead the rise of Hijab politics was accompanied by rise of suicide bombings, religious extremism and hatred, violence in the name of Allah, death threats, extremist groups espousing and harboring terrorism and terrorists, etc. In the face of this unassailable reality, questioning the Hijab business is perfectly legitimate.

Really now Raamsade I think you haven't only been drinking the cool aid but you're part of the development team that introduces new flavours. I'm still looking for the discrimination laws that protect Muslims. You know the ones that don't screen my name for job with security clearance, the ones that are comfortable with me not shaking hands with female interviewers, the ones that don't question how often I go to the Middle East or Somali etc. Once you take me for who I am which a Muslim first and a (fill in nationality here) second that's when I'll be grateful. The people I fled don't represent Islam and the people I fled to also don't represent Islam. No matter where I am, I know that I'm a slave to Allah first. So quit putting people on a pedestal and recognize that the "right way" to do things is to follow the words of Allah and the message of his beloved Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم).

[Safferz]

Ibtisam, STOIC and anyone else who was interested in looking at the Leila Ahmed chapter "The Discourse of the Veil," here's the scan.

[thefuturenow]

AS3

I waited for the random akhi to show up, but I guess . . . today I am him

 

Safferz,

You are right in many regards. Scholars in the vein of Edward Said serve an important role in the fight against imperialism. They have theorized about the means and methods used by Western imperialists to justify their continued infiltration of non-Western societies. They have correctly identified how Western scholarship, media tropes and political rhetoric are conjunctively used to pave the way for military action against an 'other.' The result is the aim all along--the economic and political domination of the 'other.'

 

But herein lies the rub. Any good imperialist (liberal) knows that physical domination is futile. The oppressed will rise in due time. They will reclaim their land and re-establish their political order. What a good imperialist desires is the cultural degradation of the other to the extent that members of that victimized group refuse to identify with their own culture and adopt the imperialist's mode of living. They see--above all--uniformity in thought, a shared faith.

 

What about the Cons?

 

The (Neo)-Conservatives is corrupt. They are the prototypical hypocrites in domestic politics. Yet, their foreign policies are achieved by brute force. When dealing with the other, they say what they think, do what they want and couldn't care less for the consequences. They are myopic and thus bad imperialists. The liberal is a useful enemy in domestic politics--he casts him as unpatriotic and stirs up nationalistic furor to gain votes. But they know full well that it’s all politics.

If Allah (SW) hadn’t checked them with the liberals in domestic politics, they would bomb and loot every country. See, GW Bush.

 

The Liberal Personified

 

The liberal is undisciplined. He suffers from a superiority complex because he is educated and can recite Lolita from memory. He decries the 'dark ages' and seeks enlightenment. The liberal is savvy. His own sense of superiority allows him to listen to other opinions diligently--because, after all, the liberal knows that this 'savage' only needs to be enlightened. He feels he can deconstruct any argument and win over the unenlightened savage because he has studied all the classics. The liberal, drunk of his own superiority, believes that he knows what humans want better than any other. He has one aim and one aim only--the creation of a society that operates within the parameters of liberal thought. He doesn't care for the color of your skin or the language of your ancestors. But the liberal demands political uniformity of which the cornerstone is individual freedom--his own formulation of individual freedom. See, the liberal is complex.

 

Higher education is the liberal's territory, his church. This is where the liberal liquors up youngsters and distills them of any and all principles. This is where he challenges the leaders of tomorrow to be unique in an environment that demands conformity. Note the echo-chamber that is the liberal classroom where a conservative student cannot voice his opinion.

 

There is only one concept that gives the liberals fits, i.e. the idea that there is a God and the imposition of limits on human behavior. This is source of the liberal's greatest ire. He believes that he can't defeat blind faith with rational reason. He knows that in order to implement his vision, he must confront this reality. The liberal has learned that beliefs are dear to humans and that they must be slowly changed. Thus, the liberal co-opts. The liberal is open to ideas as long as they further this aim by undermining the world's established cultures/religions. Thus, in this manner they corrupt with fancy theories and reformulations of Scripture. For the liberal, it is a long game and he understands that it may be a slow process. Whereas the conservative will bluntly call the other's scripture an invented work full of blasphemous statements, the liberal will take it to his library and deconstruct it. He will then write a paper in which he makes a mildly controversial 'eh' claim. Tomorrow, his liberal minions will cite him and expand that controversial claim. Finally, that controversial claim will become the defining concept of that Scripture. It will enter the mainstream media as a trope.

 

Muslims in higher education are especially susceptible to the liberal. Politically, he casts himself in contrast to the conservative. Thus, he becomes the friend defending against the bully.

More ominous to the Muslim is the liberal’s intentional fragmentation of education. History lies over there divorced from Political Science which barely touches upon Economics. This is a direct symptom to the 'secular' society--the division of the highest order, a false division, impractical and unimaginable to the Muslim mind. The idea is to constrain the student within the parameters of the system. Citations serve this purpose. PHD students are only allowed to sing the tune that doesn't disrupt the chorus. The result is a diversity of opinion but all of which is constrained within the liberal ideology. In other words, you may choose your words, but the liberal will choose the language.

 

Safferz, I believe what some of the brothers here are trying to say is that you are operating within this fragmentation. In the Islamic context, religion regulates political and economic life. Islam operates on a sphere entirely separate from any other ideology. It speaks a different language. To exercise dominion of Muslim political and economic interests is to exercise dominion of a part of their faith. Even with their economic and political aims accomplished, the good imperialist knows that he has not finished his work. He knows that it is only a matter of time before “blind faith” springs up and angry savages rid him of all that he has gained. To survive, the liberal needs clones within and without the lands that he desires to infiltrate.

[Safferz]

Good post, random akhi. But I would not say that my arguments reflect that fragmentation, I was actually quite careful to argue the cultural (religion included) is deeply intertwined with the economic and the political, and I cited Edward Said as one thinker who tried to make those links explicit to understand how colonialism/imperialism operates at the level of culture to facilitate economic and political exploitation. I'm in line with that view. What I resist are the simplistic explanations you often see on SOL for these historical processes (ie. "they" want "our way of life," end of discussion), and the (related) hostility towards "liberal" thought without defining the terms or politics and incorrectly ascribing that label in ahistorical ways.

[Raamsade]

Khayr;986079 wrote:

Raam,

 

You are being hypocritical by saying that the Hijab (a muslim value) can be questioned and attacked while muslim migrants can't question any demo-liberal, drone loving - values!

 

Cut the B/S!

Yaa aakhi, I don't know what you mean by "drone loving," but I am not against anyone questioning the West. By all means, go ahead and knock yourself out. That doesn't obscure the eminent fact that one can't question the Hijab or any aspect of the Islam in a Muslim majority country without risking death or some kind of violence. So as long as that prevailing truth in the Islamic world persists, your protestations against the West ring hollow.

 

And Moses almost certainly never existed. If he did, he was most likely an Egyptian, not an Israelite because there is a pharaoh bearing similar name called Thutmosis. The whole Jewish captivity tale also never happened. The Egyptians never wrote about it. No one else in the Mediterranean wrote about it. So stop citing fairy tales in the a thread trying to debunk prejudice and half-truths.