Showing posts with label Hijab. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hijab. Show all posts

Maryam Namazie ✒ 
Fighting religious intolerance is important, as is fighting intolerance against those who have no religion and are being killed for apostasy and blasphemy in countries under Islamic rule.
Photo by Victoria Gugenheim

This year’s World Hijab Day’s theme is Veiling is Strength but it doesn’t take strength to do as you are told. The veiling of women is a religious imposition, often via force and compulsion. How can it be a woman’s ‘choice,’ when it is more often than not, the choice of the husband, father, brother, mullahs, religious states and organisations… There can be no choice in compulsion. This is a play on words to make the hijab palatable and conceal its role in controlling women and girls. Of course, some women will ‘choose’ the hijab, in the same way that some women will ‘choose’ to carry out FGM on their daughters, or ‘choose’ to throw themselves on the burning pyres of their husbands in the practice of suttee. However, the use of the term choice ignores the religious and cultural demands on women to comply (or else) and also the punishment if they don’t. Compliance is not choice.

World Hijab Day activists can promote the hijab all they want, especially when living safely in secular societies, but the reality of the hijab is one of terror, trauma and violence on the one hand, and women’s resistance against it on the other. The Woman, Life, Freedom revolution in Iran has struck a cord with women across the globe for this very reason.

See extended interview here:

Giulia Mengolini: In countries like Iran hijab is compulsory. Women who don’t respect the law are beaten, and sometimes killed, like Mahsa Amini. What does hijab mean for Iranian women?

Maryam Namazie: Where the hijab is compulsory, one can see its real purpose: to control women’s bodies and sexuality. The fact that girls must wear it from the age of six when they start school means that even children are not free from sexualisation and policing. Just recently, an 11 year old whose hijab had slipped off her head at school was beaten by a school official. According to the Hijab and Chastity law in Iran, children from 9-15 years who remove their veil will face a fine and can be banned from leaving the country up to 2 years. For adults, the sentence can be higher including prison sentences, loss of jobs, and even death as in the case of Mahsa Jina Amini.

Giulia Mengolini: Since 2013 World Hijab Day aims to raise awareness about the hijab and break stereotypes associated with Muslim women who choose to wear it. Could it be a choice? What do you think?

Maryam Namazie: This year’s World Hijab Day’s theme is Veiling is Strength but it doesn’t take strength to do as you are told. The veiling of women is a religious imposition, often via force and compulsion. How can it be a woman’s ‘choice,’ when it is more often than not, the choice of the husband, father, brother, mullahs, religious states and organisations… There can be no choice in compulsion. This is a play on words to make the hijab palatable and conceal its role in controlling women and girls. Of course, some women will ‘choose’ the hijab, in the same way that some women will ‘choose’ to carry out FGM on their daughters, or ‘choose’ to throw themselves on the burning pyres of their husbands in the practice of suttee. However, the use of the term choice ignores the religious and cultural demands on women to comply (or else) and also the punishment if they don’t. Compliance is not choice.

Giulia Mengolini: What do you say to those who say that World hijab Day fights religious intolerance?

Maryam Namazie: Fighting religious intolerance is important, as is fighting intolerance against those who have no religion and are being killed for apostasy and blasphemy in countries under Islamic rule. But you cannot fight religious intolerance by normalising misogyny.

Giulia Mengolini: On Tik Tok and Instagram there are more and more Muslim women who say and show they are proud to wear hijab: is it possible to be a feminist and wear hijab?

Maryam Namazie: Those who are proud of wearing the hijab are doing the bidding of the Islamists. This ‘pride’ is very much linked to the rise of religious fundamentalism. The veiling of women has increased since this rise, as has the use of Sharia law, violence against women, Islamic terrorism… The control of women’s bodies is a main pillar of the Islamist project for the right-wing restructuring of societies. Let’s be clear, the hijab is not just a piece of clothing. It’s not a choice, socially speaking. It is a tool to segregate women and girls and impose sex apartheid. This is no different from racial apartheid, except because it’s based on sex, it is acceptable and can be absurdly touted as a source of ‘pride.’

Giulia Mengolini: Medium of repression, but for some women symbol of empowerment: can these concepts coexist?

Maryam Namazie: White pride is also seen as a symbol of ’empowerment’ for some. it doesn’t make it right. That women promote their own oppression also doesn’t make it right. You can only see the veil in a positive light if you think that the bodies of women and girls are the source of chaos in the world and need to be covered and hidden from view. Modesty culture, which the veil promotes, is fundamentally an extension of rape culture. If a woman doesn’t cover herself, then men cannot be blamed for doing as they please. ‘She asked for it,’ is the mantra of this view. World Hijab Day activists can promote the hijab all they want, especially when living safely in secular societies, but the reality of the hijab is one of terror, trauma and violence on the one hand, and women’s resistance against it on the other. The Woman, Life, Freedom revolution in Iran has struck a cord with women across the globe for this very reason.

Maryam Namazie is an Iranian-born activist and Spokesperson 
of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and One Law for All.

World Hijab Day Unveiling Is Strength

Maryam Namazie ✊ On 1 February, World Hijab Day, women took part in a global body riot to defend the women’s revolution in Iran and for woman, life, freedom.

31-January-2023
 They took action, topless or with bras on, to challenge compulsory hijab rules that has killed Mahsa Jina Amini on 16 September and has and continues to suppress countless women and girls in Iran, Afghanistan and across the globe.

In London, women carried out a topless action at Trafalgar Square. The action was organised by CEMB, One Law for All and FEMEN and received coverage, including;

Iranian topless body riot feminist protest, Trafalgar Square, London, Newsflare, 1 February 2023

Mahsa Amini protesters go topless to reject World Hijab Day in London, Newsflare, 1 February 2023Maryam Namazie says: How dare you celebrate World Hijab Day when so many women being killed for improper veiling.

Imago Images, Topless Protest, 1 February 2023

Body Riot, RexFeatures, 1 February 2023

Zuma Press, Topless women protest Iranian regime, 1 February 2023

Videos of women taking off hijab on ‘World Hijab Day’ goes viral, Times of India, 2 February 2023

Women joined in protest and on social media including in Iran.

The slogan ‘body riot’ comes from graffiti written on walls in Iran. It also follows on from photos posted by women in Iran showing their bras with their faces hidden and key slogans such as ‘You are the pervert; I am a free woman.’ (London protest photos by Neil Monaghan. Video by Reason4Freedom.)

Continue reading @ Maryam Namazie.

The Body Riots On Hijab Day For Woman, Life, Freedom And No Hijab

Maryam Namazie ✊ On 1 February, World Hijab Day, women took part in a global body riot to defend the women’s revolution in Iran and for woman, life, freedom. 

They took action, topless or with bras on, to challenge compulsory hijab rules that has killed Mahsa Jina Amini on 16 September and has and continues to suppress countless women and girls in Iran, Afghanistan and across the globe.

In London, women carried out a topless action at Trafalgar Square. The action was organised by CEMB, One Law for All and FEMEN and received coverage, including;

Iranian topless body riot feminist protest, Trafalgar Square, London, Newsflare, 1 February 2023

Mahsa Amini protesters go topless to reject World Hijab Day in London, Newsflare, 1 February 2023

Maryam Namazie says: How dare you celebrate World Hijab Day when so many women being killed for improper veiling.

Continue reading @ Maryam Namazie.

Maryam Namazie is an Iranian-born activist and Spokesperson 
of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and One Law for All.



The Body Riots On Hijab Day For Woman, Life, Freedom And No Hijab

Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB) ✒ View posters online marking 1 February #WorldHijabDay's #FreeFromHijab. Feel free to download and use.


‘Hijab Day is like FGM or Breast-Ironing Day: a celebration of misogyny and sexism.’ – Maryam Namazie

‘Human beings are worthy of respect but not all beliefs must be respected.’ – Maryam Namazie, 1998

‘The chador and burqa are like a mobile prison and body bag… Why should women’s bodies, rights and lives be restricted because religion, a husband or the regressive imam down the street demand it?’ – Maryam Namazie, 2007

‘Take away all the pressure, intimidation and threats and you will see how many remain veiled.’ – Maryam Namazie, 2007

‘Are we really expected to respect a belief that women are sub-human or girls should be veiled? And does anyone in their right mind think that such beliefs are equal or equally valid to progressive ideals fought for by generations?’ – Maryam Namazie, 2006

‘A woman’s right to choose must be preceded by legal and social sexual equality. If you consider the veil on a social scale, it represents neither a right nor a choice and it is a lie to say otherwise.’ – Maryam Namazie, 2007

‘The veil is not a piece of clothing. Just as the straitjacket or body bag are not pieces of clothing. Just as the chastity belt was not a piece of clothing. Just as the Star of David pinned on Jews during the holocaust was not just a bit of cloth.’ – Maryam Namazie, 2007

‘Yes, I am intolerant, as we all should be. Intolerant of misogyny.’ – Maryam Namazie, 2007

‘The veil is a symbol like no other of what it means to be female under Islam: hidden from view, restricted and suppressed. Consigned to walking around with a mobile prison of one’s own.
Separate and unequal. The outrage of our century.’ – Maryam Namazie, 2008

‘Like racial apartheid, sex apartheid demands that women and girls be veiled, sit at the back of buses, and enter via separate entrances. Yet, women in Iran continue to refuse and resist, including by unveiling, even though they are arrested, fined and harassed daily.’ – Maryam Namazie, 2010

‘My body is not obscene, veiling it is.’ – Maryam Namazie, 2012

‘I don’t think I am the source of fitnah or chaos in the world if unveiled and therefore find the veil abhorrent.’ – Maryam Namazie, 2013

‘Islamists want us hidden in veils, not seen and not heard. We refuse to comply.’ – Maryam Namazie, 2014

‘When it’s a crime to be a woman, nude protest is a form of resistance. It says: Enough! No More! I will be nude, I will protest, and I will challenge you to your very core!’ – Maryam Namazie, 2014

‘Accusations of Islamophobia is a smokescreen that serves to legitimise Islamist terror and violence and blame the victims.It says criticism of Islam and Islamism are forbidden, blasphemy laws are required and that, therefore, threats and actual murder of critics is perfectly legitimate.’ – Maryam Namazie, 2016

‘The idealised woman in islam is obedient, properly veiled, submissive, and accepting of her assigned “place” in society. The rest of us are whores, compared to unwrapped sweets – covered in flies and free for the taking.’ – Maryam Namazie, 2014

‘Modesty culture, of which the veil is central, sexualises girls from a young age, puts the onus on them to protect themselves. It removes male accountability for violence. It’s an extension of rape culture.’ – Maryam Namazie, 2018

#WorldHijabDay
#FreeFromHijab
#NoHijabDay

On #HijabDay, We Are #Free from Hijab

Opindia ✒ Female cartoon characters on Iranian television must wear hijab, as per a new ruling by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
... Tasnim News Agency, a pro-regime news agency, had asked Khamenei if he believes it was essential for the female characters of animated films to observe hijab. He replied:

Although wearing hijab in such a hypothetical situation is not required per se, observing hijab in animation is required due to the consequences of not wearing hijab.

Khamenei did not explain what ‘consequences’ he was referring to. However, according to activists, he had earlier suggested he was fearful that the girls would grow up and not wear hijab.
 
The political activists have termed the ruling as toxic. They further added that those who are in power in Iran are obsessed with everything associated with women. Masih Alinejad, an Iranian journalist and activist, said on Twitter:

This isn’t a joke! The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran has announced women even in animations, should wear hijab! Even female insects like bees have their hijabs on! Their obsession with the hair of female anything is toxic. These people are in power in Iran.

Continue reading @ Opindia.

Hijab Compulsory For Female Cartoon Characters On Iranian TV

Council of Ex-Muslims of BritainWomen Leaving Islam, a new film by the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, premieres on 1 February at 6pm UK time as a challenge to #WorldHijabDay and religious modesty rules. You can watch the film here.



In this powerful film, six ex-Muslim women activists share their moving stories of growing up in Muslim families and Muslim-majority countries and the violence, loss and shunning they faced because of their apostasy.

The women talk about everything from tearing their hijab on door handles as a child, wearing a burkini on a beach in Italy, wanting to scream their atheism in Mecca during Hajj, losing custody of a child after a husband’s accusations of blasphemy, reporting a violent fundamentalist father, forging a male guardian’s signature in order to flee their country and being shunned for defending gay rights…

Despite the risks, the women: Fauzia Ilyas, Fay Rahman, Halima Salat, Mimzy Vidz, Rana Ahmad and Zara Kay, speak of hope, happiness and freedom from Islam and the hijab.

Join us to watch #WomenLeavingIslam. Also, draw a dove with a hijab in its beak as a symbol of women’s freedom from hijab. You can draw it anywhere – on a wall with chalk, on a piece of paper, your body or hand… CEMB’s resident artist, Victoria Gugenheim, explains how to draw a simple dove with a hijab in its beak.

 

 

 

 



Use the hashtags #WomenLeavingIslam #FromHijabToFreedom #NoForcedHijab #NoHijabDay #FreeFromHijab to challenge religious misogyny and sexism on #WorldHijabDay.

For more information on the film, see Rahila Gupta’s review.

Women Leaving Islam’s Producer: Gita Sahgal; Executive Producer: Maryam Namazie; and Producer, Director and Filmmaker: Reason4Freedom.

For more information, contact Maryam Namazie, m.namazie@ex-muslim.org.uk, www.ex-muslim.org.uk.

#FreeFromHijab 

Challenging World Hijab Day @ 1 February

From Maryam Namazie the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB) took direct action against the veil and compulsory veiling in London on 1 February to challenge World Hijab Day with Sadia Hameed, Fay Rahman and Zara Kay.



Even on streets of London, a man told the women they were “embarrassing themselves”.





CEMB is pleased to see the extensive push back in 2020 against this day that celebrates religious tools to restrict women and their sexuality.

In February 2013, when the day was first initiated, Maryam Namazie compared World Hijab Day with World Female Genital Mutilation Day or World Child Marriage Day. She was quoted in a BBC report in 2013 as saying:

Millions of women and girls have been harassed, fined, intimidated and arrested for ‘improper’ veiling over the past several decades,” she wrote in a blog post about the Iranian women’s football team’s hijabs.
Anyone who has ever taken an Iran Air flight will verify how quickly veils are removed the minute the airplane leaves Iranian airspace.
And anyone who knows anything about Iran knows the long and hard struggle that has taken place against compulsory veiling and sex apartheid.

In 2014, Maryam Namazie called for solidarity with “women who refuse and resist veiling.”

Since the inception of World Hijab Day, actions against the day has been increasing with protests, including #FreeFromHIjab, #WalkingUnveiled #NoHijabDay #NoToCompulsoryHijab becoming viral this year.

Maryam Namazie (an ex-Muslim) and Yasmin Rehman (a Muslim) also did an action in defense of women in Iran opposed to compulsory veiling at the #WomensLiberation Conference 2020 in London.



Maryam Namazie is an activist with the Council of Ex-Muslims and other secularist groups. 
Follow Maryam Namazie on Twitter @MaryamNamazie

From 2013-2020, The Campaign Against World Hijab Day Gaining Strength

Maryam Namazie with a piece on the Hijab which was published in Workers Liberty Solidarity in defence of banning child veiling on 27 November 2019. 

On the issue of child veiling, a state ban on conspicuous religious symbols for children is an important defence of children’s rights. 

Children are not parental property

Children are not the property of their parents.

They are individuals with rights and bodily integrity. And just because their parents believe in child veiling or FGM and male circumcision doesn’t mean they should be automatically entitled to impose their views on their children, especially when these views are harmful. 

It is not a question of choice

Religious symbols on children are not a child’s choice but a parental imposition, as no child “chooses” to be “modest” and “chaste” and protect the family “honour.”

Even for adults, it is debatable how many have freely chosen to wear the veil given the huge amounts of pressures to conform, the compulsory nature of the veil in many instances and because submission and compliance are not the same as choice. Even so, there is clearly a huge difference between the veiling of adults and child veiling.

As the late Iranian Marxist Mansoor Hekmat said:

The child has no religion, tradition and prejudices. She has not joined any religious sect. She is a new human being who, by accident and irrespective of her will has been born into a family with specific religion, tradition, and prejudices. It is indeed the task of society to neutralise the negative effects of this blind lottery.

Society is duty-bound to provide fair and equal living conditions for children, their growth and development, and their active participation in social life. Anybody who should try to block the normal social life of a child, exactly like those who would want to physically violate a child according to their own culture, religion, or personal or collective complexes, should be confronted with the firm barrier of the law and the serious reaction of society.

No nine year old girl chooses to be married, sexually mutilated, serve as house maid and cook for the male members of the family, and be deprived of exercise, education, and play. The child grows up in the family and in society according to established customs, traditions, and regulations, and automatically learns to accept these ideas and customs as the norms of life.

To speak of the choice of the Islamic veil by the child herself is a ridiculous joke. Anyone who presents the mechanism of the veiling of a kindergarten-age girl as her own ‘democratic choice’ either comes from outer space, or is a hypocrite who does not deserve to participate in the discussion about children’s rights and the fight against discrimination.

The condition for defending any form of the freedom of the child to experience life, the condition for defending the child’s right to choose, is first and foremost, to prevent these automatic and common impositions.”

The veil promotes sex apartheid and inequality

The veil is emotionally harmful. It aims to erase girls and women from the public space and creates a physical wall of segregation. If you do not stay home, and insist on going to school or work or what have you, then you must carry the purdah on your very back to prevent yourself from enticing men and creating fitnah or chaos in society.

The veil is part of the misogynist insistence that girls are “different” from boys. As has been seen in some classrooms in Islamic schools here in Britain even, what follows child veiling is girls sitting in the back of the classrooms, eating after male students, having different textbooks…

It also inhibits the free movement of children. There is an implication that veiled girls are not to run, shout or laugh too loudly or even ride a bike and be seen playing with boys. Child veiling encourages inequality between girls and boys right from the start and solidifies women’s subservient status in society. 

Modesty culture is an extension of rape culture

Moreover, child veiling is on the continuum of other religious and cultural rules to control women and girls to ensure that they know “their place” – whether it be via FGM, polygamy or child marriage. At worst, it promotes rape culture and violence against girls and women.

The veil and its demands for modesty brings with it the implicit and often explicit shaming (or worse) of those deemed “immodest.” It is the immodest girl or woman who fails to dress or behave appropriately in order to avoid the male gaze and titillation. She has no one to blame but herself for any ensuing male violence. Modesty is always the remit of women and young girls.

And while it is often portrayed as harmless, modesty culture sexualises girls from a young age and puts the onus on them to protect themselves. Child veiling also removes male accountability for violence, positioning men as predators unable to control their urges. Girls and women are to be either protected or raped depending on how well they guard their modesty and the honour of their male guardian.

Therefore, despite what we are often told, the veil is not just another piece of clothing. This would be similar to touting foot-binding as footwear, FGM as piercings and the chastity belt as lingerie.

In all religions and every religious-Right movement, the perfect “modest” and “moral” woman/girl is the one who cannot be seen or heard in public. Whether via acid-attacks, FGM or child veiling, the message is clear: a good woman/girl is a “modest” one. 

To ban or not to ban

There are bans on domestic violence, FGM, child labour … because of social and political movements demanding an end to such violations culminating with changes in the law. Therefore, the banning of child veiling and conspicuous religious symbols should be seen within this move to prioritise children’s rights over the rights of their parents, religious dogma or religious “leaders” and to codify it in the law. 

Racism or Fundamentalism

Much of the discussion around the banning of child veiling centres around legitimate concerns for bigotry against Muslims, rising xenophobia and the exploitation of any ban by the far-Right. I would challenge the view that sees girls and women as extensions of their communities and expendable for societal “cohesion.”

Yes, of course, there is a context of racism but there is also a context of the rise of the religious-Right (including white nationalism) with women and girls as their first targets. Increased child veiling is the result of this rising fundamentalism since the veil and control of “its women” is the most public manifestation of Islamist control. In Britain, today, even some toddlers can be seen wearing the veil.

A more ethical position would be to oppose both racism and fundamentalism. Excusing fundamentalism because of racism or vice versa addresses neither and leaves women and girls at the mercy of religious and patriarchal restrictions. 

Identity or Solidarity

Saying the fight against child veiling is a fight for feminist and secularist movements within faith communities allows one to remain on the side lines and pay lip service to what is a serious child welfare issue. Oh well, at least you showed some solidarity by putting the onus on others!

Children – British girls – are being sexualised, segregated, taught they are different from boys. British children cannot feel the wind in their hair, run, laugh out loud, dance… They are not considered as individuals whose welfare is paramount but extensions of “community” and family and bearers of modesty culture.

The idea that the fight for the rights of these girls — because they are minorities — must be left to “faith communities” shows how ingrained regressive identity politics and cultural relativism have become. For me, the issue is clear.

If you want to improve the lot of children who are veiled, then changes in law are an important battleground for those who are serious about children’s rights.


Maryam Namazie is an activist with the Council of Ex-Muslims and other secularist groups. 
Follow Maryam Namazie on Twitter @MaryamNamazie


The Hijab - “Preventing Common Impositions”