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--- Begin Message ---
The Veil and Violence against Women
Maryam Namazie
The veil imposes sexual apartheid and the segregation of the sexes very much
like racial apartheid in the former South Africa.
Recent reports on the Islamic regime of Iran s crackdown on women who are
badly veiled (bad-hejab) and their resistance to the regimes campaign of
arrest and harassment has been reported quite extensively in comparison to
other similar events over the years. This is partly due to amateur video
footage taken via mobile phones by passers-by uploaded on YouTube for the world
to see.
There are two pieces of footage that everyone should take a look at. One is
of an unveiled woman shouting we dont want the veil; we want freedom. The
other is of a young girl who is being questioned by security agents for being
badly veiled; she pulls off her veil in front of them and is kicked into a
waiting car to be driven away.
Given that veiling is compulsory in Iran , these acts of defiance are all the
more heroic.
This ongoing battle between the Islamic authorities and women over the veil
clearly reveals why it has become a symbol like no other of the violence women
face under Islam and why improper or bad veiling and unveiling have become
a symbol of resistance to Islam in power and its violence against women. It is
for this very reason that the slogan neither veil nor submission has become a
rallying cry ever since the regime imposed compulsory veiling on women after
expropriating and crushing the revolution to consolidate its rule.
With the myriad examples of violence against women in Islamist societies
from stoning to legally sanctioned domestic violence the fuss over veiling
may seem overboard for those who have heard about the right to veil and
freedom of clothing from Islamists who deceptively use rights language in an
effort to make the veil palatable to a western audience.
But the veil is anything but a piece of cloth or clothing. Just as the
straight-jacket or body bag are anything but 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.
The veil is a tool for the suppression and oppression of women. It is meant
to segregate. It is representative of how women are viewed in Islam: sub-human,
deficient, inferior, without rights, and despised. Trapped in a mobile
prison not to be heard from or seen.
The veiled woman is veiled to prevent her from being seen or touched by
anyone other than those who have some form of ownership over her her father,
husband or brother.
In many instances it is a matter of life and death. In Iran just recently
paramedics were denied access to two sisters who needed emergency assistance
because their brother deemed it sinful for the paramedics to touch them. They
died as a result. And we have all heard of the example of Saudi Arabia where
girls schools are locked as usual practice to ensure the segregation of the
sexes. In 2002 when a fire broke out at a school in Mecca, the guards would not
unlock the gates and religious police prevented girls from escaping to the
point of even beating them back into the school because they were not
properly veiled; moreover they stopped men who tried to help, warning the men
that it was sinful to touch the girls. Fifteen girls died as a result and more
than fifty were wounded.
As I said a matter of life and death.
Moreover, the veil imposes sexual apartheid and the segregation of the sexes
very much like racial apartheid in the former South Africa . But in this
instance, in addition to the segregation that is carried out in society, such
as separate entrances for women in certain government offices, separate areas
for womens seating on buses, the banning of women from certain public arenas
like sport stadiums, a curtain dividing the Caspian sea for segregated swimming
and so on, woman are forced to carry the divide on their very own backs.
And dont forget the more subtle aspects to it, though just as detrimental,
like the sun never touching a womans hair or body and the adverse health
effects of that. And how depressing it must be to be deemed so vile and
dangerous as to need constant cover
And imagine the effects of the veil on girl children. Sexualized from age
nine, kept segregated from boys, taught that they are different and unequal,
restricted from playing, swimming and in general doing things children must do
nothing short of child abuse.
And this is not only the situation for women and girls in countries where
Islam rules. At least in places like Iran , there is mass resistance in the
form of a social protest movement. The veil is also imposed on many women in
Europe via threats and intimidation. But because of the respect the veil and
religion are granted due to racist cultural relativism, women and girls are
often left to the mercy of regressive Islamic organisations and parasitical
imams.
A mullah in Green Lane mosque in Birmingham has said, for example: 'Allah has
created the woman deficient' and a satellite broadcast from the Grand Mufti of
Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, beamed into the mosque suggested
that children should be hit if they don't pray and dont wear the hijab. Then
there is Australia s senior Islamic cleric, Sheik Taj Aldin al-Hilali, who has
compared unveiled women to uncovered meat implying that they invite rape and
sexual assault. If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside ...
without cover, and the cats come to eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats' or
the uncovered meat's? The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her
room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred.
That women transgress the veil daily is a testimony to their humanity and not
the laws, states or groups that impose it by force or intimidation.
No apology, justification, appeasement or cultural relativism can deny the
indignity and violence that the veil is and represents.
The veil is an offence to 21st-century humanity. It has to be opposed
unequivocally. Full stop.
Maryam Namazie was born in Iran, which her family left after the Iranian
revolution. She now lives in the West, where she has worked ceaselessly for
human rights , particularly on behalf of refugees. She was recently involved in
setting up the Council of Ex-Muslims in Britain
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