This Islamic garment is a symbol of oppression for a variety of mostly straightforward reasons, and as such is morally reprehensible. What I just said shouldn’t be controversial at all to uphold, were it not for the raging storm of political correctness that has swept through our culture lately. So I’m not going to go through the ideological reasons of how and why the burqa sucks, because to me it’s so trivial. Plus I don’t even invoke any of that when I see a woman in a burqa: the silent war of cultures, the sickening throwback to a savage era of female subjugation to men, etc…
My immediate reaction whenever I spot a burqa-girl comes as an intimate shocking shudder down my spine. What an awkward and obtrusive image! It ironically generates the same kind of silent tension in common social settings as would the presence of a completely naked person sitting next to you in the bus, or nonchalantly walking into a bank or a restaurant. Whether one tries to mingle with people while naked or hermetically covered from head to toe, the absurd contrast to what everyone else is wearing screams out loud at the crucial subtleties we commonly take for granted in the spectrum of human relations.
Our clothes keep us warm, seal off and protect our most delicate body parts from environmental damage, conceal our genitals and breasts so as to not rub in everyone’s faces our crude sexual attractiveness or lack there of, but also allow us to invent a public identity through a personalized combination of designs, accessories, and possibly symbols and slogans. So our clothes enhance our individuality but it’s our face that forms the epicenter of our public persona: we cognitively anchor the representation of anyone’s personality to that person’s unique facial features. We are prone to recognize faces out of random mixes of objects whenever possible, so our brains are primed for this. The face takes up a disproportionately large chunk of our mental representation of human beings as children’s drawings illustrate. Eye contact and facial expressions play an important role in how we relate to others during conversations and even in how we warm up to strangers.
The burqa is a monstrous device because it effectively shaves off the most basic and accessible dimension of identity: the face. The woman hiding underneath it is dehumanized in the eyes of her beholders: she is reduced to an indeterminate object of unspecified form and features. A horse can hide under a burqa, or a clown, or a monkey, or a coffin, or a thief, or a ghost, or a mummy, or a giant noodle. Not only does the burqa erase the wearer’s most human and recognizable trait, her face, but it also razes to the ground all other external symbols of identity: the distinctive combinations of clothing items, styles, accessories, jewelry… How can I empathize with someone in a burqa if all I see is a monochromatic faceless shapeless bag? The wearer is practically interchangeable with anyone else wearing a burqa. There is zero potential for deep or subtle interpersonal relations through such a discomforting barrier. It’s alienating on a human level to be the one who is fully open and exposed while your interlocutor is hiding behind an opaque veil. This makes any kind of interaction with burqa-girls intrinsically awkward.
The burqa has also a perverse X factor that elicits laser beams out of my eyes: in its underhanded way it’s so self-righteously slutty! The entire rationale for it is that you need to fully cover every square inch of your face and body lest any random male passerby spontaneously breaks down and starts to compulsively drool (or worse) all over you. You really think you’re such hot shit that it’s a big deal whether anyone can see your hair or face? Nobody cares! Nobody is aroused by your stupid hair! Get over it!
Not only does wearing the burqa imply an overly sexualized sense of self, but it also silently spells out a moral condemnation of all women who do not abide by such anal and self-demeaning standards of “modesty”. If your standards for socially proper attire are so far removed from the norm that you are practically living in your own moral planet, and that planet is collapsing into a black hole under its own warped field of ‘judgmentality’, there will be a point where the principle of general cultural relativity breaks down in an asymmetric fashion: As viewed from the PC planet, your style is kind of weird and no fun, but perfectly equivalent to whatever they’ve got over there, and while they might not go out of their way to bond with you for one politically correct excuse or another, you must surely be a great girl underneath and the PC crowd wishes you all the best in life. As viewed from your planet, however, the PC crowd is roaming with lustful immodest sluts who seduce every male in their path by flaunting their face and hair, and are so going to burn in hell for it.
The burqa is eerie, alienating, judgmental, demeaning, dehumanizing, and is calling everyone else a whore.
--crossposted at Kejda.net
4 comments:
In a was, these burqa-covered women are sending a message of superiority, even to those Muslimas who opt for the hijab. Or so I've been told by a Muslim reformer.
Those wearing the burqa have no control over the lives, so they opt for another psychological effect--even when forced to wear this oppressive garment, this garment which, in and of itself, is a symbol of enslavement.
Laura Bush is smiling like a fool in those photos. Can't she see the various negative effects of her multi-culturalism?
there was something a little obscene or was it just jarringly different between the beaming laura bush and the burqa wearing woman. It really highlights the differences. I heard that the burqa is worn to prevent raiding tribes from being sexually attracted to the women, raping them and enslaving them as there own, primarily. Thanks for posting the article. They say people fear what they dont understand and hate for the same reason. I understand islam, I do not fear it. I still think its an abomimination. Kudo's for educating the masses, keep it up.
ps, I found you via a couple of other blogs. will add your link to mine if thats ok.
Hey, first of all, I really always appreciate links/traffic, so don't even ask, I am of course grateful for any links.
I totally agree that Laura Bush sitting next to to those shapeless bags looks SHOCKING! That's why I put the first picture right at the end of the paragraph about how the burqa screams out loud at the subtleties of human looks/behavior we often take for granted, as they are enshrined in common-sense conventions.
They are indeed very judgmental, and it is a self-righteous thing to wear the burqa: it sends a message to superiority to women who opt for the headscarf, but ESPECIALLY to non Muslim girls.
I want to share with you a comment I got on my original blog where I first posted this article, and my response:
PeterM on November 9th, 2007 5:09 am edit
You know what really pisses me off? Women who wear shirts. It’s so self righteously slutty. Get over it, no guys are turned on by your tits. By wearing a top, your just calling all other women who go around topless sluts.
medaura on November 9th, 2007 11:53 am edit
“Ha ha ha…” There is something to your point though, and that’s the inherent difficulty in separating nature from convention. It can be hard to do objectively, if the convention is yours (personal and cultural).
That women can wear skirts/dresses but men can only wear pants in Western society, for example, is just a convention. That’s why you don’t hear me rant about Buddhist monks being “gay” for wearing their togas, or about the bagpipe playing Celts with their kilts.
Our conventions give us a lot of freedom in what we chose to be fashionable or appropriate, but if they stem from a civilized society, our conventions have to nonetheless closely mimic nature.
And there is such a thing as a state of nature, an objective order of things, toward which world cultures naturally gravitate. It’s no wonder Islam is the only culture in the world that fully covers its women.
It’s not natural, and it’s sick and wrong!
Think about it: our genitals are obviously overly sexual because that’s what sex revolves around. Women’s breasts, perhaps not as sexual as their vaginas, but are still objectively sexualized, and this would be clear to you if you had read some Freud: Children suck their mothers’ tits and develop an intimate bond, which is evoked through the sight of any female’s breasts.
It doesn’t matter if it was convention for girls to go out tit-naked: if you are a heterosexual male, and you spot a girl with perky tits, there is something in your biology and your psychology, that make you prone to getting a hard-on.
On the other hand, if you told me that looking at my beautiful luscious hair in my picture turns you on in a sexual way, I would tell you that you’ve got serious problems.
So that’s the difference. Islam overly sexualizes women, by making their entire body, face, and hair, objects of immediate sexual attention. It’s really vicious cycle, because in societies that are so sexually strict as Islam, and where a woman’s body is taboo, the sight of even a woman’s hair can do things to a severely sexually deprived male who has never seen any woman’s face except for perhaps, his mother’s.
The point is that Islam objectifies women to a disgusting degree, and applies vastly uneven standards to men and women. In the western world, men and women largely dress the same. Men might take off their shirts sometimes, but it’s still frowned upon, and only universally acceptable at the beach. You don’t see any shirtless guys walking down the street. TO a great degree, what’s improper for women, is also improper for men.
SO why don’t Muslim men cover their hair and faces, lest they turn on any female walking by? Their standards are so inconsistent and demeaning to women, and you have to be an idiot blinded by cultural relativism to not be able to see that.
If you need to know, actually, the reason is that in Islam, “immodest” (uncovered) women are fair targets for rape and molestation. The religion originated with the savage Bedouin tribes indeed, so that makes sense.
Those who harass believing men and believing women unjustifiably shall bear the guilt of slander and a grievous sin. O Prophet! Enjoin your wives, your daughters, and the wives of true believers to draw their cloaks over them [when they go out]. That is more proper, so that they may be distinguished and not be harassed. God is ever forgiving and merciful. If the hypocrites and those who have the ailment [of jealousy] in their hearts and the scandal mongers of Madinah do not desist, We will rouse you against them, and their days in that city will be numbered. Cursed be they; wherever found, they would be seized and put to death. (Qur’an 33:58-61)
For your name to be Peter, and for you to defend the veil, is really idiotic. Your cultural relativism makes me sick. Yeah, you blindly assume that all cultures/religions/world views are equivalent, and maybe that’s a disincentive for you to actually learn about any of them in detail, since one is as good as any other. If you had read the Qur’an like I have, you would have a different perspective, because although you judge Muslims by your “progressive” multi-culti standards, they judge YOU by their supremacist absolutist dogmatic standards, and either think you will burn in hell for being an Infidel, or that it’s up to them to send you to hell.
So watch out, I’m telling you…
HIJAB : ISLAM’s VERSION OF THE NAZI SWASTIKA:
By
Larry Houle
www.godofreason.com
intermedusa@yahoo.com
Covering women head to toe is a religious dictate. It exemplifies Islam’s loathing and men’s ownership and control of women while men wear (and do) what they like---gender apartheid. It also promotes religious apartheid and Islam’s threatening political presence!
The Hijab symbolizes 2 things:
1) Islam’s repression and loathing of women that WOMEN ARE OFFENSIVE.
2) Islam’s Arab supremist totalitarian political power and aims.
It is far more than 'a piece of clothing. Attitudes and practices that underlie Islam’s repressive gender apartheid which demands the covering of females head to toe but not men, must be questioned. It isn’t just a matter of ‘religious freedom,’ after all Islam allows child marriage, slavery, scourging/beating women, etc. and we don’t permit these evils.
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Hijab as a political symbol: Islamic text insists that women are covered and don't draw attention to themselves or improve themselves (no make-up, hair colour, plucking..). Their attire must not reveal the form of their body. They must not have any dazzling display, walk in a way that attracts attention or travel more than a short distance from home without a male 'protector'.
Women cannot listen to music or watch movies, DVDs, videos, plays, art ….as Mohammad banned the playing of musical instruments and any representations of humans or other animals (Bukhari hadiths). No doubt they will be happy to be married as a child to a man with other wives whom he can beat (sura 4.34) and ‘plough’ as he likes (sura 2.223, 2.222) and divorce by uttering a few words!
The hijab is forced into our schools and streets under the guise of religious freedom and tolerance but this is simply Islam forcing its political presence into our classrooms, onto children and in our face! It pushes totalitarian Islam into the visible foreground of our societies.
Why would Allah create repulsive females that need to be covered?
a) Girls/Women's bodies are offensive, pudendum:
The word "woman" in Urdu is 'awrat'. In Iran she is called zaifeh (weak).
Women are awrah-offensive! Tragically Islam regards the whole women as 'awrah'. The Encyclopedia of Islam defines 'awrah' as pudendum, "the external genitals, especially of the female." [Latin pudendum (literally) a thing to be ashamed of]. The awrah (roughly genital area in a male) must be covered.
"Ali reported the Prophet [Mohammad] saying: 'Women have ten ('awrat). When she gets married, the husband covers one, and when she dies the grave covers the ten." (] Kanz-el-'Ummal, Vol. 22, Hadith No. 858. See also Ihy'a )
"The woman is 'awrah.' When she goes outside (the house), the devil welcomes her." ( Ihy'a 'Uloum ed-Din by Ghazali, Dar al-Kotob al-'Elmeyah, Beirut, Vol II, Kitab Adab al-Nikah, p. 65. Reported by Tirmizi as a true and good Hadith.).
Ibn Masud reported the Messenger of Allah as saying: "A woman is an object of concealment for when she goes out the devil presents her in alluring looks before men." (Tirmidhi 928).
"A woman is like a private part. When she goes out the devil casts a glance at her" Al-Hadis, trans. Al-Haj Maulana Fazlul Karim, vol. 2, p. 692, from Mishkat al-Masabih, by Waliuddin Abu Abdullah Mahmud Tabrizi
Hence Muslim men must only cover their genitals to hide their shame and preserve their modesty – Muslim women must hide their entire body!! This is an appalling attitude to women.
Muhammad Attah (Sept 11th terrorist, Muslim) wrote 'at my funeral I do not want impure beings (women, animals)' and also 'Not even around my grave do I want impure beings. Especially the most impure- pregnant women.'
WAFA SULTAN (Syrian/American ex-Muslim) described how she was taught that her body was filthy! As a child she avoided passing her father while he was praying because if a dog (the most vile thing) or a woman (next!) passed him he had to wash himself and start again! ‘ I remember hearing as an eight year old girl that a woman is nothing but shame! Her marriage will cover up one-tenth of her shame and her grave will cover the rest of it. Can you imagine, at eight, being consumed by shame just because you are female?’
Breakout from Islam’s mental prison.
Muslim Book 4, Number 1034: (also 1032) Abu Huraira reported: The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: A woman, an ass and a dog disrupt the prayer, but something like the back of a saddle guards against that.
Abu-Dawud Book 2, Number 704: Narrated Abdullah ibn Abbas: Ikrimah reported on the authority of Ibn Abbas, saying: The Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) said: When one of you prays without a sutrah, a dog, an ass, a pig, a Jew, a Magian, and a woman cut off his prayer, ….
Only Mohammad’s favourite, his child wife Aisha came close as he prayed-though she disliked to face him! (Bukhari Volume 1, Book 9, Number 490, 493)
Women are polluting:
Koran sura 5.6 (repeated in sura 4.43 –re removing pollution before praying) And if ye are sick on a journey, or one of you cometh from the closet or ye have contact with women and ye find not water, then go to clean high ground and rub your faces and your hands with some of it.
Many of Mohammad’s comments about women show his loathing (inferior in religion, morals, polluting, populating hell eg Bukhari Vol1, Book 6, No. 301; V2/B18/No. 161; V2/B24/No. 541; V4/B55/No. 623; V7/B62/No 124..) coupled with his considerable lechery! While young he married and lived under the thumb of the older, wealthy, powerful Khadia (pre-Islam!) who limited him to 1 wife-her! When Khadia died Mohammad (aged 50+) rapidly gathered many wives(13-28) -including a 9 (possibly 8 using a solar cycle!) year old child. Concerned that other, younger men, might swipe his females, he covered them up, restricted them to the home, made them talk to other men through a curtain (veil, hijab..), forbade anyone else from marrying them and promised
them double the punishment for disobeying! Many ‘revelations’ conveniently supported his views and practices which all Muslims must follow. Women/girls are sexual possessions, hidden from other men and this is reinforced and legalized in text and laws that cannot be changed or criticized! The freedom and power enjoyed by Khadia was taken from women when Mohammad became powerful! Covering women isn’t a ‘choice,’ it’s a religious dictate that must be blindly obeyed! Tragically many women ‘obey’ without question and convince themselves this is what they want---their ‘choice.’
Koran 33.30 O Consorts of the Prophet! If any of you were guilty of evident unseemly conduct, the punishment would be doubled to her, and that is easy for Allah……….
(33.33) And stay quietly in your houses, and make not a dazzling display, like that of the former times of ignorance; and establish regular Prayer, and give regular Charity; and obey Allah and His Messenger. And Allah only wishes to remove all abomination from you, ye members of the Family, and to make you pure and spotless.
b) Allah and Mohammad demand that women be covered and veiled:
Koran 33.59 “O Prophet! Tell thy wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons (when abroad): that is most convenient, that they should be known (as such) and not molested.” (uncovered women of course are cat’s meat—this is a threat!) Tragically many women ‘obey’ without question and convince themselves this is what they want---their ‘choice.’
Koran 24.31 And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, ……….., or the slaves whom their right hands possess, or male servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex; and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments. ..
Koran sura 33.53 O believers do not enter the prophet's houses until leave is given you for a meal…...When you ask for something from his wives ask them from behind a curtain (wall – hijab!)! That is more decent for your hearts and for theirs. ..
Abu-Dawud Book 32, Number 4092: Narrated Aisha, Ummul Mu'minin: Asma, daughter of AbuBakr, entered upon the Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) wearing thin clothes. The Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) turned his attention from her. He said: O Asma', when a woman reaches the age of menstruation, it does not suit her
that she displays her parts of body except this and this, and he pointed to her face and hands.
Abu Dawud Book 32, Number 4100: Narrated Umm Salamah, Ummul Mu'minin:
I was with the Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) while Maymunah was with him. Then Ibn Umm Maktum came. This happened when we were ordered to observe veil (purdah). The Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: Observe veil from him. We asked: Apostle of Allah! is he not blind? He can neither see us nor recognise us. The Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: Are both of you blind? Do you not see him? ………
Abu-Dawud Book 2, Number 641: Narrated Aisha, Ummul Mu'minin: The Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: Allah does not accept the prayer of a woman who has reached puberty unless she wears a veil.
Abu-Dawud Book 32, Number 4104: Narrated Dihyah ibn Khalifah al-Kalbi: The Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) was brought some pieces of fine Egyptian linen and he gave me one and said: Divide it into two; cut one of the pieces into a shirt and give the other to your wife for veil. Then when he turned away, he said: And order your wife to wear a garment below it and not show her figure.
Bukhari Volume 1, Book 8, Number 347: Narrated Um 'Atiya: We were ordered to bring out our menstruating women and veiled women in the religious gatherings and invocation of Muslims on the two 'Id festivals. These menstruating women were to keep away from their Musalla. A woman asked, "O Allah's Apostle ' What about one who does not have a veil?" He said, "Let her share the veil of her companion."
Maliks Muwatta Book 48, Number 48.4.7: Yahya related to me from Malik from Muslim ibn Abi Maryam from Abu Salih that Abu Hurayra said, "Women who are naked even though they are wearing clothes, go astray and make others go astray, and they will not enter the Garden and they will not find its scent, and its scent is experienced from as far as the distance travelled in five hundred years."
Muslim Book 24, Number 5310:
Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) having said this: Two are the types of the denizens of Hell whom I did not see: people having flogs like the tails of the ox with them and they would be beating people, and the women who would be dressed but appear to be naked, who would be inclined (to evil) and make their husbands incline towards it. Their heads would be like the humps of the bukht? camel inclined to
one side. They will not enter Paradise and they would not smell its odour..whereas its odour would be smelt from such and such distance.
c) 'Wives' were screened while other sex slaves were not:
The tragic story of beautiful, 17 year old, Jewish Safiya and her 'forced' marriage to about 60 year old Mohammad.
Bukhari Vol.5 Book.59 No.512 Narrated Anas: The Prophet offered the Fajr Prayer near Khaibar when it was still dark and then said, "Allahu-Akbar! Khaibar is destroyed, for whenever we approach (hostile) nation (to fight), then evil will be the morning for those who have been warned." Then the inhabitants of Khaibar came out running on the roads. The Prophet had their warriors killed, their offspring and woman taken as captives. Safiya was amongst the captives, She first came in the share of Dahya Alkali but later on she belonged to the Prophet . The Prophet made her manumission as her 'Mahr'. (Also ***Bukhari Vol. 1, Book 8, Number 367 Narrated 'Abdul 'Aziz:)
Bukhari Volume 7, Book 62, Number 89: Narrated Anas: The Prophet stayed for three days at a place between Khaibar and Medina, and there he consummated his marriage with Safiyya bint Huyay. ……... The Muslims asked whether Safiyya would be considered as his wife or as a slave girl of what his right hands possessed. Then they said, "If the Prophet screens her from the people, then she is the Prophet's wife but if he does not screen her, then she is a slave girl." So when the Prophet proceeded, he made a place for her (on the camel) behind him and screened her from people.
Note the Koran, hadiths and laws give Muslim men the right to have sex with slave girls. The treatment of women in Islam is evil and a great sin against God.
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