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jewelleria · 7 months ago

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Jewish person here! I’ve spent my life in Jewish schools and communities, my mom is a historian, and my partner is a rabbi. Jewish history is quite literally my favorite thing to learn about and discuss—not just because it’s interesting, but because it’s my history. So I like to think I know what I’m talking about.

This is a super interesting question, and its answer is incredibly complicated. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll split it into three parts: what, when, and why. Hopefully I’ll be able to cover all your questions that way.

I. What is antisemitism?

According to most dictionaries, antisemitism (sometimes spelled anti-Semitism) is a “hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group.”

This definition alone is packed with a TON of history, and holds meaning that might be missed by people who didn’t grow up familiar with the concept or with Judaism as a whole.

It’s important to note what differentiates Judaism from other religions. Judaism, to put it simply, is an ethnic religion, as opposed to a universalizing religion. We make this distinction, and avoid calling it simply a religion, to set it apart from other belief systems like Christianity and Islam. Judaism is an ethnic religion because it relies on heredity and being part of a specific ethnic group (i.e. it must be inherited with the exception of strict conversion laws). Christianity and Islam are universalizing religions because they can be practiced by anyone within the universal population—they actively look for members (i.e. proselytize) and are not restricted to a specific race, ethnicity, or group of people.

With that being said, I’m going to correct the most common definition of antisemitism. It should be defined as “hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, AND racial group.” Jews are all three. We are a religion, an ethnicity, and a racial group.

Antisemitism is racism against Jews. The reason there is no specific type of hatred reserved for universalizing religions like Christianity and Islam is because there is no Muslim race or Christian race. There is only the Muslim religion, and the Christian religion. It’s impossible to be racist against a system of religious beliefs, but you can be racist against a specific group of people with their own system of religious beliefs (Jews). For more on Islamophobia, read this post.

II. When did it start?

Antisemitism is often called “the world’s oldest hatred.” This phrase is used so often that it’s sort of lost its meaning at this point. A more apt description would be that antisemitism is as old as the people it targets, and for proof of this, you don’t have to look much further than the Bible itself.

Many assume that the Jewish people began with Abraham, but I would argue that’s not entirely true. Yes, we are descended from him, but so were the founders of Christianity (Jesus) and Islam (Muhammad). With Abraham came the beginnings of the Jews as a family and as a tribe. We only became a people, a nation, much later.

Here’s a super quick rundown of that family tree in case you didn’t know.

JEWS: Abraham ➝ Isaac (first son) ➝ Jacob (later renamed Israel) ➝ Jacob’s twelve sons, later formed into twelve tribes for each son, one of whom was Judah ➝ the Israelites, aka the Judaic/Jewish people

CHRISTIANS: Abraham ➝ Isaac (first son) ➝ Jacob ➝ Judah ➝ Israelites, one of whom was Jesus, a Jew who was originally named Yeshua (Joshua).

MUSLIMS: Abraham ➝ Ishmael (second son) ➝ Ishmaelites, one of whom was Muhammad, who proselytized and gained followers of Islam.

So how did Jacob’s large family, with his twelve sons and many grandchildren, become a nation? When did the descendants of Abraham become the Jewish people?

Answer: while they were in Egypt. The biblical story of the Exodus starts with the journey to Ancient Egypt made by Jacob and his family. They needed to escape the famine that was destroying their homeland of Canaan, which is located in what is today the state of Israel. Exodus 1:1-5 tells us, “These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each coming with his household: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin; Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. The total number of persons that were of Jacob’s issue came to seventy, Joseph [the eleventh son] being already in Egypt.”

So they came down to Egypt as a family. Time passed, and while the oldest generation—that of Jacob and his twelve sons—died, their children “multiplied and increased very greatly, so that the land was filled with them” (Exodus 1:7). The verse then says that a new Pharaoh rose over Egypt that did not know Joseph (the previous Pharaoh had appointed Joseph as viceroy of Egypt, and was therefore okay with Joseph’s father, brothers, and family living in his kingdom).

The point of saying that the new Pharaoh didn’t know Joseph, and therefore didn’t know the Jewish tribe/family, is to illustrate that he harbored no attachment whatsoever to these people. The new Pharaoh says to his advisors that “the Israelite people are much too numerous for us. Let us deal shrewdly with them, so that they may not increase; otherwise in the event of war they may join our enemies in fighting against us and rise from the ground” (Exodus 1:9-10). The rest of this story is known by many—after Pharaoh’s declaration, the Jews are oppressed and forced to suffer through centuries of slavery.

It’s important to note the usage of Hebrew words here. Before this, the Israelites are only ever referred to as “benei yisrael”—the sons of Israel (Jacob), a family unit, a small tribe. But in verse 1:9, a new word appears: “am” (עם). It has no exact translation, but the closest approximation in English might be “nation” or “people” as it’s translated in the verse. This is the very first time that the Jews are referred to as a nation. This is the end of them as a family, and the beginning of them as a people.

It is also the very first time that antisemitism appears. It can certainly be argued that Jewish Biblical characters were unfairly targeted because of their heritage in the Bible before this instance—but I would argue that antisemitism did not truly exist until this moment.

Why? Because antisemitism is not just hatred of Jews because they are Jews. It is hatred of Jews that is rationalized.

It is an opposition to Jewish existence that is validated by governments, by leaders, and by society as a whole. Pharaoh has no rational reason for his argument. He brings no evidence or logic to his claim that the Jews could ally with his enemies to destroy him—they never said anything to hint that they wanted to. There is nothing in the Bible that points to their motivation for settling in Egypt being a desire to destroy Egypt itself. It’s completely irrational, and yet it’s accepted as a valid reason, and Pharaoh goes on to enslaved and ethnically cleanse the Jews from Egypt uncontested, and continues to do so for centuries.

Antisemitism started here. It started when Pharaoh treated his motion to exterminate the Jewish people as a rational one that was for the greater good of his empire, when instead it was simply a decision that was motivated by irrational fear, persistent hatred, and pure evil.

When the Jewish nation was born, so was antisemitism. The hatred reserved for Jews is as old as the Jews themselves.

III. Why is it so widespread and commonly accepted?

As I said, Pharaoh was able to validate his beliefs by cloaking them in rationality. He feared that the Jews would overthrow him simply because they were large in number. Let us deal with them shrewdly, he reasoned to his advisors. It would serve us best to be wise, to rise and kill first, to wipe them out before they can do the same to us.

It was disguised as logical, strategic, and reasonable, when in fact it was the exact opposite.

In Ancient Egypt, antisemitism was a precaution, a preventative measure. In the Spanish Inquisition, it was a way of rooting out heretics against Christianity to ensure that the Spanish monarchy was able to rule unopposed. In Nazi Germany, it was the Final Solution to the “problem” that Jews posed to the otherwise purely Aryan society under Hitler’s rule.

And today, it’s the idea that Israel—the only Jewish state—is committing genocide, and therefore must be wiped out.

Antisemitism, said Rabbi Jonathan Sacks zt”l, is a virus. It mutates. It uses the highest possible authority in a given society to justify itself, and because of that, it’s accepted and supported.

“In the Middle Ages,” said Rabbi Sacks, “it was religion. So we had religious anti-Judaism. In post-Enlightenment Europe it was science. So we had the twin foundations of Nazi ideology, Social Darwinism and the so-called Scientific Study of Race. Today the highest source of authority worldwide is human rights. That is why Israel—the only fully functioning democracy in the Middle East with a free press and an independent judiciary—is regularly accused of the five cardinal sins against human rights: racism, apartheid, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and attempted genocide.”

These accusations, like those levied against us by Pharaoh so long ago, are thrown about as though they are rational. Today they are disguised as persecution of Zionists, not Jews, and are presented with logic, articulation, and assertiveness. “Zionism is a supremacist, racist ideology,” today’s social justice warriors insist. They perpetuate lies about history, including but not limited to claiming that Jews and Arabs coexisted peacefully in the land before 1948 (false), that the Zionist militia kicked out thousands of Arabs unprovoked (false), that the early Zionists only wishes for Palestinians to be exterminated (false)… so on.

Zionism is seen as evil because it’s a political movement that hinges on keeping Jews safe from the persecution that the rest of the world has gleefully put us through without consequence for centuries. It’s opposed because the colonialist powers of the Middle East have somehow convinced Western Leftists that true decolonization—the creation of the state of Israel—is evil, and that their version of decolonization—so-called “freedom fighting” in the form of massacring, raping, and killing civilians—is what we should all be striving for.

Antisemitism is a fundamental denial of the Jewish right to exist alongside everyone else as equal citizens within civil society. It denies us the basic rights afforded to humankind by Western liberal democracies: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, so on.

Antisemitism, at its core, is put into practice by taking whatever society deems to be the number one problem it faces (in today’s case, the existence of Israel), blaming the Jews for said problem, and using that blame as justification to wipe out an entire nation.

Sometimes it’s obvious. It was certainly obvious under Hitler’s regime—and that is even more obvious in hindsight, now that we can bear witness to the systematic extermination of six million Jews in the span of six years.

But sometimes it’s hidden. Rabbi Sacks argued that Anti-Zionism is the antisemitism of our time. He puts this startling and incredibly widespread belief into words: “The ultimate weapon of the new antisemitism is dazzling in its simplicity. It goes like this. The Holocaust must never happen again. But Israelis are the new Nazis; the Palestinians are the new Jews; all Jews are Zionists. Therefore the real antisemites of our time are none other than the Jews themselves.”

Put into words, it seems preposterous. Today, as members of a free society that allows us to express ourselves however we want, it’s impossible to imagine that people can genuinely believe things like this. But they do, and they always have.

The modern antisemite insists that they are not antisemitic, just anti-Zionist. But they fail to recognize the meaning of Zionism—the belief that Jews have a right to self-determination in a Jewish state—and its absolute necessity. Jews have never been welcome in any other place. We have been expelled, persecuted, systematically murdered by the million, and scapegoated. We have been allowed to live in every country and every nation and every empire, and then subsequently told by those governments—every government—that we are no longer welcome, and seen violently to the door.

So what’s the reason for all this? It’s simple: there isn’t one.

Yes, on the surface one can argue that antisemitism comes from a need to blame, from a collective society’s inability to accept their own failures, or from a sheer intolerance for difference—because goodness knows the Jews are different. But these are not reasons. They don’t get to the very essence of why antisemitism exists, and why it still persists, even in the modern and apparently accepting societies we’ve created.

I can’t answer the question of why. No one can. But I will say this: antisemitism is a disease. It doesn’t just affect Jews—it affects everyone. It infects and destroys the society that allows it to spread. Any society that allows, accepts, justifies, supports, or turns a blind eye to antisemitism is a society that has already begun its slow decline.

How do I know this? Well, I don’t exactly need to spend much time backing up this claim, considering the overwhelming amount of historical evidence that proves it. Ancient Egypt in the Passover story, the Achaemenid Empire in the Purim story, Ancient Greece and Rome, the First and Second Crusades within the Christian Latin Church, the Inquisition under the Spanish Monarchy, Imperial Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Nazi Germany and the Third Reich, and the Soviet Union—all of these empires, thought by their rulers and sometimes their subjects to be eternally unshakable, are gone. All reduced to nothing but bad memories, and all guilty of systematic persecution, attempted genocide, and discrimination against Jews.

Historically, when an empire turns to blaming others for its failures—whether the objects of that blame are the Jews or not—that is a sign that said empire is failing.

Bari Weiss, in a lecture delivered late last year, said, “When antisemitism moves from the shameful fringe into the public square, it is not about Jews. It is never about Jews. It is about everyone else. It is about the surrounding society or the culture or the country. It is an early warning system—a sign that the society itself is breaking down. That it is dying.”

Rabbi Sacks, too, said something similar, several years before the October 7th massacre: “The appearance of antisemitism in a culture is the first symptom of a disease, the early warning sign of collective breakdown.”

“It is a symptom of a much deeper crisis,” Weiss continued in that same speech, “one that explains how, in the span of a little over 20 years since September 11th, educated people now respond to an act of savagery not with a defense of civilization, but with a defense of barbarism.”

There is no reason for antisemitism. To ascribe a reason to something is to lend it legitimacy. No matter how hard we try to find one, antisemitism will never have a reason. It’s a horrifying phenomenon that persists in every generation. It seeps through the cracks of every society and tears it down from the inside, enacting revenge on its perpetrators, and leaves the survivors—the Jews—to pick up the pieces of their destroyed lives in the ashes of yet another fallen civilization.

It has destroyed and ended countless lives, and not just Jewish ones.

But it also gives us hope. Because (and this might sound absolutely insane, so bear with me) antisemitism is the very reason the Jewish people are still here.

There is a song that we sing every year, on the night of Passover, our most well-known holiday. It finds its origins in the Mishna, the first major collection of Jewish oral tradition, and is usually translated from Hebrew as follows: “And this is the promise that has stood for our ancestors and for us: it is not only one [people] that has risen up against us to destroy us. Rather, in each generation, they rise up against us to destroy us—but the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their hand.”

Now, this is not a dogmatic declaration of faith as some might claim it to be. It’s not a minimization of the horrors of antisemitism, either. It’s a song of hope.

This is the promise that has stood for our ancestors and for us means that with every threat that we faced and every persecutor we outlived, our will to survive grew stronger. It shows us that, as horrific and devastating and tragic it has been, we need antisemitism. Without it, we wouldn’t be here.

A stiff-necked people, indeed.

Can someone who is NOT a zionist tell me why Jewish people have so much conspiracy and hate? when did it start and why? how and why did it spread?

Preferably someone who is jewish or really knows what theyre talking about answer

#jumblr #judaism #antisemitism #quotes #rabbi jonathan sacks #bari weiss #anti zionisim #i/p conflict #jewish history #religion #history #the war on the west #current events #on judaism #ranting in the reblogs

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hopetofantasy · 4 years ago

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‘HUMO’s big youth survey - Politics, society and religion’ - With Nora Dari (part 1)

- TW: corona pandemic, mental health, sickness, religion, islamophobia, racism, cancel culture -

Who better to test out the results of HUMO’s brand new ‘youth survey’ than a trio of three young gods? Bouba Kalala (23) made the switch between ‘Studio Brussel’ and the social media-team of the ‘SP.A’ - sorry, ‘Vooruit’. Céleste Cockmartin (21), daughter of sexologist and politician Goedele Liekens, just started her third year of neuropsychology in Maastricht. Nora Dari (19) portrays the beautiful Yasmina in the wildly popular ‘wtFOCK’. ‘If we don’t rise up to the streets, a lot of things will remain the same.’

- Note from hopetofantasy: ‘SP.A’, soon to be rebranded as ‘Vooruit’, is a social democratic political party -

For the past quarter of the century, HUMO surveyed every new batch of youngsters, but never before did we had to include a pandemic in our questionnaire. It’s a first! And even though the youth isn’t the most popular target of the virus, they’ll emerge from the corona crisis with scars on them too.

Half of young people thinks life will never return to what it was before. The girls are even more pessimistic than the boys. Nora Dari: “I wouldn’t call us pessimistic: we weren’t on the right track at all. This is one big wake-up call. I’ve never felt as alone yet together as during lockdown. On social media, we were already used to our own bubble. Then suddenly, all these bubbles began to look the same and everyone kept talking about the same thing.”

Bouba Kalala: “For one moment, the crisis showed us how good the world could be. I even started to cry at the drone images of VTM. I think we’ll bring that unity with us to the post-corona era.” Nora Dari: “When my mom stepped on the bus with her hijab before this, she would have gotten the side-eye. Now people scowl at those without mouth-masks. Weird how fast everything can change.” Bouba Kalala: “My grandpa experienced the war, we lived through a pandemic. Shit happens. When the Germans threw bombs on England, everyone re-emerged after the bombardments, re-opened their shops and even made jokes about it - ‘Everything at explosive prices!’. That’s what we should do now: we have to take corona seriously and follow the measures, but being scared won’t help us more forward.”

Do young people have to give up too much, because of the corona crisis? Almost one out of three think they do. Céleste Cockmartin: “I don’t have the feeling I’m giving up on a lot. But young people really do try and avoid infecting the elderly. When I’m in Maastricht and only see my peers for weeks at a time, then I’ll be less restrained. But when visiting my parents, I’m very careful. It’s just a matter of not being selfish. What’s so difficult about wearing a mask and disinfecting your hands?” Nora Dari: “Quite a lot of people don’t believe in masks.” Bouba Kalala: “Really? I don’t know anyone who dismisses the rules and says: ‘I’m going to go anywhere and do what I want.’ But those that do, get a story in the news. As if every young person doesn’t give a fuck.” You do? Bouba Kalala: “I have to: my grandpa who’s 84, is staying with us. I did sin once, though. Going to a friend’s house for some drinks, other friends come over and suddenly you’re with ten people.” Nora Dari: “I’ve had corona and I was scared to death that I’d infect my parents. So I locked myself up in my bedroom for two weeks.” Céleste Cockmartin: “Seriously? I wouldn't be able to handle it mentally if I couldn't go out.” Nora Dari: “But I was incredibly sick, so the solitary confinement didn’t bother me. I’ve binged all there was to binge on Netflix.” Bouba Kalala: “And your sense of smell and taste?” Nora Dari: “Still gone! I can’t taste anything. Us, Moroccans, drink mint tea every day. Now, a month later, it still tastes like water.” Did the virus change you? Nora Dari: “I’m pretty religious. Corona has given me even more the understanding that everything is in God’s hands.” Faith is on the rise again: the number of young people claiming they’re atheist or non-religious declined from 50 to 41 percent. Céleste Cockmartin: “Everyone is looking for meaning and answers. I search these answers in science.” Bouba Kalala: “For me, science and God have the same worth. Believers can’t prove there is something, but science can’t disprove it either.” You believe there’s something? Bouba Kalala: “Yes, but what? I believe in the universe, the force of attraction, the power of positive thinking... I don’t want to sound too much like a hippie, but I also believe in the paranormal and UFOs. (*Céleste and Nora laugh out loud*) What? UFOs are my hobby. Even the American army admits there is something, so there must be something (*laughs*).” Nora Dari: “I often hear it: young people believe in something, but they don’t know (yet) in what they believe.” It’s all clear to you. Nora Dari: “Yes. I’m lucky to be born in a muslim family, but even then, there’s a moment where you think: is this the religion that really defines me? I’ve done research and began reading books, but my heart truly connected with the Islam. It feels like true love.” Céleste Cockmartin: “I can be jealous about that. I think it’s a shame sometimes, that I don’t have that faith. It seems to be a good solace during the hard times. For a lot of people, faith isn’t much more than a form of meditation.” Bouba Kalala: “The grandma from a friend of mine passed away recently. I found it hard to comfort her. I don’t have that issue with my Moroccan or Turkish friends, because we know she’s with God. The idea that she isn’t gone, brings peace.” In 2015, when we were still discussing the imminent terror attacks, 9 percent called themselves muslim. Now it’s 17 percent. Nora Dari: “I think it’s related to the terrorists. Because of them, muslims and non-muslims started asking questions about Islam. People studied the religion and concluded that it’s actually really beautiful.” When you were 13, you wore a hijab for a while. Nora Dari: “As a young girl, I often visited the community center in Winterslag. It closed down by the time I went to high school. From a tiny school with only two Belgians without an immigration background, to a school with a handful of muslims. Suddenly the world seemed bigger. I needed something familiar, something I could join and where I felt included. That was the Islam. After two years, I realized that my choice to wear the hijab, was too hasty. I wore it so I wouldn’t feel alone, but when I got older, I understood: I’m not alone. With or without hijab, God’s always with me.” Will you wear it again some day? Nora Dari: “I hope so. If someone asks me why I don’t wear it, I don’t have an excuse. It’s something so beautiful. Yet, right now, it doesn’t feel as if it’s something I need to do.” Do you feel, as a muslim, that you’re less of a target than a few years ago? Nora Dari: “Yes. That’s connected with the trend of being woke, being aware of everything and refusing to think anything is bad. Due to this, a lot of youngsters are becoming less critical. Which is a shame.” And here I thought, young people were only positive about being woke? Nora Dari: “But what is the meaning of ‘being woke’?” I was hoping you could tell me. Nora Dari: “No one knows. Everyone pretends to know (*laughs*).” Bouba Kalala: “That’s being woke, I think: not knowing everything, stop pretending like you have all the answers.” Nora Dari: “You know what bothers me? That we live in such a cancel culture. One bad tweet and you’re cancelled for life. There’s nothing woke about that?” Bouba Kalala: “Without social media, we wouldn’t have cancel culture: every brain fart continues to exist on the internet. Years later, someone will dig up a wrong statement and use it to take you down.” Nora Dari: “Young people would do well, if they followed the people they don’t agree with on social media.” Bouba Kalala: “Yes!” Nora Dari: “If I'd follow Dries Van Langenhove (= extreme right politician / activist) tomorrow, my followers would throw a fit: ‘Do you agree with him?’ No, the exact opposite! But how can I understand how he thinks, if I don’t follow him? If I only followed people whom I agree with, I’ll get tangled up into my own truths. The world doesn’t stop with my own Insta page.” Céleste Cockmartin: “That’s being woke: talking with your opponents. I once started a conversation with Dries Van Langenhove. I ran into him in Ghent, at the time of the ‘Schild & Vrienden’ TV report. I had to know: what’s the deal with that group? Unfortunately the conversation wasn’t very clear - it was the nightlife neighborhood. But I’ll stick with my statement: start a conversation with dissendents.” And the youth of today doesn’t do that? Nora Dari: “Not at all. We rather cancel each other.” Bouba Kalala: “I already know that I’ll get racist bullshit hurled at me after this interview. I've learned not to care. Hate posts are good for my algorithm.” You don’t reply to them? Bouba Kalala: “I do, every time. One time, I argued for hours with someone who sent a racist tweet. I kept going: ‘Why do you say that, Arno? Do you realize this hurts?’. In the end, he even thanked me. I went to my mom, showed her the conversation and we’ve high-fived each other. I know that Arno will vote for Vlaams Belang (= extreme right political party) again, but he did say ‘thank you’, while he started with that sick tweet.”

#wtfock #wtfam #part 1 of ...#because my Tumblr keeps glitching #I'm dropping part one already #nora dari

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wenevergotusedtoegypt · 4 years ago

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In terms of Orthodox women who choose to cover their hair upon marriage- a lot seem to go the sheital route rather than using a tichel. Is this a community based thing or is it more for safety reasons? (eg I’m thinking that myself as a hijab wearing woman am obviously very visibly muslim, so a Jewish woman might be the same) Another question is- why do you think that Jewish women are commanded to cover the hair exclusively after marriage, in regards to before for example. In Islam, upon puberty generally is the time a girl should cover her hair but of course the vast majority choose to cover their hair after. I‘ve always wondered if in the case of Islam we’re commanded to do so after so as to set us apart from Jewish women perhaps and show we’re Muslim?

Choices of hair covering are, I’d say, primarily community-based and secondarily personal comfort.

Sheitels are interesting because they are considered by some to be totally inadequate as coverings, by others to be permissible but perhaps less ideal, and by still others to be the most ideal type of covering. I have heard of women who wear sheitels to work because they don’t want to stick out or feel they won’t be viewed as professional otherwise but who wear other coverings outside of that context. I’m not sure it’s about safety so much as just not liking to stick out/deal with questions, but both of those factors kind of depend on your context. I, for example, have been targeted on the street with antisemitic remarks while wearing a long winter coat, midi dress, boots, and sheitel (the sheitel being the only thing that I can imagine identified me as Jewish in that situation). At the same time, the first time I saw one of my older cousins after I got married, she thought my sheitel was my hair and that she’d just never noticed how “nice” it was before. So depending on the context, you might blend in with a sheitel and you might not. Tichels aren’t necessarily read as Jewish in many contexts and so wouldn’t be likely to create issues with antisemitism, BUT I’ve heard of tichel-wearers being mistaken for Muslim and of course there is the chance of being targeted for Islamophobia in that case. That said, I’ve never heard of anyone choosing to wear a sheitel over a tichel specifically due to fear of being mistaken for a Muslim and being targeted for that. Tichels are definitely more common in Eretz Yisroel than the diaspora.

I belong to a community that considers sheitels the most ideal type of covering where it’s a choice to stand out if you choose to cover a different way in public (people typically use other coverings at home). The Rebbe promoted sheitels over other coverings because they can’t reasonably be removed or pushed back in public if a woman finds herself embarrassed to be covering (I’ve had people argue with me that there are elaborate tichels that would be equally hard to remove, but I’m just reporting what was said), because a woman was more likely to do the mitzvah at all if she felt more comfortable about how she looked (vis a vis standing out - this is certainly not to put anyone’s appearance down who wears a tichel, but rather was a response to a trend he saw happening when he spoke about these matters), and because a sheitel covers all the hair most fully compared to other coverings. By the letter of the law a small amount of hair IS allowed to be showing, but there are disagreements regarding exactly how to measure that amount, and kabbalistically it’s preferable that it not. All that said, the communal preference definitely leans heavily towards sheitels. On a more personal note, I’m the type who never really did anything with my hair when single, so I can’t imagine I would ever have gotten into the more elaborate styles of tichel regardless of my community - just can’t be bothered. Throwing on a sheitel or a pretied tichel (which is what I wear at home) is much easier.

Your second question about the timing of covering also hits on another aspect of why different communities and people choose different types of coverings. There are 2 aspects to hair covering in Judaism - one, to show that a woman is married, and two, to cover married hair. If the emphasis is on showing that a woman is married, clearly it is preferable to have a covering that is very obviously there, which a sheitel is not always. If the emphasis is on covering married hair (which it is in my community), then it doesn’t really matter so much whether it’s obvious that the hair is covered, as long as it isn’t showing.

So, as to why Jewish women only cover after marriage*, it is a) to show that she is married and b) to cover her married hair, which hair takes on a new, distinct spiritual quality once she’s married that makes it a private entity as opposed to a public one (which is why many authorities hold that a divorcee or widow keeps covering even though she is no longer married - her hair retains that quality). It isn’t about hair in general but specifically about marriage and married hair.

*Of note to your question, the Rambam - who lived in Muslim-ruled Spain, Morocco, and Egypt in the 1100s - did rule that unmarried women should cover.

#sorry this is very rambly #kisui rosh

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ms-demeanor · 4 years ago

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Thank goodness that French laïcité is the only and most plausible example of state atheism, and that no totalitarian regimes have ever used state atheism to repress anyone besides religious minorities. This is why “state atheism” has no negative or violent connotations ever besides thinly veiled Western European Islamophobia

Somebody asked me a questions specifically relating to french religious symbols laws so I answered specifically about french religious symbols laws you don’t get to be catty about that, c’mon it doesn’t make you look any better when you’re already at the disadvantage of a character limit and not being able to cite sources.

If you want to talk about China just say you want to talk about China and I’ll be happy to point out that even though I *aggressively* disagree with the philosophy of Falun Gong I’ve spoken up about their right to practice their faith and I’ve actually done a pretty significant amount of writing about the Uyghr Muslims and how horrifying I the reeducation camps are and I have *also* defended Chinese Christians.

I think you’re missing that my issue with “state atheism” is the same as my issue with “state christianity” and the issue there is “STATE.”

(Have we discussed the fact that I’m an anarchist yet? Hi, I’m an anarchist. You’re not about to find me defending Stalin here.)

When I’ve said, repeatedly, “You do you just don’t base policy on it” and “practice what you want but don’t impose on other people” it’s not that your beliefs are the problem (there are people who believe in fairies, there are people who believe in trinities, there are people who believe in hexing the moon, I don’t care, none of that matters because none of that impacts the physical facts of the world) it’s that IMPOSING your beliefs is the problem (if you believe that people shouldn’t have sex before they get married that’s fine, it sounds like you shouldn’t have sex before you get married. If you believe that we need enact laws that say we have to teach millions of children that the only way to avoid, treat, or reduce STIs or unwanted pregnancies is abstinence you are wrong and bad and you should feel bad because you’re lying to people and causing real-world harm).

Also. Do you really want to get into that?

Do you really, really want to sit down and start the bean counting of all the times that a state religion up and did a genocide? Do you want talk about the fucking crusades? Do you want to talk about exactly how many countries in history have used religion as a justification for everything from slavery to genocide to forced migration? If you want to talk about state atheist reeducation camps don’t forget to bring up the residential schools that operated in canada until the 90s in an attempt to impose religion on First Nations students to keep them from learning their languages and cultures. Are you aware that it was religion that was given as the justification of the Atlantic slave trade? Do we have to talk about the Rohingya crisis or the Armenian Genocide? Do we have to talk about three thousand years of Jewish expulsions and state antisemitism backed by state religions?

I mean, it’s a good thing no totalitarian regimes have ever used state religion to repress anybody;

this is why “state religion” has no negative or violent connotations. It’s a good thing that no current state religions are connected with violence and disenfranchisement targeted at minority religions.

#atheism discourse #tw genocide #tw discussion of antisemitism

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action · 6 years ago

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Women’s History Month Spotlight: Kawther Inuwa

This Women’s History Month Spotlight features Nigerian activist Kawther Inuwa. Inuwa works by instigating conversations around women’s rights and empowerment, humanitarian issues, Islamophobia, and racism. You’ll want to read more about her in our interview below.

Let’s start with you telling us a little bit about yourself.

My name is Kawther, I’m from Nigeria, and I am currently a first-year university student. Reading and writing are two of my most predominant passions, and for the longest time, I have been in love with the art of writing as a means to create worlds beyond boundaries and educate and inspire the masses. I truly believe that as the the younger generation, we need to learn to be socially, culturally and politically aware of not only our immediate environments but also on a global scale. Hence, I encourage my peers to entertain their curiosity and thirst for knowledge, whether it’s through poetry, art, novels, documentaries, podcasts, the Internet, books, etc.

Why do you think it’s important for people to understand the experiences of Black Muslim women?

Solely being born a woman, one is undoubtedly sure to face sexism in a number of settings; at home, school, workplaces. Yet, being born a Black woman, the discrimination we face is twofold, and in environments where Islamophobic attitudes run rampant, Black Muslim women are inundated with triple the prejudice, and their basic identity is the target of unjustified attacks. Within a number of Muslim communities, religious and cultural values and beliefs are wrongly interchanged, and so while Islam in no way endorses racial prejudice, certain cultures that practice Islam do. This can negatively impact Black Muslim women within those communities, wherein their blackness is believed to make them inferior to their non-Black counterparts.

Moreover, when we observe attitudes towards Black Muslim women in parts of the globe that are not predominantly Muslim, the discriminatory patterns that emerge are appalling. Primarily, institutional racism is an obstacle placed in the path of success for all Black women, barring them from landing jobs or getting into their dream schools, for example. Yet, due to the misconceived belief that anyone who practices Islam promotes violence, Muslim women are on many occasions turned down from jobs they are highly qualified for and rejected from schools they should have been accepted into. Job opportunities and acceptance letters have slipped through the fingers of Black women due to the blackness of their skin and the nature of their curls, so just imagine how many Black Muslim women have experienced the same.

This is why I think it’s so important for us to see Black Muslim women knocking down society’s cunningly placed impediments to their success, and shattering the stereotype of Muslim women as docile creatures. It definitely instills a feeling of pride within me to know that Black Muslim girls out there have such inspiring figures to look up to.

How can we educate and advocate for people to be allies to the Muslim community?

Religious extremism has unfortunately become a prevalent headline within the 21st Century, perpetuating the false notion that Islam is a religion of terror. In addition, when certain aspects of the media repeatedly insinuate that the terms “Muslim” and “terrorism” are synonymous, all this does is fuel the religious intolerance Muslims are subjected to on a daily basis. Like I mentioned before, education can make the greatest difference. Rather than condemn an entire faith for the actions of a group of individuals who practice said faith, take a moment to gather all the facts before jumping to conclusions.

The misperceptions surrounding the Islamic faith are extensive. Therefore, being an ally to Muslim communities worldwide can only begin once those misperceptions have been clarified. And I really believe that there is no better way to do so than by initiating conversations with Muslims. The saying goes that “ignorance is bliss”, but I beg to differ. Ignorance breeds bigotry and pure, unadulterated hate. The inception of a discourse between Muslims and non-Muslims will allow those on varying ends of the religious spectrum to realize that the Islamic faith denounces all forms of brutality and discrimination against any human being, and will shed light on the fact that Islam champions women’s rights, debunking the fallacy that Islam is a faith that supports misogynistic views.

We couldn’t be more thankful for Kawther Inuwa taking her time to educate the masses. To see more from her, please visit her website.

#women's history month #blackexcellence365 #MuslimWomensDay Kawther Inuwa #womenshistorymonth

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hoochy-coo · 4 years ago

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I mean everyone can be problematic if you look hard enough. But there are things that are more easy to bypass and forgivable than others. I feel for example, out of the 1D boys Niall hasn’t really done anything worthy of getting vitriol from minority or vulnerable groups compared to his other members. Chris Evans, Pine and Hemsworth arguably doesn’t have anything of that matter? I mean rumors of cheating and drugs aside but that doesn’t affect anyone but them. There’s also celebs that are arguably just made a dumb mistake with no malice involved.

Lil Nas X was pretty blatant and horrific on his islamophobia though and alongside fatphobic misogyny plus targeting Blue Ivy. That I understand is painful for a lot of people and was very direct. Could he have learned? Sure. But that’s not for the gp to say and force the targetted groups to forgive. I do think this energy of second chances have been very selective though and other celebs are not given the same benefit if the doubt. Rihanna was vile to Muslims and Asians. As someone who’s both her attacks are painful. But she seems to have learned. Angelina was a mess as a youngster but she turned a 180. But I always felt people giving second chances have been so selective. You could argue a lot of celebs are as controversial as the KarJenners but never given the same vitriol. Cancel culture is just selective.

“There’s also celebs that are arguably just made a dumb mistake with no malice involved.” THIS

I still haven’t looked up the Lil Nas X but by the sounds of it, it seems pretty extreme...especially if he went after Blue Ivy, who’s just a child. I definitely think people are rightfully hurt by that and if they don’t want to support him, then that’s completely fair. And exactly like you said, it’s not up to the GP to decide whether they should forgive him or not because they can’t force the targetted group to do so.

I also agree with you that people are selective when it comes to who they give second chances to, and a lot of the times if the celeb is big enough or well-loved enough then whatever shitty thing they did is swept under the rugs by their stans. Like you said, Rihanna was all kinds of horrible in the way she went after Muslims and Asians, but she’s kinda gotten away with it for a myriad of reasons (well-loved due to her idgaf image, the Navy is big, cancel culture wasn’t rampant then). I’m with you and think she’s learned, but if there are people out there who still hold that against her then that’s also fair. Angie was def a wild child, but I think society tends to be more forgiving when people when they do stupid, reckless shit at a younger age. It’s easier to excuse because you just chalk it up to them being young and dumb. In conclusion, cancel culture is counterproductive 💁🏻‍♀️

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jyndor · 4 years ago

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paul krugman and the art of doubling down on shitty takes

so on september 11th, famed nyt editorial writer, keynesian economist and fave of your racist liberal uncle, paul krugman, wrote one of the shittiest takes I have ever seen on twitter, which is SAYING SOMETHING.

krugman famously tweeted this:

and got a million virtual shoes thrown at him for being so ignorant, because anti-muslim hate crimes did actually escalate after 9/11, and the bush administration eagerly fanned the flames of islamophobia in order to make their illegal wars in afghanistan and iraq popular with the public. muslims, sikhs, indians, literally anyone vaguely brown, and lots of black ppl too, were terrorized by their neighbors, (former) friends, classmates, coworkers, etc. and anyone with a muslim friend knows this happened because they've told us about it. and these attacks were reported on. they were, I remember reading about them when I was a kid.

(paul krugman works for the new york fucking times, and while I think the nyt is warmongering centrist garbage, they do actually report on things that happen in the world. he writes editorials for them, surely he reads the damn paper once in a while).

so today, I log on to twitter and see he has decided not to apologize, but rather do the ol' double down, which always works out well.

here are some highlights:

okay so first thing's first, no apology (obviously) since this is a double down. but we got a chart, and liberals do love a good chart when they are being racist and ahistorical.

he admits that the chart is actually inaccurate because it excludes all the other victims of anti-muslim hate crimes who weren't actually muslim (read: the innocents). okay. so already he is losing credibility because he is using an inaccurate chart as the basis of his double down, and really, we love to see it.

after this there's some shit about how he didn't say there wasn't an outbreak of white americans attacking muslims and people mistaken for muslims, but rather that it could have been worse. lol well anything can be worse than it was, as 2020 has taught us. it’s a pedantic mess and I didn’t feel like that was the meat of the double down.

so first off, the iraq war was definitely started for many reasons, but islamophobia was part of it. the bush administration wanted to invade iraq and depose saddam hussein, and steal iraq’s oil for multinational oil companies lbr, and so they exploited americans’ fears about muslims by propagandizing about how it was important for us to attack them over there before they attacked us over here with their weapons of mass destruction, and of course they would attack us over here if given the chance. why? because they hate our way of life here, our freedom. those things were LITERALLY said by bush people and also by their stans at fox news and the wsj, and yes, in the editorial pages at the nyt.

so to someone like paul krugman, who knows lots of conservatives who don’t seem racist, or are educated and distinguished and just... like war? idk but to him, he sees people like them and says, well... they’re not like uneducated filthy poors in west virginia, not that kind of racist.

but what he doesn’t get, or he is being deliberately obtuse about, is that in order for the bush people to dehumanize muslims the way they did, they had to personally place less value on the lives of iraqis than on the value of that sweet crude oil. they were willing to go to war, sacrifice hundreds of thousands of civilians in the process (as well as thousands of american soldiers, but this isn’t about them) because they didn’t see them as anything but collateral damage. and that is fucking racist.

and while I have no interest in playing the “which racist is worse” game, when the west virginia uneducated racist endangers those around them, the politician rich harvard educated racist writes policy and lies us into illegal wars that endanger millions. both are bad, both are racist.

and by the way, him “sticking his neck out” to speak up against going to iraq was brave and necessary, especially because the nyt was pushing the invasion. but when you put it like that... you just sound like a tool. like it was a burden to call out the liars and imperialists. bitch, you’re paul krugman, a nobel laureate and renowned economist. I do not want to discount the IMMENSE pressure and blacklisting that opponents of the bush administration experienced, because showing any opposition to the wars at the time was risky. but idk the way he put that just irked me, especially since he didn’t even lose his job like many in the media did when they spoke up.

usually what liberals do when they fuck up publically is a fake ass apology and a few hail marys, and I assumed he would be on twitter begging for forgiveness on this one since his garbage take went so viral and pissed off so many people. and of course was wrong.

but then he does this:

yeah. your eyes are not deceiving you. that chart is measuring anti-black, anti-lgbtq and anti-”islamic” (lmao who says that bro just say anti-muslim or islamophobic) hate crimes. shut up leftist twitter, black people have it worse than muslims according to my inaccurate chart. so stop attacking me, a rich white man who doesn’t really care about anything other than my reputation.

there is a lot to unpack here, namely that paul krugman is using faux concern for black people as a way to deflect from his shitty ahistorical take about how much restraint white americans showed after 9/11 towards muslims. maybe krugman doesn’t know any black muslims, but they exist. also oppression olympics is stupid even when used by well meaning essentialists, let alone by milquetoast academics.

not to mention that he has already discounted his own shitty chart by saying it doesn’t show the full picture of what happened in these anti-muslim attacks. but even if we take this chart seriously, it actually does not really support his point. look at how many more hate crimes there were against muslims in 2001 than there were in 2000. there are significantly more black people than muslims in the united states. I am not good at math, and surely I am no nobel laureate, but it seems to me that hate crimes against black people increased a little, and hate crimes against muslims increased a lot. and this chart only takes into account three years, and only two of which are post-9/11. so... idk man maybe we should look at what happened in, say, 2003? 2004? how about all of the 2000s?

(source: https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-09-12/data-hate-crimes-against-muslims-increased-after-911)

oh, that is actually pretty consistently bad! yes, there was one spike in 2001/2002, but it isn’t like we went back down to pre-9/11 numbers afterwards. and I am not sure if this information includes non-muslims targeted for “looking muslim” but I would say it is unlikely, since the data seem pretty similar to krugman’s olympic shit.

I am not writing this because paul krugman is particularly shit-for-brains, or because I hate him more than like... idk any other moron on twitter. there were plenty of anti-muslim takes on twitter friday like there are every 9/11, and every day. but krugman is actually someone liberals respect. he is, after all, a nobel laureate and a keynesian economist, and fairly mild mannered. when people in the media like krugman write these ahistorical shitty takes they are, as chomsky wrote, MANUFACTURING CONSENT. it is a deliberate tactic, and it works. and if you want to learn more about this theory, check out this short clip by al jazeera narrated by amy goodman (of democracy now). the media manufactured american consent when they pushed the wars. they continue to do so when they try to rewrite george bush’s history by making trump seem uniquely terrible to muslims.

elites in the press and in government have been trying to whitewash and rehabilitate george bush’s reputation for YEARS, and they are succeeding. and why would they want to do that? well, there are a lot of reasons. one, a lot of people in washington are complicit in bush’s crimes. two, democrats think they need to appeal to moderate republicans (lol) in order to win elections, and I guess they think there are moderate republicans left (lol!), and that those moderate republicans like george bush (LOLLL). three, they want to make trump look uniquely terrible. if they do that, then no one but trump needs to be held to account for his government’s failings. but these are just my speculation.

do not let them rehabilitate george bush any further than they have. it is a fucking shame he will never be held to account for war crimes, but an extra slap in the face to all of his victims when we act like he didn’t do things he did. like stoke anti-muslim hate. he invaded muslim countries with a smile on his face, and that is pretty fucking hateful.

paul krugman doubled down and tried to use Black Lives Matter like a human fucking shield. seems a bit racist imo.

#paul krugman #islamophobia #racism #war #imperialism #anti-blackness #fuck this guy i stg

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loudlytransparenttrash · 5 years ago

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Goodbye 2019: A review of the lies that shaped the year

January

One Twitter user posted this thread, describing how there were “50-70 white men” wearing MAGA apparel who “surrounded us” and “sought to intimidate, mock and scare us” by “chanting ‘build the wall’ and “other trumpisms.” “The group was clearly looking for ANY opportunity to get violent,” they were “bumping into us and daring us to get physical.” Video was then clipped and shared on social media, the mainstream media spread the edited footage and within hours the story about “racist white MAGA hat wearing teens cornered an innocent Native elder while chanting build the wall” consumed the country.

Slate wrote an article comparing the student’s “cruelty” to Jim Crow mobs and neo-Nazis. BuzzFeed’s Anne Petersen tweeted how the students and Brett Kavanaugh are the epitome of “white patriarchy.” Kathy Griffin called for doxing the kids and Stormy Daniels in a now-deleted tweet fantasized about putting these children behind electrocuted walls. New York Times author Kurt Eichenwald wished that these kids should be doxed and denied work for the rest of their lives. Headlines included, “White students in MAGA hats taunt Native American elders,” “Covington Catholic High Student's White Privilege Didn't Win,” “White America, come get your children,” “White victimology, white privilege and the Covington Catholic rules of race,” “Boys Will Be Boys. Covington's Showed Yet Again Why Only White Boys Can Smirk Through That.”

The students and their families were doxed, harassed and threatened for weeks after. Covington Catholic High School was forced to close over security concerns. Then the original video was released that provided context: A group of Covington Catholic High School students went to the March for Life during a field trip to Washington, DC. While there, the students were confronted by the radical black supremacy group, Black Hebrew Israelites, where they were verbally harassed and racially abused, calling them crackers, fa*gots and told them to go find a school to shoot up. A black student was berated as a race-traitor and told his white classmates were going to harvest his organs. A Native activist later approached the kids and started continually banging a drum inches from their face. One student, Nick Sandmann, stood calmly in typical teenage bemusement. That’s it. That’s the story. Once it was realized not a single accusation made by the original poster or the media who spread it was true, everyone went silent, and despite many retractions, no apologies.

February

Empire actor Jussie Smollett was approached by two white men wearing Trump’s Make America Great Again caps and yelled racist and homophobic slurs at him before attacking him, dousing him with bleach and tying a noose around his neck, all while chanting, “This MAGA country!” Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Al Sharpton were among those calling it a modern-day lynching and evidence of the fear and hate black people live with. Harris and Booker even wrote an “anti-lynching bill.” Everybody gobbled this story up and quickly used it to push their idea that it said something more important about the state of race in the United States. Essentially they argued that Trump and his supporters are agitating for this kind of violence and, well, here it is.

Afterwards, Smollett proudly bragged how he had fought off his attackers to the loud cheers of a crowd, a true badass. He then appeared in an ABC interview where his eyes welled with tears as he recounted his traumatic experience and how defiant and inspirational he’s gotta be now. When asked why he thinks he was targeted, Smollett blamed Trump and his evil supporters.

But then some red flags started. 1. He held onto his sandwich during the attack and waited 45 minutes to call police. 2. When police arrived to take a report, Smollett asked that the officers turn off their body cameras. 3. He was still wearing the noose around his neck and wore it “like a tie” throughout their entire 40-minute interview. 4. He said he was on the phone with his manager when the attack happened but he refused to show his phone log to police. 5. He supposedly received a threatening letter a week prior to the “attack” which had child-like writing and drawings on it of his name and the word MAGA, and cliche magazine cutouts of letters pieced together to spell out “black fag.” In summary, we were supposed to believe white Trump supporters wearing MAGA hats were roaming around Chicago, carrying a noose, they saw Smollett, knew who he was, knew his show, his sexuality and singled him out for a lynching.

As the police connected the dots, they found the whole thing was a giant hoax plotted by Smollett himself. When the “black fag” serial killer letter stunt failed to receive national attention, Smollett orchestrated the attack by paying two Nigerian brothers he worked with $3,500 to stage the attack on him while getting Subway. Chicago police spent days and worked overtime poring over security footage and devoting resources that could have been put toward real victims. On February 20, Smollett was charged with a class 4 felony for filing a false police report and was later indicted on 16 felony counts of false reporting. Smollett joined a long list of hate crime hoaxes since Trump took office. I can only assume because reality isn’t at all matching their delusion of the gloomy Nazi “MAGA country” they keep going on about, they’re forced to create these endless hate crime hoaxes to validate the delusion.

March

After spending two years perpetuating allegations that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election from Hillary and wet dreams of Trump being removed from office and even imprisoned, the entire left, every Democrat and the mainstream media were visibly shaken by Mueller’s investigation ending with zilch. When the news broke that there would be no indictments against Trump nor anyone associated with his campaign, and Attorney General William Barr had exonerated him, those who were so certain of victory and so locked into their conspiracy, were once again forced into utter meltdown mode. Mueller spent tens of millions of dollars, employed 19 prosecutors, more than three dozen FBI agents and an analyst and issued 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants, 280 demands for phone and email records and interviewed 500 witnesses throughout the course of the investigation. No evidence was found.

There was however a major abuse of the rule of law by Obama administration officials and Department of Justice and FBI employees, a shameful politicization of the Russia investigation by Democrats and an end of journalistic integrity by many members of the media who all did their best to delegitimize and undermine the election. The DOJ and FBI used unverified research to obtain a court order to surveil the Trump campaign, and thereby obtain access to past campaign communications. In applying for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) order, the DOJ and FBI did not disclose to the secret surveillance court that the debunked Christopher Steele dossier (Trump/pissing prostitutes) was funded by the DNC and Clinton, the whole basis for the probe. The FISA application also did not inform the court of Steele’s bias and his desperation to keep Trump out of the White House. It was all a setup.

Since Election Day 2016, the Trump-hating political and media establishment have been in a cute relationship to achieve their desired end of destroying Trump. Their shared hatred of the man is indisputable. But the idea of them colluding in this information operation to maximum political and legal effect is altogether more disturbing. Russiagate put Trump’s presidency under a cloud of suspicion for more than half of his days in office, delaying his agenda through forcing the administration to expend valuable time and resources defending itself from the constant hounding. The Five F’s seems to be the Democrat’s only tactic, all they can do is deceive, degrade, deny, disrupt and hope that it all will eventually wear Trump down enough to ultimately destroy him.

April

On Easter Day, churches across Sri Lanka were targeted by radical Islamist suicide bombers. The Muslim terrorists walked into several crowded churches and murdered masses of people. They also targeted international hotels popular with Western travelers. The bombings marked the country’s deadliest violence in a decade, leaving 290 dead and over 500 injured. After the quick condemnation of white supremacy and Islamophobia after the Christchurch shootings a few weeks prior, the media and Democrats avoided at all costs condemning Islamic terrorism and recognizing the victims as Christians. A host of politicians such as Obama, Hillary Clinton and Julian Castro all refused to condemn Islamic terrorism and none called the victims Christians, while others such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Portland mayor Ted Wheeler stayed silent altogether. Christians being killed at the hands of Islamists goes against the entire left-wing doctrine, despite it happening all over the world.

It’s not the only time we’ve seen the media and politicians cover for Islamic extremism. Under Obama, officials were so afraid of the phrase “Islamic terrorism” that they redacted the very mention of Islam and even Islamic State from the Orlando gay nightclub massacre transcripts, despite 49 people being killed and 50 others injured by a Muslim terrorist who had pledged allegiance to ISIS. In the UK, police and child protection workers were so afraid of the phrase “Islamophobia” that they ignored and refused to investigate Muslim human trafficking and child rape rings, allowing 1,400 young British girls to be raped with knives, bottles and their tongues nailed to tables. In Sweden, the police and media were so scared of “anti-immigration sentiment,” they covered up dozens of sexual assaults against teenage girls. Not wanting to make their new waves of Muslim refugees look bad, German media and the government also covered up mass sexual abuse across the country where 1,200 women were sexually assaulted and raped in just one night. Who exactly are we protecting by refusing to tell the truth and call something what it is?

May

Alyssa Milano, an actress who has been a valiant fighter for progressive causes, demanded for American women to undertake a “sex strike.” The idea is that women should not risk pregnancy until they have an insurance policy. Uh, so like exactly what Christian conservatives already believe in. There’s something funny about Milano embracing the banner of Christian conservatives in order to own Christian conservatives. Just like when Janelle Monáe advocated for women to go on a sex strike, saying that “people need to start respecting the vagina.” Once again, that’s what conservatives have already been screaming, respecting your vagina, respecting yourself, respecting sex and the good and bad product of sex.

In championing this “revolutionary” concept of women withholding sex in order to attain bodily autonomy, Milano and her blue-check buddies unwittingly preached the same message you often hear during Sunday sermons, especially in youth groups. The Christian perspective posits that the way for women to attain bodily autonomy is to have self-control over your body and choices, to not give away your body so carelessly and to be aware of the consequences of sexual activity outside of committed relationships. Most Christians embrace Milano’s message, not just because the only women who’d participate and use sex as a political bargaining chip in the first place are those who probably need to reevaluate their sex lives anyway, but it also places greater meaning on sex and the power and responsibility of it, which again is another Christian view.

Milano, like many others, also referred to abortion as “reproductive rights,” which is a pretty new term that replaces abortion and is also much catchier on picket signs when used alongside “human rights.” The problem is the term isn’t even close to being accurate. Abortion has nothing to do with reproductive rights. By the time abortion is even a possibility, post-fertilization has already created a tiny human and the mother has discovered that she is pregnant. In other words, reproduction is already complete. That “right” to reproduction was already exercised when you gave it up, literally and figuratively.

June

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tried her best to compare Trump to Hitler by comparing illegal migrant detention centers to actual concentration camps: “This administration has established concentration camps on the southern border of the United States for immigrants, where they are being brutalized with dehumanizing conditions and dying,” she tweeted. Ocasio-Cortez continued this claim during an Instagram Live video, where she said, “The United States is running concentration camps on our southern border. That is what they are. The fact that concentration camps are now an institutionalized practice in the home of the free is extraordinarily disturbing.”

Of course, the claim that conditions at U.S. border facilities are anything like Nazi concentration camps or Japanese American internment camps is absurd. Detainees are not subjected to forced labor, malnutrition or executions. They also chose to enter these facilities by willingly coming to the United States and either illegally crossing or turning themselves in to U.S. Border Patrol, while obviously concentration camp inmates were forced to be there. Let’s not forget the little detail that any of the migrants may opt for voluntary departure at any time. I don’t remember concentration camps ever having that policy. Concentration camps detained and persecuted their own citizens because of who they were, not temporarily detained people who chose to illegally break into a different country. I don’t think there were many Jewish people trying to sneak into Nazi Germany. Even the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum released a statement rejecting such ridiculous comparisons.

But it’s not just AOC driving this rhetoric. MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough showed photos of border officers escorting kids to showers and compared it to Nazi officers marching Jews into gas chambers. Former CIA chief Michael Hayden posted photos of the Auschwitz death camp, also comparing it to the temporary housing policy at the border. The New York Times published an article that called for U.S. Border Patrol agents to be doxed so they can be “publicly shamed" and “held accountable.” Almost the entire Democrat Party and mainstream media have made similar comparisons. Yet the CBP detention centers are not operating any differently today than they were during the Obama administration. The famous photos of caged kids are from Obama’s time in office. Even when the most anti-Trump news network CNN went to investigate, the kids had full bellies, they were watching soccer, playing video games on big flat-screen TVs, sleeping in comfy beds and participating in tai chi classes, rather than ya know, being caged, gassed and worked to death.

July

The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal held a hearing on complaints from Jessica Yaniv, a man formerly called Jonathan who now identifies as a woman, after multiple small business beauticians refused to wax Yaniv’s penis and testicles. The defendant in the case was a young mother who operates in her family home, but there were also 12 other female beauticians Yaniv filed human rights complaints against which put some of them out of business while others paid settlements to save further legal action. Up until July 17, Yaniv’s name was fiercely protected by the Canadian government, as well as technology platforms like Twitter, which banned numerous women and some men who’d tried to warn others about his predations. But once the ban was lifted, it was revealed Yaniv had used “connections” to a band to help solicit advice from both women and teenagers on how to approach young girls and talk to them about tampons and menstruation in female washrooms. You can read the whole thing here.

Yaniv also recently tweeted shock to be turned away from a gynecologist. “So a gynaecologist office that I got referred to literally told me today that ‘we don’t serve transgender patients. And me, being me, I’m shocked... and confused… and hurt. Are they allowed to do that, legally?" I’m sure Yaniv will be taking gynecologists to human rights courts next for refusing to inspect anuses. We have to be careful to not misgender Yaniv as several journalists have been banned from Twitter for this crime against Yaniv. Any concerns about women being forced to touch male genitalia or biological men being allowed into women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, rape crisis shelters and prisons, you’re done for. This whole story resembles a new trend forming, such as the Christian cake shop owner who was sued for not wanting to bake a cake for a same-sex marriage: An individual from a politically designated victim class seeks out a service, intentionally from a small business owner who they know they can exploit, and the moment the businessperson declines - voila! A movement is born with a slew of lawsuits, powerful interest groups and media backing.

August

Dave Chappelle’s newest Netflix special was only uploaded for a few hours before the PC grievance mob went to work trying to sink it. Buzzfeed lectured Chappelle for his “truly vile” jokes and instructed him “to be more thoughtful.” Salon spoke out against “the cruelty” and Slate compared him to that "uncle who doesn’t know, or doesn’t care, how much he’s disappointing you.” While “Uncle Dave” was once cool, they say, his jokes in 2019 make you “wince.” Vice went a step further and gave a total trigger warning to its audience, writing "you can definitely skip” it altogether. As of today, “Sticks & Stones” shows a 38 percent score from media critics on Rotten Tomatoes, while 39,881 of viewers have given it a 99 percent audience score, reflecting the massive disconnect between the media and the general public and proving the only ones who are “out of touch” are themselves. This same pattern can be seen with “woke” movies too. Media critics sing their praises and hail their progressive activist messaging and pandering, yet in reality, these movies completely bomb.

Hollywood wants to water down comedy as not to hurt anyone’s feelings, but in doing so quickly turns into telling people what’s funny and what’s not and who can laugh and who can’t. Even the most devoted left-wing activist surely can see the problem. But a comedian like Dave Chappelle makes fun of everyone and doesn’t believe in a protected class during a stand up routine, as it should be. He also made fun of things that the right cares about, yet they still applauded the special as a celebration of comedy. But no, because Chappelle didn’t obey by their rules, because he didn’t stand on stage and call Trump a Cheeto (the pinnacle of left-wing comedy), he too must be one of those Nazis we keep hearing about. Chappelle isn’t running for public office. He’s a comic, and we’re not meant to seek the ultimate answers from him. It’s his job to talk about and then joke about current events, trends, what’s going on in the world, his only sin was talking about them a little too honestly.

September

Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg addressed the United Nations through teary eyes and gritted teeth, claiming that the world is about to end and how unfair it is that she has to save it. Throughout the melodramatic speech warning of “mass extinction” and attacking capitalism, Thunberg repeatedly declared “how dare you!” and “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood!” Sadly, she’s right. How dare a child from one of the most healthiest, progressive, wealthiest, safest and most peaceful countries known to man be indoctrinated to believe adults have failed her and the weight of the world is on her shoulders to save mankind from apocalypse. It’s not her fault.

It’s the fault of the schools who pile on the panic-stricken talk of environmental disaster starting from kindergarten. It’s the fault of the ideologues who obsess over every weather event as if it were Armageddon, whether it’s hot or cold, rain, sun or snow, it’s all evidence of the end looming. And it’s the fault of the politicians, too cowardly and desperate for votes to tell people that utopian visions of a world run on windmills is a pipe dream. And why the hell isn’t China being lectured by the Swedish teenager? Their emissions from aviation and maritime trade alone are twice that of the United States, and more than the entire emissions of most nations in the world, but we’re the ones being told to ban straws, stop eating meat, roller skate to work and stop having kids? Really? Then again, it’s easier to go after countries which roll out the red carpet, gives her a platform and awards her with prizes in return for her criticisms. The real pollution culprits aren’t nearly as accommodating.

Climate activists could learn something from Thunberg’s honesty, though. She argues that “money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth” have to come to an end. Thunberg’s dream for the future means technocratic regimes will have to displace capitalistic societies. We can see this future in the radical environmentalist plans of AOC’s Green New Deal, one supported by leading Democratic Party candidates. It’s authoritarianism. There is no other way to describe a regulatory regime that dictates exactly what Americans can consume, sell, drive, eat and do in their personal lives. As Hawaii Democrat senator and climate change enthusiast encouraged fellow activists to think of climate change as a religion rather than a science, we can only hope that most Americans will continue to reject these regressive ideas. One reason we should is so that Greta Thunberg’s generation, including her army of schoolchildren, can continue not having to suffer needlessly.

October

Media outlets responded to Trump’s announcement of the U.S. military’s successful mission against ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was not met with much praise and excitement that the world’s most wanted terrorist leader had been stopped, but with anger and snark. Many media outlets, the Washington Post for one example, worked hard to spin the killing of Baghdadi into, somehow, a negative story for Trump, beginning with a look at Baghdadi as not as a brutal terrorist and murderer, but as an “austere religious scholar.”

The Washington Post followed it up with a chain of negative stories: “Three ways the Baghdadi raid undermines Trump’s chaotic policy,” “Despite the killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, some analysts question U.S. ability to prevent ISIS resurgence,” “The U.S. kills an ISIS leader. But Trump is giving the group a new lease on life.” They even complained how long Trump talked for and how using words such as “dog” and “coward” weren’t as presidential as Obama. Oh, and a Washington Post and CNN journalist tweeted how wrong it was for Trump to call al-Baghdadi a coward because it takes guts to blow yourself up rather than allow yourself to be captured...

If only it ended there. The Washington Post joined other media outlets including the New York Times in debunking the “doctored” and “faked” photo Trump tweeted of himself giving a Medal of Honor to the dog that chased down al-Baghdadi. White House reporter Steve Herman also debunked the meme by breaking news on Twitter, "I've requested details on this photo! There was no such a canine event on today's schedule!" He later confirmed in a tweet after speaking to a White House official that the meme was indeed Photoshopped. Jim Acosta of CNN also made sure everyone was aware, "The dog is not at the White House." The Huffington Post wrote, “A photo tweeted by Donald Trump is getting dogged by accusations that the pic is the very definition of fake news. The photo didn’t really happen,” then proceeded to show side-by-side photos to prove it was photoshopped. Everywhere the meme was called “fake news.”

Once the media confirmed that the very clearly photoshopped dog was not at the White House after all, and the meme was just a meme, they moved onto asserting the meme was insulting and disrespectful to the original recipient of the Medal of Honor, James McCloughan, which the photo was taken from. Yet when the meme was shown to McCloughan, he laughed and said he wasn’t offended and he liked it. Now that another outrage had fizzled out, the only thing that was left for them to complain about was... Trump hates dogs because he used the term negatively to describe the ISIS leader. Yep.

November

Nine American Mexican family members were slaughtered in broad daylight in an ambush by a drug cartel in Northern Mexico, less than a hundred miles from the Arizona border. The family were traveling to visit family when they were attacked by the cartel which left three women and six children dead, including a pair of infant twins. As Trump voiced outrage over the attacks, condemning the violence and offering the Mexican government help to come down harder on the cartels, not a single one of the seventeen Democrats in the race issued a statement on the attacks.

That’s probably because they’ve already established it’s racist and bigoted to point out that some Mexicans can do bad things and there’s gonna be some bad eggs illegally crossing the southern border, despite leading Democrats including Clinton and Obama holding the same view just a few years ago. Let’s forget those behind most illegal border crossings are actually rapists or in just one city, over just a few weeks, seven illegal immigrants were convicted of rape. For the record, Trump never called all Mexicans rapists. He said there are rapists among those being sent over, along with drugs and MS-13 members, all true. He also said in the very next breath that there’s also good people crossing. Now, it’s also racist to call MS-13 gang members “animals” despite them being known for beheadings, dismemberments and cutting out hearts. And now we know we’re not even allowed to talk about the epidemic of terrorism and violence along the border, even when nine American women and children are massacred as it runs counter to the new, insane Democrat narrative mocking the need for stronger border security or the need for borders at all.

This is the latest incident that has shined a spotlight on Mexico’s growing crime problem as drug cartels have launched an insurgency in the failing country. A month earlier, hundreds of gunmen stormed the city of Culiacan after Mexican National Guards arrested one of the sons drug kingpin “El Chapo.” In a stunning display, the Mexican president told his National Guards to surrender to the cartel and release El Chapo’s son. The day after the family massacre, more murders and bus burnings were unleashed on the city of Juarez. The mayor of Juarez said the chaos was the cartel’s response to police arresting suspects involved in an ongoing drug turf war. We’ll have to wait and see if the new Mexican president’s policy of “hugs not bullets” will end the endless territory being controlled by different armed groups, similar to the Middle East and Africa. Maybe love and giving into cartel demands will bring law and order back.

December

Democrats finally did what they’ve been promising to do since Trump won the election, they impeached their mortal enemy. The obsession with impeachment has little to do with anything Trump did, and everything to do with who he is. Democrats never expected to lose the 2016 election, especially not to Donald Trump, which humiliated them even more. And ever since, they have been trying every trick in the book to prove what a horrible mistake voters have made. Democrats have floated the idea of impeachment over fake Russian collusion conspiracy theories, drivel about porn stars and even the president’s criticism of his critics. All of them bombed. With time running out before the 2020 presidential race gets into full swing, they seized on the only thing they had left: bogus “concerns” with a phone call to the newly elected Ukrainian president.

The evidence Democrats have rallied on makes for the weakest impeachment ever launched in American history, highlighting gross abuse of congressional power and serving as a national embarrassment. The impeachment inquiry was kicked off by an unknown person during a phone call between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. An unredacted transcript of the phone call was quickly released to the public, putting the conversation between the two leaders in plain sight for all to see in an unprecedented move. There was nothing to hide. Democrats and media outlets took slices from the transcript and came up with a story about Trump pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden’s family in exchange for nearly $400 million in military aid. Yet when Trump mentioned “do us a favor,” in the very next sentence, he referred to Ukraine looking into the 2016 election meddling after Mueller did such a poor job, it had nothing to do with Biden. Zelensky himself said there was no pressure and he didn’t even know about the military aid being delayed.

But House Democrats still held four weeks of impeachment hearings and not a single piece of incriminating evidence to impeach the president of any kind of crime was found, whether it be a “quid pro quo,” “bribery,” or “extortion. In fact, to the contrary, witnesses called by Democrats actually exonerated the president of any wrongdoing. Ousted former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich blatantly admitted that Trump committed no crime. “Do you have any information regarding any criminal activity that the president of the United States has been involved with at all?” “No,” Yovanovitch said. Former State Department Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker was asked, “In no way, shape or form did you receive any indication whatsoever, or anything that resembled a quid pro quo, is that correct?” “That’s correct,” Volker said.

Despite clearly having no case against the president, Democrats still voted to deliver their promise, it was now or never. Unlike other impeachment cases, it wasn’t at all bipartisan, the House’s impeachment inquiry passed without a single Republican vote. In fact two Democrats joined GOP lawmakers in voting against the resolution, ironically making opposition to impeachment the more bipartisan vote. One Democrat even switched parties after he was pressured by his Democrat colleagues to vote against his will. Now, Pelosi is refusing to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate for trial. She knows Trump will be swiftly exonerated and claim another monumental victory, so let’s savor in the impeachment juices that nobody cares about for as long as we can. At least until the next “existential threat” or “constitutional crisis” they can whip up.

#trump #politics #impeachment #2019 #new year #2020 #democrats #dnc #happy new year #donald trump #conservative #republican

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nihalsjourney · 5 years ago

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Not wearing my hijab anymore

We’ve entered a new decade, it’s 2020. To be honest I’m not a big fan of New Year’s Eve and the hype around it, which is why I waited with a new blogpost. I think it’s nice to look back on some things, one of them being my very first blogpost on here. (link) December 8, 2015 was my very first day without hijab. I can still feel the stress and anxiety of that day. After that, I never talked about it anymore because I still felt guilt and shame. It’s been four years and I feel like I’m able to talk about this past chapter in my life much better.

So we’re going waaaaay back, beyond those 4 years!

My mother is Dutch and my father is Turkish, my mother converted to Islam 24 years ago. When my parents had my brothers and I, baba (father) felt a stronger sense of practicing Islam better as well as raising us with our Turkish identity. Seeing as how Dutch society forces immigrants to assimilate rather than to integrate. The thought and fear of us losing our Turkish identity really stressed him out.

Being in an interracial relationship asks for more different responsibilities I think. My mother and baba were integrating in each other’s culture, learning one another’s language while working hard and raising us with best of both worlds.

As we got older our parents signed us up to an Islamic elementary school. With a school bus we’d go in the early morning from Valkenswaard to Eindhoven. There were both Muslim and non-Muslim faculty. My personal experience wasn’t great, I was already dealing with depression, anxiety, and trauma. I don’t remember a lot from what I learned because I dissociated quite often. It was difficult for me to learn because unfortunately we were taught Islam from a cultural perspective and fear inducing. To me Allah seemed like a big angry man and I refused to believe that.

I remember that all female teachers wore a hijab. Muslim or not. The girls also wore a hijab starting very young. After school they would take it off, others didn’t. I remember one time after gym class that I didn’t put my hijab back on. One of the male teachers who saw us on our way back to class shamed me for it. Looking back it was so awful how at first the girls didn’t even bother or noticed. But once the teacher said something about it they started whispering loudly to each other ‘haram’ ‘she didn’t put her hijab back on!’.

There was this unspoken rule that a girl should wear her hijab ‘full time’ when she’s 12. We’d ask each other, ‘When will you wear your hijab?’ ‘If you don’t start wearing it now you never will!!’ ‘Wearing your hijab at 16 or 18 is too late, you should wear it when you’re at least 12!’ Alhamdulillah (thank God) I can say that my parents never forced me.

I switched schools when I was 8, it wasn’t an Islamic school but I still kept wearing my hijab to school as force of habit. Once I turned either 10, 11 or 12 years old I started wearing my hijab. After age of 12 I had to switch schools again, this time a dominantly white school. From the maybe 200 students, there were 5 students of colour, 4 of them Muslim and I being the only one wearing a hijab. I was facing a lot of discrimination and Islamophobia already and it only got worse from then on. The majority of white people questioned me about every single little thing, my hijab, Islam, if I sympathize with terrorists, if my father came here for money and if I was oppressed. ‘When did you start to realize you wanted to wear your hijab?’ ‘Did you feel ready?’ ‘So you’re Muslim, right? What do you think of ISIS?’ The older I got, I hoped that the questions would stop but they never did. I had very little knowledge, yet people thought I did because of my hijab. Like I was a living, walking human museum or encyclopedia.

I started to question myself. Did I feel ready? Do I understand what wearing the hijab means? Can I justify myself to Allah for wearing my hijab though the intention of wearing it is non-existent?

It made my heart hurt so much because I had to face reality. I didn’t have an answer. At first I tried reading and researching more about Islam, but back then there was very little willingness of me to do so. I tried to move on despite feeling unhappy, guilty and confused. When I was 18 I decided to talk to my mother about it. She said she had always been worried that I never made my decision to wear my hijab consciously because I was so young. Together with my mother I began brainstorming for ideas and options. Such as trying to wear my hijab in different styles to see it makes any difference and talking with a few women who had taken their hijab off. When I listened to their stories I felt scared. Clueless of what I should do, standing at a cross roads having no idea which path to take.

Once I decided that I wanted to stop wearing my hijab, I talked with my baba. He was very confused and upset. He always tried to protect us from the Western world, so he was worried that it influenced my choice. I told him it didn’t. Although he didn’t agree with my decision he emphasized that he will always be there for me and love me. That’s all I needed to hear. I knew that baba needed his time to get used to things.

Sometimes I still think that I have to explain to others that I used to wear a hijab. Specifically to sisters who wear it. Because I understand all too well what it’s like to be a visible target of Islamophobic violence. There has become such a huge shift in my daily life that sometimes I feel like the odd one out when I’m with Muslim women (who wear the hijab).

Talking about a huge shift in my daily life. In the beginning especially, I noticed how Muslims and non-Muslims were now treating me differently. Whenever I’d greet a sister ‘Assalaam aleikum’, (peace be upon you) she’d look me up and down disapprovingly and wouldn’t return my greeting. It felt awful, I stopped greeting anyone all at once to give myself some sense of security because I was feeling so vulnerable back then. Instead, non-Muslim (majority white) people started to happily greet me. It was mind boggling.

Like it was some sort of game, I’d keep track of all these differences. How in the past people wouldn’t sit next to me in public transport even when it was busy, to by passers saying ‘Allahu akbar’ or ‘terrorist’ under their breath when walking past me, getting checked by security a lot faster or accused of stealing, always being refused when applying for a job (in my city, Eindhoven, discrimination on the job market is very high) etc.

When I have to show my ID, that has a picture of me with my hijab on, people always feel the need to tell me ‘You look prettier without hijab!’. When that happens I get a, what Dutch Iranian artist Saman Amini calls in the play ‘A Seat at The Table’, racial freeze. Cashing in the comment, reacting with a fake smile and getting back to my day. Not allowing myself to feel the hurt or the frustration.

It has definitely been a struggle the first year or two. I had to adjust to how society was treating me, nobody sees my hijab but sometimes I still feel like I wear it. A lot of my life experiences before taking it off were based around my hijab. And as I’m writing, realising it now, hurts. Wearing the hijab since a young age, I was basically robbed of my childhood and sure that may sound dramatic but it’s reality. It impacted my quality of life because I was an easy target for Islamophobic violence both verbal and non-verbal.

I got to see first-hand what it’s like to be treated both with and without hijab by non-Muslim and Muslims. Whether I’m a bad Muslim or a well ‘integrated’ (read assimilated) immigrant.

We still teach girls to judge other girls. In my time we’d judge those who chose not to wear their hijab (yet) or who wore their hijab the ‘wrong’ way. As I got older I started to realise how toxic this behaviour is. But I find that this way of thinking is still deeply rooted. Because I still have some moments that when I see a sister with a hijab showing hair, my first thought is ‘Oh My GoD sHe Is ShOwInG hEr HaIr!! AYIB!!’ it’s been happening a lot less. But when it does I mentally slap myself in the face and remind myself of how toxic that way of thinking is because it does not contribute to anything positive. The judgement I had towards myself and others has lessened immensely. I’ve become a stronger person and learned so much (I’m still learning!!). All the things I named and more, I had to experience. Before I was so caught up with myself. Trying to survive. Now I able to make room in my heart for others to heal.

I look back to these past four years a lot. Feeling thankful and amazed. Never before did I have such a close relationship with Allah and myself. Honestly, I feel ashamed when I say the following. So may Allah forgive me for my ignorance and wrong doings, may He accept my good deeds, prayers and efforts of learning…

I never prayed, sometimes during Ramadan. Like I said, I forgot what I learned as a kid because of dissociating. When someone tried to teach me about Islam I didn’t have the space to listen, my mind never saved the information. Alhamdulillah, with its ups and downs, the past four years I have now been saving the knowledge I learn about Islam. I’m praying 5 times a day, reading translations of the Quran, going to lectures with an open heart and mind. Soaking up all the information I can get my hands on, eager to learn.

I’m not saying this to brag. But to stress that once again, I had to go through these things to grow through them. I had to experience all of this in order to become the person I am today. A better version of myself. Because with this experience and knowledge I am able to stand even stronger on my feet.

Lastly, I want to emphasize that my experiences I shared above, especially the negative ones have nothing to do with Islam. It’s man-made culture. Please see religion separate from its people.

Also there is unfortunately still way too little awareness of how children mimic our words and (misogynistic) behaviour. Pretty much everything I named in my story I learned from aunties, uncles and the girls around me. So especially to us women, I hope that we can start to truly uplift each other and not tear each other down any longer.

Thank you so much for taking your time to read this. A Dutch version of this blog post will soon follow.

Take care, peace and blessings upon you all! Much love,

Nihâl

#Nihâl's Journey #nihalsjourney #Journey #Muslim #Hijab #Hijabi #Spirituality #Personal growth

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