Not Islamophobia

Not Islamophobia

It’s not Islamophobia:

* to condemn unequal treatment of women in Sharia law, genital mutilation and stoning in some cultures

* to defend their right to choose whether or not they would like to wear burqas and veils

* to be surprised that the ‘honour’ of a prophet who died in the 7th century should matter more than the freedoms (or even lives) of writers, cartoonists and such

* to be surprised that this prophet married a 9 year girl called Aisha

* to ask yourself why Muslim countries do so little science today when their culture thrived so much on it in the past

* to think that cultures are not static and can change from the inside

DISCLAIMER: I do not own the image used

One thought on “Not Islamophobia

  1. I really loved this article. I am a United States Citizen living in India and had no idea just how bad it could be, until I was here and exposed to the daily articles about acid attacks, honor killings and female infanticide. When I first got to India, one of the first articles that I read was about a baby girl that a farmer found buried alive in his field. He found her because of the tiny little hand that she had managed to push out of the dirt. The report said that the baby was at least two days old, had never been fed and still managed to survive. My search for follow up articles about that particular baby turned up story after story, but I never did find out if she was still alive. A lot of us in the West live in a very protected bubble and we may hear about things, but it’s hard to reconcile them, they are at best surreal until you are literally surrounded by it in the news. I started reading about women’s issues worldwide about 10 years ago after experiencing something that caused me a great deal of personal pain. But even though I read about things, I had absolutely no idea the scope of what was going on over here. I understand being requested and expected to keep my silence because people don’t want to hear it or be exposed to it. And you are right. It is a complete marginalization of your experiences and the experiences of millions of Women in India to have someone make that kind of a generalization about ‘Islamaphobia’. You may not appreciate my revelations and I wouldn’t blame you, but I support your voice and will happily hear more of it in the future.

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