Comments in the open thread drew my (and Craig’s) attention to Sarah Baxter’s refreshingly straightforward piece in the Sunday Times. A good piece that more than fleshes out my own curt observation in a recent post.
“The pious men of Gilead show the same respect for women in their power as rapist grooming gangs. But the “sisterhood” that provides Atwood with her fan base doesn’t like banging on about it — so she doesn’t either.
"Brave Muslim women understand what they’re up against. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who had to flee to Holland and then to America — just as the fictional Offred had to seek refuge in Canada — wrote in response to The New York Times’s tweet, “19 Muslim men hijacked four airplanes . . . inspired by their prophet and driven by jihadist ardour . . . Let’s not whitewash that plain truth.”
The ever-changing content within the Guardian’s section in our sidebar led me to this piece by Nosheen Iqbal. I find this chilling for several reasons and I mention it here because it is tangentially relevant to the above.
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| This is the image they chose to illustrate this article |
It seems to me - forgive me if I’ve got it all wrong - that Muslim teenagers, or whoever this project is aimed at, are so spooked by the idea that the government is funding a perfectly well-meant programme of assimilation, that they are up in arms. How dare “non-Muslims” interfere with our … what? Faith? Muslimness? Right to spurn “British values”?
“A Muslim online lifestyle platform targeting British teenagers is covertly funded by the Home Office’s counter-extremism programme, the Observer has learned.
The revelation about funding of the project has led to a row between its owners, a former Muslim employee and its Muslim audience.
“But after realising that recent funding for the project was coming from Building a Stronger Britain Together (BSBT), an arm of the government’s counter-extremism strategy, readers expressed anger and accused its directors of betraying the Muslim community. Two Muslim employees have since resigned.”
However, SuperSisters is left battling the widespread suspicion that it was purposely designed to promote a state-approved notion of the Islamic faith with the potential to track its target audience of British Muslim girls aged 13 to 19. One reader, Aeysh Ahmed, wrote on Instagram: “I am actually shocked ... it’s deeply problematic that non-Muslims feel they have the right to define what our unified identity is.” Another user, @the_hybrid_life, said: “This is truly shocking and disturbing and feels entirely like a violation.”
Counter-extremism is a betrayal? This may not have direct relevance to the BBC but the Guardianesque default Islamophilic attitude is one of the BBC’s principal influences.
Are we allowed to question the Muslim community’s desire to resist assimilation?
"In Search of Moderate Muslims" is worth listening to.
ReplyDelete(https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b055g740)
A 'BBC Muslim', perhaps brought up as 'the only Muslim in the village', discovers that teenage girls in Manchester have contempt for their elders 'moderate Islam'.
It doesn't bode well for our future.