Shutting Down Women’s Political Space
An excellent piece in this morning’s Guardian from Tabish Khair , English professor at Aarhus University, Denmark
She talks about the drowning out of moderate voices, particularly those of women:
Between the Danish government and Islamist politicians, between Jyllands-Posten and the mobs in Beirut, between Laban and Khader, the moderate Muslim has again been effectively silenced. She has been forced to take this side or that; forced to stay home and let others crusade for a cause dear to her – freedom – and a cultural heritage essential to her: Islam. On TV she sees the bearded mobs rampage and the clean-shaven white men preach. In the clash of civilisations that is being rigorously manufactured, she is in between. And she can feel it getting tighter. She can feel the squeeze. But, of course, she cannot shout. She cannot scream. Come to think of it, can she really express herself at all now?
Anyone who watched BBC 2 Newsnight ‘s discussion panel on religion and free speech last night ( broadcast available till 10.30 pm UK time here) , in which the spokesman from Hizb- ut- Tahir, talked absolute bollocks, at length and at volume, over any woman who attempted to speak including a Moslem woman Tory MP, would have been able to see that for themselves. I guess we could be thankful for small mercies in that he was an equal-opportunity fascist and did the same to that idiot Labour MP Ann Cryer. “My Moslems” she actually came out with aty one point.
Cryer had a try, but has some way to go to beat the condescending idiocy of Hizb-ut-tahir – passing by almost unnoticed in the melee was this gem from their spokesman – that he and his associates in Hizb-ut-Tahir have what he called a ‘security compact’, with Britain – ie that they are safe in the UK and therefore we’re safe from them.
WTF?
And of course, because of the sound and fury, he was not challenged to say what he meant by this. What could have been an enlightening discussion was a disaster, which I suppose was the whole point of his aggression – he was not interested in discussion, just a platform – and I have to ask whether the BBC would have let say, some nutjob pastor from Aryan Nation hijack a discussion like that? Each has about the same level of credibility.
The larger lesson is that this manufactured imbroglio is a male construct on both sides, and panders to the male need to posture and strut, hence the need to shut up any woman who dares to point that out, and it’s not women’s voices we’re hearing.
