When fundamentalists strike, women’s rights are always the first to go.

When we politely remain silent in front of fundamentalist inspired thinking, we are facilitating people to reach the final step – terrorism. As outlined in my post on Dr. Fouzia Saeed, Saeed (a Pakistani academic) sees suicide bomb attacks and bomb blasts as step 10, the final step of terrorism. She comments that steps 1 to 9 are what facilitate that terrorism and these are the steps that Stoke’s Muslim communities need to pay heed to.

 

Muslim communities in Stoke-on-Trent seem to be all too happy to give away the rights of Muslim women in a plight to seek approval from their peers. A man’s honour is judged by how effectively he manages to control the women of his household. Whether it’s the right to move freely, to go swimming in a mixed area, to hang out with friends, to educate oneself, Stoke’s patriarchal Muslims will restrict their females from doing it. All that matters is what the neighbours think. Not what is right, what is wrong, or what is truly in the best interests of the family member that they seek to subjugate in exchange for status in the community. They will agree with the fundamentalists that for a woman to be considered “virtuous” and a “good Muslim” she should neither have nor express  sexuality in any way and she mustn’t ever answer back to her father or her elders in general, no matter how unjust or cruel their words or actions might be. A Muslim woman in Stoke these days must tolerate the possibility of her husband wanting to engage in polygamy and must abide by what the men in her family tell her. End of story.

 

What people don’t realise is, this is precisely how it all starts. In countries like Iran and Afghanistan, the fundamentalists first attacked the rights of women and the men were like “it’s ok, it’s only women”. When men became the target of these fundamentalist human rights encroachments, only then did the patriarchs realise what they’d done. Only when men were beaten up in the street by fundamentalists for wearing a t-shirt or for not LOOKING Islamic enough, did those men realise what a Pandora’s box they had opened. The same will be the case in Stoke’s Muslim communities. The fathers, brothers, husbands and uncles who are today giving in to the ideologies of people who seek to tell them how the women in their lives should be behaving, will one day be the victims of their own moral cowardice.

 

The fact that we live in a relatively stable society with (mostly) well constructed laws does not mean that fundamentalists are not a credible threat to our freedoms. THEY ARE. The UK Government is IGNORING the fact that when one goes to a Sharia Council affiliated mosque to get an Islamic divorce that men are being charged £200 and women are being charged £400 AND told to give up their dowry! It’s not legally binding, but the leaders of Muslim communities have so much influence and power over people that they dictate what is the Muslim way to live. British Muslims know that if they don’t submit, they will become outcasts. The laws of the UK are failing to act against this kind of discrimination whilst hiding behind the veneer of “religious accommodation”. In a few decades time, there will be more Muslims in the political sphere since the Muslim population of Britain has already gone from 1.9 million in 2004 to 2.6 million in 2010. That’s a 36.7% increase. Muslims being in politics is not a problem, however the views that these Muslims have is most definitely a problem. Most of Stoke’s Muslims I meet are anti woman, anti-gay, anti-education, pro-conspiracy theories, anti-freedom, anti-democracy, anti-free speech, anti-music, anti-British, anti-anything that embodies a genuine willingness to see humanity in others, yet people like me are the ones who are told to “watch what we say”. What kind of a nightmare are we living in? And what kind of nightmare are we creating for future generations by allowing fundamentalists to hijack our lives without even challenging them?

Women’s rights are ALWAYS the first to go, because fundamentalists know that nobody cares about women enough to speak up about their rights. They know that most societies are led by patriarchy and misogyny and that couldn’t be truer of Stoke’s Muslim communities.  Republicans in the US who know that Evangelicals don’t give a rat’s ass about women’s rights, use this apathy and lack of ethics to keep attacking women’s healthcare, cancer care and reproductive healthcare services. Stoke’s fundamentalists act similarly. They know that many of Stoke’s Muslims hold patriarchal and misogynistic views, that verbal, emotional and physical abuse of women is tolerated and concealed within these communities. As long as these views which perceive women to be inferior beings go unchallenged, the fundamentalists’ rhetoric will continue to penetrate Stoke’s Muslim communities at deeper and deeper levels.

 

Mark my words people, if Stoke’s Muslims (religious or just cultural) do not physically organise and mobilise against fundamentalists in Stoke, if people do not speak out against those who accept fundamentalist encroachment on basic human rights, we will have more and more terror cells being found in Stoke-on-Trent.

Bomb blasts are the final step, and we all have a responsibility to prevent people from reaching that final step. When we fail to challenge the yobs that distribute hateful content outside mosques or when we fail to challenge those who call a handshake haraam and tell us how to discipline our daughters, we are no better than the mafia wife that watches silently and thus facilitates the bloody end. If the ideology isn’t challenged, how can we condemn a person when they reach step 10?

 

It’s much easier to stop a steam train when it’s just started moving, not when it’s gained momentum.  There needs to be a comprehensive and organised effort against fundamentalists in Stoke. Fouzia Saeed is 200% correct.

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