An aesthete

2013-06-20

terra-mater:

15 amazing things in nature you won’t believe actually exist

Source

Oh no, I believe…

2013-06-14

My hijab is not oppressive, but your stereotypes are

My hijab, to some non-Muslims, symbolizes oppression and lack of women’s voice and agency in the Islamic faith. These individuals feel it is incumbent upon them to free me, and all Muslim women who adorn the hijab, from this perceived oppression. We live in a culture that constantly makes Muslim women and the hijab synonymous with oppression so much so that most folks do not even want to engage in a dialogue with a Muslim woman about her reasons for wearing the hijab prior to assuming and then telling her that she is oppressed. I have had countless number of non-Muslims tell me “I do not have to wear this in the land of the free and home of the brave” and that by wearing the hijab I am sending a political message, which stands in support of “extremists killing innocent people.” My response to these people varies from the tone of their voice to the kind of day I am having, but the overall message I try to convey is that I wear the hijab because I want to. Although to some, it might be a sign of a political statement, for me it serves a spiritual and religious significance, which is grounded in a faith that does not in any shape, form or fashion support the killings of any innocent people anywhere on this earth. I have made the personal and conscious choice to wear the hijab on a daily basis after immigrating to the United States and learning about my faith, the Qur’an and what it means to be a Muslim. Every time I get ready to step outside my home, I make the decision to wear the hijab. I am not and have never been forced to wear it as there are women in my family who do not wear it and there are those who do. My hijab is part of who I am and I proudly embrace it.
The preconceived notion that all Muslim women who wear the hijab are oppressed is highly problematic. First, it ignores the large number of Muslim women who wear the hijab on their own terms and second it uses a piece of a garment as an indicator to figure out which women are oppressed and which are not. The Muslim women who wear the hijab that I have met over the years do so because they decided on their own that they would wear the hijab. This is something that is ignored by mainstream media as well as so-called feminist groups that proclaim to fight against this oppression and eventually liberate Muslim women from Islam and Muslim men. What these groups conveniently forget is that the most essential part of fighting for someone’s rights and freedom is listening to what they want and not what you want for them. Muslim women are capable of deciding whether they want to wear the hijab or not. With that said, there is no denying that some Muslim women wear the hijab because of their families and/or societal pressure. I believe this is wrong and fundamentally against the teaching of Islam, which clearly states that there is no compulsion in this religion. Women across religious, racial and class lines live in cultures that are male dominated and patriarchal. Muslim women are not exempted from this; Muslim women, in their respective communities as well as secular communities, do face the challenges of living in a patriarchal society. However, this does not mean one assumes all Muslim women are oppressed and somehow need to be rescued or liberated from wearing the hijab or the Islamic faith. The stereotypes and assumptions that portray all Muslim women as complacent and voiceless individuals are oppressive in and of themselves. The exclusion of Muslim women who wear the hijab from mainstream media and public discourse on why they wear the hijab breathes life to this notion of the oppressed Muslim women.

by Halima Ahmed

Source: 81dissonance

2013-05-20

Picturesque Redang. :) (at Berjaya Redang Island Resort)

2013-04-15

“Instead I have a mill.”

Oh, Robb, King in the North, you owned that!

YUMMMMMM!

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Spidey tackling IconMaster! Yeah! #spidey #spider-man

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Spidey leaping off Switcher Tower #spidey #spiderman #boredom

2013-04-14

Spidey tackling IconMaster! Yeah! #spidey #spider-man

2013-04-12

(via cinemastatic)

Source: maisiewilliams

2013-04-11

Promises - The Presets

Source: SoundCloud / SBA Music

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(via Man Kissing His Wife (Muslim Couple Photo) - Muslimah Photos (Girls and Women & Hijab Photos) | IslamicArtDB.com)

Source: islamicartdb.com

2013-04-07

spectacular clouds over Sydney on a later than usual Sunday morning (7:30am, really an hour later if you’re leaving work)
#daylight saving morning after #Sydney #clouds

2013-04-04

islamic-art-and-quotes:

It is Not the Cloth

It is not the cloth that oppresses women, it is the illiterate mind.

www.IslamicArtDB.com » Islamic Quotes » Islamic Quotes By Topic » Islamic Quotes About Jahiliyyah (Backwardness and Ignorance, Deprivation from Divine Guidance) » Islamic Quotes About Modern Jahiliyyah (The Backwardness of the Modern World)

Originally found on: selfish-desires

Source: islamic-art-and-quotes

2013-04-03

And then there’s that…. (at Summer Hill)

2013-03-26

I'm not racist but...

Over the years I’ve had the great displeasure of experiencing some pretty hardcore racism. I know you must be thinking, What!? With a pretty face like that? Never. I know, I find it hard to believe sometimes, but apparently no matter how many Instagram filters one applies it does not absolve even the prettiest of harem girls from racism.

It’s not always outright aggressive. Sometimes it’s more passive aggressive, sometimes it’s patronizing but it is always frustrating. The expectation is that you’ll swallow your feelings of frustration, like I swallow my pride and patiently wait for the racism to stop. After all you don’t want to make the problem worse and accusing someone of racism is a big call. Are you sure that’s what they meant? Are you being paranoid?

Last week I made a routine visit to the beautician to be well, beautified. Once she’d enquired after my general wellbeing and asked about my job she wanted to discuss everything you’re told to avoid at the dinner table.

‘I’m not racist but’ she began. A statement, which, of course, does nothing but suggest you are in fact, racist.

We see ‘I’m not racist but’ comments on social media all the time. Websites like theantibogan.wordpress.com have been set up to give the online community the power to name and shame racists, sexists and homophobes. Such initiatives can make big statements particularly in the online sphere where people often think they have the added advantage of anonymity. But what of real life encounters? Where do we go to report IRL racists?

One of many problems with comments that begin with ‘I’m not racist but’ is that they insult the intelligence of the person on the receiving end of that comment. Much like we’re insulted by the presence of QandA pretending to be a platform of intellectual debate, such comments scream disrespect.

Let’s go back to my beautician visit for a moment shall we? After a discussion about ‘Asians’ and their ‘refusal’, as she termed it, to learn English, she turned her attention to the state of ‘Islamic women’ in Australia. But not before pointing out how ‘perfect’ my eyebrows were. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my mother for those genes.

‘Are there many Islamic students where you work?’ she seemed genuinely curious.

‘I suppose there are some.’ I replied politely.

‘Because Islamic parents even in Australia are really strict. They don’t let their daughters get educated.’ She proceeded to inform me, peering over her tweezers for effect.

‘I’m so jealous of your eyebrows.’ She smiles.

Yes I’m being determinedly rebellious and getting a PhD without their knowledge.

Sarcasm aside, notice how she states this as a fact. She speaks from a position of authority, a place of knowing, as if she understands Islam and Muslims. But more importantly in this instance she speaks as if her knowledge is definitive, never considering that my insight as a Muslim might undermine her point.

‘Well I’m about to submit a PhD’ I begin; fully aware of the fact that I need to leave the salon with two matching eyebrows and if I take a tone that may not happen.

‘That girl was shot by the Taliban.’ She continues.

Are the Taliban now raising Muslim girls in Australia? Conflating Muslim parents in Australia with the Taliban is Orientalism in fine form. If the Taliban are Muslim and you are Muslim then obviously you are the Taliban.

This is precisely what happens when every layperson sees themself as an expert on Islam. A right they believe is afforded them because of the way we talk about (rarely with) Islam and Muslims in the public sphere and in popular culture. The cliché but highly repetitive portrayal of Muslims as villains, hairy babbling buffoons or even shadowy figures covered in black from head to toe, does not allow Muslims agency. Thus we assume that the Muslims we encounter in our day to day have none either. It’s precisely the reason a white woman whose only job at that moment is to tidy up my eyebrows, can insist that Muslim parents deny their daughters an education, despite the obvious proof that this cannot be universal.

‘So you’ve chosen career over marriage and kids’ she interrupted my train of thought.

‘No’ I said hesitantly. ‘I just haven’t met anyone’ I continued defensively.

The silence was awkward with only the ticking of my biological clock to break the sullen mood. Or perhaps that was the hollow sound of my empty, uneducated mind begging to be used. I felt like both my femininity and my religion were being scrutinized and it really was too much to take in, in the space of 20 minutes.

While she can accept that I have been ‘allowed’ an education, she cannot extend this information to Muslim women beyond me because it contradicts the discourse of Oppressed Woman that is all too familiar to her. I am therefore relegated to occupying the narrow space of exception. I become the client she once had who was unlike the others.

A space almost every Muslim I know, knows too well. A space I resent.

This was once a source of exceptional pride for me. When I was a teenager, particularly around the time of 9/11, I was very discreet about being Arab and Muslim. It was information I offered on a need to know basis, like a shameful secret I tried to hide.

There was nothing particularly appealing about being Arab or Muslim at that time, and every time somebody found out they sought to remind me how different I was from those Arabs. And to make sure I didn’t think they were talking about me when they spoke about those ‘Lebs’, a term used to encompass Arabs more generally, they’d begin each offensive statement with ‘no offence but’ the trusted cousin of ‘I’m not racist but’.

Being labeled ‘the exception’ for years makes you feel ‘whiter’, somehow more integrated. This whiteness translates into superiority. A superiority that is unfounded and seriously damaging both to your sense of self and to the way you relate to people from your own ethnic and religious groups.

At the very crux of this you have already accepted that ‘white’ is better than brown, that west is better than east, that Occident is better than Orient. You have already accepted that by virtue of being brown, eastern and oriental you will never be as good as a white, western, occident. You have already dichotomized your world and admitted defeat.

This feeling of superiority is accompanied by a feeling of fear. You know that membership to the dominant group is conditional. You’re aware that acceptance can be revoked with the slightest demonstration of non-compliance and thus you begin to hide more and more of who you are so as to maintain the facade that you are in fact, like us, different to them.

The remainder of the conversation with the ‘therapist’ does in fact serve a rather therapeutic purpose. It reminds me that because of the way I dress I will always be a visual representation of the intersection between gender, religion and race. Because of where I live I will always invoke questions of belonging, acceptance and co-existence. I am a constant reminder that the ‘other’ exists and that will inevitably make some people uncomfortable.

The lady continues;

‘So your parents haven’t forced you to get married? Your eyebrows are just so perfect!’

The consistent referral to my perfect eyebrows is a conscious effort to negate the obviously racist inquisition. Her continuous assertion pertaining to the perfection of my eyebrows is a reminder that she is not racist, how can she be? She’s so nice.

‘My parents would never do that.’ I began but quickly realized I was being unnecessarily defensive.

In the space of 20 minutes she had made me feel like I should be grateful for parents who are so unlike other Muslims, real Muslims. She took me back to the days where I believed myself a rarity, different and deserving of glorification.

‘I bet they’d hate it if you came home with an Aussie though.’ She said smugly.

The bitter aftertaste of lengthy exposure to Orientalist discourse is the belief that you have the Orient worked out – that you know what they’re like. That you use that knowledge not just to define the Orient, but also to define yourself. Orientalism is as much about the Orient as it is the Occident. It’s about the juxtaposition between freedom and oppression, civility and barbarism. In this instance it’s about the perceived narrow mindedness of my parents and despite her clearly ignorant views, her open mindedness.

There’s so much that happens in a short encounter, so many misconceptions at play, so much ignorance to challenge and so much frustration that comes out of it. This post is already long enough so I’ll save the thoughts I haven’t documented here for another time but I think it’s important to realize that beginning a sentence with ‘I’m not racist but’ is insulting. If you have to preface a sentence with such a statement then you know full well the content of your statement or your assumption is racist. If you have enough sense to lead with that then you know you’re about to offend someone, so don’t.

Source: 81dissonance

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Co-ordination?