Let’s Burn The Burqa

(I feel so honored, so grateful to the Free thought Bloggers for giving me a warm hearted welcome. I truly feel at home. A million thanks to everyone for showing their  support and solidarity)

 

Because of this article,   cities were burned and 2 people were killed in India.

 

 

My mother used to wear a burqa with a net over her  face. It reminded me of the meat safes in my grandmother’s house. Meat safe’s  net was made of metal, my mother’s  net was made of linen.  But the objective was the same: keeping the meat safe. My mother was put under a burqa by her family. They told her that wearing a burqa would mean obeying Allah. If you obeyed Allah, He would be happy with you and not let you burn in hellfire. My mother was afraid of Allah and also of her father. He would threaten her with grave consequences if she did not wear the burqa.

My mother was also afraid of the men in the neighborhood; even her husband was a source of fear, for he could do anything to her if she disobeyed him.

 

As a young girl, I used to nag her: ‘Mother, don’t you suffocate in this? Don’t you feel all dark inside? Don’t you feel breathless?   Don’t you ever feel like throwing it off?’ My mother kept quite. She couldn’t do anything about it. But I could. When I was sixteen, I was presented a burqa by one of my relatives. I threw it out.

 

The custom of veil is not new. It goes as far back as 13th century B.C.E in Assyria.  The women of aristocratic Assyrian families used veil. Ordinary women and prostitutes were not allowed to wear veil. In the middle ages, even Anglo-Saxon women used to cover their hair and chin and hide their faces behind a curtain. This veil system was   not religious. The religious veil  was used by Catholic nuns and Mormons, though for the latter only during religious ceremonies and rituals. For Muslim women, however, such religious veil  is not limited to   rituals, but mandatory for their daily lives.

There are people who say that the Quran doesn’t say anything about wearing a burqa. They are mistaken. This is what the Quran says:

”And command the Muslim women to keep their gaze low and to protect their chastity, and not to reveal their adornment except what is apparent, and to keep the cover wrapped over their bosoms; and not to reveal their adornment except to their own husbands or fathers or husbands’ fathers, or their sons or their husbands’ sons, or their brothers or their brothers’ sons or sisters’ sons, or women of their religion, or the bondwomen they possess, or male servants provided they do not have manliness, or such children who do not know of women’s nakedness, and not to stamp their feet on the ground in order that their hidden adornment be known; and O Muslims, all of you turn in repentance together towards Allah, in the hope of attaining success. (It is incumbent upon women to cover themselves properly.) ”(Sura Al Noor 24:31)

 

‘O Prophet, tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to bring down over themselves [part] of their outer garments. That is more suitable that they will be known and not be abused. And ever is Allah Forgiving and Merciful.'[Surah Al Ahzab 33:59]

 

Even the Hadith –a collection of the words of Prophet Muhammed, his opinion on various subjects and words about his work, written by those close to him– speaks extensively of the veil. Women must cover their   body before going out, they should not go before  strangers, they should not go to the mosque to pray,  they should not attend any funeral, they should not  go to the graveyards!

 

There are many views on why and how the Islamic veil started. One view has it that Prophet Muhammed became very poor after spending all the wealth of Khadija,  his first wife. At that time, in Arabia, the poor had to go to the open desert for relieving themselves, and even for sexual needs. The Prophet’s wives, too, had to do the same. He had told his wives t  “You are allowed to go out to answer the call of nature.’’(Bukhari Hadith first volume book 4 No. 149). Accordingly, this is what his wives started doing. One day, Prophet Muhammed’s disciple, Umar, complained  that these women were very uncomfortable because they were instantly recognizable while relieving themselves. Umar proposed a cover but Prophet Muhammed ignored it. Then the Prophet asked Allah for advice and he laid down   the verse  (33:59) (Sahih Muslim Book 026 No. 5397).

 

This is the history of the  veil, according to the Hadith. But the question is: as Arab men, too, relieved themselves in the open, why didn’t Allah start the veil for men? Clearly, Allah doesn’t treat men and women as equals,  else there would be veil for both! Men are considered superior to women. So women have to be made walking prisons.

 

Another view is that the veil was introduced to separate women from slaves. This originates from stories in the Hadith. One story in the   Hadith goes thus:   After the fall of Khyber, people described the beauty of Safia Bint Hui, the new bride of a slain enemy soldier. The Prophet chose her for himself. On the way to Medina he stopped and had intercourse with her. His companions did not know if she was a wife or a concubine/slave. Later, a veil was drawn between her and the men-folk and they came to know that she was a wife (Bukhari, Book of Sales and Book of Nikah 3:59).

 

The third view comes from this story. Prophet Muhammed’s wife Ayesha was very beautiful. His friends were often found staring at her with admiration. This clearly upset the Prophet. So the Quran has a verse that says, “Oh friends of the prophet, never go to the prophet’s house without an invitation. And if you do go, don’t look at his wives or ask them for any favour.”  It was to resist   friends, and disciples that  the veil system came into being. First, it was applicable to only the wives of the prophet, and later it was extended to all Muslim women. Now, some women practice the veil  by only covering their hair. That is not what is written in the Quran and in the Hadith: covering just the hair is not an Islamic veil.

Why are women covered?  Because they are objects for sex. Because  when men see  unveiled women, they are aroused. But men are not covered for this.    Why should women have to be penalized for men’s sexual problems? Women also have sexual urges!  But men are not penalized for ir.  In no religion created by men are women thought of as human beings.  The rules of veil    humiliate not only women but also men. If women walk about  without the veil, it’s as if men will look at them with lustful eyes, or pounce on them, or rape them. Do men lose all their senses when they see any women without a burqa?

 

My question to  people who argue that the Quran says nothing about the veil is: If the Quran advises women to wear  veil, should they do so? Really, No. Irrespective of which book says it, which person advises it, whoever commands it, women should  not wear the veil,  no veil, no chador, no hijab, no burqa, no headscarf, not any of them! They  are instruments of no respect. These are symbols of women’s imprisonment. Through them, women are told that they are  but the property of men and society: things. These coverings are used to keep women passive, submissive. Women are told to wear them so that they cannot exist with their honor, confidence, separate identity, respect – with their own opinions and ideals – intact; and so that they cannot stand with their heads held high and their spines strong and erect.

 

Some 1,500 years ago, it was decided for an individual’s personal reasons that women should wear veil, since then millions of Muslim women   have had to suffer it. So many old customs have died a natural death, but not the veil. Instead, of late, there has been a mad craze to revive it. Covering a woman’s head means covering her brain to ensure that it will not work. If women were not massively brainwashed or their  brains worked properly, they would have long ago thrown off these veils  imposed on them by a religious and patriarchal regime.

 

 

What should women do?  They should proclaim a war against the ill-treatment meted out to them.  They should snatch back from the men their freedom and their rights; they should throw their head-scarves out.  They should take off their burqas and burn them.

Similarities and differences


There are many who utter the names of Salman Rushdie & Taslima Nasreen  truly in the same breath. However, if there are great differences between one individual and the other, this co-vocalization may naturally become a matter of discomfiture. When I am referred to as the ‘Female Rushdie’, these days I ask back, why aren’t you calling Salman Rushdie the ‘Male Nasreen’ instead? Barring the fatwa, everything else is different between us – I know that very well. Rushdie is a man; I’m a woman. This is a huge dissimilarity. He enjoys certain advantages by virtue of being a man; I, on the other hand, am always at a disadvantage because I am a woman.   After the fatwa was issued, Rushdie had begged the fundamentalists for forgiveness, and declared that he had  become a born-again Muslim. I never asked for a pardon. I didn’t even want to become a Muslim. I have been an atheist since childhood – I held my head high to remain one, weathering all tumultuous storms. Rushdie never lived in Iran, the country that brought out the fatwa in his name. In contrast, the country where extremists have marched year after year demanding that I be hanged till death, the country in which intolerant Muslims went berserk trying to silence me forever, the country which took out an arrest warrant in my name because of a lawsuit filed by the government – because of which I was forced to go into hiding for months on end, the country where the fundamentalist terrorists would have torn me apart if they could lay a hand on me – I have been physically present in that country during those harrowing times. I, alone, had to bear the brunt of all the torture meted out by the fundamentalists and the government alike. No one expelled Rushdie from his country as a result of the fatwa; he didn’t have to suffer banishment. England is his country; he lived there, and still does. Rushdie had only a single fatwa against him; there were, against me, three fatwas from Bangladesh, five from India, each with a price on my head. Rushdie never had to budge; I was thrown out from two countries because of my writings. Rushdie had one of his books (The Satanic Verses) banned; I had five – Lajja (Shame), Amar Meyebela (My Girlhood), Utol Haowa (The Tempest), Dwikhondito (Split in Two), and Sei Sob Andhokar (All Those Darkness). Rushdie may criticize religion, but he is not associated with any atheist-humanist group or Human Rights organization – whereas I am, actively. In his personal life, Rushdie is highly conceited; I am its exact opposite. Rushdie is gallivanting with one young woman after another, his playthings many years his junior. His senile pranks are not considered pranks; rather, he is regarded as a strong, virile, bodacious lover-boy – an object of envy to many younger men. In contrast, despite my spending life without a male companion, there is no dearth of people calling me a ‘whore’ or a ‘deviant woman’, and whipping up various sex scandals involving me. Only a man has the right to enjoy a sex life. If a woman does so or talks or writes about women’s equal right to enjoy a sex life, she is labeled a whore. Ever since I started writing, I have received criticism and contempt from people: advocating sexual freedom for women, I am apparently destroying the society. Even though I believe Sexual freedom is not about saying YES to sex always. It is also about saying NO to sex. There is another excellent similarity or difference between Rushdie and me. Many of those who consider Rushdie a good writer have not read his books. Many of those who call me a bad writer have not read a word of my writings.

I took risks of my life  to support  Rushdie publicly in 1989  in Bangladesh, a Muslim majority country. Rushdie’s name has been associated with mine since 1993. Following the fatwa from Iran, Rushdie became a much-discussed and famous name.  My name, on the other hand, crossed the boundaries of Bangladesh and India after a price was set on my head. Rushdie was amongst other European authors who wrote an open letter for me during  those desperate period when  I was forced to live in hiding after the Bangladesh government filed a case against me on the charges of blasphemy. Finally, when I was expelled and living in exile, I heard that Rushdie apparently got furious after reading my opinion about him published in Das Spiegel,  a German magazine. In that piece, I expressed my disappointment at Rushdie’s begging for forgiveness to Mullahs in response to the fatwa,  which I thought was decidedly cowardly.

Rushdie lived in New York City in 2008-2010, as did I. But there was  no possibility of us meeting. He was the president of the Pen Club, a large organization of authors and poets of America. For a couple of years, the Pen Club had been organizing massive demonstrations in support of freedom of expression in New York City. Various authors from Asia and Africa, almost all little known, have been brought over. But I was not welcomed  to tell my story how my freedom of expression was violated over the years and how I was   fighting  religious fundamentalists and  the powerful governments alone without any compromise.  Salman Rushdie was well aware that I have been recently thrown out of India; there were loathsome and incredible attacks against   my freedom of expression. Almost all of my books have been banned in Bangladesh, either officially or socially. Not just Bangladesh, even West Bengal banned my book and threw me out of the state. Not only that, I was kept under house arrest in Kolkata and Delhi for a long seven months during the process of banishment. Eventually, I have been ousted from India. Salman Rushdie was celebrating freedom of speech by cunningly ignoring my glowing history. He can do whatever he wants. One of his security guards wrote an unflattering book about him; he made arrangements with publishers so that the book would not see the light of the day. Yes, he is celebrating freedom of speech. He is a man, people think nothing of it when he chases after much younger women, even at sixty plus. Even if women have complained that Rushdie doesn’t consider them anything more than sex objects, people don’t dislike him. This epitome of male chauvinism, this author has garnered immense name and fame; I am glad that I don’t have any similarities with him beyond the fatwa. To be honest, it irritates me no end to have my name joined with his.

Another name is being entangled with mine for the past couple of years. He is Maqbul Fida Hussein, a great artist. His paintings fetch the highest price in India. He is considered by many as India’s top painter. He has recently hurt Hindu religious sentiments by painting Saraswati (the Hindu Goddess of Learning) in the nude. Hindu fundamentalists  have destroyed his paintings, threatened him, and forced him to leave the country. I believe in one hundred percent freedom of speech of human beings. I firmly believe that Maqbul Fida Hussein should have the freedom of drawing whatever he wants. No one has the right to persecute him for this reason. However, it still makes me uncomfortable if my insignificant name is linked with that of as great an artist as Fida Hussein. Because, despite my insignificance, I hold my principles very dear; I have no favorable disposition towards someone, however world-famous for any reason, whose values don’t measure up to mine. I don’t feel gratified to have my name uttered along with that of such a person. When a controversy has broken out in India over Maqbul Fida Hussein’s painting a nude Saraswati, I have very naturally sided with the freedom of the artist. Since atheists are rare amongst Muslims, I find it heartening to find a Muslim turn secular or atheist. Thereafter, I went through all of Hussein’s paintings minutely, seeking to find if he had ever mocked any religion other than Hinduism, especially his own, Islam. I found zilch. Instead, he has used the word ‘Allah’, written in Arabic, on his canvas with much respect and care. I saw clearly that he had a great faith in and regard for Islam. He did not believe in any religion other than Islam! His painting of Lakshmi and Saraswati in the nude stemmed from his disregard for Hinduism! Would he ever draw Muhammad in the nude? I am certain he won’t. I have no problem drawing naked pictures of gods and goddesses or prophets of any religion. I am equitable in my lack of belief in all religions of the world. Putting one religion over another, hating one and loving or believing in another – I have no such issues. All religions say, your religion is the best and true and correct, your god is the only true god; all other religions are erroneous, all other gods, false! Having been indoctrinated thus, extremists blinded by faith are able to easily attack others who do not belong to their faith. Christian extremists have once wreaked havoc in Europe; even now, they are driven to violence against abortion. Hindu extremists have recently been on a rampage in Ayodhya of India, and in Gujarat. Attacks by Muslim extremists time and again have shaken up the world, let alone India. Fida Hussein is similar to those religious individuals, who put faith in their own religion while criticizing others’. I have no reason for any interest in having my name linked with Fida Hussein’s – even though he may be a great tree to my inconsequential twig of grass; because I am an atheist, and he… Not only is he a theist, but he is a theist only in respect of his own god. When it comes to believing in many other gods in the world, he has no faith.

The only similarity that I have with Fida Hussein is that almost around the same time, we both had to leave India following a barrage of attacks from irrational religionists. This apart, everything else is dissimilar. The prime difference is that his exile was finally his choice, while mine was not. I was evicted not only from my Kolkata residence, but from India as well by the authorities.  No, those responsible were not some random individuals or groups blinded by faith, but the government. Fida Hussein has houses to stay in foreign lands, I don’t. The Indian government has been trying to repatriate Hussein; I have been barred from entry by both Bangladesh & India governments. After being ousted from India, whenever I have re-entered with the intention of taking up residence, I have been immediately pushed away. Fida Hussein has but mocked one religion; I, discussing women’s rights, castigate the misogynistic thesis of all religions, always making the following points – let there be laws promulgated on the basis of equal rights, let the misogynistic laws and traditions perish. I criticize all religions equitably, not leaving out my family’s religion, Islam.

I don’t have the name, fame and clout of Rushdie or Fida Hussein. However, even then, I don’t want my name associated with theirs in any way. The way I have been tormented for years by religious governments in power, they have not had to face even a fraction of that. The manner in which I am compelled to live abroad, in the darkness of uncertainty, with no place to call home, and to fend for myself in sickness and through insolvency, while carrying on my struggles for my beliefs and principles, is not inconsequential. Rushdie or Hussain never had to encounter such an intolerable situation. My utmost respect for their craft notwithstanding, I think it’s unfair to put in the same bracket as those two men. However people may perceive my incessant struggle for a society free of religion and discrimination, a society with equality and equal rights, those men, regardless of their stature as artists of renown, cannot come even close to my principles.

The Fight Is Not Between The East And The West

 

Let alone ‘Western feminism’, I had no idea about ‘Eastern feminism’. Without any familiarity with these concepts, I have since childhood questioned a lot of diktat, advice and proscriptions from the family and from society at large. When I, unlike my brothers, wasn’t allowed to play outside; when I was called ‘impure’ during my menstrual periods; or when I was told I had grown up and must cover myself  in a black burqa if I wanted to step out, I questioned, I didn’t give in readily.

 When strange boys would hurl abuses at me, snatch my scarf or pinch my breasts as I walked by, I protested. I couldn’t stomach it when I saw husbands beating their wives, young mothers weeping in anxiety and fear of being divorced after  having given birth to a female baby. Upon observing the shame on the faces of raped women, I felt their pain acutely; I broke down after hearing about women being trafficked from city to city, from one country to another in order to be forced into sexual slavery. No logic, no intellect could make me accept the torture of women by the men, the society, the state. But no one witnessed my pain, my tears, the non-acquiescence, the non-acceptance, the speechlessness, the inability to tolerate, the screams – that is, until I started writing.

The society that I grew up in engendered questions in the minds of many. They were forced to accept the answers given by the leaders of the patriarchy. I didn’t give in to that coercion. No one taught me to be disobedient. I didn’t learn defiance from a book. It is not necessary to read thick and heavy books to be aware; one just needs eyes to observe. No one helps build courage either. In order to demand rights for women, one doesn’t need to internalize  Betty Friedan or Gloria Steinem; one’s own awareness is often good enough.

If I’m hungry, I shall eat; if I am lashed, I shall wrest away the lash; if I am oppressed, I shall stand up – these feelings are universal. Feminism is not a property of the West. It is the arduous struggle by abused, oppressed, tortured, disrespected, exploited women coming together, putting their lives at stake, for the sake of their rights.

I learned that women of the West also had no less than their share of tribulations. Abused and bloodied, they had their backs to the wall. They have screamed; centuries upon centuries they have been victims of patriarchy, religion, misogynistic traditions and culture, just like their Eastern counterparts. Religious fanatics have burnt them alive, misogynistic traditions forced them to wear  metal  cage  around their  pelvis in the name of chastity, they have been turned into sex slaves. East or West, North or South, women still suffer   for the ‘crime’ of being women.

Human rights are universal. Those, who talk about separate human rights for the East and seek to distance themselves from the universal human rights, assuming that this stance represents a victory over the prolonged oppression by the West, actually end up harming the East more than the West.

A recurrent question that is often raised claims that I have hurt religious sentiments of people. Feminism has long opposed religion; whoever has even the slightest knowledge of women’s rights knows this. Religion is patriarchal through and through. I shall follow a religion and I shall acknowledge women’s rights – this stance is akin to saying I shall drink poison along with honey. Whenever religion-motivated abuse of women has been challenged in order to wrest women’s rights, immediately the slogan “Religious sentiments must not be hurt” has been raised by those that are anti-democracy, anti-free speech, and opposed to women’s freedom. I, however, don’t refer to any kind of barbarism as culture.

Alleging I have hurt Muslim religious sentiments, a few ignorant and insular conservatives pass the verdict that my statements are statements from the West, statements of observing the East with Western eyes. This meaningless, illogical claim by the Islamic fundamentalists is often supported by so-called liberal folk  in the name of tolerance.

I have criticized Christianity, Judaism and other misogynistic religions. But usually no one complains about it thereafter. No one takes out a fatwa to murder me if I hurt the religious sentiments of non-Muslims. But there is no dearth of people who, without any problem, accept the intolerance, and respect the ‘religious sentiments’ of those who do take out a fatwa; such people label me ‘intolerant’ without a hint of doubt. Possibly, they see me as a Muslim, and view my actions of hurting Muslim religious sentiments as arrogance.

But the truth is, if one believes in women’s rights, one has to first cast away one’s religious identity. I have been free of that since my childhood. When I was but a child, I was unjustly shackled with a religious identity in the same way as other children are. We don’t feel uncomfortable in labelling a two year old child as Hindu, Muslim or Christian. When the child grows up, he/she  may choose his/her parents’ religion, or some other religion, or none at all. That’s how it should be. I have successfully implemented this principle in my life. I have chosen humanism as my ideal. I should not be mistaken for a ‘Muslim reformer’. Neither am I a reformer, nor do I belong to any religious community.   My community is that of secular humanism, free from religion.