Labelled ‘native informant’ or ‘house arab’ by the illiberal liberals

Eiynah at Nice Mangos is feeling more than annoyed at the way ex-Muslims are ignored by nearly all political directions.

As the Canadian federal election date draws closer, I can’t get my mind off the niqab debate. I can’t stop thinking about the fact that this one issue demonstrates how voices like mine – fromwithin the Muslim community are routinely ignored, cast aside, betrayed by the illiberal ‘liberal’ West …simply for the crime of not fitting the simplistic tribalist narratives.

Zunera Ishaq – a Pakistani immigrant to Canada just like myself ….took on the government regarding the issue of niqabs during the citizenship oath and won the right to wear a mask in court when no one else is allowed to. She won the privilege to flaunt her alliance with an inflexible, misogynistic, hardline, right-wing, extremist interpretation of Islam in the face of already marginalized, threatened, liberal minorities from within the Muslim community.

Widespread liberal support for her is as distasteful as support for ‘White nationalism’ or ‘Straight Pride’. Except not many liberals can see past the ‘minority’ aspect. Well, the KKK would be a minority in Pakistan, but it wouldn’t mean that we start treating them as liberal heroes if they challenged ‘the majority’.

What if the KKK in Pakistan were prevented from wearing their hoods in court (and elsewhere)? Would that make them liberal heroes? Nope, it would not.

This issue showcases how utterly alone people in my position are. We don’t align with the position of the western ‘right’ on so many things, we are orphaned liberals – abandoned by the left which usually champions ‘equality’ and free speech, stands against the religious right….unless….’Islam’, we are thus pushed into a corner where the only people willing to listen to us are associated with the right…which is not necessarily a compromise everyone is willing to make. But if they do, you can’t fully blame them for wanting to be heard.

But not the whole of the left. I’m on the left, and I haven’t abandoned, and there are many who can say the same. Not enough, but many.

But again, regarding Islam even in the ‘human-rights championing West’, our voices are silenced, left out of the conversation, misrepresented. We continue to be marginalized, targeted with unbelievable bigotry from the left and the right. If we speak out against our own oppression, we are labelled ‘native informant’ or ‘house arab’ by the illiberal liberals.

We are seen as being from the same stock of foreign ‘savages’ by the far-right, and the conversation is hijacked by these two extremes; the xenophobes who wish to cast suspicion and doubt on all Muslims, or the ‘liberals’ who ally with our bigoted Muslim far-right, our oppressors.

I am left with an ache in my gut, and a sinking feeling when I see the hypocritical left, fight against victim blaming, slut-shaming but celebrate it in the form of niqab simply because it is not ‘their culture’, it is not their fight. Their fight is with fox news, Stephen Harper, and that’s it. Their fight for equality ends there. Misogyny is acceptable if packaged as part of a foreign culture.

Read the whole thing.

 

 

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