Hegemonic narrative strikes again
Soumaya Ghannoushi tells us there are two discourses that are actually one – that are ‘one in essence’: a conservative one that keeps Muslim women stuck at home and in the power of male relatives, and a liberation one that is opposed to the first one but is (somehow) wicked too.
It is a game of binaries that pits one stereotype against another: the wretched caged female Muslim victim and her ruthless jailer society against an idealised “west” that is the epitome of enlightenment, rationalism, and freedom.
Meaning…what? That there are no Muslim women in wretched ‘caged’ situations? That the ‘west’ is not in fact the epitome of enlightenment, rationalism, and freedom and therefore there are no Muslim women in wretched ‘caged’ situations?
The narrative revolves around a dehistoricised, universal “Muslim woman”; a crushing model that oppresses flesh and blood Muslim women, denies them subjectivity and singularity, and claims to sum up their lives with all their vicissitudes and details from cradle to coffin. It reserves for itself the right to speak for them exclusively, whether they like it or not.
Really? Does it? Where? Who spins this narrative, and where, and to whom? I’ve read a fair bit about this subject and I don’t recall anyone blathering about a dehistoricised, universal ‘Muslim woman.’ Could this be just a phantom in Ghannoushi’s mind? I don’t recall anyone reserving the right to speak for Muslim women exclusively, whether they like it or not, either. I really think I would have noticed.
Representations of the Muslim woman serve a dual legitimising function, at once confirming and justifying the west’s narrative of itself, and of the Muslim other.
Yes yes yes, we know, Orientalism; we’ve heard. Tell that to Gina Khan and Irshad Manji and Maryam Namazie and Necla Kelek and Fadéla Amara and countless others. Then tell it to Aqsa Parvez and Mukhtar Mai and the women of the Abu Ghanem family.
I would think that what it means is that the more the West is idealized as enlightened, the more that enlightenment just means that we know things. We know, for instance, that Jamie Leigh Jones was gang raped in Iraq, that it occured on a Haliburton site, and that she can’t press charges. We know, for instance, that Blackwater employee Andrew Moonen got drunk last Christmas and decided to have a little fun by murdering the body guard of Iraq’s vice president, Rasheem Khalif Hulaichi. We know that the ambassodor in charge, then, Margaret Scobey, compounded the murder by helping Moonen escape, and we know that neither Scobey’s act as an accomplice to murder nor Moonen’s act as a murderer will ever come to trial. We know that the State department covered up Moonen act, actually, so he could go back and work as a mercenary.
We know so many things about the Middle East, OB. For instance, we know those horrific totalitarian nazi islamofascist states, Iran and Syria, took between them almost 1.5 million Iraqi refugees. We know the united states has seriously considered taking in 5,000.
So I’d guess this might be what “enlightened” with scarequotes means. Knowledge of the massive injustices that our representative bodies are committing, without the moral will to do anything about them, or even prioritizing, say, not having a State Department full of abettors to homicide.
I propose a new law, similar to Godwin’s Law. I think Ghannoushi’s Law is a good title. Any mention ‘hegemony’ or any of its derivatives, you automatically loose the argument.
“So I’d guess this might be what “enlightened” with scarequotes means. Knowledge of the massive injustices that our representative bodies are committing, without the moral will to do anything about them, or even prioritizing, say, not having a State Department full of abettors to homicide. “
Equating crimes within one society that outrage anyone who hears of them with norms of another society that are defended by many is a good way of making oneself feel superior to both, yes.
Smug whataboutery and equivalence won’t help either society though. However good it feels it supports in actuality what it postures against in theory.
Is it just me, or is the picture SG chooses to use on CiF exceptionally irritating?
I see one of the commenters describes it as a “sexy come-hither porn pose photo in a gliterry hijab” so I guess it’s not just me.
It certainly can’t by any stretch of the imagination be described as modest.
Oh, my, yes; I do see what potentilla means. It’s a good thing that I’ve always been a sucker for blue-eyed blonds — married two of ’em . . . serially, not at the same time!
Definitely not just you; that picture irritates me like a rash. Talk about having it both ways! Get me, I’m devout and a hotty too. Blegh.