Burqa-Clad Women Made To Feel Fearful On Australian Streets
New Age Islam News Bureau
30
Sept 2014
Photo: 'Call Her Fatimah' Gives a Stunning Glimpse into the Lives of Chinese Muslim Women
• Kyrgyzstan
Detains Female Members of Islamic Group
• Prayer
Leader, 2 Others Held for Minor Sisters’ wedding in Pakistan
• Arab
Women Pilot Joins Airstrikes against Islamic State Syria
• The
Immature Women Holding Aim during ISIS
• Denied
Marriage, Saudi Girls Knot Ready To Forgive Fathers
'• Call Her Fatimah' Gives a Stunning Glimpse into the Lives of Chinese Muslim Women
• Belgian
Beauty Queen Converts to Islam
• Shelter
for Homeless Muslim Women Opens In Manchester
• Online
Harassment of Pakistani Women Turns into Real-World Violence
• Education
Has Other Problems besides the Headscarf
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/burqa-clad-women-made-feel/d/99330
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Burqa-Clad
Women Made To Feel Fearful On Australian Streets
30 Sep,
2014
There
has been a recent rehashing of an old debate about whether Australia should ban
Muslim women from observing the Islamic practices of face veiling and even
calls for an outright ban on the wearing of the Burqa, a head-to-toe covering.
In the
aftermath of 9/11, the act of wearing the Burqa was publicly declared
“un-Australian" by politicians and public commentators such as Fred Nile,
Michaelia Cash and Michael Smith. These politicians and public commentators
sought to align face-veiling with the oppression of women and national
security, based on claims the fabric could be used for hiding weapons and
devices that posed a risk to public safety.
Following
the counter-terrorism raids earlier this month, Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi
and Palmer United Senator Jacqui Lambie made a correlation between the Burqa
and national security, after footage emerged of women wearing face veils in the
houses that were raided.
In the
Australian context, the veiling practices of Muslim women have often been
perceived as a threat to Australian cultural values. The veiled
Muslim woman in the political arena is seen not only as culturally incompatible
(as shown by Bernardi's comment that the burqa is not right in Australia), but
the perceived oppression of Muslim women also supposedly shows the country's
vulnerability to Islamic extremism. This means that expressions of Islamic
religious identity are often suspected as a sign of fundamentalism and
therefore a potential national security threat. Senator Lambie's post on social
media of an image of a Burqa-clad woman handling a gun attached to prayer beads
with the comment the 'Burqa must be banned for security reasons" feeds
into this idea. This is despite the fact the woman in the picture was a very
powerful Afghan policewoman.
Muslim migration to Australia dates back to
the middle of the 19th century. Yet still, despite the fact the majority of
Muslims are now born in Australia, they are not recognised as possessing the
same everyday Australian values of those born into other religions. Empirical
evidence suggests that Australian-ness
is defined more narrowly; you need to be white and Christian to belong.
A study
by the Dean of the School of Social Science at the University of Western
Sydney, Kevin Dunn, found this contributes to a strong antipathy towards
Muslims. This finding was also echoed by the 2004 Australian Human Rights Commission
report Isma – Listen which documented
how women identified as Muslim by the way they dressed, were restricting their
movements in public spaces and seeking safety in numbers because of racism.
This impacted on their mundane routines
of going to work, school, university and shopping, as well as on the street and
while using public transport.
As a
sociology student, I conducted a research study into the experiences of
burqa-clad Muslim women. The results revealed a widespread sense of personal
insecurity and societal disempowerment. Most of the women who participated in
the project were born in Australia, they had a tertiary education and among
them were nurses, teachers and scientists. All the participants called
Australia home but many felt their place within the nation was precarious.
Most
women could recount stories of being called a terrorist. Grown women relayed
stories of being chased in public spaces by people threatening them with
violence if they did not remove their face veils, while others said they had
been run off the road while driving. Mothers were often shoved and sworn at in
public in front of their children, or stared at nervously in public as if they
were about to be accused detonating a bomb. Paradoxically, these experiences
made burqa-clad Muslim women feel even more fearful for their own safety in
public. In effect, these women live on the edge of mainstream Australian
society, which limits what they can and cannot do, and where they can and
cannot go. This informal socio-spatial legislation exists outside of formal
legal institutions.
Recent
inflammatory comments from politicians show there is a projection of
socio-cultural anxieties on to Muslim women in this country at the moment.
There is a struggle between giving women
the autonomy to dress as they choose, yet not giving them the ability to define
the dominant narratives about their own identities. Calls for legislative
intervention against the Burqa have not been successful in the Australian
parliament, yet the social stigma around wearing the Burqa means it is as good
as banned anyway.
Zeinab
Zein is a former research candidate in the Department of Sociology and Social
Policy at the University of Sydney and current law student at the University of
New South Wales.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/burqaclad-women-made-to-feel-fearful-on-australian-streets-20140929-10ngc6.html#ixzz3Emx9JUo3
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Kyrgyzstan
Detains Female Members Of Islamic Group
30 Sep,
2014
A group
of women have been detained in Kyrgyzstan's southern region of Jalal-Abad for
alleged membership in a banned Islamic group.
The
Kyrgyz Interior Ministry said on September 30 that the seven women, aged
between 20 and 25, were detained during a special operation in Nooken district.
Police
said evidence showed the group has been actively involved in the activities of
the Hizb ut-Tahrir organization, recruiting new members for the group among
local residents.
Hizb
ut-Tahrir is a London-based Sunni organization that seeks to unite all Muslim
countries into an Islamic caliphate.
The
Kyrgyz government has banned the group, branding its members and supporters
"extremists."
Hizb
ut-Tahrir is also banned in other Central Asian republics and in Russia.
http://www.rferl.org/content/hizb-ut-tahrir-kyrgyzstan-women-jalalaabad-nooken-police/26613105.html
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Prayer
Leader, 2 Others Held for Minor Sisters’ wedding in Pakistan
30 Sep,
2014
RAHIM
YAR KHAN: Police have arrested a prayer leader and two other people for their
alleged involvement in the forced marriage of two minor sisters to two brothers
in Kot Subzal.
Zameeran
Mai of Basti Thair (176-P) informed the Kot Sabzal police through an
application that her brother Manzoor Ahmed married a village girl, Fatima.
She said
Fatima’s father and brothers, who were opposed to the marriage, took the matter
to the local Panchayat. She said the village council (Panchayat) made
arrangement for the ‘Nikah’ and got her daughters Amna (8) and Farzana (6)
married to Fatima’s brothers Gull Hassan (11) and Mir Hassan (9), respectively.
SP
Investigation Tariq Elahi Mastooi told reporters that the girls had been
recovered and produced before a court. He said police had arrested prayer
leader Maulvi Suleman, Allah Wassaya and Sohrab for influencing the marriage.
http://www.dawn.com/news/1135249/prayer-leader-2-others-held-for-minor-sisters-wedding
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Arab
Women Pilot Joins Airstrikes against Islamic State Syria
Female
top gun who flies in the face of the fanatic
30 Sep,
2014
The
little girl in the head scarf longed to become a fighter pilot. Unfortunately
she also knew this was an impossible dream.
After
all, she had been born in the United Arab Emirates, a country that did not
educate women until the 1960s. The first school for girls there had opened its
doors less than 20 years before she was born. So, she put her burning ambition
on hold and went to university to study English literature instead – something
that was available to her.
But the
persistent dream would not go away. Finally, ten years after she left high
school, her government announced a change in the rules that made it possible
for women to apply to the country’s air force academy.
Suddenly
the prospect loomed that a talented woman born in the Middle East could one day
go on to become a fighter pilot – piloting a machine travelling at speeds of up
to 1500mph per hour (twice the speed of sound) with all the razor-sharp
reactions and crystal- clear calm that requires.
Al-Mansouri,
now 35, was the first woman to make the grade and in 2008 graduated from the
UAE Air Force academy, becoming the first female pilot in the Arab world to fly
an F-16 fighter jet.
Over the
border in Saudi Arabia women are not even permitted to drive. But last week she
became something of an international celebrity when it was reported she was
leading airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq.
“In the
beginning I wasn’t expecting to reach this level, but with thanks to God I’ve
managed to make this dream come true with the support of the authorities,
trainers and encouragement of my colleagues,” she told CNN.
“Both
men and women have the right to work in any field, so long as they do it with
loyalty, determination, persistence and educate themselves in practical and
scientific tools in order to reach the highest ranks,” she added.
In an
interview earlier this year, she explained: “As soon as the doors were open I
volunteered. Whenever a woman enters a new male-dominated field they find the
same hesitation, the same prejudice, the same stereotype thinking, and I had to
prove myself by just being determined and having the skill and knowledge enough
to prove that I can perform skilfully in the field.”
Her role
is part of a US-led campaign to gain control over an increasingly lawless area
overun by militants who are using brutal often medieval methods – including
beheadings and crucifixions – to carve a new state out of Iraq and neighbouring
Syria.
There is
no question that Mariam is an exceptional woman and a courageous pilot, but the
decision to name her personally, and to release photographs and interviews
recording her involvement, is not only the actions of a nation proud wanting to
show how progressive it has become in recent years.
Revealing
her identity is also a piece of cleverly calculated propaganda. Women fighters
of all types – be they airborne like Mariam or on the ground like the
front-line Kurdish female fighters currently brandishing sniper rifles and
rocket propelled grenades in north-eastern Syria near the border with Iraq –
hold particular power over male extremists who believe they will receive 72
virgins in heaven should they die in battle.
The
promise of an afterlife filled with unfortunate concubines is to be found in Quranic
teachings. It is amplified by radical imams and extremist groups as a
recruitment tool: marketing bloodshed with the promise of sex.
Violent
jihadis, such as the members of Islamic State, are notorious for kidnapping and
raping women and girls in its territory – but should they be killed by a woman
the promise of carnal activity in heaven is ended.
Therefore,
the increasing number of female soldiers taking to the front line against
extremists is sowing fear in their ranks that they will be denied their prize
in paradise. “
"They
believe they’ll go to hell if they die at a woman’s hand,” said one female
Kurdish soldier recently.
But
fundamentalist jihadis are not the only men apparently feeling a little
threatened by the image of a head-scarf clad Arab woman succeeding so
thoroughly in a traditionally male arena.
An
American TV news anchor is in disgrace after he made sexist jokes live on air
about Mariam’s involvement in the airstrikes.
His
comments were particularly distasteful given the recent beheading of the
American journalist James Foley, the act which ultimately led to the US-led
mission to eradicate the perpetrators of the gruesome killing, and others like
it.
The
gaffe occurred after one presenter on the US cable channel chat show Five on
Fox News cracked a series of sexist jokes about the female pilot after a fellow
presenter, Kimberly Guilfoyle, hailed Mariam’s involvement.
Guilfoyle
had paid tribute with the words: “Hey, Isis, you were bombed by a woman. Very
exciting, a woman doing this...I’ll take a woman doing this any day to them.”
But co-host Greg Gutfeld interrupted Guilfoyle, mocking the pilot.
“The
problem is after she bombed it she couldn’t park it,” he said. Another
presenter, Eric Bolling, joined in, asking: “Would that be considered boobs on
the ground?” Embarrassed, Guilfoyle hung her head and muttered, “Oh my gosh,
why did they ruin my thing?” Bolling has since apologised for his insensitive
remarks.
“I made
a joke and when I got home, I got the look, and realised some people didn’t
think it was funny at all,” he admitted on air.
“I said
sorry to my wife and I apologise to all of you as well and want to make that
very clear.” Not saying sorry are some members of the Mansouri tribe.
Although
her close family fully support her education, chosen career and involvement in
the strikes, there are traditional factions in the Middle East that are
allegedly feeling aggrieved that an emancipated woman bearing their tribal name
is bringing the war to the fanatics.
In a
letter, whose authenticity has been hotly debated, Mariam’s “family” – or tribe
– disown her for bombing “Sunni heroes of Iraq and the Levant”.
She is
further labelled an “ingrate”. The letter written in the intolerant language of
the radical, castigates her for “taking part in the brutal international
aggression” against Syria.
The
letter does throw up the medieval scale of the conflict in which Mariam is
engaged in the front line. She comes from a nation which claims its aim is to
“to establish a new benchmark for gender
http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/life/516791/Arab-women-pilot-joins-airstrikes-against-Islamic-State-Syria
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The
immature women holding aim during ISIS
30 Sep,
2014
MAHMOODIN,
Syria – We crossed a River Tigris on a rusty boat on a tour from Iraq into
Syria. It’s a stream that helped maintain civilization, yet a quarrel that’s
now distracted on banks has turn increasingly barbaric.
The
Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) controls domain on both sides of a limit
— land a organisation refers to as a “Islamic State.” But in north-eastern
Syria, they’re assembly insurgency from a rag-tag army of Kurdish fighters, and
we wanted to accommodate them.
With a
Kurdish guide, we headed for a encampment of Telkocher, on a front line in a
quarrel opposite a Islamic extremists. But only an hour into a drive, we
strayed too tighten to ISIS snipers and a procession came underneath fire.
We
scrambled for cover in another village, Mahmoodin that has been underneath
conflict for a month. Across a dry plain that surrounds a village, a nearest
ISIS position was manifest only a mile away.
Mahmoodin’s
sand section homes and neat flower gardens were abandoned; we ran down slight
alleyways and found all of them empty, until we stumbled into a yard where a
Kurdish commander, Omran Hussein, has set adult camp.
A chubby
former tailor who never stops smiling and pairs his troop’s fatigues with a
flower-patterned headscarf, Commander Hussein has only 40 soldiers to reason
off ISIS.
“Not
enough,” he told us, “but they’re all we have.”
Ten of
his fighters are women — some of them teenagers — and according to Commander
Hussein, they’re some of his best soldiers.
“There’s
no disproportion between a group and a woman,” he said. “Some of them are even
improved fighters than we am.”
One of
them is 19-year-old Akina Akin, a five-foot high hustler who’s already conflict
hardened after dual years of fighting.
We asked
her if she was fearful of being prisoner by ISIS — that has turn scandalous for
abduction and raping women and girls in a territory.
“I’m not
afraid,” she pronounced with a daring toss of her head. “I’ll blow myself adult
before we let them locate me.”
In ISIS
domain women contingency cover their faces, and everybody is theme to a
despotic chronicle of Islamic law. The Kurdish fighters are also Muslims, yet
they follow a really opposite chronicle of Islam.
Asked if
ISIS — as it claims — practices a “pure” form of Sunni Islam, Commander Hussein
guffawed.
“I
competence be a bit Westernized, yet I’m still a Muslim,” he told us. “ISIS is
murdering people, and genuine Muslims don’t kill trusting civilians.”
It’s
been a week given a U.S. troops and a handful of associated nations began
conducting airstrikes opposite ISIS inside Syria. The latest were reported overnight
by Syrian activists, who pronounced several strikes strike ISIS targets in a
northeast.
But
Commander Hussein told us that, so far, a atmosphere debate has had small
impact on a ground.
He’s
still hopeful, though, that a U.S. will come to a rescue — with some-more
airstrikes, and a desperately-needed distillate of weapons to conflict a
well-armed extremists.
“Tell
America we need weapons,” he said. “If we can’t better ISIS, their subsequent
aim will be Europe and a U.S.”
http://ustoday.org/world/the-young-women-taking-aim-at-isis/
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Denied
marriage, Saudi girls knot ready to forgive fathers
30 Sep,
2014
Saudi
women have filed 383 cases against their guardians for denying them the right
to marriage, local media has said quoting data released by the Ministry of
Justice.
Riyadh
registered the highest number of “adhl” cases Kingdomwide, with 95 cases,
followed by Jeddah, which recorded 81 cases, Makkah 65 cases, Dammam 31 cases
and Madinah 20 cases.
However,
many of these cases never made it to court thanks to Saudi social norms, said
the report.
Al-Ahsa
and Abha, meanwhile, each registered 10 cases, Taif nine cases, Qatif eight
cases, Buraidah and Alkhobar seven each, Tabuk and Al-Kharj five each, Skaka,
Hail, Onaizah and Jazan four each, Khamis Mushayt and Sibya three each, Yanbu
and Ras Al-Khair two each, and Najran, Jubail, Dirriyah and Arar one case each,
the report said.
The
National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) has included “adhl” cases within the
list of human trafficking issues.
The society
called for the imposition of penalties on those who are found guilty of denying
their daughters marriage.
Offenders
could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison and fined SR1 million in
accordance with a decision issued in November 2011, said the daily.
Meanwhile,
Khalid Al-Mutairi, a lawyer, said any girl has the right to file a case in
accordance with Islamic law and other provisions.
The
lawyer attributed the emergence of “adhl” to several factors, including
guardians’ desire to have full control over the decisions of their daughters,
for financial reasons or as a form of revenge against their divorcees, the
paper said.
http://www.arabnews.com/featured/news/637741
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'Call
Her Fatimah' Gives a Stunning Glimpse into the Lives of Chinese Muslim Women
30 Sep,
2014
Artist
Giulia Marchi describes her project, "Call Her Fatimah -- Musilin,"
as being at the intersection of gender, religion and ethnicity. And she's
right, her niche photography series centres on the female Muslim population in
China, a group of individuals that challenges most onlookers' perceptions of
what it means to be a woman and religious outside of Western culture.
Through
her series, Marchi documents the daily lives of young women navigating the ins
and outs of a Muslim identity in contemporary China. The project began with the
experiences of Ding Lan -- Fatimah is her Muslim name -- a 22-year-old whom the
artist met in Cairo, Egypt. "Many young Muslim students move from their
country to Egypt to learn about Islam," Marchi explains in a statement.
"They are Muslim -- but they do not know much about this religion. Once in
Egypt they discover it through the study of Arabic, the Koran, and through life
in Cairo."
Marchi
has spent the last two years exploring this "hidden world" of
devotees. Young Chinese Muslims who, like Ding Lan, traveled to Cairo to attend
Al Azhar, a world renowned Islamic institution that is famously free. The haven
attracts many students; among them, 20 to 25-year-old women who identify as
Huizu, a Muslim minority in China, and hail from regions like Xinjiang,
Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia or Henan. Henan is where Ding Lan lives, and where much
of Marchi's series takes place.
"I
followed Ding Lan back to her home in China in Henan province," Marchi
recounts. "There, I searched for the Muslim elements in her life and
cultural background to understand her choice to move to Egypt... From Beijing
to Cairo, I traveled... exploring the diversity of religion in these two
societies and the intersection of Islam with the Chinese culture."
This
intersection is a small but significant one. According to research by the
US-based Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, over 23 million individuals
in China identified as Muslim as of 2010 -- amounting to 1.8% of the country's
population. The number is expected to rise to nearly 30 million by the year
2030.
In an
email exchange with The Huffington Post, Marchi, now based in Beijing, said
that she chose to focus on female Muslims because it related to her own
experience. While living in Cairo, the artist was fascinated by the public and
private sides of a woman's reality, mediated in physical form by a veil.
"If you are a woman you are limited in your daily life experience, and
this has consequences on your perception of space, time and people. I was
observing this limit."
The
portraits and scenes in "Call Her Fatimah" capture spontaneous and
lively embraces as well as posed moments of tranquility. From a cluttered
dinner table littered with chopsticks but no diners, to a group of pink veil-clad
girls gathering around a door for some unknown reason, the photographs are
mundane yet beautiful, like snapshots from a visual diary.
"This
is Islam in all its cultural diversities," Marchi concludes.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/29/chinese-muslim-women_n_5891162.html
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Belgian
Beauty Queen Converts to Islam
World
Bulletin / News Desk
30 Sep,
2014
Former
candidate for Miss Belgium in 2012, Lindsey Van Gele, has reportedly converted
to Islam and now calls herself “Aisha.”
Morocco
World News reported she chose to become a Muslim after marrying Belgian
footballer Mamoutou N’Diaye, who is originally from Mali, four years ago.
“I
became a Muslim when Mamoutou asked for my hand. A civil marriage was not
enough for me. Moreover, I wanted to support my conversion,” Van Gele
reportedly told Het Laatste Nieuws.
Although
she said that she had actually converted two years ago, the management
communication Ghent University student has only recently gone public about her
conversion.
http://www.worldbulletin.net/muslim-world/145279/belgian-beauty-queen-converts-to-islam
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Shelter
for homeless Muslim women opens in Manchester
30 Sep,
2014
A
project to provide shelter and support for homeless Muslim women has opened in
Greater Manchester, giving new life and purpose to a previously empty building.
After
several months searching for a suitable location and property for the service,
the Manchester Shelter has now been renovated using a grant from the Department
for Communities and Local Government, provided to put vacant properties back to
use.
The
running of the shelter, funded by the National Zakat Foundation and managed by
housing charity Threshold, will provide accommodation and support for five
women for a short period of time - until they can get back on their feet and
find a home to live in on a more permanent basis.
A
support worker at the project will work with the five vulnerable residents to
help them stay physically and mentally well, financially aware, and to move
forward in their lives with education, training or employment.
Threshold
chief executive Steve Goslyn said: “The shelter helps to fill an important gap
in Greater Manchester’s homelessness provision, and supporters of the National
Zakat Foundation have done the local community a great service by funding this
brilliant new project, turning an empty building around – that will turn lives
around too.”
Iqbal
Nasim, National Zakat Foundation CEO, said: "We are honoured to have
partnered with Threshold to deliver NZF's third supported housing project for
single homeless Muslim women.
"There
is an acute need for faith sensitive services within our community and this
project is another step in the right direction. Launching this initiative has
relied on the hard work of many people and the generous support of our donors,
and it will all have been more than worth it if this service can provide
comfort to the most vulnerable when they need it most."
http://www.24dash.com/news/housing/2014-09-29-Shelter-for-homeless-Muslim-women-opens-in-Manchester
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Online
harassment of Pakistani women turns into real-world violence
30 Sep,
2014
ISLAMABAD:
Harassment that women in Pakistan face on the Internet is triggering real world
violence against them, and large social media companies, such as Facebook and
Twitter are moving too slowly to stop it, internet rights group Bytes For All
Pakistan said.
Women
face online threats globally, but there are unique risks in Pakistan, where
there is a tradition of men killing women seen as having injured a family's
honour, besides punitive laws against blasphemy.
With law
enforcement too weak to fight the violence sparked by online campaigns,
activists want giant internet firms to roll out greater protection for users,
from streamlining how they tackle complaints to faster action against threats
of violence.
“These
technologies are helping to increase violence against women, not just mirroring
it,” said Gul Bukhari of Bytes for All, and the author of a report released
this week.
“A lot
of the crime we are witnessing would not have been possible without the use of
these technologies.”
There
have been more than 170 complaints of cyber-crime against women this year in
Punjab, the Federal Investigation Agency says. No figures were available for
the remaining three provinces.
None of
the cases was successfully prosecuted because women usually reached a
compromise with the suspect, said Syed Shahid Hassan, an official with the
cyber-crime office in Lahore, where 30 employees work full-time.
Since
police rarely act when women are harassed online, few cases are reported,
activists say.
About 32
million of Pakistan's 180 million people use the Internet, the group said in
its report, mainly on mobile telephones. About 12 million are on Facebook and
some 2 million use Twitter, domestic media say.
In one
case documented by Bytes for All, an online hate campaign last year urging the
rape and murder of a prominent human rights defender culminated in shots being
fired at the woman and her husband.
She
received hundreds of threats and the addresses of her family were posted
online, along with pictures of her and her daughter.
“She
suffered nightmares of being raped, of family members being harmed because of
her,” the group said. Facebook took down the pages, but had to do so again when
they were posted by a different user, the group said, and Twitter took a month
to deal with her complaint.
Twitter
declined to comment on specific cases but says it took tough steps last year to
protect privacy and tackle abuse.
Facebook
is “passionate” about protecting users, says its content policy director Monika
Bickert, who formerly worked at the US Justice Department to target sex
traffickers and crimes against children.
“My
background has given me an appreciation of how serious this issue is,” Bickert
said. But the woman is unlikely to get justice, as police have lost all the
evidence, and the sole witness has died.
In
another case that spotlights the limitations of police, a 14-year-old girl was
blackmailed into submitting to repeated gang rapes after her boyfriend
threatened to post online a video he had secretly shot of the two together.
The
slight, shy girl told Reuters she was too ashamed to tell her family and gave
into her abuser's demands.
Bukhari's
investigation showed police got the girl's age wrong and did not charge her
abusers with statutory rape.
“She's
18,” one police officer told Reuters, but admitted he had not looked at school
records to ascertain her age or searched for evidence of the abuse online.
Though
the case is nearly two years old, authorities have not asked Facebook for
evidence, the girl's lawyer said. The site said it would investigate if the
rape video proved to have been posted on its pages.
Twitter
and Facebook had made it easier to report abuse but more needs to be done, said
Bukhari.
“The
companies are responding a bit better to women in the West,” she said. “But
voices in other countries are not being heard with as much seriousness and that
puts women in danger.”
http://www.dawn.com/news/1135298/online-harassment-of-pakistani-women-turns-into-real-world-violence
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Education
Has Other Problems besides The Headscarf
30 Sep,
2014
The
headscarf is again the issue; the newly-introduced freedom to wear it at the
elementary school level is now being debated.
But we
have more important problems in education. One other key issue is the
stagnation of our economic development. We should be lifting those bans that
are not required by pedagogy and talk about the quality of education and its
relationship with development.
That is
not a favourite topic of this government, though, because for the past six
years we have not been able to exceed much beyond an annual GDP per head of
$10,000. In recent years we have grown mostly by borrowing and inflating the
construction sector. These topics are not on the agenda of the opposition,
either, because political criticism is easier and more exciting.
Turkey
earns an average of $1.50 for every one kilogram of industry goods it exports;
Germany earns an average of $4.50. Why? It is because of the value of the goods
sold. Which one has a higher value: Textiles or high technology?
In
Turkey, the average duration of education is 12.7 years; in Germany it is 16.
Even neglecting the difference in quality, this alone is a gigantic difference.
A well-educated population makes smart phones; computers, medical devices and
space gadgets, and they earn a lot. A less-educated population, on the other
hand, works on textile and erects concrete buildings. That is why we are
stalled at $10,000...
Turkey
has leaped and achieved an economic success in the last decade, enabling it to
enter the G-20. However, the share of technological goods in our exports is
only 3.3 percent, whereas even Muslim-majority Indonesia has a share of 7.3
percent of technological goods in its exports. The rate is 16.3 percent in
Mexico. This is one of the reasons why we work very hard, sell a lot, but earn
little; and now we are stagnating.
The most
important issue
There
cannot be a more important cause for Turkey than this. The integrity of the
country, national pride, active foreign policy and in particular the calibre of
democracy, all of them are associated with the extent and quality of education,
as well as its relationship with industry. The power of a nation whose economic
power is average is also only “mid-size.”
Just as
an unqualified “free education” is not good for the economy, the colossal
scientific accumulation of the Soviets was not good either, because it was
limited to the academies and not transferred to the economy.
However,
while this vital issue must be at the centre of our discussions on education,
ideological and political fights are always more attractive. Unfortunately, the
fight of values and politics has always ruled our history. For this reason,
both our economic and political rationalization has developed slowly.
Look at
the political speeches in our history and today’s fundamental political texts.
Polemics and heroism come before economic rationalism; we even talk about
economic issues while dipping them in political heroism.
There
are nine years left until 2023. Can we ever approach the quality of German
education when our students rank in 42nd place in PISA exams and with an
economic structure where the share of technology in exports is 3.3 percent?
We have
never got past the headscarf issue, since the coup leader General Kenan Evren
had it banned in the Constitutional Court in 1982.
It is a
human right for parents of elementary school children to make decisions for
them. If the headscarf issue was not made into a topic of polarization and
political clashes, children would mingle with no problems.
We have
very important issues to talk about: The problems of low quality in our
education and democracy and low technology in our industry. In the U.N. Human
Development Index, Uruguay is 51st, Malaysia is 64th. The fact that Turkey
ranks in at 90th is embarrassing.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/education-has-other-problems-besides-the-headscarf-.aspx?PageID=238&NID=72331&NewsCatID=458
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/burqa-clad-women-made-feel/d/99330