Nadia Nadim, Footballer Who Fled Afghanistan At 11 Is Now A Surgeon in Denmark
New
Age Islam News Bureau
25
January 2022
• Muslim
Women In India Singled Out For Online Hate
• Hyderabad
Girls, Women Condemn Karnataka College Incident
• Coach
Polyana Lago Building On Year Of Success For UAE Women’s Jiu-Jitsu
Compiled
by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/nadia-nadim-footballer-afghanistan/d/126238
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Nadia
Nadim, Footballer Who Fled Afghanistan At 11 Is Now A Surgeon in Denmark
Nadia
Nadim fled with her family to Denmark where she forged a career in women's
football that has taken her to the US (Getty)
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Tenzin
Zompa
24
January, 2022
New
Delhi: Nadia Nadim was just 11 when she fled Afghanistan after her father was
whisked away by the Taliban and executed. She landed in Denmark and eventually
rose to become a football player, offering inspiration to many. In an interview
to Vogue in June 2020, she had said: “If you give refugees a chance, they can
contribute and make society better”.
Now,
she has proved that again, with one more feather in her cap: This month, she
earned the title of doctor after a specialisation in reconstructive surgery
from Aarhus University, Denmark, where she studied for five years.
And
she managed this feat whilst playing football.
Nadia
has 98 international caps to her name. She played for the French side Paris
Saint-Germain last season, where she scored 18 goals in 27 games to help her
side lift the Division 1 title, in a first.
She
is also fluent in at least 11 languages, and is ambassador of an NGO called
Danish Refugee Council, which advocates securing sustainable solutions for
refugees and displaced people.
Born
in Afghanistan’s Herat on 2 January 1988, Nadim used to live with her parents
and four sisters in an area alongside the president’s family. However, in 2000,
the Taliban executed her father, who was a general of the Afghan National Army
(ANA).
Following
this, the family was forced to leave the country. They eventually reached
Denmark via Italy.
In
Denmark, Nadia got hooked to the game first when she found girls playing
football in their refugee camp where her mother and her sisters lived for nine
months. “Football saved me from being this poor outsider kid and made me get
accepted,” she told Vogue.
Nadia
grew up to become the first person of colour to earn herself a spot in the
Denmark national team, in 2009, where she is now a senior player. She was voted
as the ‘player of the year’ in 2016 and 2017 in Denmark.
She
has also played for Manchester City, Portland Thorns and Fortuna Hjørring,
among other league teams.
Source:
The Print
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Muslim
Women In India Singled Out For Online Hate
(Representative
Image)
By
Haris Zargar
India’s
radical Hindu nationalists have unleashed a vicious online blitz targeting
Muslim women that is laced with sexual slurs, rape threats, explicit imagery
and malicious objectification. Most of the women on the receiving end of this Islamophobic
and misogynistic bullying are seen as outspoken critics of Prime Minister
Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.
Over
the New Year’s weekend, photographs of more than 100 Muslim women with their
identities appeared on a fake auction app that listed them “for sale” with the
phrase “Your Bulli Bai of the day is…” It urged users to bid on the women in a
fake auction. Bulli bai is a derogatory Hindi term that right-wing Hindu
nationalists use for Muslim women. The women listed on the app included
journalists, activists, film stars and artists as well as the mother of a
missing Indian student and Pakistani Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai.
The
police arrested four people in connection with the case in the first week of
January and said they were investigating whether the app was part of a “larger
conspiracy”. Those arrested were named as Niraj Bishnoi, Shweta Singh, Vishal
Kumar Jha and Mayank Rawal. According to the police, the accused, all students,
allegedly used Sikh aliases while sharing the app in a deliberate attempt to
mislead people about the identity of its creators and to vilify the Sikh
community.
The
app was hosted on GitHub, a United States-based coding platform owned by
Microsoft. The company said it had “long-standing policies against content and
conduct involving harassment, discrimination and inciting violence” and would
cooperate with investigating authorities.
“I
had a nervous breakdown when the severity of the situation sank in,” wrote
rights activist Mariya Salim, who was put up “for sale”. “As a Muslim woman in
India, I am not new to Islamophobia or anti-Muslim narratives and hate. From
outrightly being denied houses for rent because of my religious identity to
workplace Islamophobia and hate, I have had my fair share. But this was a new
low.”
Repeated
humiliation
This
is not the first time Muslim women in India have been “auctioned off” on the
internet. A similar web application named Sulli Deals was placed on Github in
July 2021 and remained available for weeks before being taken down. Sulli is
also an insulting term used for Muslim women.
In
May last year, a right-wing Hindutva YouTube channel called Liberal Doge Live
live-streamed photos of Muslim women on Eid with a description in Hindi that
read: “Today, we will stalk women with our eyes filled with lust.”
In
August 2018, the Akhil Bhartiya Hindu Yuva Morcha, a Hindutva organisation,
announced a reward to any Hindu man who married a Muslim woman. In the same
year, militant Hindu organisation Vishwa Hindu Parishad called on Hindu men to
marry Muslim women and convert them. In 2017, another Hindu group affiliated to
the ultra-nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh organisation announced the
marriage of 2 100 Muslim women to Hindu men as part of its bahu lao (get Muslim
daughters-in-law) campaign.
And
on 18 January, the Delhi Commission for Women issued a notice to the city’s
police urging action against people making obscene comments about Muslim women
on the audio chat app Clubhouse. The commission wanted the arrest of those who
participated in a nasty conversation in which participants made “obscene,
vulgar and derogatory remarks” targeting Muslim women.
The
fake “sale” of Muslim women on the Bulli Bai auction app sparked an uproar
after several victims shared screenshots from it on social media platforms.
Women’s rights groups and politicians from opposition parties urged the
government to take action against the perpetrators.
“The
insult of women and communal hatred will stop only when we stand against it in
one voice. The year has changed, the situation should also change. It is time
to speak up,” senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted using the hashtag
#NoFear.
State
inaction
India’s
National Commission for Women said it was “extremely anguished and distressed”
by such crimes against women in cyberspace. “It is disappointing that even
after … so many months since the Sulli Deals outrage there has been no concrete
action taken in the matter, which is utterly unfortunate and concerning,” it
added.
The outrage
prompted Ashwini Vaishnaw, a minister whose portfolio includes electronics and
information technology, to block the app. Though he said the government was
coordinating with the police to ensure action against those responsible, some
opposition politicians accused the authorities of ignoring the issue despite
repeated complaints.
Indian
women, particularly outspoken Muslims, have often been the target of hateful
comments on social media platforms by individuals aligning themselves with Modi
and his BJP. It has spiked since Modi came into power in 2014, and many say
that Hindu extremists have been emboldened by implicit government support for
such attacks.
These
campaigns have been encouraged by the dog-whistle politics of BJP leaders who
claim Muslims engage in a so-called love jihad (Muslim males entrapping Hindu
women in order to convert them) and a population jihad (Muslims having more
children to change India’s Hindu demographic). Despite the lack of evidence,
numerous states led by Modi’s BJP have implemented legislation essentially
prohibiting or regulating interfaith marriages, while some plan to introduce
laws on population control.
Historic
roots of bigotry
The
origins of Muslim women’s sexualisation can be linked to Hindutva ideologues’
ethnocentric and Islamophobic doctrine that sought to project Muslim men and
women as aggressors and sexual threats. The Hindutva ideologue Veer Savarkar
justified rape as a legitimate political tool in his book Six Glorious Epochs
of Indian History, declaring that “it was a religious duty of every Muslim to
kidnap and force into their religion non-Muslim women”. He said Muslim women
were to be treated as enemies for their alleged role in perpetrating atrocities
against Hindu women.
In a
2017 article interrogating religious nationalism and Hindu patriarchy, scholar
Runa Das said the “woman question” had remained central to the Hindu
supremacist project led by nationalists like Dayanand Saraswati, Savarkar and
MS Golwalker. In their discourse, upper-caste Hindu women were seen both as
objects of male Muslim lust and as the custodians of the national honour who
needed to learn the “new” politics of community based on the creation of a
Muslim Other.
The
BJP’s discourse, too, has been fixated on Hindu “hurt” and the violation of
Hindu women by Muslim men in order to rebuild a Hindu nation. Therefore, Das
noted, while one extreme response to the Hindu Right’s defamatory tone against
Muslims is found in riling calls exhorting Hindu men to engage in punitive
policy and rape Muslim women, those on the other end of the spectrum question
why Hindu men should pollute their bodies with Muslim women.
“Thus,
in the BJP’s discourse not only are Indian Muslims constructed as the Other,
but Muslim women, by being part of the Muslim community, also became an Other
to the Hindu nation and its women. For the same reason, defiling the honour of
the opposite community was necessary and best done by violating their women,”
she wrote.
Source:
New Frame
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Hyderabad
girls, women condemn Karnataka college incident
25th
January 2022
Hyderabad:
Muslim girls and women of Hyderabad have vehemently condemned the Udipi College
administration in Karnataka state which is not allowing Muslim girl students to
attend classes because of wearing Hijab.
“We
strongly condemn the policies and practices of right wing forces where they are
creating a communal environment and unsafe atmosphere for Muslim Minorities
especially Muslim Women”, they said at a joint Press Conference in Hyderabad on
Saturday.
The
joint Press Conference was organised under the banner of Sharia Committee for
Women in coordination with Muslim Girls Association and Muslim Women
Association.
Those
who addressed the Press Conference included: Dr. Asma Zehra, Ms Tahniyat Ather,
Mrs. Bushra Nadeem, Mrs. Asma Jabeen, Mrs. Zara Khan and Dr. Sabera Aijaz.
They
expressed solidarity with Muslim girl students of Udipi College and appeal to
the college management to allow them to attend classes. They urged Muslim girls
of the college to struggle in a democratic way for their rights.
Oppression
of Minority Rights
Raising
their voice they said: “After the Bulli App, Sulli Deals and Clubhouse attacked
Muslim women now the Karnataka College administration is indulging in such
acts, which is nothing but Oppression of Minority Rights. The Constitution of
India allows and permits each and every individual to follow his or her own
faith. This Oppression is designed to alienate Muslim community from Education
and reduce them to second class Citizens”.
The
rise of Hindutva Right Wing forces and present Government have created an
atmosphere of hate and communal disharmony in some states with specific targets
of Muslim girls and women, they alleged.
Appeal
They
have appealed to the National Commission for Women, Women’s Human Rights Cell
in NHRC (National Human Rights Commission), advocates, judges and intellectuals
of the country to raise their voices against communal agenda of the saffron
forces. This anti-Muslim hate campaign is damaging the image of this great
nation globally. Many experts are warning regarding genocide of Muslims which
is an alarm bell, they added.
On
one side the present Government claims to bring reform in Muslim community by
bringing law against Triple Talaq while on the other hand Education is being
denied to Muslim girls in government colleges for wearing Hijab, they charged.
The
National Education Policy (NEP) focuses on imposition of practices which are of
one particular religion and many Muslim Students are forced to perform Yoga,
Surya Namaskar and other such religious activities in educational institutions.
In the name of culture majority practices are imposed on Minority students this
is nothing but oppression and against the Constitution of India, they pointed
out.
India
is a Secular Democratic country inhabited by different faiths and religions
since ages. The customs, traditions and rituals of India have never been a
cause disunity and conflict. The Constitution of India guarantees Rights of
Freedom of Religion and Choice to all citizens irrespective of faith colour or
creed, they asserted.
However,
they moaned the Media houses, Television channels and Social media platforms
are continuously spreading hatred against Muslims and Muslim girls and women
are targeted making them vulnerable to crimes against women.
They
appreciated and praised all Chief Ministers who have taken measures for
establishing justice and equality and protection of Rights of Minorities and
stopping anti-social elements in different states. They requested all State
Governments and Central Government to take immediate steps to stop this
“Campaign of Hate”.
Source:
Siasat Daily
https://www.siasat.com/hyderabad-girls-women-condemn-karnataka-college-incident-2263911/
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Coach
Polyana Lago building on year of success for UAE women’s jiu-jitsu
January
24, 2022
ABU
DHABI: Last year was a game changer for jiu-jitsu in the UAE, with more
homegrown talent competing and winning in local and international events on
mats.
UAE
athletes claimed 71 medals from two international championships in the second
half of 2021, with success coming at the 5th Jiu-Jitsu Asian Championship and
the World Jiu-Jitsu Championship.
The
record year was amplified by the rise of the UAE’s women’s team, which claimed
nine gold, eight silver and eight bronze medals at the World Jiu-Jitsu
Championship in November.
Following
the success of 2021, Polyana Lago, coach of the UAE National Women’s Jiu-Jitsu
team, is now looking for her players to use their experience as a springboard
to even more glory in 2022.
“We
enter the new season with great ambitions after an impressive season and great
achievements last year,” said the 41-year-old Brazilian, who only began working
with the women’s team in the summer of 2021.
“We
actually had two really excellent weeks; we were confined to a hotel and were
able to train together; it was a good experience for each of us.
“We
had a fantastic season last year; our women champions put in an outstanding
performance, particularly at the World Championship, when they won a total of
25 medals. Some of the girls did really well,” she added.
Lago
said that the new format of the Mother of the Nation Jiu-Jitsu League helped
the UAE national women’s team achieve the historic feat. “It contributed
significantly to the championship’s outstanding results last year, as well as
making it more professional. We were able to determine other national team
talents as a result of the event,” she added.
She
has high hopes for the 2022 season, with her athletes set to take part in a
host of major events, including the Mother of the Nation Cup, Jiu-Jitsu
President’s Cup and Abu Dhabi World Professional Jiu-Jitsu Championship. Ahead
of this year’s events, Lago revealed that she is “working on key areas of
development” with her players.
Source:
Arab News
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2010816/sport
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URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/nadia-nadim-footballer-afghanistan/d/126238