How The Coronavirus Pandemic Affects Saudi Women
New Age Islam News Bureau
24
Jul 2020
• Iraqi Woman,
Dr.Azhar Hussein Saleh, Receives the Arab Woman of Excellence Award
• Saudi Sports
for All Federation Leads Surge in Local Women’s Sports
• Pakistan’s
First Woman Firefighter Sets New Benchmark in Helping People
• Saudi Arabia
Rules in Favour of Woman Living Independently Without Permission
• Iraq Forces
Free German Woman Kidnapped in Baghdad: Officials
• UN Warns Too
Few Islamic State Women Are Facing Justice
• Jewish and
Muslim Women Come Together Against Hate
Compiled byNew Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/how-coronavirus-pandemic-affects-saudi/d/122457
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How The
Coronavirus Pandemic Affects Saudi Women
JULY 23, 2020
Saudi women
have made huge strides over the last few years with increased labor force
participation rates and private sector employment. (Photo credit: Dean
Drobot/Shutterstock)
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Saudi women
are playing a major part in the socioeconomic transformation under Vision 2030.
The government of Saudi Arabia is implementing a broad program of gender
reforms for which it received international recognition. It is ranked first in
the GCC and second in the Arab World in the World Bank Business and Law Report
(2020) for twelve regulations pertaining to women. Examples of new amendments
to the laws include protecting women from discrimination in employment and in
accessing financial services. The retirement age for men and women has also been
equalized at 60 years, prolonging women’s employment duration, earnings and
contributions.
Along with the
new policies, there has been a behavioral shift as many Saudi households
realize the importance of women’s contribution to their overall prosperity.
Indeed, there has been a rapid and substantial improvement over the last few
years in key economic indicators for women. According to the Saudi Arabia
General Authority for Statistics, women’s labor force participation rates
increased from 19% in 2016 to 26% by the fourth quarter of 2019. Their
employment also rose by around 9% during that period.
Nonetheless,
many challenges remain. Half of young Saudi women are not employed, nor are
they in education or training. Not all women can find jobs, especially
first-time job seekers. Their unemployment rate had been 30.8% in 2019.
The recent
outbreak of COVID-19 and the decrease in oil prices threatens the progress to
date. The reduction in economic growth resulted in many layoffs and an increase
in the pool of unemployed people. Since the majority of unemployed women do not
have work experience or training, they will be at a disadvantage when competing
with other Saudis, both male and female, who are not first-time job seekers,
but who were laid off due to the ongoing crisis. The coronavirus crisis will
amplify the challenges for first-time female job seekers and may stall their
entry into the workforce.
Women who are
employed in the private sector are particularly vulnerable. Private sector
employment comprises a significant share of all employed females. However, they
are concentrated in a few sectors and occupations such as retail and education
which have been hit hard by COVID-19. As a result, female employment in these
sectors is expected to face significant declines. On the other hand, women also
work in the health and social work activities where they are on the front line
of the crisis. Almost 45% of health care sector employees are women whose work
demands have increased.
Furthermore,
due to the crisis, schools and childcare facilities have remained closed since
early March 2020. The demand for family and home related work, which falls
primarily on women, has therefore increased. This may also discourage women
from seeking employment or remaining in the workforce, thereby compounding
their challenges.
Saudi women
have made huge strides over the last few years with increased labor force
participation rates and private sector employment. Notwithstanding these gains,
the COVID-19 crisis underscored the challenges that women still face in today’s
economy and society. In addition to
social norms and the economic burden of unpaid work at home, far too many women
lack work experience and are concentrated in few sectors and occupations. The
government has already implemented many measures to mitigate the impact of
COVID-19 such as the provision of wage subsidies to Saudis in the private
sector. Additional support will be needed during this crisis. This may entail
re-skilling and upskilling job seekers and employees and providing more
opportunities for remote and flexible work.
COVID-19
pandemic should not be allowed to disrupt the the government reforms efforts.
On the demand side, they can create incentives for employers to hire women,
such as subsidizing a portion of maternity leave. On the supply side, they can
encourage female employment or entrepreneurship by increasing maternity leave
durations and by providing adequate childcare support for all employed women
and those seeking employment. COVID-19 should be seen as an opportunity to
accelerate planned reforms that will make further inroads towards empowering
women in the workforce.
https://blogs.worldbank.org/arabvoices/how-coronavirus-pandemic-affects-saudi-women
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Iraqi Woman,
Dr.Azhar Hussein Saleh, Receives the Arab Woman of Excellence Award
23 July, 2020
Dr. Azhar
Hussein Saleh
-----
Dr.Azhar
Hussein Saleh, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Planning and the head of
Syndicate of Iraqi Engineers, received the Arab Woman of Excellence Award in
the field of public service.
In an interview
she gave to the Iraqi News Agency, Dr. Saleh said that she received this award,
the first Iraqi woman to do so, as the only woman in the Arab region to head a
syndicate of engineers, in addition to her other accomplishments. She added
that she did not receive the award in person in light of the current
circumstances. A ceremony that would allow her to officially receive it from
Arab League will be held in Tunis early next year as part of Arab Women Week.
She goes on to
say: “This major award is considered among the most prestigious honoring Arab
women.” She then emphasizes that she will continue to move along the same path
and work to keep pace with technological development, in order to help her
country grow and prosper.
Dr. Saleh then
explained that this award honors the distinguished role Iraqi women play in the
development and construction of Iraq despite the difficult circumstances.
Dr. Saleh
holds a Ph.D. in engineering and has held many high-ranking administrative
positions; before being an Undersecretary, she had been the General Director of
the General Government Contracts Department and Director General of Sector
Planning Department at the Ministry of Planning. She also represents Iraq in
the World Federation of Engineering Organizations, and has many academic and
social achievements to her name.
https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/2407001/iraqi-woman-receives-arab-woman-excellence-award
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Saudi Sports
for All Federation leads surge in local women’s sports
July 23, 2020
The Saudi
Greens women’s football team that placed second in the UN Global Goals World
Cup in New York, under the auspices of the Saudi Sports For All Federation.
(Supplied)----
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JEDDAH: Women’s
sport in Saudi Arabia is flourishing, with Ministry of Sports estimates showing
that female participation has increased by nearly 150 percent in the past five
years.
From beginners
to fitness fans, women are discovering and benefiting from the perks of an
active and healthy lifestyle.
This surge in
interest can be attributed to many factors, including better knowledge of
healthy lifestyles, increased opportunities to take part in activities, and a
growing number of inspirational role models.
Under Vision
2030, and specifically the Quality of Life program, the Saudi Sports for All
Federation (SFA) is working to increase weekly sports participation to 40
percent by 2030, by introducing a more inclusive sports environment, and
encouraging girls and women to take up a sport.
SFA President
Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed bin Talal said: “Championing a healthy and active
community means that we help to provide all members of Saudi society with
access to high-quality opportunities to discover their love of fitness.”
He added: “The
SFA is mandated with increasing participation in physical activity, and with
women leading this national drive we are well positioned to meet the goals
outlined by Vision 2030, closely supported by the Quality of Life program, the
Ministry of Sports and the Saudi Arabian Olympic Committee.”
In February,
the SFA inaugurated the Kingdom’s first Women’s Football League (WFL) to meet
the need for community-level football.
“Having a
women’s football league is a huge boost for female football. We have been
playing football, forming leagues and training since 2007, without any tangible
support,” said Rawh Abdullah Alarfaj, the SFA’s special projects manager.
“This is an
opportunity for players of every level who are looking for an organized league
under an official umbrella, and for coaches and referees who need to be
recognized. The league also offers a great structure for clubs who have been
established for a long time but have struggled to run effectively due to
limited access to equipment, a field or a proper system where they can compete
fairly. This league will open doors for any woman who has an interest in
football.”
Football is
the most popular sport across the Kingdom, and the WFL — the nation’s first
community women’s football league to meet the need for grassroots football — is
open to women aged 17 and above.
The launch of
the WFL followed the success of the Saudi Greens women’s football team, another
initiative overseen by the SFA. Formed in 2018, the Saudi Greens competed in
the UN Global Goals World Cup 2019 (GGWCP), where they claimed second place. It
was the first time a Saudi women’s community sports team had taken part in an
international event.
On
representing her country overseas, coach Maram Adel Albutairi said: “It was an
awesome experience in terms of learning how to connect our passion for sport
with goals that affect our society, country and the world. Being part of the
first team to compete internationally was an honor and a dream come true.”
Fellow coach
LujainKashgari described her pride at Saudi Arabia’s achievements, starting at
the community sports level. “The SFA makes huge efforts to use sports as a
power to encourage society to develop a healthy and fit lifestyle,” she said.
RoaaQattan,
Albutairi and Kashgari are the only three female Saudi football coaches
certified by the AFC and have attended specialized training courses in football
coaching. They have been selected to lead the Arabic training sessions as part
of the international GGWCP Virtual Clubhouse, which ran online until July 9.
Qattan said
the Virtual Clubhouse offers an excellent opportunity to join the Green Team in
its current Arabic training sessions.
“Albutairi,
Kashgari and I were selected and tasked with preparing content for the training
sessions in a way that was easy to set up and using simple Arabic. I wouldn’t
be able to succeed without the support of the Green Team members and the SFA
management, which is committed to achieving the General Sports Authority goals
under Vision 2030.”
Saudi women are
starting to show what they can achieve in sports.
Osamah Saleh,
SFA director of marketing and communications, said: “With investment at a local
level, positive role models and continued support from the SFA in the form of
innovative campaigns and events, the rise of female Saudi sports stars will be
unstoppable.
“We know the
sport is about much more than excelling. Everyone has their personal goal —
from increasing their step count to committing to exercising three times a week
— and the SFA is there to help women at the critical community and grassroots
level.”
To maintain
momentum in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, the SFA promoted a “Your
Home, Your Gym” campaign, aimed at encouraging people to get active while they
stayed at home. Leading sports personalities were recruited as ambassadors,
including leading female trainers to engage more women and offer home workout
options.
The SFA also
held the first Saudi Women’s Fitness Festival (WFF) in June — a three-day
virtual event with sessions on nutrition, fitness, virtual workouts and thought
leadership discussions.
Yasmine Hassan
from Jeddah, one of the new wave of Saudi fitness coaches building online
followings, said that an invitation to become an SFA ambassadors meant a lot.
“Collaborating
with entities such as the SFA means I can continue to grow and improve myself,
both personally and professionally. I enjoy challenges and look forward to
opportunities where I can
share my
experience. Sport is a lifestyle and I want to encourage everyone, especially
women, to get active.”
HatoonKadi, a
WFF panel moderator, blogger, scriptwriter and presenter of YouTube’s “Noon
Al-Niswa,” said the festival provided a great opportunity for women and girls
to hear directly from female sporting role models.
“Being active
and playing sports is beneficial for both mental and physical well-being, but
now it can also become a career. The Women’s Fitness Festival provided the
opportunity to hear first-hand how women who are already successful in their
chosen sport combine fitness with motherhood, how they have overcome certain barriers,
and how they got started on their fitness journey.”
Najia Al-Fadl,
head trainer at Jeddah’s SheFit gym, also took part in a WFF panel discussion.
“There are
more clubs for girls these days and more are on the way, which is good
progress,” she said. “We have to support women who want to take up a sport,
whether it is a hobby, a lifestyle or a career. There have been so many changes
in recent years and now there are a lot more opportunities, thanks to the SFA.”
In March, the
SFA launched Girls’ National Sports Days (GNSD) in the Kingdom, which ran over
a six-week period with 24,000 students from 499 schools taking part.
The program’s
lead coach has more 25 years’ experience in delivering and developing the
program globally, as well as the pilot project in Saudi Arabia in 2018.
Designed to
achieve the Vision 2030 Quality of Life goals of enhancing girls’ sports
participation within schools and promoting female inclusion in sport, the
program is designed to encourage students to improve their health, fitness and
sports participation, while giving participants the chance to experience
different sports.
“From the
girls’ smiles, laughter and chanting as they cheered on their teammates, it was
clear that they all thoroughly enjoyed the Girls’ National Sports Days,” said
Kirsten Butler, the project director.
By encouraging
sports from a young age for girls, Saudi Arabia will become a healthier,
stronger country, she said.
From these
SFA-led initiatives, it is clear that women are eager to become more involved
in sport. Whether providing opportunities at the community and grassroots
level, establishing leagues, or working with female role models, the SFA is
laying a solid foundation that encourages women from all walks of life to take
up sport.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1709056/sport
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Pakistan’s first woman firefighter sets new benchmark in helping people
July 24, 2020
Zubair Qureshi
Shazia
Parveen, Pakistan's first woman firefighter, says though her job is a risky
one, it is fulfilling too.
Image Credit:
Supplied
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Islamabad:
Shazia Parveen, from Punjab’s Vehari district, has the distinction of being
Pakistan’s first female firefighter.
She joined the
Rescue 1122 emergency service (Fire Wing) in 2010 and since then has taken part
in a number of rescue operations and fire extinguishing expeditions — helping
and rescuing people in difficult and dangerous situations.
Parveen says
though it is a risky job, it is quite fulfilling as at the end of the day, one
goes home with a feeling of satisfaction after helping people out in
emergencies.
A profession
by choice
While speaking
to Gulf News, Shazia Parveen, 32, said girls and women are usually type-cast
for professions such as teaching, nursing, medical sciences or some office
work.
However, in
Parveen’s case, she was lucky to have the support of her father, late Rehmat
Ullah, a former army man who had encouraged her to pursue her passion and be
whatever she wanted to be. “When I told him that I wanted to join Pakistan’s
premier rescue service Rescue 1122, he fully supported me,” said Parveen, whose
father died last month.
Shazia, who is
pursuing her Masters along with the job, said women in Pakistan are highly
talented. They are physically strong and can make their mark in unconventional
fields as well, apart from shining in traditional jobs.
When asked if
she, as the only woman rescuer, ever faced any kind of difficulty or
discrimination at work, she said she had the confidence and support of her
entire team, particularly, Assistant Director (Fire), Ibrar Hussain. “We have
an excellent work environment and I feel proud to be a member of the Rescue
1122 team,” said Parveen.
She said like
nursing and medical care, rescue services are also suited for women’s aptitude
and that they should not hesitate to join the profession.
From
firefighter to fire instructor
Six years
after joining Rescue 1122 in Vehari and taking part in various field operations,
Parveen was promoted to Lead Fire Instructor and transferred to Lahore’s Rescue
department at Thokar Niaz Baig.
In Lahore, she
is now training the new team members on the standard operating procedures for
firefighting. “They include extinguishing fires, climbing high-rise buildings,
rescuing and helping people in traumatic situations,” said Parveen.
There are
three wings under Rescue 1122: Rescue, Fire and Medical Wing. All of them are
challenging and test the team members’ physical and mental strength, commitment
and resolve to take part in rescue operations, said added.
https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/pakistan/pakistans-first-woman-firefighter-sets-new-benchmark-in-helping-people-1.72611923
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Saudi Arabia
Rules in Favour of Woman Living Independently Without Permission
By Halligan
Agade
July 15, 2020
Public
prosecutors had been pursuing the woman for being absent from her family’s home
and traveling to Riyadh without permission, court documents published by
Abdulrahman al-Lahim, a lawyer in the case, showed.
“A historic
ruling was issued on Wednesday, affirming that independence of a sane, adult
woman in a separate house is not a crime worthy of punishment,” al-Lahim said
in a tweet. “I am very happy with this ruling that ends tragic stories for
women.”
The court
ruled that the independence of the defendant in a separate home is not
considered a punishable criminal act as the “woman is a sane adult who has the
right to decide where she wants to live,” according to the document.
In an
interview with Al Arabiya, al-Lahim said that he considers this a historic
ruling because it represents a significant change is underway within the
Kingdom’s judicial system.
“This shows the
creation of a new generation of judges who coexist and live in the reality that
the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is living in, in alignment with the vision of Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman,” the lawyer told Al Arabiya. “A ruling that deals
with reality, the reality of society and the reality of the entire world.”
Al-Lahim also
said the ruling is in line with global women’s rights and human rights.
The woman
involved later revealed her identity on Twitter in a response to comments made
by al-Lahim.
“After long-suffering
that has lasted since 2017, I managed today, along with the court hero Mr.
Abdulrahman al-Lahim, to take back my freedom of movement, guaranteed by the
Saudi constitution, which states that every citizen has freedom of movement and
stability,” Meriam al-Eteebe, the defendant, said in a tweet.
She also said
that her experience was “not easy but worth it.”
https://africa.cgtn.com/2020/07/15/saudi-arabia-rules-in-favor-of-woman-living-independently-without-permission/
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Iraq forces
free German woman kidnapped in Baghdad: officials
July 24, 2020
BAGHDAD: A
German woman kidnapped in Baghdad earlier this week was freed overnight, Iraqi
officials said on Friday, without providing additional details.
“Security
forces have freed activist Hella Mewis,” Iraq’s military spokesman Yahya Rasool
said in a statement.
There were no
details on the timing of the operation, the force that carried it out or who
had kidnapped Mewis.
A spokesman
for Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council, AbdelsattarBayraqdar, said the operation
had been backed by a Baghdad investigative court.
“We are still
investigating this crime,” he said.
Mewis, who ran
arts programs at Iraqi collective Tarkib, was kidnapped late on Monday as she
was leaving her office.
“She was
riding her bicycle when two cars, one of them a white pickup truck (of the
type) used by some security forces, were seen kidnapping her,” a security
source told AFP.
Police
officers at the local station witnessed the abduction but did not intervene,
the source added.
Mewis’s phone
was still unreachable on Friday and her friends had not heard from her.
The German
embassy in Baghdad had no immediate comment.
A friend of
Mewis told AFP she had been worried following the killing of Hisham Al-Hashemi,
an Iraqi scholar who had been supportive of anti-government protests last year.
“I spoke to
her (Mewis) last week and she was really involved in the protests too, so she
was nervous after the assassination,” said the friend, DhikraSarsam.
Large
demonstrations erupted in Baghdad and Iraq’s Shiite-majority south last year,
railing against a government seen as corrupt, inept and beholden to Iran.
Around 550
people died in protest-related violence, including two dozen activists who were
shot dead by unidentified men, usually on motorcycles.
Dozens more
were kidnapped, some of whom were later released near their homes. The
whereabouts of others remain unknown.
Amnesty
International has slammed the incidents as “a growing lethal campaign of
harassment, intimidation, abductions and deliberate killings of activists and
protesters.”
This year has
seen a worrying spike in abductions of foreigners, who had not been targeted in
several years.
On New Year’s
Eve, two French freelance journalists were taken hostage for 36 hours and three
French NGO workers were held for two months.
In both cases,
neither the kidnappers nor the conditions of their releases were revealed.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1709216/middle-east
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UN Warns Too
Few Islamic State Women Are Facing Justice
By Jeff Seldin
July 22, 2020
WASHINGTON/PENTAGON
- Efforts to deliver an enduring defeat to the Islamic State may be in danger
because of difficulties with bringing the terror group’s female members and
associates to justice.
Describing the
situation as dire, a new analysis from the United Nations’ Counter-Terrorism
Committee Executive Directorate [CTED] warns too few of these IS women are
being held to account, as many countries have been reluctant to repatriate
them.
“Women are the
demographic group with the lowest overall rate of return from the conflict zone
in Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic,” according to the CTED report issued
Wednesday, based on a study of 80 U.N. member states.
“Within
judicial systems, there is an urgent need for training and capacity-building on
gender-sensitive approaches to investigations and prosecutions,” the report
added.
Exactly how
many women members of IS have been prosecuted or could be charged with crimes
is difficult to say.
The CTED
analysis said for many U.N. member states, “accurate information on the fate of
women returnees was either unavailable or only partially available.”
Lack of
repatriation
Many Western
countries have consistently refused to take back anyone who traveled to join the Islamic State’s
self-declared caliphate.
Countries like
Britain, Germany, Denmark, Australia and Indonesia, among others, have even
gone as far as to strip nationals who traveled to join IS of their citizenship.
And
repatriations of IS-linked women that have taken place have been piecemeal.
One study, by
the London-based International Centre for the Study of Radicalization,
estimated that by July 2019, perhaps as few as 609 women who had traveled to
join IS had returned to their countries of origin.
At the same
time, based on U.S. estimates, as many as 18,000 IS-affiliated women continued
to languish in displaced-persons camps like the al-Hol camp in northeastern
Syria, including 2,000 women who have renounced their previous citizenship.
Pleas by U.S.
officials, as well as by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, for those
women to be repatriated have largely been ignored.
Obstacles to
collecting criminal evidence
And some
analysts fear the longer they stay there, the harder it will be to ensure any
of them answer for potential crimes.
“It becomes
harder and harder to gather that evidence,” said Devorah Margolin, a senior
research fellow with George Washington University’s Program on Extremism.
“People become
less cooperative,” she said. “Or memories aren’t as strong as they were when
incidents first happened.”
And
researchers like Margolin and those with CTED note that when it comes to IS,
there is already a huge discrepancy in available evidence. While IS readily
documented violence carried out by male fighters in its videos and other propaganda
material, it rarely showed women in similar situations.
“There’s a
very big division of the sexes, and part of that, specifically for a group like
the Islamic State, is a removal of women from images,” Margolin said.
“That's not to
say that under the Islamic State that there weren’t atrocities also carried out
by women,” she added. “We know that women were part of the morality police,
policing other women, and also part of the female sex trade of female slaves.”
Further
complicating matters, the U.N. researchers found not all countries are even
willing to consider the possibility that some of the IS women need to face
justice.
"The
tendency to view women as passive followers of their husbands continues to
prevail,” the CTED analysis found. “[That], together with evidentiary
challenges, contributes to low rates of conviction and/or shorter or suspended
sentences."
The report
found, in Western Europe and North America in particular, women linked to the
terror group were likely to get more lenient sentences than IS-linked men.
Others seem to
have escaped justice completely.
“In the
Balkans, governments did not account for noncombatant support provided by
female affiliates of the Islamic State, and most female returnees have avoided
prosecution altogether,” JamilleBigio, a senior fellow at the Council on
Foreign Relations, told VOA in an email.
Other
countries, though, like Germany and Iraq, have reacted to the difficulty in
obtaining evidence by taking a much different, much harsher tack.
"There is
evidence of women receiving disproportionately harsh sentences compared to men,
including life sentences or the death penalty for mere 'association' with ISIL
fighters," the U.N. analysis found, using another acronym for the terror
group.
A return to
extremism?
Yet whether
IS-affiliated women entering the justice systems of various countries are
treated too harshly or not harshly enough, there is concern that over the long
term, the likelihood that they will cling to or return to their extremist
beliefs is high.
The U.N.
analysis found that with so few women being brought to their countries of
origin to face justice, little has been done to develop programs that could
help some of them eventually reintegrate into society once their sentences are
complete.
Bigio, who
served on the National Security Council under former U.S. President Barack
Obama, agreed.
“Prison and
rehabilitation programs designed for men fail to address the underlying causes
of women’s radicalization,” she said, noting that women who join extremist
groups have often reported that “membership provided greater freedom than could
be found in traditional society.”
And what many
IS-affiliated women are being offered may not be a better alternative.
“Programs
often fail to provide training in livelihood skills that could help women
support themselves and their children, instead offering training in
stereotypically feminine, low-wage activities such as hairstyling and
sewing," Bigio said.
https://www.voanews.com/middle-east/un-warns-too-few-islamic-state-women-are-facing-justice
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Jewish and
Muslim Women Come Together Against Hate
July 23, 2020
By Karen E.H.
Skinazi
As my husband
and I were taking our regular after-dinner walk in our city of Birmingham,
England, I stopped dead in my tracks. My hand flew to my chest, like a
character in an overly melodramatic play.
My husband
turned his head to follow my gaze. There, spray-painted across a brick wall on
the other side of the street, were the semi-literate and fully offensive words
“DIE JEWISH.”
Despite the
profusion of anti-Semitism blasted across newspapers and social media every
day, it’s surreal to encounter it in your own neighborhood. This was the same
street we traversed hundreds, if not thousands, of times in the past months,
confined to the distance our feet could cover during the pandemic. Suddenly,
this expanse of my telescoped world was defaced with hatred. And we were the
target.
I called the
police, but after long minutes of waiting, I gave up. We went home and I
emailed my member of Parliament, trying to impress upon him the offensive
nature of the graffiti. I received an auto-reply. My husband uploaded incident
reports on the police and city websites. We waited to hear.
Then it
occurred to me to contact some of the most helpful, proactive women I knew:
fellow members of Nisa-Nashim, a UK network of Jewish and Muslim women. I
opened WhatsApp and wrote to my local chapter. Within seconds, the support came
pouring in.
The next day,
I arrived at the scene to find Salma Hamid there. I met Salma through our
Muslim-Jewish book club, a subgroup of our local Nisa-Nashim. As soon as I sent
the photo to Nisa-Nashim, Salma offered to meet there as an active ally. We
were quickly joined by a larger group: Jewish and Muslim women, bareheaded and
headscarfed, pre-prayers and post, congregated in front of the offensive
message.
We came
equipped! We had signs and bunting, chalk and posters. We donned sashes,
suffragette-style — only instead of “Votes for Women,” our swathes of satiny
pink fabric were adorned with the name of our group, “NisaNashim, Jewish Muslim
Women’s Network.”
We were not
alone for long. A police constable, Adrian Griffiths, soon showed up with a box
of tools to remove the paint. Steve McCabe, the Parliament member for the
constituency (contacted by one of the Nisa-Nashim women) appeared. So did a
university student representing Citizens UK, and the rabbi of the Birmingham
Progressive Synagogue.
Until the
constable could remove the words, we covered them with bunting left over from
the 2020 Great Get Together, a community event inspired by the murdered
lawmaker Jo Cox who, in her first speech in Parliament declared, “We have more
in common than that which divides us.”
The bunting
had words that encouraged goodwill: “Love More, Hate Less,” “We are all part of
one race — the human race,” “We need to respect differences” and “I believe in
the power of community.”
Once the
graffiti was removed, we wrapped the bunting around a nearby tree to stand
testament.
As I walked
home, buoyed by our shared efforts, I thought about a Friday night dinner at
our synagogue that my husband and I attended in the fall. The speaker, a rabbi
who leads Holocaust tours in Poland, told us he had met hundreds of survivors,
and the message they had was not one of despair or revenge, but rather that
love conquers all.
It was a nice
message — but it didn’t resonate. The message I grew up on, passed down from my
Holocaust survivor grandmother who lost her parents, sisters, brothers,
cousins, nieces, friends and her home, was a lot less rosy: Trust no one.
Yet when this
anti-Semitic graffiti showed up on my doorstep, I found I could trust and depend
on not only my Jewish sisters, but also my Muslim ones. It amazes me that in
less than 24 hours, the anti-Semitic message was replaced by signs of love.
On the
following evening, after dinner, my husband and I again set off for our evening
walk. I suggested we head in the direction of the incident. By then I figured
our chalk rainbow would be long gone, as it had drizzled pretty steadily. But I
wanted to see the constable’s handiwork; he had still been busily scrubbing at
the paint when I left earlier.
As we
approached, I saw ghostly traces of the anti-Semitic words on the wall — just
barely there. Far bolder, in bright colors, not the least impacted by the rain,
was our beautiful rainbow, and beside it, our monumental pledge to solidarity.
https://www.jewishexponent.com/2020/07/23/jewish-and-muslim-women-come-together-against-hate/
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URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/how-coronavirus-pandemic-affects-saudi/d/122457