The New Statesman has an unpleasant piece by Chris Allen that treats all anti-IS Muslims as co-opted if not worse.
First the background, via the BBC:
A fashion designer has created a ‘poppy hijab’ to commemorate the centenary of the first Muslim soldier being awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery.
Tabinda-Kauser Ishaq, a final year student at the University of Arts in London, also hopes the piece of clothing will give Muslim women a new way to mark Remembrance Day.
That would be a very dubious thing if the poppies were meant to commemorate, say, an imperialist massacre or a genocide. But you can remember and mourn the mass slaughter of World War I without endorsing that war itself.
“Most people don’t know how many Muslims fought for Britain a hundred years ago and it’s important that we join together and look back at the shared history we’ve got,” said Steve Ballinger from the integration think tank British Future, which helped Ms Ishaq design the hijab.
The group carried out a survey tracking people’s attitudes to the centenary of World War One and found only one in five Britons realised Muslims had fought for Britain – a lower level of awareness than that for the contribution of soldiers from other [religions].
British Muslims have a share in remembering and mourning the mass slaughter of WWI.
“Poppies are obviously the most prominent thing we associate with Remembrance Day and the hijab is something which is commonly associated with Muslims, so we married the two together to try and produce something which hopefully people see as positive,” said Ms Ishaq.
The 24-year-old, who herself wears a hijab, felt it was important to create a headscarf which Muslim women would want to wear in public.
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The designer worked alongside Islamic groups to create an item which would appeal to British Muslims and combat negative perceptions about the religion in light of issues such as fundamentalism.
“It’s a way for ordinary Muslim citizens to take some attention away from extremists who seem to grab the headlines,” said Sughra Ahmed, president of the Islamic Society of Britain.
“This symbol of quiet remembrance is the face of everyday British Islam – not the angry minority who spout hatred and offend everyone.”
Not the angry minority who want to impose sharia and stone “adulterous” women and keep girls out of school. Not violent theocratic fascists, in short. Now Chris Allen’s take:
The hijab is being backed by the Islamic Society of Britain and think tank British Future to mark 100 years since the first Muslim soldier was awarded the Victoria Cross. Sughra Ahmed, president of the Islamic Society of Britain, seemed to suggest in a comment to the Mail that this hijab would help divert attention away from the “angry minority” who offend people with their views.
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But there is more to the poppy hijab than either the Daily Mail or Ahmed would have us believe. As Nesrine Malik wrote in the Guardian in response to the Sun’s choice of front-page image, these re-appropriations of the hijab can be little more than proxies for anti-Muslim bigotry. They become a politically correct way of airing a suspicion that all Muslims are “basically terrorist sympathisers”. The wearing – or not wearing – of a patriotic hijab becomes a shrouded loyalty test.
Really? Why don’t they do the exact opposite of that? Why don’t they do what it says on the tin? Why would Tabinda-Kauser Ishaq and Sughra Ahmed want to air a suspicion that all Muslims are “basically terrorist sympathisers”? Why isn’t it much more likely that they’re doing what they purport to be doing: trying to point out and demonstrate that not all Muslims are violent theocratic fascists? Why treat them as identity-traitors or inauthentic for wanting to flag up Muslims who aren’t like that? Why talk over liberal Muslim women and claim that they don’t know what they’re doing?
This is not a new issue, even as it takes a new floral form. New Labour, for example, launched the now defunct National Muslim Women’s Advisory Group back in 2007. And ever since then, politicians – whose plans were often backed by various Muslim representatives and spokespeople – have endorsed the view that Muslim women are uniquely placed to influence and challenge the perverted ideology spread by extremists.
Employing the language of counter-insurgency throughout, the mantra that has emerged is one which depicts Muslim women as able to play – on behalf of the state – a crucial role in the winning of hearts and minds in the fight against extremism and radicalisation.
Talking about it in fuzz-language like “extremism and radicalisation” just obfuscates. It obscures the nature of the “extremism and radicalisation” that’s at issue, and makes it sound like youthful idealism. There is nothing good about Islamism. It’s a horrible, murderous ideology that wants to see women totally enslaved and LGBTQ people dead. Poppy hijabs and liberal groups led by women are infinitely better than that. It’s outrageous to imply otherwise.