Not just a scarf
Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan is facing a firestorm of criticism from conservative figures and political commentators after appearing in a hijab during a visit to a Somali market in Minneapolis.
The incident took place at the Karmel Somali Market, where Flanagan—flanked by Somali leaders and speaking in part in Arabic—opened with the greeting “Salam alaikum” and told viewers: “The Somali community is part of the fabric of the state of Minnesota.”
But the hijab is part of the fabric of the oppression and repression of women. Women in Afghanistan and Iran are beaten and imprisoned (or worse) for not wearing the hijab. It’s not a nice cuddly symbol of nice cuddly religion, it’s a concealment and repression of women imposed and violently enforced by men.
Pretty true. Moreover, these men are not like cops or some bunch of Orwellian thought police; strangers to the women involved. They are their brothers, fathers, uncles, sons, etc, some of whose heads are full of Islamic bullshit. Except that it is not quite as simple.
In 2001, I visited Iran, and one day I had a fascinating car ride with a couple of young Iranian men from Tehran down to Isfahan. In the course of this, one of them told me (he spoke excellent English) that his mother was always at him to take his religion more seriously, attend the mosque more often for prayers, and so on, and he was always telling her: “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I will…” And he added with a wink “but somehow I never seem to get around to it.”
She had learned to conform, and was urging her son to do likewise. In my good old Marxist days, I would have said that she was possessed of ‘false consciousness.’ But, none the less, it made her a true conservative pillar of her society: one moreover in which women are commonly executed in public for having had sex outside of marriage, but not the men involved. And for better or worse, it is often the bizarre case that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.
Also too maybe her time would have been better spent working to improve Minnesota’s bunco squads? Just a thought, Lieutenant Governor Flanagan.
Why not visit a Black community event in prison stripes and leg-irons?
Or make a cotton sack into a fashion statement?
This is the same woman who wore a threatening ‘protect trans kids’ t-shirt to some event. She loves the virtue-signalling garb.
This is the quandary of being a Democrat in Minnesota. 95% of the issues on the platform are those I can work with, but the issues of embracing the transgender ideology and covering women in a false solidarity with Muslim women are embarrassing. But, that also occurred among Democrats in AZ, so we are not alone.
BTW: Don’t believe the massive propaganda campaigns about social services here in Minnesota wihout considering the sources. The government here has investigated and convicted people and put greater controls in place to detect and prevent fraud. The chief organizer of the fraud through “Feeding our Future” was not a Somali and was caught due to an investigation started in 2021. The “kid” who tried to video kids at a daycare is sponsored by the Republican Party, and has conducted similar propaganda campaigns in Ukraine. The particular set of videos he posted were part of a campaign coordinated with Republican legislator Lisa Demuth. It focuses on Somalis because Trump wants to denaturalize thousands of Somali citizens and undercut Tim Walz during a gubernatorial election, while also giving them an excuse to cut funding for social services that are needed especially when the economy is being so thoroughly fucked by the Trump admin.
Jonathan Swift – 1710