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Apr 16

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Innocent Until Proven Muslim

The blood has not yet dried on the streets of Boston after a horrific attack which left three dead and dozens injured, yet the question for many now is not the identity of the perpetrator but how long his beard is.

The local authorities have not identified any suspects yet a plethora of minds have clearly been made up as to who committed this abhorrent act; the hashtag #Muslims went on to trend for hours alongside #Muslims Did It:

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After checking in with friends in Boston, making sure all those I knew in the area were safe and after posting, a number of times, locations of RedCross blood donation facilities in Massachusetts it came time to go through Twitter’s dreaded search bar to comb through reactions. The main words I chose were #Arab, #Muslim, #Islam and I was not disappointed: a wave of tweets blaming Muslims, applauding a popular call for the deaths of “all Muslims”, an incitement to violence tweeted by Fox News guest Erik Rush, and of course – the slurs: sand niggers, towelheads, sand monkey’s etc.

“Not being racist but…”

The New York Post alleged that a Saudi national had been caught after the attacks, but later authorities acknowledged that this was false, that there was no suspect – let alone a “Saudi”, but this did not stop others from attacking Arabs en masse as a result of such poor, hysterical journalism:

And then of course there were the calls to violence:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are more outright racist, unashamedly vile tweets documented by Public Shaming, a page created by Matt Binder dedicated to exposing “tweets of privilege.” And then there is the plane headed to Chicago which was forced back to Logan Airport, located in the East Boston neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, after passengers heard two men sitting next to each other speaking Arabic. Glenn Greenwald writes in the Guardian:

The rush, one might say the eagerness, to conclude that the attackers were Muslim was palpable and unseemly, even without any real evidence.

 

[...] the rush to proclaim the guilty party to be Muslim is seen in particular over and over with such events. Recall that on the day of the 2011 Oslo massacre by a right-wing, Muslim-hating extremist, the New York Times spent virtually the entire day strongly suggesting in its headlines that an Islamic extremist group was responsible, a claim other major news outlets (including the BBC and Washington Post) then repeated as fact. The same thing happened with the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, when most major US media outlets strongly suggested that the perpetrators were Muslims.

And though these comments appearing online may come across as meaningless, knee-jerk reactions, they are important and must be addressed with as much passion as one would any other calls to violence or racism. Even persons of colour who are often mistaken for being Muslim, due to their complexion or accents or even religious garb, continue to face relentless attacks. In December a man was killed after pushed onto subway rails of an active train in Queens, New York by a woman who thought him to be Muslim: “I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers I’ve been beating them up.” Twitter was overcome by despicable xenophobia and Islamophobia to such a degree that people took notice and began sending out warnings to people of colour (POC) in the area who may face backlash:

 

 

Islamophobia is real, it is palpable, it is present – but there also exists, shoulder to shoulder, a bit of compassion. Not apologia or tokenization but fellow feeling, an honest and open goodwill of sorts; many on Twitter sort of took over the #Muslims hashtag and began sending out tweets of empathy, of reason and of kindness:

 

 

 

And so it must be said, that though it is often difficult to hear humanity over the racket of gunfire, it is there; even amidst tragedy there is laughter.

Apr 6

16 Comments

FEMEN And The Suppression Of Native Voices

I loathe the premise that people of colour should be ‘grateful’ that others are taking notice of their subjugation, or that they should bite their tongues and clench their fists and instead show gratitude because their varied plights are being in some way ‘acknowledged‘ by others.

“Shouldn’t you be glad that people are recognizing these issues?” is the arrogant lamentation which customarily follows even the most caustious criticism of these perverse pseudo-solidarity actions – FEMEN’s nude predominantly white, predominantly thin photo-ops “for Amina“, a 19 year-old Tunisian woman who posed for them with the words “my body belongs to me, it is not the source of anyone’s honour” scrawled across her torso, being the latest example, and KONY2012 being an earlier one. This aforementioned response contends that we should withhold criticism, alleging that even being ‘noticed‘ should be good enough.

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Mar 2

11 Comments

Why I Used To Detest Feminism And Why I Am A Feminist

I did not identify as a feminist long ago, in fact I would squirm, roll my eyes, groan and shoo away any mention of feminism with a simple wave of my hand. Feminism was a word I detested, that I deplored, that I viewed as nothing more than a means to strap myself boldly to the very mechanism which has for so long abused so many and prolonged the imperialist adventures across my land, and others. And why? Why would I have denounced feminism, whilst I now unashamedly hold it tightly in the palms of my hands?

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Feb 14

3 Comments

5 Valentines Day Drones, For That Special Someone

Here are 5 drone-themed Valentine’s day cards I have created, for that special someone in your life.

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Drone strikes and their victims: the untold stories
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Jan 30

2 Comments

Frustrated Comics

This will be the first entry in the Frustrated Arab Comic Series

Entry 1: White Feminism

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Dec 30

Happy New Year

May we create enough light this year so that we may tread safely into the unknown; cheers to a new year and to another chance for us to rise above that which aims to undermine us, that which aims to unclench our fists, that which attempts to force us to our knees.

Cheers to a new year brimming with understanding; of the strength that resides within us, and of the means by which we may harness this strength.

May we learn from the shadows of yesterday and live, humbly, for the promises that reside within every moment.

Happy new year to all readers, both old and new, of the Frustrated Arab.

Dec 24

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Sekhmet Weeps

After much debate and tiring back and forth it seems as though doctors have finally come to agree as to the definition of ‘brain death’; it is to enjoy reading anything by Mona Eltahawy.
Mona Eltahawy, self-described “columnist and international public speaker on Arab and Muslim issues”, seems to have ‘poet’ to add to her long list of ego-stroking monikers. “Sekhmets Tits“, a poor attempt by Eltahawy at what one may only assume is erotic poetry, looks to be part of another piteous attention seeking ritual by Eltahawy; the poem is ghastly – no poetic structure, clumsily narrated with rushed, elephantine references to her alleged personal adventures: the breaking of her arms by Egyptian security forces, her spray painting over Pamela Geller’s NYC Islamophobic “hate ads” etc. alongside what one believes to be Eltahawy’s typical claim to fame – her rebellious adventurism. Afterall, an Arab, Muslim woman using the words tits, pussy, fuck, cum, cunt and orgy? She is breaking barriers, proving once again that she is liberated, unconstrained and able to do and say as she pleases. Unlike the cloaked and ‘faceless’ women of colour Mona constantly berates and attempts to release from bondage she epitomizes what it means for one to be ‘free’. Read more

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