If you are a user of Twitter and if you follow one person today then make sure you follow Atheist Serena @Atheistserena Serena is an ex-Muslim who is currently experiencing some of the extreme misogyny of Islam. For example her first veil-free selfie that she published online garnered her days and days of death threats. I don’t know at this time what country Serena resides in but that doesn’t matter, although I pray that she is in a nation that is relatively safe and that she has some support, However what does matter is that Serena is a very very brave young woman who is standing up to the hyper misogyny of Islam. Serena has been blogging along with another woman at the Freethinking Heretics site and he words make very interesting if disturbing reading.
Here’s a short sample of her writing from Freethinking Heretics:
“Sharia is not a haven. This is the reality. In Islamic countries, the blood that gushes forth from amputations for stealing, beheading for leaving the faith, and the oppression of women is far too common.
The girl who featured in my interview about Saudi guardianship law says ‘Well, Sharia law is an insult to human life, simply abominable.
Obey without questioning, just like a dog, I’m going to sound like a broken record but, It’s oppressive.
A woman under “proper” Sharia law doesn’t own her self, she cannot refuse sex from her husband and cannot disobey him.
You can’t leave the house nor travel without a Mahram (your male guardian, i.e. Father, Brother, Son..etc)
You’re a slave, nothing more.
Many women lack self respect or are brainwashed into defending it, i mean how can you defend something that says you’re as filthy as faeces? How do you accept being told that you’re lesser than a man in intelligence just because you’re a woman? That is beyond me, and do not even get me started on FGM which is one the most vile act you can do to a human and is practiced under many countries that enforce Sharia.
What irks me the most is when feminists who supposedly preach for equality for all defend it and say malarkey like “Muhammad was the first feminist” blaming context and cultural differences for the injustice that we are facing, and dare saying that the west is oppressive and patriarchal.
We are imprisoned for the simple crime of being a female under Sharia, and to exacerbate the situation even more, it is being defended’.
I heard her voice last night for the first time. I heard a child. A child who the state see it is acceptable to publicly execute for her imagined treason of leaving a religion she was born into, and had no choice but to follow. I heard a child who I know has been forced to wear a niqab since the age of 13. Who has seen terror and blood. And this is accepted as the norm.
Why is Saudi, a country that adopts sharia law to the extreme, even on the UN council? Why? Do not glorify a country that harbours mute pains of cries, sheds blood, delivers injustice and evil.
The Saudi girl, who we’ll call Amina, says sharia happens on a daily basis, as it is their whole law. She said that the whole of society has become so used to it, no one realises or questions how barbaric it is. Why?
She is suffering. They are suffering. She has witnessed things most adults will have never. It’s a miracle she’s turned out the way she is, a beautiful, kind, caring, reliable young woman. I am so intensely proud of her. Despite the things she’s experienced and lived through, she continues to be a ray of utter sunshine. She doesn’t just make me happy, she makes others light up. If you’re reading this, habiti :p, I love you.”
I’m very much against forcing people to read things, but maybe Serena’s writing should be force fed to those foolish Western feminists who give Islam and Islamic misogyny a free pass merely because Islam is a non-Western ideology. Those of us who live in free or relatively free countries, whether we are men or women, religious or non religious, have very little idea just how bad things are for women in Sharia controlled countries. Many of us don’t even have cultural or psychological reference points with which to get a handle on what women go through in Sharia controlled nations and cultures. Shariah’s view of women isn’t merely one where women have different duties and responsibilities, as is the case with other religious paths such as Orthodox Judaism or in some forms or Christianity, under Shariah women are seen not quite fully human. In shariah nations like Saudi women cannot move freely without a male guardian and are basically treated as slaves and chattels.
Shariah even twists and contorts those relationships that should be secure and loving such as that of a father and daughter and Serena’s description of telling her father that she was dating a man. Here is an excerpt from her story on the MARIAS website:
Serena said:
How would you expect a normal dad to react? Congratulate his daughter on reaching this milestone in her life? See her happiness and smile? Be thrilled at the prospect of future children, marriage, albeit slightly far ahead? Be nervous and hope it works out, wanting to protect her from heartache?
That’s what normal fathers do. I do not have a normal father.
“I do not have a normal father.”
I hinted during his numerous attempts to harass me I was dating by texting “I’ve met someone”. A fairly ambiguous statement. Not explicit. I was shaking, my breaths coming fast. I was more nervous than I was telling him this than my apostasy, which is saying something.
This was the dad who loved to see his daughter obscure her body in a black solid mass, eyes, hands and all. Who pressured her to wear the hijab and abaya. Who threw a tantrum if a strand of hair was out of place, who constantly kept tabs on my movements in case I was at a boy’s house. Who smashed a vase against the wall because I had a male friend at school, who was gay. He knew that. Yet he still persecuted me. When I was a chaste virgin, and totally innocent.
I had my heart in my mouth as I clicked “sent”. Straightaway he was on the phone, demanding answers, calling me a whore, asking me who I was with, when did I meet him, was I still ‘pure’, what religion he was. He ended up slamming the phone down in pure rage and physically shaking, he told me.
He called later and questioned me to the point I gave him the answer he was looking for. ‘I mean, I met a friend’. He asked if I was sure. I said yes. I didn’t trust my virginity obsessed dad to not hurt me. His relief was palpable in his voice. He cried out thank god!
“Why must we be subjected to how we ruined your honour, and let the family down, for simply falling in love and being in love with life and the world?”
I didn’t expect anything better. What is it about your daughters that threaten you so much? Why must we be subjected to how we ruined your honour, and let the family down, for simply falling in love and being in love with life and the world?
I realised my father, despite his proclamations of acceptance of my apostasy, critical nature of Islam, and atheism, was merely born out of a desire to repair his tattered honour and reputation, convert me back and marry me off. He let slip when he said ‘I know Islam is still in your heart, I will make you see it’. It’s not. I don’t want Islam. I don’t want to be married. I want to fall in love and love my life.
Serena is a brave young woman and her testimony should be shared and it should especially be shared with those who naively believe that Shariah is no different from Jewish Halacha or Church Canon Law, even when it plainly is different. This is because Shariah is more than a guide for a good life, Shariah law is more like a chain or a prison. Not only is Shariah Law far more encompassing than either Halacha or Canon Law, it is also many many times more brutal and cruel and those of us in free nations have a duty to resist Shariah Law not only for our own sakes but for the sakes of our daughters and grandaughters and other female descendants as yet unborn.
Links
Freethinking Heretics
https://freethinkingheretics.wordpress.com/blog/
MARIAS
