å Tuesday, December 5th, 2017

“Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving” that is what Lila Abu-Lughod argues about in her essay after the 9/11 attacks and the sudden focus of Muslim women afterwards. She starts her essay with how after the attacks she was invited several times to be interviewed about Muslim women. She notes that many of the questions were general and turned into questions on Muslim women in politics. Abu-Lughod notes that these questions seemed to have stemmed from the need to understand how the attacks could have happened and why the questions didn’t go over more important topics like how the Taliban had taken control of Afghanistan.  Instead of looking into how it went wrong the focus shifted to Muslim women and how Westerns had to free them from their oppressors. Laura Bush’s speech she had made on how poorly Afghan women were being treated and how much the Taliban were monsters helped many people feel justified for bombings, intervention in the Middle East and supported the War on Terror. She talks about how this attitude goes along well with “colonial feminism” and gives a few examples on past experiences concerning it and warns of cultural icons being a part of a messy historical/political narrative. Abu-Lughod then talks about how people were surprised that after Taliban were pushed out of Afghanistan women weren’t in a rush to take off their burqa even though it was supposed to be a sign of their oppression.  It was the stage where people would contend with how the people of a different part of the world would do things their own way. After going in detail about who created the burqa she talks about how the burqa was a sign of oppression in the West but in the Middle East it was normal and even something that kept women safe from harassment from men because it provided a sense of seclusion and compared burqas to portable homes. It goes to show how it is important for people to understand the situation in a foreign place before coming up with their own idea on how to help or try to impose their own culture onto a different people.

A large part of what Lila Abu-Lughod tries to build on is that any observing parties must recognize that they themselves are subject to equal observation by others and themselves. One stance some may take by mistake is that in order to properly analyze a culture, one first remove themself from the international culture ecosystem. Doing so removes an important part of the equation of determining what problems in societies are, and what we should consider to address said problems. This is due to the fact that If analyzed at face value we overlook, or completely ignore the questions that ask why things are the way they are and solely focus on what they are at the present time; we may also do so incorrectly (Abu-Lughod, 2002:787).

Abu-Lughod presents her own experiences of interacting with media and those who influence the public on matters of foreign affairs. In general, if the aforementioned thought process is not considered, the result of an analysis may be reduced to nothing but a meaningless and helpful polarization in cultures between the analyzer and the analyzed (Abu-Lughod, 2002:784).

It seems Abu-Lughod supports the idea that the way we analyze anything may be done so in a way to rationalize and justify our goals and therefore the method of said analysis is unreliable. She highlights how American media has moved in the direction of justifying war through the illusion that the nation understands what freedom is to the cultural other (Abu-Lughod, 2002:784, 788). Women are used as objects for these justifications. She uses the American focus on the veil as an example and compares it to the larger and more valid concern of women in Afghanistan. The oppressive symbol of the veil, is a lesser concern to women than their immediate safety (Abu-Lughod, 2002:787).

Furthermore, she recognizes that which many may not want to. That being there are issues within reach that we neglect entirely while giving so much attention to aspects of a struggle that are entirely irrelevant to any agenda. Why do we turn a blind eye on other human rights issues? Why do we focus so heavily on the symbol of the veil?

In Ahmed’s piece, she argues that people’s emotions are not innate nor personal. Instead they are shaped by the myths perpetuated in one’s environment. The author uses psychoanalysis to show how white fears of “the other” are often rooted in unconscious beliefs shaped by deeper histories. Through the use of fear white people mobilize feelings of hatred of the perceived other. This hatred is justified through ideas of the white subject’s rights and the nation’s ground they view as under threat of the other. The nation is imagined as white which is believed to be synonymous with purity. The “others” are perceived as violating this purity and their entry is framed as overwhelming the white population viewed as the rightful owners of the land. The nation is also viewed as a white female in that the entry of immigrants is seen as a violation akin to rape. Ahmed argues that these feelings work to stick together identities such as that of an asylum seeker and the terrorist boogeyman. By conflating these two identities the nation is perceived as “securing itself” by not allowing asylum seekers. Since these people are viewed as dangerous the few that are allowed entry to make the nation be seen as charitable or righteous. White people are viewed the same way that the home owner that murdered the 16-year-old burglar is seen. Protecting property is shown to be more important than human life. Even though the boy was murdered the real victim is the home owner whose property was thought to be under threat. The grounds or nation is viewed as under threat by the other and white people who perceive themselves to be the “home owners” see themselves as having the right to secure it at any cost. The author also shows the way language in speeches reveals this fear in the use of words like “swamped.” These words carry connotations of asylum seekers as dirty and as intruders which mobilize national attitudes to be anti-immigration and refugee aid.