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Burqa Quotes

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Burqa Quotes

“Furthermore, I refuse to wear a burqa. Of all the burdens they've put on us, that's the most degrading. The Shirt of Nessus woudn't do as much damage to my dignity as that wretched getup. It cancels my face and takes away my identity and turns me into an object. Here, at least, I'm me Zunaira, Mohsen Ramat's wife, age thirty-two, former magistrate, dismissed by obscurantists without a hearing and without compensation, but with enough self-respect left to brush my hair every day and pay attention to my clothes. If I put that damned veil on, I'm neither a human being nor an animal, I'm just an affront, a disgrace, a blemish that has to be hidden. That's too hard to deal with. Especially for someone who was a lawyer, who worked for women's rights. Please, I don't want you to think for a minute that I'm putting on some sort of act. I'd like to, you know, but unfortunately my heart's not in it anymore. Don't ask me to give up my name, my features, the color of my eyes, and the shape of my lips so I can take a walk through squalor and desolation. Don't ask me to become something less than a shadow, an anonymus thing rustling around in a hostile place.”

IdentitySadKabulBurqaFanatism
Book:Swallows of Kabul
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“When we finally arrived, the chauffeur escorted my younger sister, Laila, and me up to my father’s suite. As usual, he was hiding behind the door waiting to scare us. We exchanged many hugs and kisses as we could possibly give in one day. My father took a good look at us. Then he sat me down on his lap and said something that I will never forget. He looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Hana, everything that God made valuable in the world is covered and hard to get to. Where do you find diamonds? Deep down in the ground, covered and protected. Where do you find pearls? Deep down at the bottom of the ocean, covered up and protected in a beautiful shell. Where do you find gold? Way down in the mine, covered over with layers and layers of rock. You've got to work hard to get to them.” He looked at me with serious eyes. “Your body is sacred. You’re far more precious than diamonds and pearls, and you should be covered too.”

HijabVeilBurqaMuhammad AliPurdahBurkaHeadscarfJilbabHijaabJilbaabKhimaarKhimarPurda
Book:More Than a Hero: Muhammad Ali's Life Lessons Presented Through His Daughter's Eyes
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“Her skirts, sleeves, collar, and hat saw to it that none of the young ruffians of the Leased Territories would have the opportunity to invade her body space with their eyes, and lest her distinctive face prove too much of a temptation, she wore a veil too... The veil offered Nell protection from unwanted scrutiny. Many New Atlantis career women also used the veil as a way of meeting the world on their own terms, ensuring that they were judged on their own merits and not on their appearance. It served a protective function as well, bouncing back the harmful rays of the sun...”

HijabVeilBurqaNiqabBurkaHeadscarf
Book:The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
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“My face is my identity. No one will cover it. I’m proud of my face. If my face bothers you, don’t look. Turn your own face away, take your eyes off me. If you are seduced by merely looking at my face, that is your problem. Do not tell me to cover it. You cannot punish me simply because you cannot control yourself.”

Women S RightsFaceWomen S StrengthIdentity QuotesMuslim WomenWomen S EmpowermentVeilBurqaNiqabWomen S Emancipation
Book:Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman's Awakening
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“I understand the need to defend one's headscarf -- I did it for years, even as I was privately struggling with it. It's an important defence in the face of Islamophobes and racists. I get that. But if it's done without cognisance of the lived realities of women who do not have the privilege of choice, then my interlocutors end up doing exactly what they accuse me of doing with my support of a niqab ban: silencing other women. Why the silence, as some of our women fade into black, either owing to identity politics or out of acquiescence to Salafism?”

FeminismFree ChoiceBurqaFeminist DilemmasHijab BanNiqab Ban
Book:Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution
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“I have always used the burqa because men are using the burqa in the name of culture and religion to take freedom from women. Women are alive, they have their own wishes and desires, but all the time they have to sacrifice that. They are a kind of skeleton, which doesn't have muscles. They're just breathing, like a kind of puppet that barely exists. If women spoke for their rights, they were beaten by their husbands. So they don't have a voice. They lose their voices and their wishes and their happiness.”

IfsMenKindUsedDesireCultureNamesWishVoiceLosesAliveRightsSacrificeHusbandBreathingMusclesSpokesBeatenMen WomenPuppetsSkeletonsBurqaCulture And Religion
Author:Malina Suliman
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“Anti-Islamist Muslims - who wish to live modern lives, unencumbered by burqas, fatwas and violent visions of jihad - are on the defensive and atomized. However eloquent, their individual voices cannot compete with the roar of militant Islam's determination, money (much of it from overseas) and violence. As a result, militant Islam, with its West-phobia and goal of world hegemony, dominates Islam in the West and appears to many to be the only kind of Islam.”

WorldKindIndividualWishGoalVoiceResultsVisionViolenceModernDeterminationWestIslamViolentModern LifeEloquentMilitantJihadPhobiaHegemonyIslamistsBurqa
Author:Daniel Pipes
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“In Iraq, until before the war, the women were scientists, museum directors, doctors. I'm not valourising Saddam Hussein or the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, which was brutal and killed hundreds of thousands of people - it was the Soviet Union's Vietnam. I'm just saying that now, in these new wars, whole countries have slipped into mayhem - the women have just been pushed back into their burqas - and not by choice.”

PeopleWarCountryWholeChoicesDirectorsDoctorsScientistUnionsIraqOccupationMuseumsAfghanistanVietnamSovietBrutalSoviet UnionSaddamHusseinJust SayingMayhemBurqa
Author:Arundhati Roy
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“I want to quit. Not performing, but being a woman altogether. I want to throw my hands in the air, after reading a mean Twitter comment, and say, 'All right! You got it. You figured me out. I'm not pretty. I'm not thin. I do not deserve to use my voice. I'll start wearing a burqa and start waiting tables at a pancake house. All my self-worth is based on what you can see.' But then I think, F*** that ... I am a woman with thoughts and questions and s*** to say. I say if I'm beautiful. I say if I'm strong. You will not determine my story - I will.”

IfsThinkingWantMeanSelfStoriesUseHandsBeautifulReadingHouseStrongFunWaitingVoiceAirDeserveTablesDetermineQuittingSelf WorthPerformingCommentBeing A WomanPancakesMy Self WorthNot PrettyBurqaWaiting TablesHands In The Air
Author:Amy Schumer
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“Since the 1950s (until the early 1990s), girls in Kabul and other cities attended schools. Half of university students were women, and women made up 40 percent of Afghanistan’s doctors, 70 percent of its teachers and 30 percent of its civil servants. A small number of women even held important political posts as members of Parliament and judges. Most women did not wear the burqa.”

MadeImportantSchoolPoliticalGirlNumbersCitiesHalfTeacherStudentsJudgingMembersPercentMen And WomenDoctorsUniversityPostsServantAfghanistanParliamentSmall NumbersCivil ServantsKabulBurqaMembers Of ParliamentUniversity Students
Author:Eleanor Smeal
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“The situation of women living in Islam-stricken societies and under Islamic laws is the outrage of the 21st century. Burqa-clad and veiled women and girls, beheadings, stoning to death, floggings, child sexual abuse in the name of marriage and sexual apartheid are only the most brutal and visible aspects of women's rightlessness and third class citizen status in the Middle East”

ChildrenLawGirlNamesSituationClassMiddleCenturyCitizensAspectThirdsAbuseIslamEastVisibleIslamicMiddle EastBrutal21st CenturyOutrageApartheidBurqaFloggingIslamic Law
Author:Maryam Namazie
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“The jamaat was an almost silly mish-mash of people: Rude Dawud’s pork-pie hat poking up here, a jalab-and-turban there, Jehangir’s big Mohawk rising from a sea of kufis, Amazing Ayyub still with no shirt, girls scattered throughout – some in hejab, some not and Rabeya in punk-patched burqa doing her thing. But in its randomness it was gorgeous, reflecting an Islam I felt could not happen anywhere else ... If Islam was to be saved, it would be saved by the crazy ones: Jehangir and Rabeya and Fasiq and Dawud and Ayyub and even Umar.”

PeopleIfsStillsBigsHappensWould BeGirlFeltSeaCrazyIslamSavedSillyShirtsRisingHatsPunkPieRudeGorgeousReflectingPorkRandomnessBurqaMohawksTurbansPork Pies
Author:Michael Muhammad Knight
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