You are peace and from You comes peace

faineemae:

My favorite thing about this lady gaga thing is when her stans go “you’re being a twat, it doesn’t say in the quran or any islamic scripture that she can’t wear it.” But it does say to respect one another, what falls under that is respecting that this is not apart of your religion or culture therefore you cannot appropriate it and sexualize something that isn’t apart of your identity as a muslim or a middle eastern/african/north african/asian woman (quite aware that there are white muslims). This is equivalent to me wearing a sexualized version of a nun outfit which lady gaga has done and offended many orthodox christians, but i am derailing here. 

The burqa is used for modesty and as another blogger pointed out, Prophet Muhammad’s wives used to wear this because they were given the highest status of women, they were educators, they were the mothers of Islam. For someone to take that and slap it on them whenever they wish for fashion is disgraceful, also playing up the whole “oo i’m not wearing anything under this exotic middle eastern garb” is orientalism 101, playing into that fetish stereotype of muslim women who do veil. Lady Gaga is not going to make it any easier for my muslim sisters to wear the burqa in the western society, it is not up to her to interpret something that she has no idea about, she does not face the struggles of a muslim woman. Where you mess up is the fact that you think that we even need saving, if we do, then we will save ourselves, we do not need your white savior/feminism bullshit.

I also love the fact that there are people on here telling me what not to be offended by, telling me how i should feel about MY religion and culture. This is not your place to tell me how to feel, when someone from another culture is upset by your actions, do not make this about you. Also, harassing the shit out of someone online is really mature. I have tried to explain this nicely, I’ve tried to explain this rudely but some of you just don’t understand. 

But themindislimitless puts it nicely:

So they tried (and continue to) take away the power of our religious coverings and erasing their context and empowerment by saying they’re ‘oppressive’ and calling those who wear it backward but when that didn’t work they’re taking away what our coverings stand for by reducing them to nothing but flimsy pieces of see-through cloth portraying it as a trend for them to throw on and off when our identities are often challenged because of what we wear.

And that is how they strip us of our identities. This is how they take away everything that is important to us. (x)

Lady Gaga can take that “burqa” off whenever she wants, she will never have to face any consequences for doing so. But for my mother, my aunts and many other muslim women who do choose to wear it, this is their empowerment, their identity and they get shit for this, islamophobic bullshit spat in their faces, people who try to come and “save us”, trying to liberate us. This is not a costume, it’s not a piece of fashion, you cannot wear our identity as a costume and then take it off at the end of the day while we have to face ignorance from left and right. You will not make it easier for us, in fact…you are making it harder for us to practice our modesty and veiling, by silencing OUR form of empowerment and making it “fashion statement.”

That’s all I have to say about this anymore, I’m moving on.