On the 15th March 2019, an Australian white supremacist murdered 50 innocent Muslims in a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. Shortly before the massacre he sent a manifesto to the Government detailing his racist motivations. Perhaps the most sickening part of the whole event is that he proudly filmed the whole event with a go pro and streamed it live in the hope that it will inspire multiple other white supremacists on the fence.
There's no doubt this man was corrupted by a dangerous and contagious ideology. I'd love to write about how young people now are especially prone to this sort of indoctrination because of the internet and lack of purpose in Western societies - but that's worth a separate blog post. In this blog post, I just want to write about the New Zealand PM's (Jacinda) response to the attack by wearing a hijab out of respect to the victims.
Ok, first, some background. Anyone that has spent 5 or more minutes with me will know I'm an atheist, which means I don't believe a God exists. Inadvertently, I think this has made me pretty critical of many religions. One of the religions I am most critical of at this moment is Islam. I'm critical of Islam because I think it's a contagious, misogynistic and intolerant religion that is incompatible with several western values. Consequently, I think Islam is an ideology that should be challenged in the same way that any other bad ideology should be challenged: through healthy intellectual dialog.
Notice this is obviously extremely different from saying that I'm intolerant of Muslims. This is certainly not the case. It's a shame I even need to clarify this when I talk with my friends about this topic. Many of my friends (especially my New Zealand friends) tend to group the two together with an emotional lasso, which makes them think that a criticism of a misogynistic verse in the Quran is synonymous with hating individual Muslims. I find it painfully ironic that most of my friends who believe this also happen to consider themselves hardcore feminists. My flatmate in New Zealand was one of these people and she would have no hesitation in socially shaming a man for the slightest microaggression, and yet would remain perfectly indifferent about the views on women in the Quran at the risk of being labelled racist. Fun fact, Islam isn't a race, it's a religious ideology, and the people who follow the religion (Muslims), aren't a race either.
This is where Jacinda Ardern comes in. I've got mixed feelings about her wearing the hijab. On one side, I think wearing the hijab was a very important political move to diffuse tensions and console the Muslim community. Great! On the other hand, I think the hijab is a symbol of female oppression, and I think wearing the hijab has just created a more dense emotional cloud protecting valuable criticism of Islam. Let me explain.
Why do I think the hijab is a symbol of female oppression? Well, contrary to what right wing nut-jobs think, I don't believe Muslim women in western countries are forced to wear hijabs, in fact, I'm sure if you asked a Muslim girl why she wears the veil, she'd probably tell you that she chose to do it because she wanted to wear it out of modesty. However, from a psychological standpoint, I think our desires are decided for us based on our biology, culture and environment. Because of this I think wellbeing needs to be viewed in a broader context. For example, women in the 1950's may have been so brainwashed by societal norms that many wanted to become nothing more than housewives with no career ambitions, yet this doesn't undermine the importance of liberating these women to experience greater wellbeing. How do you free a prisoner that doesn't know she's in jail?
Once again, I applaud Jacinda for her compassionate speeches following the attack that are helping to reunite a community. I'm just angered that now it's going to be increasingly more difficult to have a candid talk about the true nature of Islam.
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