Islamophobia: ‘Oppression of Muslim women in Brazil is not a handkerchief’ says USP researcher | The world

“Whoever does wrong in the name of religion will turn against the Muslim community, especially women.”Campos, who is a professor at the University of Sவோo Paulo, is a feminist and Muslim anthropologist with a doctorate from the University of Oxford.

The researcher explains it Political movements with a religious content like the Taliban are not something like the religion of Islam. And in the Muslim world there are many differences and a lot of differences. The oppression of women in some places is not the result of religion, but of “the cultural and political context of every place.”

“Patriarchy, Massimo are present in all communities. Men are gay within Islam, outside of Islam, with religion, without religion. But that does not stop women from developing their organizations, their forms of struggle and their forms of resistance, ”she says.

Read below some excerpts from Campos’ interview with BBC News Brazil.

BBC News Brazil – How does a Muslim person feel when he sees a fundamentalist group like the Taliban oppressing people in the name of religion?

Franchise Campos – At first helplessness, sadness. We have a religion that has taught us the beauty of understanding, dialogue, and human dignity. Why If we look Objectives of Sharia (Islamic Law)They are the protection of life, conscience, property, and religion. When you look at situations like this, these people have not even reached 0.01% of the Sharia target. Praying ten times a day is useless, when you abuse your mother more than recommended, you are abusing an animal, it is not an honest person… your prayers are in vain. It is a terrorist. Also, everything that someone does wrong (in the name of religion) will return to us, the Muslim community.

BBC News Brazil – Can Taliban control of Afghanistan create or increase prejudice against Muslims?

Fields – It’s already happening, it’s increased a lot. My research area is about Islamophobia, which I could not see at all. Because people do not know what Islam is, they do not know that (the situation in the country) is a political conflict, they do not even know where Afghanistan is. That Echoes in the most vulnerable groups are women who wear handkerchiefs, who often suffer from very violent verbal and physical assaults.. They need to explain to Afghan women what this means, their struggles and movements are not necessarily the same as they are here, and we are colonizing the way we see these people and Muslim women in Brazil. Why There is a diversity among Muslims – they are not the same, they come from different cultures, they have different values. I saw many posts of women talking about scarves, Muslims tell me to take off the scarf … it is not the scarf that is the problem.

BBC News Brazil – The use of the headscarf by women is one of the most recognizable aspects of Islam. Is this piece similar to oppression?

Fields – Wearing hijab is a Quranic duty, but there is a free will. I have many Muslim friends who do not use this – they are more or less non-Muslims and they do not follow religious precepts. Communities and families allow their daughters to choose, and there are theocratic associations such as Saudi Arabia and Iran.. If there are communities where women wear body painting without clothes, why can’t Muslim women wear traditional dress? Because, if there are some questions, others do not ask the question or choose to use. It is part of their culture and uniqueness.

BBC News Brazil – What does it mean to wear a scarf for a Muslim woman who chooses to wear a scarf?

Fields – There are many meanings I have taken in my research. For some women it is a power, for others it is a religion, for others it is a political act. If you think about the persecution of Muslim women, it was very important in France, starting in 1989 and from there A riot broke out among women of Islamic descent, and many who did not wear the scarf began to use it as a political act.. For example, I have been a Muslim for many years and a professor at USP for over ten years. I always had the desire to use it, but I did not have the courage. Because of the fear of Islamophobia, or the fear of intimidating my students, a thousand things went through my mind. But when I started to see the number of women like me who were not as stable, struggling to use the scarf and getting all sorts of insults, I decided to use it.

BBC News Brazil – What is the point of clarifying Islam to those who have read or heard about it only in news about secular and fundamentalist groups?

Fields – First we need to remove the image of Sharia evil. What is Sharia? Sharia means “way” as the guidelines of the Qur’an, Teachings and Attitudes of the Prophet Muhammad. Anyone who is a Muslim follows Sharia: Muslims pray, Muslims fast, this is a part of Sharia. Islamic type of marriage, type of lineage etc. What is happening is that these characters, this code of conduct, goes through an explanation, so the smarter, the more intelligent, the better the understanding of the Arabic language (the language of the Quran). As happened with the Taliban 20 years ago, many schools and forms of interpretation and literary interpretations can sometimes fall into extremism, along with illiteracy and people who have no knowledge of the language.

Another thing is related to women’s rights. Women have had a right in the Muslim world since the inception of Islam in the 7th century. It cannot be said that these rights are guaranteed in all communities. It’s like us in Brazil – we have rights, but they are not always guaranteed. Women have the right to vote, to choose a husband, to use contraception, to have pleasure, inheritance, divorce, and knowledge. It is absurd for the Taliban to ban women from studying. There is nothing in Islam that women should not read, on the contrary: the first word revealed in the Quran is “read”.

Religion is the difference between Islam (I write with Islam) and political Islam, which in education we call Islam. The Taliban are within this political Islam, which adopts religion for political activities. In this way the Taliban, the Muslim Brotherhood and other political movements can be placed in a religious perspective. Even in these political movements, there are many categories of different ways of interpreting religion: mystical, traditional, reformist, literary, and so on.

It relates to the cultural and political context of each place, not religion. Patriarchy and sexism are present in all societies. Men are gay within Islam, outside of Islam, with religion, without religion. But this does not prevent women from creating their own organizations, their forms of struggle and their forms of resistance.

BBC News Brazil – Can you be a feminist and a Muslim?

Fields – Yes definitely! Since the 18th century, Muslim women have had organized movements. They don’t call it feminist movements, but there are structured women’s movements. Afghanistan is an example: Women, when the Taliban were in power for the first time, they would take cameras and put them under the burqa and film all the atrocities and the violence they witnessed.

BBC News Brazil – Malala Yousafzai from Pakistan is known around the world for wanting to be read and attacked by the Taliban.

Fields – Look, I don’t think Malala is the best example of resistance. At the place where she was attacked, 80 children were killed all over the United States, and she never talked about those children. It’s violent, what happened to her is absurd, but I don’t consider her a symbol. She is silent about the deaths of these children and the killing of women by the UK in Afghanistan. She was used a lot by the United States to say what a Muslim woman wants to say. So I think the women of Afghanistan who oppose the Taliban every day are the symbol of resistance. I consider Benazir Bhutto more symbolic (Former Prime Minister of Pakistan).

BBC News Brazil – What is the impact of Islamophobia on Muslim women in Brazil?

Fields The impact of Islamic hatred is enormous. Islamophobia is classic in Brazil. My research points out that Islamophobia mainly affects women returning to Islam, the lower middle class, young people and those over 40 years of age. Women who travel in subways, on buses, as livestock, without employment are most affected. If you drive a car, you will be more secure. But he’s going to pick up the tunnel at six in the evening in a handkerchief. This is a vulnerability. Women born into Islam also suffer from intolerance, but they have more support.. The woman who converted, she goes alone, she is not part of a community and there is no Muslim family to support her.

We thought there would be most attacks on social networks, but many attacks are on the streets. From pulling the scarf, to saying substandard comments to throwing stones. There are women who have been stoned, chased, and pushed.

(In Brazil, Fombras, an association of Muslim associations in Brazil, estimates that between 800,000 and 1.2 million people are Muslims. About 100,000 of them have converted to Islam, meaning they were not born into Islamic families.)

BBC News Brazil – Is it fair for Western feminists to worry about women in Afghanistan?