Documentary film explores Hip Hop, Islam and women’s rights

By Mette Reitzel

A recent UK parliamentary report revealed that some Muslim women are removing their headscarves and Anglicizing their names in order to improve their chances in the job market. But two best friends, featured in the upcoming documentary film Hip Hop Hijabis, did the exact opposite.

Born in Bristol to Jamaican parents, they converted to Islam in 2005, started wearing the hijab and changed their names to Sukina Abdul Noor and Muneera Rashida. Together they are known as the Hip Hop duo Poetic Pilgrimage. They have toured internationally to critical acclaim, supported K’naan in concert, been featured on the BBC, Channel 4 and Arte and performed at SXSW in Texas and at London’s South Bank Centre, to mention a few.

These two outspoken MCs are as passionate about their new faith as they are about women’s rights. They believe that cultural traditions and misinterpretations have distorted the original egalitarian message of Islam, which emphasised the spiritual equality of men and women, and introduced rights of divorce, education and inheritance for women in an otherwise very patriarchal time and place.

 

However, Sukina and Muneera are up against centuries of deep-rooted cultural practices and meet resistance both from within the Muslim community, who may not take kindly to criticism from recent converts, and the secular society they live in, where according to a YouGov poll only 24% of voters believe Islam is compatible with being British.

The good news is that by speaking out against practices such as FGM and honour killings from within an Islamic framework, Poetic Pilgrimage is part of a growing number of Muslim artists, activists and intellectuals reclaiming their religion from the grip of extremism.

But doing so through the language of Hip Hop has unintentionally become an issue in itself, as some interpretations of Islam consider music and female performance to be haram, or forbidden.

The advantage is that through their skillful rhymes, catchy beats and positive energy Poetic Pilgrimage can reach a wide audience, acting as intercultural bridge-builders and encouraging people of all faiths and those of none at all, to question assumptions they may have previously accepted unconditionally.

In the context of the women’s movement the story of Poetic Pilgrimage addresses some very topical questions: Why are nearly two-thirds of British Muslim converts women? Considering that the majority of the world’s women are religious, how can their needs be supported by the western women’s movement, which to a large extent has been shaped by atheist and secular feminism? And is it more productive and respectful to challenge misogynist practices from within a religious framework or to fight for that framework to be dismantled?

Judging by the heated debates following recent screenings of the trailer, these are highly controversial questions, which will be explored further in the extensive outreach programme of talks, debates and workshops being developed in association with the film.

The Hip Hop Hijabis documentary is shot in an observational and cinematic style and doesn’t promote any particular view or solution to these complex questions, but aims to foster constructive dialogue about gender equality, religion, extremism and Islamophobia.

It follows Poetic Pilgrimage over three life-changing years, going behind the scenes at major international events, but also showing the private highs and lows as difficult decisions need to be made…

The project has so far been entirely self-funded with the help of a crew of committed filmmakers and in-kind support from Faction Films.

The team is currently crowd-funding in order to complete post-production.

Trailer, perks and more information is available here: http://www.sponsume.com/project/hip-hop-hijabis

Isn’t it about time for a draft law to protect children from abuse?

By Prof. Fawziah Al Bakr

The story of the little girl Lama that was sexually abused and murdered by her father, who is now in prison awaiting trial, and other recurrent stories like it, show the power of men in this society and their capability of harming weaker parties unable to defend themselves due to lack of awareness, mechanisms and laws that protect children and women from all kinds of harassment and abuse.

Societies are based on families caring for their children. A father and mother’s immediate responsibility in every family is to care for and nurture their children, but that is not what occurs in all cases. In Saudi Arabia, there is a need to form laws that protect weaker entities within the institution of the family. The absence of such laws produce cases like Lama, who die waiting for justice, and this absence of legislation will keep producing others like Lama we may or may not know about.

In the past, it was acceptable and feasible to address similar cases within the context of the family and neighborhood due to the small population of Saudi at that time and the simplicity of the social system. This is no longer possible in this day and age. The population of Saudi has grown enormously and every family within this modern lifestyle system has practically barricaded themselves inside their cement homes, isolated from others around them. Many negative lifestyle options have now become accessible such as drug use and alcohol while the legal system has not caught up by implementing legislation, protocol and social services to prevent and protect against abuse and neglect.

Our modern times have seen a shift in how we define and view terms like childhood, abuse, neglect and other terms relating to rights in modern social institutions. Our generation was subjected to many forms of verbal and (maybe physical) abuse from teachers, parents, relatives and neighbors according to the prevailing intellectual structure of the society; as the Arabic proverb goes the meat is for the teacher and the bones for the parents. If at that time society did not criminalize many forms of abuse, today there is no room for such practices, even if it is for noble goals. No one can hit a child under the pretext of disciplining or slap a teenager under the pretext of returning him or her to their senses, let alone deliver deliberate harm or neglect or sexual abuse as poor Lama faced that left her body lying in the morgue for four months!!

It is time to wake up. Such practices must be criminalized because it is a crime in our modern time’s definition. Many of the frighteningly light court rulings on cases of domestic abuse do not correspond to the severity of the crime. Civil and Shariah laws should be updated to catch up with Saudi society’s intellectual shift in the understanding of rights and duties. All kinds of abusive behavior against children and women should be clearly identified by law makers and Sharia laws and codified.

There is an immediate need to call for a draft law that clearly defines all forms of abuse including verbal, psychological, physical, and sexual abuse and other forms of sexual harassment and abuse that women and other minorities in society face.

We have grown weary of hearing about the Lamas of our society. Their stories, reverberated by the newspapers and satellite channels, nationally and internationally, have created an awareness among society regarding the lack of a basic law for the protection against abuse. It is high time for legislation to cover this deficiency. Saudi Arabia has signed many international treaties that ensure basic human rights for all and rejects any kind of discrimination. Islamic laws also emphasize the protection of rights for all. Our shared religion and these treaties could help us to initiate laws against neglect and abuse that many have long waited for.

Prof. Fawziah Al Bakr has had a long history in human rights activism. She is a professor of education at King Saud University. She is also a writer who spent three months in prison for her columns. You can read a translation of her article on gender apartheid here and you can follow her on Twitter here.

Solidarity with victim of Delhi Gang Rape

"TWN are horrified and disgusted by the brutal beating, gang rape and death of a 23 year old university student on a bus in New Delhi, India. Violence against women and girls is a crime, legally, morally and ethically as well as being a worldwide problem.

The attack occurred December 16 while the women and a friend were riding home on a bus from seeing a film. 

The attack has highlighted the many problems of how India deals with the crime of rape. UN figures quoted in the Washington Post reveal that three-fourths of the perpetrators of India’s 24,206 rapes in 2011 are still at large, and that’s not even including the rapes that go unreported, which are thought to be the majority of cases.

TWN would like to extent its sympathy to the family of this woman and continues it call for greater resources to be deployed in the combat of this heinous crime."

The Training for Women Network in Northern Ireland has long been a partner of Women without Borders/SAVE 

Trust Women Conference London 2012

Women without Borders has the great opportunity to participate in the Trust Women Conference in London organized by Thomson Reuters Trust Law Foundation and the International Herald Tribune. This year's conference focus is „Putting the Rule of Law behind Women's Rights“ - an issue that couldn't be more up to date.

After a brief video message by Aung San Su Kyi, the theme of today, “Culture and Law”, was introduced by Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi. She highlighted the problems that arise for a society and especially the women in it when its culture and its legal system contradict each other. The many different speakers, such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born activist, Sima Samar, the remarkable Chairwoman of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and the Academy Award winning documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, highlighted the dangers that a dual legal system, one formal, another ruled by entrenched traditions, poses to an equal society –what happens, when culture “clashes” law.

Women around the world have been faced with severe violations of their rights, ranging from forced (child) marriage to acid attacks, FGM and honor killings, just to name a few. Also, they have been denied education, emancipation and a life that is equal in rights to their male peers. In their arbitrariness, many of the practices that inhibit women's emergence have been justified with culture and sometimes religion, making them thus impalpable to foreign critics. 

 

However, aside from the destitute situations in many countries, there were also positive narratives to be heard. Mercy Chidi, for example, of Tumaini Girls Rescue Centre in Kenya, told the delegates about a petition that was filed in October on the behalf of hundreds of Kenyan girls to force the police to investigate and prosecute rape cases they say have been ignored. They subsequently sued the government for failing to protect them from rape, a historic moment in Kenya. Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy told the story of a young Pakistani woman that tries to challenge the mindset of rural Pakistani communities by asking them simple questions.

The general consensus of this first day of the conference was that women, who had been affected in any way by a violation of their basic rights, do not want to be designated as victims. They want to take action within their societies in order to prevent other women and girls from suffering similar fates or to change the way of history in their societies.

Another exciting and inspiring day is awaiting us tomorrow, with the focus on human trafficking.


- Lea von Martius