Politics

I recently had the opportunity to network with 2,000 powerful, inspiring and philanthropic women based in the Chicago metro area who, like me, attended a luncheon hosted by the Chicago Foundation for Women. The mission of the Foundation is simple: invest in women and girls. Before our keynote, Soledad O’Brien, spoke, we heard story after story of women who recognized their own ability to improve their lives, and did not allow outside noise to deter them from that goal.

Look, Juan, I’m not an apologist. But I am an American woman who chooses to wear that ‘Muslim garb’ on planes … and also at school, at work, to the grocery store, the library, the shopping mall, at the park, on the metro, in line to get lunch, or coffee, or a movie ticket. When I enter an airport, or step out of my car at a gas station, or go jogging on the street, I’ve got to tell you, I realize that I am in Muslim garb and I think, you know, I am identifying myself first and foremost as Muslim, I get worried. I get nervous.

A few weeks ago, a New York Federal District Court sentenced Aafia Siddiqui, an MIT-trained neuroscientist, to 86 years in prison for attempted murder. The verdict, which was reported only in the regional section of the New York Times, brought large-scale protest to the streets in Pakistan, as its Prime Minister named the woman convicted of terror charges “daughter of the nation.” The peculiarity of her case aside, one thing is clear: Siddiqui’s story is only one of many in which women play victims in an epic battle over the competing sensitivities – and masculinities – that are taking only increasing hold of mainstream Western media and the Muslim world.

A woman wearing hijab enters the 7 train. She glances around and smiles, searching for a friendly face. Heads turn and eyes stare back. A strange silence envelopes the subway car. The woman walks towards an empty seat and sits down, selects a new song on her IPod, sips from her coffee and closes her blue eyes. She pretends she doesn’t notice the stares, the tension and the energy in the air. She asks God to surround her with healing energy, love and light.

Hissa Hilal’s public statements always deserve a thoughtful response. Much more than just “controversial” ideas, they inspire us to question and even change contemporary social norms affecting women. When Hilal competed on Abu Dhabi’s Million’s Poet earlier this year, for example, she gained worldwide attention for reciting an original poem that was a sharp-tongued condemnation of clerics who issue inhumane edicts. In 15 short but powerful verses, Hilal stirred up a heated public debate over the responsibilities of scholars to their audiences, and questioned the severe laws put into effect by Muslim clerics.

Three weeks ago the French Senate passed a piece of legislation 246 votes to one to outlaw the face veil worn by a small number of the country’s Muslim women, with President Nicolas Sarkozy stating, in no uncertain terms, that the face veil is “not welcome” in France. The law follows at the heels of the Belgian parliament’s ban on the full face veil–known as the burqa or niqab–in public places.

I am not “visibly” a Muslim female — in other words, I don’t wear a hijab, the headscarf worn by some of my Muslim peers. Because people cannot instantly identify my belief system through my physical appearance, specifically my garb, I have not been at the receiving end of the direct hatred and vitriol that has been spewed at those who do don the headscarf; I have not had someone snatch off my headscarf in order to taunt and humiliate me; and I have not been dismissed or ignored in a professional or social setting because of my “suspicious” appearance.