Canada needs to get used to that.
To me, there's no doubt in mind that if Canada really wants to be a leader in global change, it's time to confront the raging Islamophobia that long existed before six Muslim men were shot down in a mosque in Quebec by a white shooter in late January. This means we have to let go of ideas about what a Muslim is and what they look like and to say goodbye to the boring and over-simplified ideas of who we are. It's deeply problematic that a faith of over 1.5 billion people has been marred and defined by less than one per cent of the supposed population.
In the West, the "Muslimwoman"has one face, one color, one look: subservience. For me, this has been taxing; it's been limiting. This is why I feel a yearning, a call, to purposely allow myself, as a Muslim woman, to declare that I am many things at once — and Canada needs to follow suit.
I am a queer woman. I have tattoos. There have been years where I presented more masculine, when I felt butch. Times when I didn't shave, anywhere. In Muslim societies "women" are supposed to stay kempt, shaving their armpits and pubic hair to remain chaste under the eyes of Allah. It's like wudu, a form of purification, a form of absolution, to be clean when you come directly in front of the creator. Yes, I am cis-gendered, and as a relatively light-skinned Muslimwoman I've had privileges navigating the spectrum of physicality. Yet, I've had my fair share of encounters that have affected me.
Exploring the masculine side was a severely difficult time for me. I was terrified that exploring my queerness would mean that I would have to exist in a linear identity and that I couldn't be fluid even within something so open. That to be queer was again a label I had to abide by.
Canada lauds its trademark political kindness, the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau grin of democracy. Yet, some of the most heinous, anti-Muslim comments I've ever heard have been on the streets of Montreal, where I live. People don't know Muslims, but they have a lot of ideas about what it means to be us. Maybe it's the limiting language, always defined by non-Muslims, explaining to us what it means to be us.
To move forward, we need to see people as more dynamic than the religious and spiritual garb that they wear. Canada needs to do what I did: start from scratch and forget all the narrow notions of what it means to be a Canadian and what it means to be Muslim.
I'm queer, tattooed and Muslim. Canada needs to get used to that. | CBC Canada 2017
To me, there's no doubt in mind that if Canada really wants to be a leader in global change, it's time to confront the raging Islamophobia that long existed before six Muslim men were shot down in a mosque in Quebec by a white shooter in late January. This means we have to let go of ideas about what a Muslim is and what they look like and to say goodbye to the boring and over-simplified ideas of who we are. It's deeply problematic that a faith of over 1.5 billion people has been marred and defined by less than one per cent of the supposed population.
In the West, the "Muslimwoman"has one face, one color, one look: subservience. For me, this has been taxing; it's been limiting. This is why I feel a yearning, a call, to purposely allow myself, as a Muslim woman, to declare that I am many things at once — and Canada needs to follow suit.
I am a queer woman. I have tattoos. There have been years where I presented more masculine, when I felt butch. Times when I didn't shave, anywhere. In Muslim societies "women" are supposed to stay kempt, shaving their armpits and pubic hair to remain chaste under the eyes of Allah. It's like wudu, a form of purification, a form of absolution, to be clean when you come directly in front of the creator. Yes, I am cis-gendered, and as a relatively light-skinned Muslimwoman I've had privileges navigating the spectrum of physicality. Yet, I've had my fair share of encounters that have affected me.
Exploring the masculine side was a severely difficult time for me. I was terrified that exploring my queerness would mean that I would have to exist in a linear identity and that I couldn't be fluid even within something so open. That to be queer was again a label I had to abide by.
Canada lauds its trademark political kindness, the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau grin of democracy. Yet, some of the most heinous, anti-Muslim comments I've ever heard have been on the streets of Montreal, where I live. People don't know Muslims, but they have a lot of ideas about what it means to be us. Maybe it's the limiting language, always defined by non-Muslims, explaining to us what it means to be us.
To move forward, we need to see people as more dynamic than the religious and spiritual garb that they wear. Canada needs to do what I did: start from scratch and forget all the narrow notions of what it means to be a Canadian and what it means to be Muslim.
I'm queer, tattooed and Muslim. Canada needs to get used to that. | CBC Canada 2017
