Muslim Oppression Research Paper

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On November 07, 2006, was the day i left home to join the fight against the Taliban. During my time spent in the united States Military serving my country, I was always told that we were fighting to free the Iraqi and Afghan people from the terrorist groups that had taken over their country, yet Laura Bush ( first lady to President George W. Bush) stated back in November 17th, 2001, in her weekly address that “ The brutal oppression of women is a central goal of the terrorists.” What first lady Bush states in her address conflicted with my deployment briefings, that were to eliminate terrorists treats to free the Iraqi and Afghan people not the oppressed women that first lady Bush claims that we needed to go help. Muslim women across the globe …show more content…

Having first hand encounters, seeing women and children being beaten, showed how much oppression is still present in those areas today. In the area I was deployed to seeing a Muslim women wearing a burqa definitely was a sign of oppression to me after the things I seen on a daily basis. According to Ilene R. Prusher who wrote “Symbol of Both Oppression and Freedom” she quotes Shaban Omary who argues “the veil is a central part of God’s protection against the mistreatment of women and that gender relations will only improve when more women obey the call to cover themselves.” How can some argue that the veil is a protection against the mistreatment of women when in Securing Afghan Women: Neocolonialism, Epistemic Violence, and the Rhetoric of the Veil written by Kevin J. Ayotte and Mary E. Husain stated “It has been well documented that women in Afghanistan have been beaten simply for accidentally letting an inch of skin show” (United Nations 2000, 7; Amnesty International 1999; Physicians for Human Rights 1998, 52). A piece fabric is supposed to protect the Muslim from the gaze of other men, but how is it going to protect them from the every day violence they experience from the men of their …show more content…

The Muslim culture as a whole doesn’t oppress their women, it is more in localized areas like Afghanistan, that they still deny basic human right to the women in their communities which has lead to them being put under oppression. In the question Abu-Lughod asked her reader “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?”, she implies that Muslim women really don’t need our help. As person who has been deployed to Afghanistan, I have seen first hand the abuse and violence these women would receive on every convoy or mission I went on. The Muslim women that need saving are like the ones in Afghanistan and there are other like them that need saving just not all Muslim women. If our government wasn’t there for their own agenda, but was there for the reason first lady Bush stated in her weekly addressed which was to free the women of Afghanistan from oppression, then maybe we as Americans could have made a difference for those women and

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