On the 8th of March, at the anniversary of the International Women’s day, an attack was launched by the Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, on her Facebook page on Muslims, claiming that “social control of immigrant women has to be resisted by all. A country cannot have the belief that all values and traditions are equally good”. The word “immigrant” is commonly used in Denmark by politicians to refer to Muslims.
She was followed by Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, the chairman of the former ruling liberal party, Venstre, who in an interview with the Berlingske Newspaper said: “I don’t give a damn about the culture some people have been raised with. No matter the culture, no matter the religion, the women and their families must accept the Danish values. Men and women are equal in Denmark.” In the interview he made it clear he was talking about the “religion of Islam” and the Muslim culture.
Comment:
Politicians in Europe seem to use any occasion or opportunity to stigmatize Muslims. This time, disguised as championing the women of the world and fighting for the liberty of Muslim women, they launch an attack on Islam and its family values.
They claim that the Western woman has been liberated from the oppression against her, and therefore the anniversary of the International Women’s Day should not be used to talk about oppression against the Western woman, but rather to talk about the oppression against the Muslim woman, as it is she, who according to their lying claims, is still living on the oppression of backward Muslim men who still live mentally in The Middle Ages. They are calling for a crusade to liberate the Muslim woman from the “shackles” of the Hijab and modest behavior Islamic behavior, which they claim to be enforced by Muslim men.
The reality of the matter, however, is that the Western woman is still being oppressed, and signs of that oppression are evident everywhere in Western societies. A report in 2014, conducted by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, showed severity of sexual harassment, sexual abuse and assaults on women in Europe. Denmark was among the countries which topped the list as over 50 % of all Danish women have experienced sexual harassment or sexual assault.
Among other signs of the degradation of the Europe is the huge amount of sexual trafficking. EU countries reported 15,846 victims of human trafficking between 2013 and 2014, 76% of which were women and girls, according to a European Commission report. However, the actual number of victims could be far higher than the ones reported. Two out of three (67%) registered victims were trafficked for sexual exploitation. In Denmark it is believed that over 120 female sex slaves exist. The Danish politicians felt, however, it was more important to legislate a ban on the niqab, which about 30-50 women in the whole country are believed to wear, to “liberate” them from Muslim values.
The legalization of prostitution, strip clubs and pornography in Europe, as well as widespread degradation of women in the fashion, movie and music industry is in itself a testimony of what the Western culture has to offer women, not to mention the high statistics of rape and domestic violence against women.
This surge against the so-called oppression of Muslim women by European politicians is to hide the ugly face of the misery, which Capitalism has inflicted on Western women to keep people away from realizing how Islam dignifies and honors the woman while she is treated as sex object in the West. This surge has, however, failed gravely as more and more Western women chose to convert to Islam and liberate themselves from the shackles of Western culture and its horrendous female ideals.
Taimullah Abu Laban