Elnaz Rekabi competes without hijab at Asian Championships in solidarity with Iranian protestors.

Wali Kwrote:

It's crude that he's is bringing up arguments like "for them, going without a hijab is like going topless", but in the above comment, he has a real point with regards to having discussions of Hijab through a culturally chauvinist lens.  Like seriously, he's perhaps the only one here who's heard of Orientalism.  

I don't know if anyone in this thread wears a hijab, is Muslim, or is adjacent to Muslims in a meaningful way to have a personal experience around the complexities of head scarfs.

Having traveled extensively in Muslim countries, lived and worked in several of them, climbed with Muslims there, and having myself covered when in certain regions, I can tell you that the majority of Muslim women do not in any way support forced hijab - not anywhere in the Muslim world. Laws that force women to cover or which legally define how they must dress are just one example of how the rights of women are infringed in places like Iran, a relatively minor one compared to discriminatory laws that, for example, permit marital rape or which subordinate women under the authority of their husbands (as the Iranian civil code does). In Western countries, laws that ban covering *also* infringe on the rights of women, depriving them of free choice in religious observance. 

The women of Iran are rising up because if they *don't* wear the hijab, agents of the regime can kidnap, rape and kill them with impunity. This is literally what has happened to spur the protests. Amini was even wearing a covering, she was just wearing it slightly "incorrectly." The protesters, many of them teenage schoolgirls, are being rounded up and arrested, and when their parents go to the prisons to visit them and ask if they need to bring them food or anything, they say, "No dad, I'm fine. But could you please bring us some abortion pills?" because once in custody the guards beat and rape them. Elderly and religious women who have remained happily covered the entirety of their lives are now taking off their hijab to make a powerful statement that they also stand against these atrocities. They take off their hijab and sit on the ground, and yell to the guards, "You can kill me next." 

This is why Rekabi climbed without a cover, to show solidarity with those expressing defiance against the regime's authoritarian power. Can we just for a moment recognize her heroism? And also the heroism of the schoolgirls and grannies who are daring the regime to kill them? 

We don't need to make our own determination of the symbolic meaning of hijabs, the Iranian women are already doing that, and it's farcical to suggest that the regime's actions could possibly be legitimate, whether you've read Said or not. 

Jess Bwrote:

This is why Rekabi climbed without a cover, to show solidarity with those expressing defiance against the regime's authoritarian power. Can we just for a moment recognize her heroism? 

In what is otherwise an excellent post I take issue with the above. Unless you have spoken directly to Rekabi or Rekabi has made a public statement affirming why she was not wearing a head cover you are making an assumption to fit your narrative. To date the only statement I have read:

A female Iranian climber who competed with her hair uncovered did so because her hijab fell off "inadvertently", a post on her Instagram account says.

She has continued to state that publicly. One can make what they want of that. That said, it would appear that Rekabi is now under house arrest.

Allen Sandersonwrote:

In what is otherwise an excellent post I take issue with the above. Unless you have spoken directly to Rekabi or Rekabi has made a public statement affirming why she was not wearing a head cover you are making an assumption to fit your narrative. To date the only statement I have read:

She has continued to state that publicly. One can make what they want of that. That said, it would appear that Rekabi is now under house arrest.

If you watch the competition video, you'll see that there's no sign of her being rushed out to climb unexpectedly or of her hijab falling off and that even after she finished climbing she sat and chatted with the other competitors without putting on a hijab. She appeared comfortable without it the whole time.

Jess Bwrote:

This is why Rekabi climbed without a cover, to show solidarity with those expressing defiance against the regime's authoritarian power. Can we just for a moment recognize her heroism? And also the heroism of the schoolgirls and grannies who are daring the regime to kill them? 

We don't need to make our own determination of the symbolic meaning of hijabs, the Iranian women are already doing that, and it's farcical to suggest that the regime's actions could possibly be legitimate, whether you've read Said or not. 

Whelp, i was almost done composing a lengthy note to round out my initial comment when i accidentally refreshed the page.  Rewriting my comment right now-- 

But, I'm actually on entirely the same page as Jess (who is by no means a problematic poster in this thread...)  Let's all keep amplifying voices supporting Iranian protesters resisting state persecution

wendy weisswrote:

If you watch the competition video, you'll see that there's no sign of her being rushed out to climb unexpectedly or of her hijab falling off and that even after she finished climbing she sat and chatted with the other competitors without putting on a hijab. She appeared comfortable without it the whole time.

My point is that Jess (and you) are making assumptions. None of us were there.

A core project of liberal democracy (multi-party systems, checks and balances, an independent judiciary, as well as specific constitutional provisions) is to defend individual choice and ensure equal protection under the law. This is a just approach to ordering society insofar as it promotes inclusivity and equity and blunts the abusive potential of powerful interests.  

Rekabi's act of defiance against the Iranian clerics and the establishment of their religious ideas and norms in the political order of that country is admirable for its bravery, considering that she gets none of the protections that citizens of liberal democracies enjoy, however imperfectly.

What a complicated and fraught choice it must have been for her in light of the competing loyalties it would have forced her to reconcile as a practicing Muslim, daughter of her parents, citizen of her country, international athlete, and role model to young Iranians who are marching in the streets amidst bullets and tear gas and terror.

trailridgewrote:

Religion can't destroy humanity, but they sure try in Iran. 

It can, and is doing so in a lot more places than Iran

You understand how MP’s “community guidelines” work when they redact routes names because of their names yet let wildly ignorant posts circulate.

Hypocrisy at its finest.

Thanks Tradiban for trying to provide people some commonsense knowledge.