Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam

Jack Smith

Rating: really liked it
Ben Affleck should read this

Noor Grewal-Virk

Rating: really liked it
An important book at this point in history. Simply put we western feminists need to put our fears aside of being labeled as racists and bigots because our sisters in Muslim majority countries are anticipating our support.

If these horrible atrocities can happen to a girl child in Canada, one can only imagine what’s happening in countries where women have very limited to no rights.

Yasmine’s memoire throws light on our own hypocrisy. Our western values are there to build up female empowerment, lgbtq rights, freedom of speech, etc, but somehow in our zeal to be tolerant, we are unwittingly supporting extreme far right wing ideology of fundamental Islam. It’s time to get our liberal values in check again, and start defending the minorities within minorities... such as women, lgbtq people, and freethinkers.

Good luck to you Yasmine, it was obvious from your story that you are still healing. My best wishes to you!

Kate

Rating: really liked it
The subject of the book is very difficult, but the book itself was easy to read. The author tells her personal story, adding general information about the situation in Muslim-majority countries, showing that her story is not unique, but is actually common around the world. Her personal story of abuse is a specific illustration of a general trend. She, however, was born in Canada, and she was betrayed by the Canadian court in the name of political correctness.
It is hard to imagine that such things happen, let alone in the West. It is even harder to learn that the West allows and even supports it. I will not say much about the appalling abuse the author has survived – you can read about it yourselves. I will rather mention some of the takeaways for me from this book.
The first is how wannabe feminists & liberals are failing those who need them most in the name of PC, cultural sensitivity & religious freedom. How they are being nothing but racist out of fear to be perceived as such. If a child is white, she should be protected from abuse. But if she is "brown", of Middle Eastern or foreign origin, then let her be abused! They only care about women and LGBT rights as long as fundamental religious feelings are not concerned. When white western women of Christian descent are abused, it is wrong; when it happens to Muslim, brown, Middle Eastern, or immigrant women, "it's their culture".
People who want to consider themselves liberal should avoid double standards. People who claim to oppose racism should apply the same standard to all people, of all races. "All little girls bruise, regardless of ethnicity". All women & girls should be protected, not only white ones. Denying some girls protection because of their ethnicity or culture is nothing but racism. Cultural sensitivity is hurting minorities within minorities, e.g. women & LGBT living in Muslim communities. Saying that abuse is ok if it is done by someone from a foreign culture or within a minority community is actually saying that it is ok to hurt a person as long as they are Muslim (in this case).
The case when the narrator was denied protection by the authorities and handed back to her abuser to keep abusing her is just one example of the general mindset of pseudo-liberals & pseudo-feminists. Another one is the typical reaction of the "liberals" to any attempt to criticize or reform the state of affairs in the East (Muslim-majority counties). People doing so are often labeled "Islamophobic" or "racist", even when they are themselves Muslim or represent an ethnic minority! Western (often white) people feel entitled to tell them what they should and shouldn't say about their own cultures! Do they really believe that only western women deserve rights & progress, while others shouldn't even try to reform their societies? Who are they to tell women of Islamic background that criticizing their own culture is racist?!
Another takeaway is the following: "With no legitimate problems to overcome, they [young Western women] invented problems so they could fulfill their desire to solve them". When there seem to be no real issues for them to solve, they make some up! But there are real problems for them to solve! They just don't want to address some issues out of fear, so they invent some fake ones to look busy and distract themselves & others from their inactivity. This way they look like activists without having to do any real work & without the risk of facing any real, potentially dangerous consequences. Unlike the ones they betray. They celebrate the brave Western feminists of the past, yet ignore contemporary feminists in the East. True feminism & liberalism must be global: we can't fight abusive practices in the West while supporting them in the East.
The author brings up the role of the internet & social media in connecting with other people, getting information and transforming lives. With internet as common as it is today, ignorance is now a choice.
The books reminds us that these ideas of misogyny, homophobia and hate travel across borders. People who move to another country do not magically change their mentality once they cross the border. It is important to not demonize the entire faith, but we should not let our fear of sounding insensitive make us betray Muslim liberals & liberals in the Muslim world. We should not allow them be tortured and abused & their voice to be silenced in the name of political correctness, cultural sensitivity & fear of hurting someone's feelings. Living people should be more important than religious sentiments. Criticism does not equal 'hate'. Pointing out the negative aspects of a system of belief is not "bigotry". Denying someone protection from abuse justified by that belief is bigotry.
Let us come together on the basis of ideas, not identities.

Jeff

Rating: really liked it
In the acknowledgements in Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam Yasmine Mohammed thanks Ben Affleck "most of all" for his "off the rails tirade" on Bill Maher's show Real Time for inspiring her to take up activism and ultimately write this book. Affleck called fellow guest Sam Harris' strong criticism of Islam (not Muslims) gross and racist. (Since when is criticizing a religion "racist"?). No matter whose side you fall on, this book is worth reading. Once started, it is hard to put down. The book’s notes state that it is part Infidel (I need to read this) and part The Handmaid's Tale. She pulls no punches in her criticism of fundamentalist Islam and western liberals who fail to recognize the true nature of how these unenlightened patriarchal societies treat women.

I've heard Yasmine on a couple of podcasts so I knew bits of her story prior to starting the book. Although she was born in Canada, she was raised in a strict fundamentalist Islamic home. She ended up moving to and from Egypt a few times growing up as she was subject to the whims of her highly irrational mother. Her mother and fathers (referred to as "uncles" in Canada where a woman can only have one husband) were very strict and were advocates of corporal punishment (on parts of the body where teachers couldn't see the marks) and mental abuse, all in the name of and in accordance to Islamic laws. The slightest mistake would be enough to trigger a flogging, usually with hands and legs tied, and one time hanging from a hook. Seriously. Life didn't get easier as a teenager and young adult under her mother's roof. Her mother treated her as an enemy. Imagine having someone who says they hate you pick your future spouse. The chapters about her life in Egypt as a young Muslim girl were equally interesting and poignant. Much of her life story is hard to read. You'll cringe when you read what happens after a teacher in Canada discovers that she is being physically abused. Spoiler alert: human rights abuses are OK if they are "cultural norms.".

In addition to telling her life story, Yasmine attempts to shed light on the Quaran which I've never read but should, and in the final chapter, Hope, she calls out the western liberals who are doing more harm than good by not addressing the harm done to women who are treated as property in these radical patriarchal societies. My favorite quote from this chapter is as follows: "Barbie, once a beacon of femininity and feminism, now dons a hijab so she won't entice men who might rape her. Marks & Spencer, one of the UK's largest department stores, and Banana Republic sell hijabs for girls. The free West, where these brave girls used to look to as a beacon of light and hope, is supporting their oppressors and ultimately fighting against their progress. In Saudi Arabia, woman are burning their niqabs. In Iran, women tie their hijabs on sticks and way them silently, defiantly in the streets as they are arrested in droves. In the West we put a Nike swoosh on hijabs.

Five stars for this brutal, eye-opening book. What an strong and brave woman.

Mars Cheung

Rating: really liked it
An important book that deals with an issue that must be discussed in an ethically responsible fashion.

I heard about Yasmine's story a year or so ago, via online discussions in a variety of podcasts. I was familiar with some aspects of it with regards to her dealings with religious dogma and her journey both towards atheism and a free life here in the West. The read was an extremely difficult one as she detailed out significant events of her life dealing with the abuse/horror stemming forth from Islamic fundamentalism. The sad thing is that her story is not a unique one, with many other women subject to the same conditions that made her life a living hell. The book is an extremely important read as it shines a light on those suffering under human rights abuses in the name of religion. Between the outright bigotry on the political Right and self-righteous sanctimony on the Left(hence the title), necessary conversations regarding Islam that must be discussed in nuance have become nearly impossible. In addition to Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel, this book is a way to stir the conversation forward in a defense of both the people who do not fall into the fundamentalist camp and the liberal values of free-thought, feminism and religious freedom we hold dear in the West. Highly recommended read.

Jasper Burns

Rating: really liked it
I picked up this book after listening to Yasmine on Sam Harris’s Making Sense podcast. Halfway through that podcast I sent it to my family. Immediately finishing it, I picked up her book. Thirty-six hours later I finished it.

What a compelling story, one much in the vein of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infidel. Most terrifying is she endured many of Ayaan’s worst troubles, but in Western Canada, not Somalia. These stories of women living in devout Muslim households are always heartbreaking. The pain of that ideology was all the more amplified by a psychotic mother.

Also heartbreaking was the Canadian system’s inability to help her. Sexual misconduct, severe domestic abuse, and general oppression were ignored due to the unfortunate support for moral relativism. Yasmine clearly and passionately paints the picture that those most wanting to undermine racism are those perpetuating it: the Canadian government would have quickly extricated a white child from such an abusive household, but because Yasmine was Arab, such abuse was legally permitted. Different treatment based on race—is this not the definition of racism?

In her words: “People in Muslim majority countries are just trying to progress their culture in the same way Western culture have. You have been able to abolish slavery. You have been able to fight for women’s equality. We just want to do the same. Why is it that when we try to progress, suddenly it’s a bad thing? We get called Islamophobic for criticizing Sharia and pushing for change. Why should we have to retain our misogynist, homophobic cultures? Cultures… are meant to be changed with human progress. That is not a bad thing. It was not a bad thing for you and it is not a bad thing for us.”

While this is and important message and subtitled on the book (“How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam”), these notes were secondary to the immersive and honest biographical narrative. You follow her from childhood on as she shares her most private thoughts. This is to include those which are naive and embarrassing in hindsight. She discusses her handicap in much of what it's like to live a normal life, and her slow triumph to recover decades later.

Yasmine’s story is not a typical one; I’d guess a small minority of Canadian Muslims go so far as to dress with full niqab. But many of her experiences are not atypical either, especially for women in Islamic nations. Uncountable #freefromhijab tweets and similar stories underline the oppression that women feel the world over. Blatant double standards, objectification, and persecution of women are not uncommon, and are often the norm in many of these countries; she cites research that 99.3% of Egyptian women report being sexually harassed. The Pew research on Sharia and apostasy, which I've read elsewhere, are likewise jaw-dropping.

You should read this book. It is one of my favorites this year. If you will not, please at least listen to Yasmine on Episode 175 of Making Sense. You will not regret it.

View my best reviews and a collection of my mental models at jasperburns.blog.

Mikey B.

Rating: really liked it
As a young girl Yasmine had a horrid upbringing. Her mother was relentlessly oppressive (psychologically and physically). She actually got married against her will and had a child (daughter) thinking that finally her mother would accept her – maybe even love her. She finally, after many years, realized that this was never going to happen – and gathering all her strength, and her daughter – left.

It took her several years to reconstruct herself and to realize the paradigm of Islam and the familiar severe constraints that had surrounded her was all a mirage. She removed her burqa and then her hijab.

As she mentions, if she had not been raised in a Western democratic city (Vancouver, Canada) this breakthrough and liberation would have been far more difficult, indeed lethal.

She upbraids Western society for providing too many exceptions to the Islamic religion. As she says (page 270) “Religious rights cannot supersede human rights.” As a young teenager in high school she appealed to the authorities (via her high school) to be placed in a foster home because of the brutality (physical beatings and sexual abuse) that was inflicted on her by her mother and step-father. She wanted desperately to leave this horrible situation, but was refused. The “authorities” gave the reason that corporal punishment was permissible in certain “cultures”. As she says, if she had been from a culturally “Canadian” household she would have been removed to outside care and criminal charges could have been brought against her mother and step-father.

I could not help feeling as I was reading this that not all Muslims undergo an upbringing that the author underwent. The last time I was at the hospital I was interviewed and examined by a young female Muslim intern whose parents obviously valued her and educated her.

But this is a powerful account of young girl who maintained her individuality and developed the resilience when she became an adult to escape her cultish rigid upbringing.

Page 39 (my book)

In whatever culture, if Islam is the dominant religion, there are variations of the word eib (shame) being spat at girls…Girls are all hearing this because the families honour lies with the girls in the family – specifically between the legs of the girls in the family.

Girls are how the level of a man’s or his family’s honour is measured. The more control he has over his wife and daughters, the more honourable he is. It is his responsibility to guard his family’s honour by making sure the women in the family dress modestly by covering themselves up in hijab, and that they act honourably by keeping their voices low, keeping their eyes downcast, by being demure. The most important aspect of honour is a girl’s virginity. It must be guarded at all costs. Girls must not ride bikes, horses, or engage in sports lest the hymen break.

Nafiza

Rating: really liked it
The style and honesty are worth two stars. It's that the author takes horrible instances of abuse and claims it's all of Islamic thought behind it rather than the parent's abuse and sect behind it. It paints a biased look that, instead of focusing on the horrors of abuse and abuse of religion, pushes a stereotype weaponized by all sides.

To say "my Muslim parents abused me greatly and this is what I want people to understand" is entirely on the level. Claiming all families are like the authors and saying "because Islam"fuels lies and hate.

Ujjwala Singhania

Rating: really liked it
When the feminists, of the first world nations, couldn't find a real issue to fight, they channelized their energizes into made up causes of equality like Free The Nipple movement. They failed to see and appreciate that their is no dearth of women who are crying out for help in their own backyard. Women who are being sacrificed in the name of religion, customs and family honor.

When feminists of the free nations campaign for and celebrate the Hijab Day. When prominent brands come up with products which lauds the custom of hijab and sanctify it in the popular imagination as religious and personal choice. It feels like a blatant insult of the handful women who are putting their lives at risk by saying no to hijab in Iran, Iraq and other Islamic nations. A disrespect to all those women who want their voices to be heard and usher in the new Era where they can have a fraction of the personal freedom enjoyed by their sisters in western countries.

Stories like this are to be told in an effort that we as a society look hard within us and take an honest stock of ourselves. To ensure that what happened to Yasmine and what is happening to many innocent child like her across the world should not happen to any other kid anymore. But stories like this are still not easy to narrate and it is definitely not easy to read and accept that human beings are capable of so much hate, depravity and brutality.

Yasmine's story is not an isolated case. When the first world nations, who take a high moral ground on all issues related to human rights, are silent on any rights violation wrt one community, it seems farcical. It's even more disconcerting when challenged they chalk it up to religious freedom and conveniently look the other way.

The author throughout her narration posed so many legitimate questions that if the self proclaimed protectors of human rights, the self styled warriors of social justice and are very own dear feminists, all of them were put on dock, they would be unable to look themselves in the mirror anymore.

Lefess

Rating: really liked it
All you Western pseudo-feminists out there have to read this.

All you pathetic little cowards who celebrate hijab while many women are beaten into wearing it, should read this and do some self-reflection.

Every time you celebrate hijab and burkini and silence atheists and ex-muslims, you have ex-muslim women's blood on your hands. Every time they're beaten, mutilated and killed and yet you all still continue to support this religion of madness, you have their blood on your hands.

Think more and do some damn research about Islam before you open your fucking mouth.

Andrew

Rating: really liked it
"Religious rights cannot supersede human rights"

What a powerful book. Kudos to Yasmine for narrating her experience. While a memoir might sound like a walk in the park, 'Unveiled' is not a typical one. I understand that the author still faces risks for writing and publishing her memoir. I wish I could be as brave as Yasmine.

'Unveiled' also questions Western liberals for their silence and sometimes complicit behavior in encouraging regressive and medieval practices.

This a must-read book, especially for those in the West.

Laurel

Rating: really liked it
5 stars for the concept. As an ex-Mormon (a church where modesty is heavily emphasized for young women, though not to the extent that their lives are in danger), now liberal in pretty much all the ways, I am baffled at the way Islam has become an icon of freedom and feminism in the West. WHAT? Are you kidding me? Modesty laws NEVER EMPOWER WOMEN. Especially when the doctrine states that they can be killed for not upholding those laws. So you say women should have the choice to wear whatever they want, and when it’s Christians preaching modesty or buying into that bit of rape culture, you rally against it. Where is the choice for women in the Middle East? Or even in the West, when their religion is emphasized to an extreme? It is infuriating. Women who’ve never personally faced dogmatic patriarchal religion cannot completely understand. We should be fighting the dangerous misogyny, not supporting it. We should not perpetuate and accept the shaming of women and package it under “feminism” “liberalism.” When culture and religion is damaging and dangerous, yes we SHOULD question it. I was brainwashed too. One thinks it’s a choice. But one only thinks that because of the myths taught to them which say that women should be hidden. What does that lead to? Men blaming women for their own crimes, male-led groups and congregations, silent and terrified women, who look to the west and see other women flaunting the fact that they do have a choice, rather than fighting for the ones who don’t.

This is not something we should be celebrating in America.

The author’s story of reporting her own abuses as a child, and being turned away by the judge because he refused to disrespect the family’s “culture”... it’s harrowing. If you didn’t feel chilled by that, I’m surprised.

It is Muslims who are most hurt by Islam.

True empowerment will be the death of religion, the death of brainwashing, the death of any unhealthy and powerful group.

Note: 4 stars because it wasn’t the best writing; read more like a series of blog posts. That didn’t make it any less interesting, but it wasn’t 5-star quality, necessarily.

Dan Graser

Rating: really liked it
Oof. Reading the life of Canadian ex-Muslim activist Yasmine Mohammed is quite affirming in the power of personal strength and the reformative perdurance of reason, but also a wake-up backhand when it comes to the inadvertently censorious nature of discussions of Islam faced by the true reformers within the religion and culture. These thoughts have also been well-articulated by Ali Rizvi, Asra Nomani, Maajid Nawaz, and Yasmine Mohammed contributes a harrowing personal account of these issues.

Growing up in a fundamentalist household with a depraved mother, depraved polygamous and vacant father, constant physical and psychological abuse, abandonment (literally abandoned in Egypt at one point), constant demonization, all culminated in a forced marriage to an Al-Qaeda operative, no, this is not an exaggeration. This story is told in a very direct and raw fashion that not only serves to make the notion of this happening in a "Western" society (Canada) all the more shocking, but also admittedly is being used as a cathartic experience for the author. Good for her and we are all better for being able to understand at least a portion of this experience.

The concluding notions on how to properly engage with this issue - especially for those of us who have no place, identity or history in that culture/religion - and the resources available to those who feel trapped in the same manner the author did will likely have an ameliorative effect for many. The temerarious tendencies of many when discussing this issue results in this either devolving into sheer bigotry or just being an undiscussed "hot-button" issue, Yasmine Mohammed breathes an air of fresh fire into this debate and does so with a personal story that we all wish couldn't still be true, but needs to be heard.

Alex

Rating: really liked it
More of a book about her life and experiences than the social commentary I was expecting. However the former was possibly more impactful on me as it happened in my own backyard; Canada. It’s easier to read about how bad things are when it’s not happening in your own world. This book is a real eye opener and I think it would do a lot of people good to read this. At the very least it presents a second side to the debate, one that is often drowned out in PC culture.

Mary Kathleen

Rating: really liked it
Yasmine was very brave in writing this book and I want to be clear about how much I respect her. But, at the same time, I very much feel like that this is NOT the book it is marketed to be. The title of this book is absolutely a misnomer. It is very, very much a personal memoir. Her discussion of “how western liberals empower radical Islam” is pretty much limited to a few brief, sardonic asides about white guilt and a handful of stats.

Plainly, this book is a memoir, and Yasmine fails to offer much meaningful commentary on the tension between Western liberalism and radical Islam because the book is so entrenched in her personal experiences. I don’t mean to suggest that her personal experiences aren’t meaningful, or worth writing about—they are, and there’s certainly a market for that (it just isn’t me). But yeah, if you’re going to market this book in the way that it has been marketed, that’s a pretty big failing.

The thing that I kept thinking while reading this book is that, well, you could take the account of any girl from any fundie Christian family and probably have a lot of very similar material. The one difference being, liberals are lots more comfortable condemning one of these two narratives, although as I said, Yasmine’s treatment of this very real phenomenon is so abbreviated (and so flippant) that I really have trouble understanding why the book is subtitled as it is?

Again, I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic to Yasmine or the abuse she endured, AT ALL. But this book presents a very bold thesis, and the evidence presented by this book in support of this thesis just isn’t sufficient. I’m not making any comment on the rightness or wrongness of this thesis, just saying that the contents of this book fail to prosecute the case compellingly.

(FYI, for what it's worth, I find that there is a much more thoughtful, balanced discussion of Islam, liberalism, and the tension therein is contained in the book Islamic Exceptionalism by Shadi Hamid. Although rather less gripping than Yasmine's book, I do think it's well worth a look if the lack of data and analysis in this book was a real sticking point for you too.)