Gender racism and headscarves

Just after the 17-A attacks, I attended a closed-door meeting where a prominent member of the ERC party uttered the following statement: "The proof that Catalonia is a land of welcome is that next term we will have a handkerchief in the Parliament." A handkerchief, he said. Not a woman with a degree, a master's degree, and professional experience of immigrant and Muslim origin. No, for him (a man), what stood out most about Najat Driouech (who, by the way, I will always be grateful for letting me have the notes of the subjects we took together during our studies) was what she had in her head. This is how a party with "republican" in its name turns into multicultural fetish the symbol of women's oppression by religiousizing citizens, especially women born in Islam. Equality. Identity of men's power over women his women. We thus become more of ours that from here. Maybe receptions, but marked, cornered, and assimilated into the religious ghetto. Driouech visited mosques during the election campaign, with the audience segregated, and was presented to us as "the first Moroccan member of Parliament," when, in fact, in the same legislature, another woman achieved exactly the same feat: Salwa El Gharbi. The latter's activism for Amazigh women went nowhere; no one took her as a role model, nor did anyone celebrate her breaking the glass ceiling imposed by her origins. What's the difference between the two? El Gharbi isn't covered up, and since she isn't covered up, she's no longer representative. In other words: she's not a proper Moor.

That it is the left-wing formations that want to assimilate us to fundamentalism and give importance to the dense fabric of norms that oppress us is the greatest disappointment I have had in my life, the discovery of a gender racism disguised as inclusion and tolerance that allies itself with our executioners. tribe, including the girls who yes, very Catalan, very from here But we don't give a damn that they live in a system of supervised freedom where they can't participate normally in society and must wear the political-theocratic symbol imposed on them by their families. Because when we talk about headscarves and girls, we can't talk about free choice. No girl freely chooses to brand herself with that textile border that separates her from others wherever she goes. And even if she did choose, our duty as adults is to protect them and ensure they are raised equally.

Now, let Junts not boast about this issue, because I can't recall a single time they've come out to defend immigrant women. On the contrary: during the worst moments of Mas's cuts, I spent all day receiving calls from women crying, women whose benefits were being withdrawn, who weren't allowed to register their citizenship, or who were locked out of the classes they were attending. You want to remove the headscarf from the classrooms? I agree, we protect girls, but so what else? What do we do about their social conditions? What do we do about urban segregation? About school segregation? How do we prevent violence? How do we address institutional, social, workplace, and housing racism? Could the very honorable members of Parliament, regardless of their political party, put themselves in the shoes of the girls and women who live in this context? I only ask this: that they look at the world through their eyes, that they put themselves in their shoes, and that they speak from here and not from partisan and self-interested disputes.