unguided tour

In yesterday’s New York TimeS Martha Nussbaum’s gives an excellent analysis on the undemocratic and islamophobic principles governing bans on Muslim veils and burqas in many Western European countries. Read her essay “Veiled Threats” here

Read my “An Argument for the Burqa” here

On June 20, 2009 Neda Agha-Soltan, a student at Teheran’s Islamic Azad University is shot by Iranian police on her way to join an antigovernment protest march. She is 26 years old. Someone films her dying on the street, and immediately uploads the video on Youtube making Neda Agha-Soltan the symbol of the student protests and a martyr for democratic reform in Iran. (more…)

The primal screen is a Christian fantasma.
I must be careful not to impose it onto cultures which have incorporated their own religious beliefs, and which have developed ideas of the nature of woman as well as the function of visual images different from mine. (more…)

The other day I appeared on Austria’s national public radio, ORF. I was invited to talk about Austria’s increasingly stereotypical + despiteful perception of foreigners, especially those from muslim countries. I stated the obvious: in the current political climate ‘the foreigner’ + ‘the orient’ are projections of our difficulties to come to terms with changes in our own societies. Once we understand that we are strangers to ourselves, once we comprehend that the foreign dwells within ourselves, we will be able to create a platform for a dialogue with immigrants from muslim (and other foreign) countries. (more…)