I flew into Riyadh in 2010 for an ill-fated stint as an English teacher in the Kingdom.
Upon arrival, the customs officers in the airport took a fine-tooth comb to my belongings, in search of not just standard illicit materials but in search of Christian items such as Bibles or Crucifixes or whatever else.
This they do to all incoming foreigners, as they do not tolerate anyone spreading the Christian faith in the Holy Land, which is punishable under the strict laws of Sharia.
Depending on the mood of the border guard, they might allow a single Bible or other such personal articles of faith for the heathens to use for their private religious practice in the strict confines of their fortified compounds, where all Westerners in the Kingdom live due to terrorism concerns.
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While in the Kingdom, not once did I ever see a female face. All of them were covered at all times, as was every other body part save for the hands — and even some women had gloves on those — which gave the women the appearance of apparitions in the desert, something not quite human.
I mention all that to say: I wonder how many brave and stunning protests this hijab lady has staged against the brutal authoritarian regimes of Islamdom — or whether she saves her bravery for the West, where she won’t get stoned to death for expressing critical political views.
Via The Guardian (emphasis added):
Australian boxer Tina Rahimi has hit out at France’s hijab ban, which prevents French athletes participating in certain sports at the Olympics from wearing religious head scarfs.
“Women have the right to choose how they want to dress,” Rahimi, who took part in the Paris 2024 opening ceremony on Friday, wrote in a post on Instagram. “With or without hijab. I choose to wear the hijab as a part of my religion and I am proud to do so.”…*
France has a long history of seeking to regulate or ban the wearing of religious items, politically justified in the name of laïcité (secularism).
Rahimi will make her Olympic debut on Friday in the women’s featherweight division. She won bronze for Australia at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, and is the reigning Pacific Games champion.
*For the sake of argument, let’s stipulate that the hijab may be an optional expression of one’s religion in the West (although a Muslim woman’s family reserves the nuclear option of exporting her to the motherland for an old-fashioned honor killing where such things go unpunished as an act of cultural privilege). Such fashion choices are not available in the Muslim world, where women are forced under penalty of law to wear certain articles of clothing at the risk of, again, death in some cases.
Furthermore, is France a sovereign nation or not? It has its own laws, whether they are simpatico with the neoliberal ideology or not. France has been notoriously secular for many, many years at this point, enforcing sanctions of public religious spectacle not just against Islam but all religions.
On top of all of that, this lady is a guest in France, not even French herself; instead, she's (nominally) Australian.
The sense of self-entitledness should shock the conscience.
