In statues and other public art, a nation celebrates its heroes and delineates its values. That’s why the conflict over statues continues to rage so heatedly in the U.S.; as the left imposes its sinister socialist and globalist vision upon us, we see statues of George Washington pulled down and statues of George Floyd put up. Across the pond, they’re also engaged in a large-scale redefinition of what the nation is all about: in one English city, a statue is about to go up celebrating women who wear the hijab. Welcome to the New Britain, or more precisely, Sharia Britannia.
The UK’s Independent reported Monday that “a new sculpture believed to be the first of its kind in the world will be unveiled next month to celebrate women who wear hijabs.” This masterpiece of the Brave New England, or Airstrip One, as it was called in Orwell’s “1984,” is called “The Strength of the Hijab,” and is the work of someone whom the Independent calls “renowned sculptor Luke Perry.”
Why is the symbol of discrimination and oppression of women glorified in the West under the guise of "inclusive society"?
Next month, a new statue, reportedly the world's first of its kind, will be unveiled in a setting near Birmingham, UK, in honour of women who wear the hijab.… pic.twitter.com/IJagh33qxb
— Darya Safai MP (@SafaiDarya) September 20, 2023
Renowned? Really? An Internet search for “Luke Perry” only turns up results for the late star of “Beverly Hills, 90210.” But Luke Perry the sculptor will certainly be renowned before too long, if he isn’t already, as long as he keeps pandering to the spirit of the age. He has done just that, in spades, with “The Strength of the Hijab,” which is slated to go up in the Smethwick area of Birmingham next month.
The Independent gushes that “it is believed to be the first sculpture in the world of a woman wearing the head covering, worn by many Muslim women,” and that’s no doubt true since Islamic countries that enforce Sharia rules requiring that women cover their heads also forbid representational art. Then there’s also the fact that such countries also generally have contempt for women, who can, according to the Qur’an (4:34), lawfully be beaten if one merely fears that she will become disobedient. So they’re unlikely to celebrate the “courage” of women who wear hijab, even as they require women to do so.
Try as they might, people who have the misfortune of living in Smethwick or visiting this cutting-edge locale will not find it easy to miss Perry’s celebration of the oppression of women. The Independent says that “the sculpture is five metres tall and weighs around a tonne.” The allegedly renowned sculptor explained: “The Strength of the Hijab is a piece which represents women who wear hijabs of the Islamic faith, and it’s really there because it’s such an underrepresented part of our community, but such an important one.”
Yeah. Meanwhile, in Iran, women are dying for the freedom not to wear the hijab. And in Birmingham, witless leftists are celebrating the symbol of their oppression.
Back on Sept. 16, 2022, in Tehran, the Iranian morality police arrested Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, for not wearing her hijab properly. Amini later died in a hospital in Tehran, and numerous Iranians charged that she had been tortured to death while in custody.
All over the country, protesters took to the streets to protest not against the hijab laws, but against the repressive and brutal Islamic Republic itself. Other women, and male protesters as well, were killed as the Iranian regime ruthlessly applied the Qur’anic injunction to “strike terror in the enemies of Allah” (8:60). The protests went on for months until the regime began summarily executing protesters, and even then some indomitably courageous Iranians continued to take to the streets to demand their freedom.
It is against that backdrop that this statue will be set in place. For innumerable women in Iran, the hijab is the most visible sign of their second-class status, and of the brutality of the regime that will imprison them for years or even kill them outright for daring to venture out in public without wearing it. And now that symbol of oppression is being celebrated in shattered, staggering, dhimmi Britain.
Meanwhile, none of the women who have been brutalized or even killed for not wearing the hijab are getting a statue in Smethwick. Aqsa Parvez’s Muslim father choked her to death with her hijab after she refused to wear it. Amina Muse Ali was a Christian woman in Somalia whom Muslims murdered because she wasn’t wearing a hijab. Forty women were murdered in Iraq in 2007 for not wearing the hijab. Alya Al-Safar’s Muslim cousin threatened to kill her and harm her family because she stopped wearing the hijab in Britain. Amira Osman Hamid faced whipping in Sudan for refusing to wear the hijab.
Related: Newark, N.J. Resolution Proclaims ‘World Hijab Day,’ and This Year, That’s Particularly Grotesque
An Egyptian girl, also named Amira, committed suicide after being brutalized by her family for refusing to wear the hijab. Muslim and non-Muslim teachers at the Islamic College of South Australia were told they had to wear the hijab or be fired. Police shot women in Chechnya with paintballs because they weren’t wearing hijab. Other women in Chechnya were threatened by men with automatic rifles for not wearing hijab.
Elementary school teachers in Tunisia were threatened with death for not wearing hijab. Syrian schoolgirls were forbidden to go to school unless they wore hijab. Women in Gaza were forced by Hamas to wear hijab. Women in London were threatened with murder by Muslim thugs if they didn’t wear hijab. An anonymous young Muslim woman doffed her hijab outside her home and started living a double life in fear of her parents.
Fifteen girls in Saudi Arabia were killed when the religious police wouldn’t let them leave their burning school building because they had taken off their hijabs in their all-female environment. A girl in Italy had her head shaved by her mother for not wearing hijab. Other women and girls have been killed or threatened, or live in fear for daring not to wear the hijab.
And now one British city is celebrating the symbol of their oppression. Bravo, Birmingham.
