Nadeine Asbali would be the first to say that a scarf on a woman’s head doesn’t define her, but in her case, that’s a lie. Nadeine’s life changed overnight. As a mixed-race teenager, she had unknowingly been passing as white her entire life: until she decided to wear the hijab. Then, in an instant, she went from being an unassuming white(ish) child to something sinister and threatening, perverse and foreign.
Here, we ask her some questions about her new book, Veiled Threat: On being visibly Muslim in Britain.
Why did you decide to wear the hijab?
At first, my decision to wear the hijab was a reaction to my struggles to fit in with either side of my identity. Growing up with an English mother and a Libyan father felt like being marooned between two islands, neither of which I quite belonged on. After coming to terms with the fact that I’d never be English enough or Libyan enough, I felt pulled towards my faith identity instead. Wearing the hijab was my way of beginning to embrace the faith that had been only a backdrop to my childhood.
What does it mean to be ‘visibly’ Muslim?
The hijab is the most politicised item of clothing in the world. From societies to governments to individuals, it seems that nobody is entirely impartial about it. Being visibly Muslim means navigating life constantly caught between stereotype and expectation. We are perpetually seen as victims to white feminists and the enemy to western states, bodies to be controlled and policed and bodies to be unveiled and objectified. Being visibly Muslim means that we face the brunt of Islamophobic attacks in public, that we become used to not standing at the edge of the Tube platform because we have seen one too many videos of a hijabi being pushed in front of a train and that we are presumed to be both oppressed and threatening wherever we go.
Why is the book titled ‘Veiled Threat’?
I chose the title Veiled Threat because I think it perfectly encapsulates the paradoxes and hypocrisies that Muslim women are subjected to, day in, day out. The phrase ‘veiled threat’ means a danger that is obscured or hidden, and that is exactly how the state and society at large often perceive Muslim women – that we are ticking time bombs ready to destruct at any given moment. Yes, we are seen as passive and mute victims, but we are also seen as anti-British, terroristic others.
How has wearing the hijab affected your sense of self?
The hijab has empowered me to refuse to articulate my own sense of worth and understanding of who I am in the language of an inherently racist system. As soon as I went outside with a covered head, it became clear to me that my home country of Britain has no interest in acknowledging me as belonging, as being native to the very place I was born. And that opened my eyes to what I could never see as a child: that Britishness isn’t granted by birth or by passport; it is possessive and it demands absolute acquiescence to its myopic rules and if, like visibly Muslim women, we refuse to conform, it rejects us entirely. As harrowing as that revelation was, I’m glad I went through it because it taught me to find my sense of worth in my faith and personal convictions rather than in something as flimsy as the whims of a nation state.
What frustrations do many Muslim women experience in Britain?
Muslim women are tired of being spoken over and spoken for. We are tired of being someone’s victim, someone’s political mascot and someone else’s bogeyman. We are tired of politicians using us as the butt of political jokes and of our bodies being used to justify military intervention abroad. We are tired of the white feminists salivating at the sight of us burning hijabs in Iran but remaining silent at the growing piles of our bodies in Gaza. We are tired of being thrown under the bus by misogynists in our own community and of fighting for something as simple as a space to pray in a mosque.
Veiled Threat: On being visibly Muslim in Britain by Nadeine Asbali is out now.
Discover more books on religion here or click here for a selection of feminist books.