I Loved You!

saucedelahp:

“I will shoot sand in places that will make you cry - bitch”

Admittedly, I have as much knowledge about the X Men comic books as a man around Louis Vuiton high heels (admittedly, I do not have much knowledge about them either). However, I have always garnered an appreciation for comic books, and after watching X-men movies (apologies to die hard fans, apparently they suck compared to the comic books? True of most visual depictions of literature) my appreciation for them increased further. I can understand why someone would indulge themselves in the world of super-heroics, powers and ‘kicking the bad guy’s ass’ after all, the ideology of justice in our world has somewhat - distorted. Plus who DOESN’T want some sort of bad ass powers? Especially in your time of need, for example being able to fly so you can make it in time to your court hearing, or being able to read your dates mind (I hope he doesn’t pick up on my stalker vibes) or just being able to make a shit head disappear (also can be applied to when on a date or at a court hearing).

What prompted me to blog about X-Men in particular was that I came across a character called ‘Dust’ (I can just hear some fans saying ‘seriously? NOW? Talk about slow…’) and I fell in absolute bias love with her! I am not going to deny that the fact that she wears a hijab and a niqaab does greatly appeal to the Muslimah inside me! Or the fact that she makes the idea of covering your body somewhat - HOT! But also because she is a breath of ‘lenor laced’ fresh air in this ‘let it all hang out’ driven nymphomaniac society, (especially when some ‘let it all hang out’ because they have no choice BUT to ‘let it all hang out’ apparently gravity does you no favours when you age :/). 

As with anything that seems a bit ‘out of the norm’ many people have voiced opinions on her arrival, some saying ‘it’s an abomination to the Muslim women and the veil’ others saying ‘hell yeah kick-bad-ass hijabi is EXACTLY what we need,’ personally I am advocating the latter. 

What with Islamophobia on the constant increase (thanks to shows like politichicks - credibility is not their aim at all) and stereotypes being constantly reconfirmed through individuals, the Muslim community needs to become much more approachable rather than further isolating ourselves from everyone. We need to appear in more common places such as TV programmes, character in books/comics and in films so that we can become relatable to those outside of the realms of Islam and create a general interest stemming from curiosity rather than ignorance. With characters like Dust/Sooraya Qadir or the show ‘Little mosque on the priarie’ or books like ‘The kite Runner,’ ‘Birds without wings’ and ‘A thousand splendid suns’ people get to see that Muslims are like every other average Joe and Jane. That we too experience the same life experiences as a non-Muslim does, that there can be commonality between two people from different faiths and walks of life.

However, there will always be a few assfaces that will use this to portray Islam in a negative light, but that’s true of all things that is deemed as ‘alienary’ to the masses, that shouldn’t deter the idea of Islam having a much more relevant presence aside from the inaccurate and tiring associations with extremism, terrorism, bombs, mountains, never-wear-trousers and beards. 

And to those, who view Dust as an inaccurate depiction of Muslim women. Well to a certain extent she is, not all Muslim women observe the hijab or niqaab, not all women dress in a particular way and wear the colour black at all times, and not all Muslim women can shoot sand like there’s no tomorrow. It is incredibly naive and foolish to expect Sooraya Qadir to be a generalised representation of all Muslim woman around the world. After all, the essence of uniquity can never be accurately depicted by one character but one aspect of it can be and should be celebrated.