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'People grab our veils, call us terrorists and want us dead': What it's really like to be a Muslim woman in Britain

Islamophobic attacks have been on the rise ever since 9/11, but it is mostly women being attacked, a recent report suggests. Ava Vidal shares stories from British Muslim women who face everyday awful abuse

May 6 2014

“It is something I have got used to since 9/11. From being called Osama Bin Laden to Paki-terrorist I have heard it all,” Zab Mustefa, a British Muslim journalist, who specialises in women’s rights and culture, tells me.

Since the terrorist attacks on New York City that brought down the twin towers, it seems life has not been the same for Muslims that live in the western world. Suddenly there was a spotlight shone on Islam when most non-Muslims had barely given it a second thought before.

“Either you’re with us. Or you’re with the terrorists,” announced the then president of the USA George W Bush in a sombre tone at a press conference following the attacks.

And many people decided that all Muslims were against ‘us’. Everything was under scrutiny. Their style of dress, their beliefs, their way of life. People that had never even read the Qu’ran believed they had more knowledge than Islamic scholars.

“Look at the way they treat their women!” is a statement that I often hear. “Forcing them to cover up. Not allowing them to go out alone and controlling everything that they do.”

“What about Saudi Arabia? They don’t even let women drive!”

But it’s a false perception.

I am not denying that there are countries where the predominant religion is Islam where women are treated badly. But patriarchy is the problem, not Islam. In Islam, the rights of women were recognised much earlier than they were in the West.

In any case, we in the UK don’t come up smelling of roses when we examine the inequality between the sexes either. A UN human rights inspector recently declared the sexism in the UK to be more ‘pervasive’ and ‘in your face’ than any country she has ever visited and that included some Muslim countries.

What I find totally abhorrent is the fact that since concern for Muslim women is so often cited, how come they are the targets of so much abuse in today’s society?

Here is a Science fair project presented by a girl in a secondary school in Sussex . In it she took filtered water and divided it into two parts. The first part she heated to boiling in a pan on the stove, and the second part she heated to boiling in a microwave. Then after cooling she used the water to water two identical plants to see if there would be any difference in the growth between the normal boiled water and the water boiled in a microwave. She was thinking that the structure or energy of the water may be compromised by microwave. As it turned out, even she was amazed at the difference, after the experiment which was repeated by her class mates a number of times and had the same result.

It has been known for some years that the problem with microwaved anything is not the radiation people used to worry about, it’s how it corrupts the DNA in the food so the body can not recognize it.

Microwaves don’t work different ways on different substances. Whatever you put into the microwave suffers the same destructive process. Microwaves agitate the molecules to move faster and faster. This movement causes friction which denatures the original make-up of the substance. It results in destroyed vitamins, minerals, proteins and generates the new stuff called radiolytic compounds, things that are not found in nature.

SOME KID’S CLASS PROJECT IS NOT REAL SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. YOU’VE HEARD OF “DOUBLE BLIND”, RIGHT? CALL ME WHEN IT’S PUBLISHED IN NATURE.

the structure or energy of the water

what the fuck does that even mean you realize that a water molecule is made up of three fucking atoms and if you rearrange it it isn’t water anymore and you would fucking notice

the problem with microwaved anything is not the radiation people used to worry about

Here is a handy diagram I drew of all the different types of radiation:

Microwaves != nuclear reactors, so calm your tits.

it’s how it corrupts the DNA in the food so the body can not recognize it

…do you understand what DNA is and how eating works? DNA is a jumble of protein in the middle of each cell and it tells the cells in that particular organism how to make more cells. Your body does not care about whether your food has any DNA in it or not. The chemicals it cares about are things like vitamins and sugars, as well as inorganic shit like salt.

(You can denature DNA by heating it or using chemicals like urea. It is like what happens when you fry an egg, which is basically a big glob of protein—the strands break apart and it looks like tiny white strings. Very cool.)

Microwaves agitate the molecules to move faster and faster.

I…just…that is the fucking definition of heat, whether you’re heating something over a flame or in a microwave or using the Sun. The difference is that microwaves mostly affect the water molecules in your food and they don’t need to use as much heat. Water boils at 100°C, which is just about as hot as water can get before it just turns into steam; but that’s like the lowest setting on your oven. Oven- or stove-cooked food tastes different partly because it uses higher temperatures and partly because heat is transferred in a different way.

This movement causes friction

That’s not what friction is.

It results in destroyed vitamins, minerals, proteins and generates the new stuff called radiolytic compounds, things that are not found in nature.

Let’s take these one at a time.

Vitamins are classified as water-soluble or fat-soluble. So cooking things in water will dissolve the water-soluble vitamins (C and all the B’s). Just plain heat doesn’t do that, so microwaving veggies—which keeps the water in—is actually a healthier option.

Proteins: Breaking the chemical bonds in proteins (denaturing) is a part of any cooking. However, denatured protein is still nutritious—that’s why you can meet your protein intake with foods like fried eggs and baked chicken.

Minerals are just chemical elements, like off the periodic table—sodium, iron, potassium. (Vitamins and proteins are very complex combinations of elements.)

Which brings me to the “radiolytic compound” bullshit. When you talk about breaking apart, say, iron—you’re talking about breaking down the iron atoms themselves. Which is a whole lot different than breaking the bonds between atoms. It takes hella radiation. You need shit like gamma rays—the OOOH SCARY NUCULAR radiation—which we’ve already established do not come from your microwave.

things that are not found in nature

What the shit does that even mean? You all know radioactive elements occur in nature, right? In rocks and also in living cells. That’s right, you have this radioactive kind of carbon INSIDE YOU. You get it by eating those delicious plants. We can tell how long ago something died by how much of it is left.

Tons of shit that occurs naturally is horribly bad for you. And tons of shit that never existed until we cooked it up is great for you—like the chemical compounds in a lot of medications.

PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE THIS SHIT ARE WHY CHILDHOOD DISEASES THAT CAUSED SERIOUS ILLNESSES AND/OR DEATH THAT WE NEARLY ERADICATED WITH VACCINES ARE NOW COMING BACK AND WHY CONSPIRACY THEORIST TWATS ARE ASKING CITY COUNCIL NOT TO FLUORIDATE THE WATER AND WHY GLOBAL WARMING WILL WRECK OUR FUCKING PLANET.

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