My vision, my decision | Fatima Ezzahra |
Transcript
00:00Good afternoon. One of the most frequent questions a Muslim woman is asked every day is,
00:13Are you married? Have your parents forced you? Or has your husband forced you?
00:20These are questions that you really say, please, not today in the 21st century.
00:27These are absurd questions.
00:29Well, yes, I have been asked the first day I went out on the street with a veil if I was married.
00:36It was Thursday morning. I went out like every day, with a change of look.
00:41One more garment, different.
00:44I felt observed, rejected, watched.
00:50And what surprised me the most was that I met a well-known person.
00:55I stopped to say hello, as always, and she asked me, Are you married?
01:00I was like, I don't know, why are you asking me? Where is the husband? I don't see him. The ring?
01:07And she says, no, you're wearing the veil, I don't know, are you married?
01:11Well, I didn't really know what to answer.
01:14I got nervous. It was the first day I went out like this, dressed, different.
01:19And to be asked that, I didn't know what to say.
01:23Well, at that moment I realized that I have to face, that I have to explain to more than one person
01:30why I have to wear the veil, or why I want to wear the veil.
01:35I realized that I have to respond to my friends, to my colleagues, to the acquaintances, and to the strangers.
01:43I realized that I have to be strong, brave, and free.
01:49Now I'm going to answer the question you all have in your heads,
01:52why did I put this ring on the veil at 19 years old?
01:57Well, simply because I decided to look more about my religion.
02:03I was Muslim, obviously, but I didn't practice.
02:06I decided to look more, read more, know more, and I liked it.
02:10I found what I wanted. I found what I was looking for.
02:14And I decided, without thinking twice, to put on the veil.
02:19I didn't care about everyone, I didn't care what others would think about me, and I put it on.
02:25Even my parents were surprised.
02:28I mean, not only the people who didn't know me well, but even my own parents,
02:32who are Muslim by birth, were surprised.
02:35They thought it was strange, this change, so timely.
02:40And my mother was very worried.
02:43She said to me, Fatima, are you going to be able to bear the rejection of society,
02:48your friends, your colleagues? Are you sure?
02:52At that moment, I didn't care about anything.
02:54I mean, what I wanted was to wear the veil.
02:56As much as she told me to leave my mother, I didn't care.
03:01Well, yes, I changed schools.
03:04Because I didn't want to avoid uncomfortable situations,
03:09having to answer to this, to this, to the other.
03:12But even so, I found the same questions, the same situations, in the other school.
03:19And I had to do the same thing I was going to do before.
03:22But the truth is, I didn't have a bad time.
03:25I found good classmates, good teachers.
03:28It has been a good experience.
03:30I have learned a lot of things.
03:33But yes, there is always the lack of respect.
03:38Not respecting a person who decides to wear a veil.
03:42Because if I decide, I am happy like this, what difference does it make what others think?
03:47What difference does it make if I wear a piercing, a tattoo, a veil, pink hair?
03:52If I am like this, I am happy.
03:55What do you care?
03:57It doesn't bother you, does it?
03:59I don't think it bothers you that you see me dressed in another garment, right?
04:03With a piercing either.
04:05It is something normal and common nowadays.
04:07Besides, we are in a time when everyone puts on or dresses the way they want.
04:14And nothing happens, obviously.
04:16But no, when a person, a Muslim woman, decides to wear a veil, yes, it happens.
04:22We still don't understand why.
04:25But it is what it is.
04:27It is the society we live in nowadays.
04:29And the most difficult thing, or the most difficult side of wearing a veil,
04:35in this society, in Galicia in particular,
04:39is the rejection.
04:42The way they look at me.
04:44What they think of me.
04:46That if I have a bomb in my pocket,
04:48that if, I don't know,
04:50we don't have everything,
04:52that if my phone has a flat,
04:54we don't have everything.
04:56It sounds unreal, but it is.
04:58Because we experience it every day.
05:00People who know people wearing a veil,
05:04Muslim people,
05:06maybe they will understand,
05:08or maybe it will sound familiar to some.
05:13And also, what we don't understand yet,
05:15is that we are in the 21st century,
05:17when a person sees a Muslim woman with a veil,
05:20the first thing that goes through her head is
05:23she's uneducated, she's weak, she's retarded, she's stupid.
05:28Of everything, except the good.
05:30Of everything, except what we really are.
05:32Because after all, we are women, we are people.
05:35We are free to say what we want.
05:38If I decide to put on the veil,
05:40or if I decide to be free in my own way,
05:43it's my decision.
05:45It doesn't matter.
05:47And one of the...
05:49As I was talking about people who think we are uneducated,
05:53or that we are weak, uncharacteristic,
05:56I'm going to tell you about a situation that a colleague of mine,
05:59a friend of mine, has experienced.
06:01She's a quality manager.
06:03She had an inspection, and she had to talk to the director.
06:06She wears a veil.
06:08And she had to talk to him, explain things to him, and so on.
06:11And when she started talking, the man spoke to her with gestures,
06:14as if she didn't understand him.
06:16She thought he didn't speak Spanish.
06:18So the man started talking to her with short sentences,
06:21with verbs without conjugation, and with gestures.
06:24You know, you understand, you go this way.
06:26And the girl was like,
06:28but let's see, speak to me normally, please, I understand you.
06:32It's a very uncomfortable situation.
06:34It makes me stupid to wear a veil over my head.
06:37It's unfair.
06:39Because really, the Muslim woman does have studies.
06:42The best Muslim woman does have goals.
06:44She does have a future.
06:46And that's why I'm showing you a photo of a policewoman in the United States,
06:50who is allowed to wear a veil there.
06:53A policewoman can wear a veil.
06:55She can work like that.
06:57Because she's a woman, she's a person.
06:59What else does the way she dresses matter?
07:02As you can see, she's a sportswoman, right?
07:05She's one of the Moroccan champions who also wears a veil.
07:10Another girl who's studying and wears a veil,
07:12she's doing a career.
07:14She has goals.
07:16She wants to get to a certain point.
07:18And she's going to get there.
07:20As we can see, they're doctors, right?
07:22They've gotten there, they've managed to do it,
07:24and they're working with their veil on.
07:26On the other hand, here in Spain, you can't.
07:28Here in Spain, in a hospital,
07:30you can't see a nurse or a doctor with a veil,
07:34because they don't let you.
07:36We don't understand.
07:38We can't understand.
07:41Here we see businesswomen, right?
07:43They're businesswomen who have their own companies,
07:45or directors of companies who also wear a veil.
07:48Because the veil doesn't prevent us from being ready.
07:50It doesn't prevent us from working.
07:52It doesn't prevent us from achieving the same things
07:54that women who don't wear a veil achieve.
07:56Because my hair, or the veil, sorry,
07:59doesn't give me...
08:01I'm not better than a girl who doesn't wear it.
08:04I'm not worse than a girl who doesn't wear it.
08:06We're still people.
08:08The rest doesn't matter.
08:10Clothing doesn't matter.
08:12And they're judging us for our clothing,
08:14for what we wear.
08:16And I'm also going to tell you about a situation
08:18that I experienced a couple of months ago
08:20here in Galicia,
08:22specifically in Pontevedra, in the Plaza de Peregrina,
08:24which I'm sure most of you know.
08:27We've set up a training table, right?
08:30Explaining a little bit about Islam,
08:33correcting people's wrong ideas about Islam.
08:36We set up the stand,
08:38I put the car next to it,
08:40I was taking out the books,
08:42and a 40-something-year-old lady came up to me
08:44and said, can I ask you a question?
08:46And I said, yes, of course.
08:48And she asked me how I drive and wear a veil.
08:51Which is something incompatible,
08:53something that can't be.
08:55And that's when you say...
08:57I didn't understand the question directly.
08:59I had to say, sorry, what?
09:01It's incompatible.
09:03And the answer we gave her,
09:05both me and my colleagues,
09:07was that the veil covers my hair,
09:09it doesn't cover my mind.
09:11I keep thinking, I drive,
09:13it doesn't cover my eyes.
09:15I see, I can drive.
09:17So these are situations,
09:19these are things that really give us grace.
09:21Because when you live it, it gives you grace
09:23and you don't care about anything.
09:25But when you think about it,
09:27and you think about the society we live in today,
09:29we have studied at least up to that, right?
09:31We have to respect each other at least.
09:33We don't want to be shared,
09:35nothing less.
09:37Just respect.
09:39And I think everyone,
09:41and I think you think the same as me,
09:43that we all deserve to be respected.
09:45Whether we are Muslims, Jews,
09:47whatever.
09:49But we do deserve to be respected.
09:51Thank you very much.