I was really hoping that this was an April Fools joke or that the Femen FB page had been hacked. But, no. They genuinely seem to be under the impression that is a good idea; that it is brave for a bunch of white women to post topless pictures of themselves online; that there is no racism at all in their statement below [taken directly from their FB page]. I've blogged my concerns over Femen before including their forays into racist, colonialist discourse. I am genuinely perplexed as to why they are garnering support from women. The media I understand: after all, the Sun has made it clear that breasts sell newspapers but for feminists, like Kira Cochrane, to take Femen seriously and not mention their racism, well, it frightens me. Have we become so immune to Islamaphobia and racism that the statement below seems acceptable?
If Femen are the new face of feminism, I want no part of it. Racism won't liberate women. It's just the same old patriarchal bullshit.
Femen's statement:
We have appealed to the world for support and the world has answered! The fate of the Femen - Tunisia activist Amina Tyler has shaken up and united thousands of women across the globe. Amina's act of civil disobedience has brought down upon her the lethal hatred of islamists inhuman beasts for whom killing a woman is more natural than recognizing her right to do as she pleases with her own body. For them, we now see, the love of freedom is the most dangerous kind of psychiatric illness, one demanding radical forced treatment in the spirit of fascist punitive medicine. The "Arab Spring," for the women of North Africa, has turned out to be a frigid sharia winter that has deprived them of what few political rights and liberties they enjoyed.
Stoning and flogging, kidnapping and rape, forced psychiatric treatment and other sorts of physical and psychological torture are what the new Sharia Caliphate has in store for women. The union of religion and state gives rise to inquisitions, and inquisitions ignite the purgatorial bonfires of religio-political terror, bonfires burning with the bodies of women as fuel -- such is the message the bloody history of medieval theocracies cries out to us. Any educated, free-thinking woman is, for [the inquisitors], a witch deserving of condemnation and murder. [Muslim men] shroud their women in black sacks of submissiveness and fear, and dread as they do the devil the moment women break free to light, peace, and freedom. Religious dictatorship begins by enslaving women, but a woman's act of self-liberation is the first step toward destroying the sharia regime. Topless protests are the battle flags of women's resistance, a symbol of a woman's acquisition of rights over her own body!
Femen declares the 4rth of April the day of relentless topless jihad against Islamism!
Show solidarity with brave Amina Tyler from Tunisia! Come to the embassy of the Republic of Tunisia and protest topless, with "My Body Against Islamism!" written on your body, take a photo of yourself, and post it on your social network page, as well as on the Femen Facebook Fan Page at http://www.facebook.com/Femen.UA.
This day will mark the beginning of a new, genuine Arab Spring, after which true freedom, freedom without mullahs and caliphs, will come to Tunisia! Long live the topless jihad against infidels! Our tits are deadlier than your stones!
Stoning and flogging, kidnapping and rape, forced psychiatric treatment and other sorts of physical and psychological torture are what the new Sharia Caliphate has in store for women. The union of religion and state gives rise to inquisitions, and inquisitions ignite the purgatorial bonfires of religio-political terror, bonfires burning with the bodies of women as fuel -- such is the message the bloody history of medieval theocracies cries out to us. Any educated, free-thinking woman is, for [the inquisitors], a witch deserving of condemnation and murder. [Muslim men] shroud their women in black sacks of submissiveness and fear, and dread as they do the devil the moment women break free to light, peace, and freedom. Religious dictatorship begins by enslaving women, but a woman's act of self-liberation is the first step toward destroying the sharia regime. Topless protests are the battle flags of women's resistance, a symbol of a woman's acquisition of rights over her own body!
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