Last month a truck jihad attack by Islamic terrorists killed fifteen people in Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia. In the wake of the attack, local media outlets hunted for picturesque Muslims to interview about the reaction of the Muslim community to what had happened.
The young woman below is one such interviewee. Notice how well-versed she is in the multiculti lingo — diversity, difference, exclusion, stigmatization, etc. She’s a fitting spokescreature for Modern Multicultural Catalonia.
Pampasnasturtium, who translated the interview for Gates of Vienna, includes this note about the aftermath of the slaughter in Barcelona:
If you ever wondered what happened in Paris, London, etc. to those huge piles of phony garbage (teddy bears, candles, etc.), well, Barcelona is cleaning them, classifying them, digitalizing them all, and storing them safely in the Museum of History of the city — so the archaeologists of the future may have a slightly less puzzling picture of how we committed civilizational suicide.
The translated article from the Catalonian daily El Punt Avui:
Cheima El Jebary Amisnaou — Multicultural Muslim Youth Association
“We have no young imams who know the streets”
“If we don’t want any more Younes or Driss to escape us we have to give them the tools to make them feel they’re someone and an education in those values they believe in”
“When they tell me ‘Go back to your country’, I don’t know where to go to. We’re neither from here nor from there”
“We the young prove that we’re capable of saying we’re Catalan Muslims of Moroccan background without disappointing”
[Caption: Cheima El Jebary, one of the young Muslimas who have their appointment books full these days to talk about their community]
Muslim guys and girls took the bull by the horns and came out repudiating the attacks of 17h and 18th of August. One of the organizers is Cheima El Jebary Amisnaou. She studies Social Work, takes part in different associations, and she’s an activist concerning gender issues. “Being the only hijab-wearing Muslim in class is not a success, I’ve left family and friends on the way,” she complains very critically.
by Sònia Pau — Barcelona
Cheima El Jebary (Barcelona, 1995) is the branches coordinator for the Multicultural Muslim Youth Association and studies Social Work at Barcelona University. She had just arrived back from holiday in Morocco on Thursday the 17th, when fifteen persons died in terrorist attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils.
| Q: | How do you feel? | |
| A: | I feel much sadness and anger. Still motivated to continue making my voice heard with young Muslims and Muslimas of Catalunya because of what has happened. I try to be positive, and I feel very proud of the Catalan people and of the Muslim youth who on Monday after the attacks showed that we’re prepared to face the future. | |
| Q: | Back then after 13-N in Paris [Bataclan massacre] you complained about Muslims having to justify themselves. Is it now your turn? | |
| A: | Thousands of us Muslims came out to Catalunya Square [most central and main square of Barcelona] to claim again the separation between what Islam is and what it is not. To condemn and reject that violence and hate may form part of our society. | |
| Q: | Is religion a problem? | |
| A: | Not for me. There’s freedom of conscience. The philosopher Martha Nussbaum says each person can believe what they please, provided they have values of loving others, doing what’s right, wanting peace… Understanding religion as a problem because you don’t believe in it amounts to wanting to make those who aren’t like you invisible. | |
| Q: | And what do you think when you see politicians talking of diversity? | |
| A: | I’d like to find ways to make it easy for young people like us to enter [political] parties, for example, and for diversity to be found there. Society is diverse, but public institutions aren’t. Being young, they tell you: “Attend college.” And furthermore: “How do you attend college while wearing hijab?” There’s an internalized idea that since we show ourselves as diverse women, we can’t be inside a space set up as monocultural. | |
| Q: | Given that you mention the subject: do you face issues because of the veil? | |
| A: | No. Maybe because I focus on it positively. I study Social Work to give a voice to girls who have faced those issues. There’s institutional and academic hypocrisy: high schools that ban the veil while teaching the Christian religion. | |
| Q: | On Twitter they say that Miriam Hatibi, the girl who gave a speech at the demonstration [this demonstration ], can’t be believed as long as she wears the hijab. | |
| A: | A man says it can’t give credibility to a woman. That’s male chauvinism. He refuses to accept that a woman may have power over who can see her and who can’t. Thinking the veil might weaken you is Islamophobia. The hijab empowers me, because I own a feature that makes me stand out. | |
| Q: | There still exists a strong “them/us” to differentiate Muslims from non-Muslims. And the question is integration… |
| A: | It’s a made-up talking point. What’s meant by integration? If I undertake an Erasmus [exchange program for European college students] and I speak English, will I be integrated? If your name is Cheima you can’t possibly have been born in Sant Pol de Mar? When they tell me, ‘Go back to your country’, I don’t know where to go to. We’re neither from here nor from there… Within the Muslim community they fear we might become Westernized… We the young prove that we’re capable of saying we’re Catalan Muslims of Moroccan background without disappointing. | |
| Q: | What happened to the Ripoll guys? [Four of the perpetrators came from that town in Girona province, relatively small, with some 10,000 inhabitants.] | |
| A: | If only I could know… Unexplainable. There’s an exclusion, stigmatization, poverty, invisibility. If at 17 you believe you’re nothing and someone deceives you, saying you’ll be remembered… It’s complicated: at home you’re a Muslim and Moroccan, out in the streets you’re a Muslim, Moroccan and Catalan. If we don’t want any more Younes or Driss to escape us we have to give them the tools to make them feel they’re someone and an education in those values they believe in. We have no young imams who know the streets. | |
| Q: | You’re very critical towards [the] school [system]. | |
| A: | They educate you to pass but not to be. Everyone has to be able to receive values according to their religion. | |
| Q: | Something must improve. | |
| A: | There are youngsters on both sides who recognize equality. Difference must not be an obstacle. At the demonstration women came to me and hugged me. We broke that barrier of “them/us”. |
100% taqiyya garbage from a hijabi entryist who is so ignorant that she is completely unaware her only use is as a tool for the implementation of sharia in Spain.
What a little snake. Educated carefully to push just the right buttons until such a time that their power has grown enough to quit lulling the unbelievers and show them their place.
This woman is another school example of PC labeling.
We as white Europeans who do not belong to the elite (= the overall majority of us) face exactly the same problems while being young. Feeling that you are “nothing” is quite common at the age of 17, when you wake up to the (at that moment in life) harsh reality that Mummy and Daddy aren”t going to be around forever to take care of you, but that you have to make it by yourself.
You don”t have to BE anything or anyone yet at 17, you”ll have to work in order to BECOME someone. And there are many ways. You don”t have to become a doctor, professor, film star or sportsman or succesfull business(wo)man. Being f.ex. a good plumber, bus driver, nurse or teacher are equally valid and respectable, I would say even more.
She says that they educate you to pass but not to be. Well, good morning. This is the way the education system works for every one. Learning how to BE is your own responsibility, not university”s.
“The philosopher Martha Nussbaum says each person can believe what they please, provided they have values of loving others, doing what’s right, wanting peace… ”
That’s not what Islam says, though, is it? Yet again a Muslim is interviewed by someone who does not dare ask any awkward questions. Yet again we do not get to hear the truth.
“She studies social work”
Code for she studies “anti-Western, Cultural Marxist B.S.”
Wearing the hijab in a Western society only shows to that society you do not want to be part of it. It is an act of ignorance at best and of defiance at worst. Why is it that perfectly western girls of islamic origin suddenly start wearing hijabs or even nikabs? Why would you give up the personal freedoms to be enjoyed in the West only to subject yourself to the rigid confines of islam? Why regress to the past and essentially give up your chances to live a full and independent life? Is our society so evil (haram) that you do not want to be a real part of it? Why not go to a country where islamic values are dominant if you really do not like the West? Why should western societies adapt to islam instead of the other way around? Would it have anything to do with the moral superiority muslims feel they have over the infidels? Could this be one of the reasons that in mosques all over Europe “followers of the religion of peace”are being instructed not to integrate and mingle with the natives and to be patient because “these lands will soon become yours”? Is this why every new mosque built in Europe is being celebrated as a victory over the infidels? The things this young girl says only show how well-indoctrinated she is by the islamofascists and how well this evil is being faccilitated by the political correct regressive left. Which by the way nowadays includes the traditional “center”and “right/ conservative parties”. Who are all terminally ill from the political correctness disease.
I disagree with the hostility of some other comments. I found this a very interesting interview; thanks to the translator. I did not know there were magazines published in Catalan.
Until Cataluña becomes a state recognised by the UN, she is, in theory, Spanish.
Not only has she been religiously brainwashed, but politically as well.
In Ms El Jebary’s jargon-laden answers, she twice refers directly to the concept of invisibility.
When asked, “Is religion a problem?” (which could have opened up a discussion of the Islamic inspiration in the Barcelona attack) she quickly diverts attention onto those who see religion as a problem because they “don’t believe in it.” She accuses these people (who could be atheists, or followers of other religions—she isn’t clear) of wanting to make those who aren’t like them invisible.
Although the question would have been more direct had it been phrased, “Is the religion of Islam a problem?” Ms El Jebary would likely have doubled down on her attempt to paint Muslims as victims of this purported campaign to make them invisible.
Later she claims that the Barcelona perpetrators suffered from “invisibility” (among other jargon-tinged conditions). They, apparently, are the victims here—not the dead and maimed.
From the above it’s obvious that she has “internalized” (to use another of her terms) her perception that Muslims are treated as invisible in Spanish society. In light of this, her praise of the hijab is telling: “The hijab empowers me, because I own a feature that makes me stand out.”
It seems that Ms El Jebary has an issue with perceived Muslim invisibility but she’s glad that the hijab draws attention to her so that she is invisible no more.
What happened to the female modesty and piety which we are continually told motivate hijab wearing?