WOMEN MARCH IN LONDON, UK 4MAR19

WOMEN’S MARCH 2019

On 3^rd I was finished with my deployment in the ancient city of Chania in Greece and on 4^th I was scheduled to fly to London to participate in the Women’s March organized by the Mayor of London.

I wanted to show him that Pakistani- American are nothing less than the Brits. 1300 Euro, 8 hours of detour and I routed my flight via London to join the march!

I was not expecting a huge Muslim turn around. The Muslim religion provides women with great rights. Heck, it was the first dominate religion to establish women suffrage and others soon followed. It is certain traditional practices in the Muslim dominate countries that oppresses women in the wrong name of Islam. Born in a country that made leaders like Fatima Jinnah, fighters like Mukhtar Mai, activist like Malal Yousafzai, lawyers Asma Jahangir, Diplomats like Naela Chohan and mothers like Naz Ansari I was down to join the march.

 

Trafalgar square was a hot spot. People in thousands if not hundreds came to join the march. I wasn’t the only foreigner in there. I met some Australians, Hungarians, Brits, Mericans, Canadians and what touched my heart our Desi’s.

I moved from one group to another group, everyone enjoying themselves and showing their support for equal women rights. I mean why not ? Stop this pay inequality! If a women works same as men then she should get the same pay. If a woman works better than any men counterpart then should be the first to be selected for promotion ! There are thousands of examples, so stop this gender discrimination not only in one country but in every country. Women have been around as long as men and should be treated as equal as their male counterpart!

 

I was extremely tired from the flights from Athens and Chania and the commute from the Heathrow airport so after a quick halal burrito lunch break. I went back to join the march. Here Allah guided me to a Muslim Women’s group. These women were from groups like Humraz and Muslim Women’s Network UK and they were from all over UK most of them from Blackburn, a 6 hour drive on English roads. These women were eager to point the problem in the Muslim community, where Muslim under the influence of their ancestoral practices and society enforce their cultural practices in the pseudo name of Islam. These include but not limited to forced marriages, child marriages, honor killing, oppression of women’s voice, domestic abuse and etc.

 

In lay man terms, Islam is Allah guidance of easy and halal way of life. If certain tribal culture is modifying it to make it sexist in order to secure dominance of men and oppressing the women to maintain the status quo, then sincerely Fuck them. That;s not islam, and them praying five times a day does not exonarate them from wrong doing, cheats and sexist acts ! Islam was made for both Male and Females and this group made this point. I was proud to notiuce that the group comprised of women from all ages. Ladies as young as 8 year old to as old as late 50’s participated in this group. Let me tell you, It was a very diverse group with women from UK, Pakistan, India, Middle East. One would say that such Islamic group will only wear hijab, not this was a group that advocated women’s freedom and some sisters were wearing hijab and some wearing western attire.

Finally, I interview one of the lead of the group who enlightened me more about the groups, its aims and the means of achieving these goals. The interview can be found here:

 

Interviewed over, I hugged the sweet lady and off I went to the huge group of Iranian men and women protesting the current regime as a machismo administration. The 79’ revolution did change the middle eastern country radically, an oppressing regime was removed with a bloody revolution and yes Iranian women did lose a lot of rights provided under the constitution of the shah’s ruthless regime. My recommendation,  Iran –pretty please give our Muslim/non-Muslim sister their rights! Being a Muslim country you shouldn’t oppress women fundamental rights or the Coupe’ De Etat that toppled the Shah’s may just come back. So pretty please avoid the bloodshed, give our sister their rights. Islam dictates to follow religion and the era , learn from Turkey be more moderate.

The march ended few minutes before the sundown and that’s when I headed back to the airport to my evening flight to Chicago, US.

The women march in London made me a better man. It allowed me to see the extend I as a Pakistani-American Muslim and a Men will go to defend the rights of Women of all places. In doing so I made a bunch of friends, Brits, Desis and foreigners alike. I also got to see the Trafeagle square packed with passionate people basically reenacting the time when it was built to celeberate  the defeat of Napoloan’s fleet by the Royal Navy. Though I understand that we American do not come off as pro-women rights due to our recent administration, but I assure you we are passionate about women’s right as any one of the person at that march, and we are still the same beacon of freedom that brought an end to slavery, racial inequality and gender discrimination in workspace. Inshallah, these kind of marches bring about a change and make the lives of my fellow Muslim/non-Muslim sisters better in every corner of the world. I am talking about you IRAN.

Much love.

Ali Ansari.