Zunera is a fashion blogger based out of Washington D.C. Her blog is all about fashion, inspiration and confidence. Fashion to her is a continuous process of revamping one's confidence and style. The goal of the blog is to discuss everything from women's issues, fashion and share her life’s journey with the readers.
I am outraged by yesterday’s terror attack in Paris on a French satirical magazine. Religion is a personal choice and no one has a right to kill someone for not agreeing with someone's belief. My heart goes out to the victims and family members of Charlie Hebdo. I AM CHARLIE
For those of you who may not know I was born and raised in a muslim family while, I no longer feel the need to belong to an organized religion, I have always respected and stood up for all faiths including Islam. Islam is a faith followed by more than a billion people but days like today make me want to start screaming and saying that we need to come out of ancient times. Today Pakistan’s High Court has upheld the decision to hang Asia Bibi. A christian mother of five who is convicted of blasphemy. The dispute escalated and she was given the option to convert or suffer the consequences of defending her faith. It is despicable to hang someone for using some words, everyone has a right to express their opinion. A coward judge in Pakistan gave into extremism and has decided to take the life of a poor mother for saying something that she has consistently denied and even if she said it what’s the big deal? Is your faith really that shallow that the only way to protect is to kill anyone who says any ill about it? I have noticed that the so called modern, influential and educated muslims either don’t have an opinion on this matter or they simply don’t want to openly express it in fear of retaliation from their own family and friends. So my question is why and how do we expect to defend a faith with others when we don’t speak against these atrocities and protect those who are in suffering in the name of our faith? It is my appeal to my entire liberal muslim community to wake up, speak up and educate yourself. Changes need to be made to the certain Islamic laws and the interpretation of these laws. Just saying that it is a book of God that needs no changes is not enough. The words in the Quran can be translated & interpreted in many different ways, these subjective theories need to be interperted according to current times, so that we can stop living in the past. Blasphemy laws are definitely one of those laws that needs to be completely abolished. It is only used to settle personal vendetta’s and nothing else. No one has a right to dictate what someone else says or thinks, a person’s opinion on how they feel about a certain faith or people is just that, their personal opinion and as long as it is not physically harming someone they should have a complete right to fully express it.
Jennifer Lawrence thank you for not apologizing. It is truly sad that we live in a world where powerful women feel the need to apologies for their bodies and what they do with it. Being from south Asia I know first-hand what it means to blame the woman for everything and anything sexual and sadly its other women who are doing it. Although I have been living in the US for 14 years I still get appalled by the idea that just like in underdeveloped countries; women here are the first one to raise a finger and say 'well if she had not taken the picture it wouldn’t have happened" I want to stop these women right there and say do you really hear yourself. Are you really suggesting that a woman should change her ways rather than men practicing self-control? The minute we think it’s a women's job to be modest to protect herself it becomes a slippery slope because definition of a modest women varies a great deal for every man, culture & society. For example in Saudi Arabia a woman is modest when she is wrapped in a black cloth from head to toe and even in 100 degrees weather she has gloves and socks on. In Pakistan, in most areas just wearing sleeveless is out of realms of modesty.
I am an immigrant who moved from Pakistan to USA 14 years ago. I am a self-made woman who stood on her own two feet have a job and loving family. I am considered modern by my countries standards just because of what I choose to wear then two years ago at age 30 I finally decided to pursue my dream and started a blog Zunera & Serena which was the ultimate crime. Although it was with my 5 year old daughter the hate mail started coming in with comments like "What are you selling" on my daughter's picture if that was not sufficient I received most offensive message directed at me from death threats to just nasty comments. I kept going and on my blog kept writng about not just fashion but women's issues. I do not know what else to do. Here it is all over again and this time even more vicious. I am hurt. Not broken Not shattered because I am too strong for that. This is not the first time it has happened but probably not last either. it all started by me posting a picture on FB and within seconds the first comment popped up 'R u muslim?' usually I delete & block comments like this because I know that they only stir up drama and nothing else but lately I have tried to address this issue and was not shocked to being called that "this is why women like me get raped because we post nude pictures like this" If that was not enough I was told that I will lose my "virginity' because of pictures like this. I am only bearing my shoulder and its still a nude picture to them. When a close relative came to defense she was also called names threatened to be raped and that somehow they found her college information and she better "watch out" I live in US but she lives in Pakistan. I know she will be just fine. She is an aspiring writer and a very strong young women and there are so many of them in Pakistan. I keep moving forward because it is my life and I want to set a great example for my daughter so she can pursue whatever she wants in life. I just want other women to know that it is not easy but we should never ever let someone else's hate change our way of life.