Deborah Scroggins traveled across the world to Pakistan to investigate for her new book, “Wanted Women: Faith, Lies, and the War on Terror: The Lives of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Aafia Siddiqui.”

The Carnegie Religion and Media program invited Scroggins to speak at the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium on Monday afternoon at an event titled “Muslim Rage? How Extremists on Both Sides Empower Each Other.”

Gustav Niebuhr, founding director of the Carnegie Religion and Media Program, moderated the event, which was organized as a dialogue.

Journalistic dedication is not foreign to Scroggins, a respected journalist and author with more than 20 years of reporting experience for various publications such as Vogue, The Nation and the Sunday Times Magazine. She is also a recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and two Overseas Press Club awards.

The first portion of the discussion centered on Scroggins’ new book, which is a dual biography of two Muslim women, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Aafia Siddiqui, on opposite spectrums of an Islamic perspective.

Hirsi Ali was born a Muslim in Somalia. But when she was granted asylum in the Netherlands, her viewpoints drastically changed. Hirsi Ali is now known internationally as a staunch critic of Islam and a self-proclaimed atheist who has become a symbol of the Western view of Islam, Scroggins said.

Siddiqui is viewed as a symbol of Islamic victimization by countries with a Muslim majority because she is currently serving an 86-year prison sentence in Texas after she was captured by United States officials as a wanted terrorist. She has been called al-Qaida’s top female operative, Scroggins said.

One of the biggest disagreements between Western culture and the Muslim culture is the woman’s role in society, Scroggins said.

“It is two different groups with two different perspectives,” she said.

One of the most publicized disagreements can be found within the recent burqa bans in European countries such as France and Italy, Scroggins said.

“The West may view it as oppressive towards women; Muslims view it as protecting women,” she said.

The assumption that women do not have the right to choose whether to wear the burqa acts as the driving force behind these laws, Scroggins said. Some find the niqab, a covering worn by Muslim women that reveals only the eyes, a safety concern, Scroggins said, which convinced many Europeans to support these bans.

“I am not in favor of these bans,” she said. “If we stand up for our free speech, we must also stand up for the free speech of others.”

Wearing of the burqa or the niqab is freedom of expression, she said, which is a form of free speech.

Scroggins experienced these assumptions when she returned to Amsterdam, where she was living at the time, from a trip to Saudi Arabia, with a niqab for her daughter.

The niqab was going to be used by her daughter to celebrate the American holiday of Halloween, which many in Europe do not recognize, Scroggins said.

Her daughter dressed in the niqab Scroggins bought her, but when her husband brought their daughter to school dressed in the traditional garb, European passers-by gave him very judgmental stares, she said.

“It was as if he was assumed to be forcing this young child to wear this niqab,” she said.

This provoked a strong response from several audience members who felt Scroggins was mocking Islam itself by allowing her daughter to wear the religious symbol as a costume.

But Scroggins said the story was an example of an American custom of costumes, not an attempt to mock the religious significance of the burqa or niqab.

“I thought the angry response was an overreaction,” said Tory Savage, a sophomore international relations and policy studies major. “Extreme viewpoints are the reason it is hard to find common ground for peace in the first place.”

Scroggins said today’s 24/7 news cycle can have a huge impact, specifically citing the reaction to the recent protests against a leaked video made in the U.S. mocking the Quran, the holy book of Islam.

“One news cycle can make the whole world go into an uproar,” she said.

The video incited rage in both the Western world and Muslim culture, which Scroggins said was an example of progress between the two conflicting perspectives.

Said Scroggins: “Progress is definitely possible.”

 

Published on October 2, 2012 at 12:43 am

Contact Jen: jbundy@syr.edu