Moroccan-Spanish Author Challenges Left’s View on Hijab and Women’s Freedom

At the new course of the SUD culture class, which has just resumed in Almeria, in southern Spain, she gave her opinion on this approach to Islam that clashes with the defense of freedom of expression and the profession of faith.

Drawing on the feeling that some left-wing parties in Spain have towards women wearing the veil or the hijab as an image of openness, Najat el Hachmi denounces and labels the behavior of these political chapels as racist. According to her, this is a fact that is especially noticeable in the big cities. "In Barcelona and Madrid, it is done for electoral purposes." And she adds that "No one calls on you because of your religion."

For the writer, at a time when "we are developing laws in Spain to end discrimination, in Morocco there are laws that promote discrimination." This, for her, is "a betrayal, because feminism is the struggle for the equality of all." According to her, the hijab "is an element that everyone can understand but which, unfortunately, limits the freedom of women."

Returning to the Spanish left-wing parties, Najat stated that if they used "cultural relativism, they were also guilty, because they exploited the protests of Muslim women to support racist postulates and Islamophobia."

Coming from a "Muslim and rural" culture of the Rif, in northern Morocco, the position that the writer supports on feminism has often earned her enmity among the Muslim community but also, in general, in Spain.