Deeyah Khan Quotes
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Women's empowerment, whether through legal, financial, or cultural routes, will tend to increase their agency and their ability to take part in activism.
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We cannot leave vulnerable young men open to the exploitation of extremists, both for our own security and their own wellbeing.
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As someone who grew up between two cultures, I have been fascinated with the question of why men and women with similar backgrounds to mine were drawn towards radical messages of hate and violence.
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Our media provides a continuing message that for men, heroism is defined through association with control, independence, and the ability to commit violence, from superheroes to crime dramas.
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Speech, not violence, is how we will bridge the divides between us.
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The proportion of women attracted to the Islamic State is likely to be less than that in other militant organisations, such as the Tamil Tigers, the PKK, and the IRA. Undoubtedly, their roles within the Islamic State are much more confined by the rigid gender divisions under their ultraconservative rulings.
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Self-expression should not be a challenge that demands extraordinary talent but should be a right accessible to all.
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Our freedoms are shared freedoms: they are bound up in each other. The ability to confront oppression in the guise of religion is linked to our ability to worship as we choose: both are acts of expression.
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A hedonistic lifestyle contrary to all the rules and expectations of Islam is not an unusual precursor to radicalisation: in fact, some young radicals see joining in the jihad as a way of achieving redemption for past sins.
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For many young men, joining in a radical movement is a way of feeling powerful, which is particularly intoxicating for men who feel their masculinity has been called into question, whether through victimisation or a failure to achieve the status that they feel they are entitled to.
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Women with education, skills, and independent sources of income are more able to withstand the pressures of the patriarchal family and more able to express their opinions and to move freely within their communities.
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There is no psychiatric pattern which can predict who becomes an extremist - but they are all frustrated with their reality.
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No one is born a terrorist, but the route to become one is surprisingly easy. We need to listen to those who have been there, and those who have made their way back, if we want to stop others from taking their first steps down this same path into darkness.
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We ignore the similarities between the religious extremism and ethno-nationalism at our peril.