How long will you fear and revile
The resilience of the Muslim woman you colonised?
How long will you subdue and subvert
Her identity that resists and inverts,
Sexual objectification,
Forced assimilation,
Secularised state domination?
How long will her quiet glow and fire
Evoke your pity and ire,
Will she ever be safe and free
From covetous eyes and colonial artifice
Masquerading as secular rights??
Mystified and marginalised,
Vilified and victimised,
She is the unsung heroine,
The unseen, unswerving front line
Challenging your frenetic phobias
And fighting
Fascism’s ugly rise
Fatema Valji | @fatemavaljipoetry
