Why shouldn't Muslim girls have a role model like this to look up too?
Last week a female F-16 fighter pilot took a lead role in the early bombing of Islamic State targets in Syria. That fact alone would be enough to set off a suicide bomber's vest but here's the best part: she is a Muslim serving for the United Arab Emirates. Oh, the apostasy!
(yahoo) On one side of the fault line, Ms. Mansouri is depicted as a traitor to Arabs struggling to overthrow evil dictators. On the other, she’s an archetype of Arab society advancing into the future, in contrast to the backward-looking caliphate declared by IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Yes, this looks a lot like a WWII caliber publicity campaign, but there is no doubt that she flew hot missions against ISIL targets in the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman. ISIL lunatics (yes, that is what they recruit and that is what they are) regularly torture and kill women for expressing their minds. Many Arab women, in "moderate" countries cannot have a drivers license. Yet the UAE is putting one behind the controls of a gazillion dollar battle-bot and letting her flame out fuckers who would surely stone her to death without a thought in the name of their bastardized Koran (and it is a bastardized vision that they use).
As she has been greatly embraced by progressive female elements in the Muslim population, the twitter-sphere has also shown a lot of ugly stains that I'll pass on showing. While a lot of reaction to Miriam al-Mansouri is not fit to print, here is a more coherent explanation of the pretzel logic that has twisted the middle east into a suicidal knot:
Ibrahim Abu Marasa, who identifies himself as a Palestinian web designer in Gaza, voiced frustration that Mansouri – who he refers to pejoratively – has captured such global attention when the “slaughter” of close to 200,000 Syrians and the “massacre” of more than 2,100 Palestinians in Gaza this summer failed to galvanize Westerners or their armies.
“The people of Arab nations whose armies work to help America and kill Muslims, don’t they feel ashamed of themselves? Don’t they feel like mice?” he tweeted.
As a Gazan, Mr Marasa has an intimate understanding of subjugation and suffering which I never want to achieve, yet I marvel at his lack of empathy to those who benefit from this lady fighter's actions. Kurds, Iraqis, Arabs and soon Turks are putting themselves in horrific danger each day to protect civilization in the Levant, nothing less. Ms al-Mansour may not be a web-designer but she is no "mouse". Is he saying that he would prefer that she put on a hajib over explosives and throw herself at a Kurdish checkpoint in Kobani to support a movement that would take away her right to fly? To drive? To vote? To speak?