Tom Facchine – Minute with a Muslim #260 – Righteous Representation – Can Men Represent Women

			representation is a hot topic. For anybody who is a minority or for anybody who feels like they're
being not represented in a class in a proper way, or they're not being treated fairly well, we have
to be very, very careful about a couple things. One thing is that not all representation is good
representation, right? We should be very, very concerned about the quality of representation, not
just the quantity. So what good does it do us, for example, if we have Muslim characters in movies
and books on TV, but they are, you know, they are very disdainful and contemptible towards the
religion and they are disrespectful to their parents, and they are poor mannered, and they're just
		

			really like everybody else. They just, you know, have a Muslim name and have a little cult, a few
cultural things. They're not really morally different or morally better than anybody else is that
the kind of representation we want. And there's always this kind of narrative like, well, that's
real, okay. But representation is not just about being real. And actually, I think we've seen in, in
media, and especially in Hollywood, over the past several decades, that an over fixation on
representing what is real, robs us of the opportunity to be better, because representation also
needs to be aspirational, not just descriptive, we need to have heroes, we need to have role models.
		

			So we don't want to see just people who are as bad as us, or worse, when we are sort of consuming
media and that media has representations of Muslims, we want to see people who are better than us,
so that we can see ourselves in that person, identify with that person, and then want to become that
person or like that person if that person is a role model. So that's one aspect when it comes to
representation. Another thing that we have to be really careful about is assuming that nobody can
speak for anybody except themselves and the group that they kind of belong to. Okay, so this is
actually so so people come along, and they say, Okay, look at all this group of men, scholars,
		

			they're talking about this issue. Well, they can't possibly represent the rights and interests of
women. Now, before critiquing that idea, I am all for women's participation and women's leadership,
especially in the message you'd like there's different sorts of, we have to understand there's
there's two extremes, okay. And representation is important in this sort of way that we need to have
mechanisms, whether they're formal or informal, for understanding the experiences and the needs of
everybody in our community. 100%. But we have to be very, very careful. This isn't absolute. We
can't just say that well, because there were only men talking about it that they can't possibly have
		

			anything to say about representing the interests of women. If that were true, then we would say what
about the Prophet Mohammed said a lot of these, are you telling me that the Prophet alayhi salatu
salam was not able to represent the interests of women? What about the full effect of Rossi Dean?
What about the Four Rightly Guided caliphs, were they not able to represent the interests of women
or the slaves or anybody in society just because of their positionality? Or their identities, right.
And even sometimes with the aroma, which Alhamdulillah within a matter of scholarly class, there are
both male and female. But if you're in a place where there are mostly male scholars, are you telling
		

			me that it's impossible that they can, it's impossible for them to represent the interests of women
or anybody else who's not like them. This is not sound thinking at all. Because it assumes a certain
definition of power, it assumes a definition of power, where power is only evil, it only corrupts,
and if someone has power, then they necessarily have to use it to advance the interests of their
group. And therefore if that's the idea of power that we have, then the only way to put checks and
balances on that is to get representation every single time all the time. So that we also are able
to have a little bit about that power and also pursue ourselves interests. In our tradition, there
		

			is righteous power, the Prophet alayhi salatu, Salam had righteous power and a righteous use of
power and the rightly guided Khilafat had righteous power, they were able because of their Taqwa
because of their god consciousness, and their fear of Allah and fear of doing the right thing and
fear of falling into something bad, they were able to surpass and transcend their own interests of
themselves, their own interests of their narrow group or whatever group they happen to belong to,
and represent the best interest of everybody that is possible. And so we need to be very, very
careful to not just, you know, have knee jerk reactions, that thing and say, well, where's the
		

			representation here? Where's the representation that yeah, representation can be very, very
important, but but individuals are not simply constricted or restricted to representing the
interests of the groups that they happen to belong to. Now, it's possible that people can represent
the interests of a larger group of people without necessarily being part of that group.