'Feminists Are Too Busy Picking First-World Fights To See What's Under Their Noses'

12 March 2017, 17:33 | Updated: 12 March 2017, 18:13

Maajid Nawaz says feminists are too busy "picking first-world fights" and neglecting the "minorities within minorities".

On his Sunday afternoon LBC show Maajid Nawaz spoke about a "chilling story" which should have shocked the nation, and yet it failed to hit the headlines.

Maajid said the story was so upsetting that feminists should have rallied round the victim, a young girl, and expressed outrage. But they didn't.

In this clip Maajid reveals the story which shocked him, and explains the problem with 'first-world feminists'.

He said: "A Muslim girl. A British Muslim girl, wearing a headscarf, was filmed dancing in the streets of Birmingham, the United Kingdom. Being viewed over 1 million times, the smartphone video went viral.  

"It was ironically popularised, in no small part, by outraged religious fundamentalist Muslim men, who said that this girl in a headscarf should not have been dancing in a high street. 

"So instant, so personal, so severe, was the fundamentalist Muslim backlash at this anonymous 17-year-old girl who chose simply to do what she wishes with her own body, and dance to some music spontaneously on a high street, that the girl, the poor girl, became petrified, and totally capitulating.  

"What happened next is chilling. It will freeze the blood within your very body. Amid threats in YouTube comment threads, such as 'effing, swear word, someone give me her address I will kill her' and 'stupid, swear word, needs to be killed', the young girl was dragged onto a page by a pair of religious fundamentalists, who at first posted a picture in disgust at her dancing, and in a recorded audio, was forced into an online repentance.  

"A public, tearful, apology, repentance and retraction, merely for dancing. Welcome to the United Kingdom in 2017. We may have just witnessed our first online religious fundamentalist inquisition.

"Initiated, conducted, and concluded, all online. And the worst part of this? Is it happened a couple of days before International Women's Day, and you'd be forgiven for not having heard of it.  

"Not a single global, nor national, feminist movement adopted this as a cause. Not a single mainstream, left wing nor liberal, media outlet reported on this.  

"And I am wondering whether feminists are too busy picking first world fights while neglecting the minorities within minority communities. Like women within Muslim communities, who face a triple threat, who are discriminated from three different directions.  

"One for being people of colour. Two, for being women within patriarchal communities that tell them they can't work, or they can't leave the home, or they have to submit to arranged marriages, or FGM, or any other form of oppression. 

"And three, because they are Muslim, they're also suspected by the outside world. The triple threat that women within Muslim communities face is heavy as a burden.  

"And I think feminists are too busy picking first world fights while under their noses, within their own country, things like this are happening."