Veiled Threat Quotes

“At first I fought it, my teenage self diligently playing the role of the good Muslim, the cool Muslim, the palatable Muslim. I quickly learned that Muslims are accepted in Britain, so long as we are the ‘good ones’. Britain requires us to dilute our identities until we become nothing but Muslim name – and sometimes not even then. Even our names must be repackaged, reduced, bleached of their Muslimness.”
― Nadeine Asbali, Veiled Threat: On Being Visibly Muslim in Britain

“The perfect immigrant is the rich immigrant. The privileged immigrant. The highly educated immigrant who comes from a wealthy family abroad and align themselves with right wing politics once they’re here – ironically – to stop people like them from coming into England ever again. The only ideal, perfect immigrant is the one that is barely an immigrant at all. An Englishman in brown(ish) wrapping.”
― Nadeine Asbali, Veiled Threat: On Being Visibly Muslim in Britain

“Either we are submissive and subjugated, victims of our own patriarchal cultures and faith – or we are a perverse danger, a veiled threat, wrapping our heads and bodies in our outright rejection of western culture and holding tight to religious views, which are at odds with superior, enlightened European values.”
― Nadeine Asbali, Veiled Threat: On Being Visibly Muslim in Britain

“My hijab has come to shape everything about me - how I am perceived by others and even how I see myself. It negates my biology, eclipses my upbringing and supersedes all other aspects of my identity.
At times, it feels like I'm made of chiffon and jersey, metal pins and social expectation instead of flesh and bone.”
― Nadeine Asbali, Veiled Threat: On Being Visibly Muslim in Britain

“But code-switching itself confirms that we must live our lives by codes, by rules, by standards and by norms. That we must conform fully at any one time. We have no language for being more than one thing at once. We only know and we are only taught how to switch, to slot ourselves in, to constantly, constantly please.”
― Nadeine Asbali, Veiled Threat: On Being Visibly Muslim in Britain