The author Lila Abu-Lughod, in her essay “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others”, she brings the reader to ponder upon how one’s own culture has an impact of misinterpretation that could mislead the judgement of perception of understanding another style of living from another origin of the world. That the western lifestyle should not be a fixated form of solution, especially advertised as a form of salvation to those who have their own personal beliefs and activities based on the personal own culture.
The fact of the matter is that countries that offer the militaristic armament do not necessarily provoke a change to coincide to the feelings of those who are rescued. That it should not be of any kind of astonishment to the “rescuers” to live under their own cultural relativism that of which identifies them of the ownership of their past history and customs, whether religiously or by traditions.
For instance, one of the misconceptions of misinterpreting the veil is that for certain ethnic groups, depending on the region, its veil represents a level of respectability and at the same time portrays women in conducting themselves as humble of the simple life (Abu-Lughod 785). I think that it is clear before anything, the history of foreign cultures, that of which are in part unknown fully to us, have a major role of how “superpower” countries want or think that their culture is the right way of living life, and that one must desert the old customs of which were implanted from the beginning. Leaving to think, back to the question that resonates during the last class session of whether there should be emancipation of religion for the greater cause of political reform? Needless to say, it is definitely not something that women who have usage of the veil will leave from one day to the other.
Interestingly enough, the veil for the western eyes or culture would seem to be viewed as a base for oppression as supposed to when those who have lived under the veil identify to it as what the author calls it a “mobile home”. By viewing the other point of view of the carrier that must place the veil, we can consider that by she may feel safe, privatized under the veil and not letting men, to some degree, pass beyond the veil in any shape or form because it is hers to own. Perhaps it is something that she may feel honored in doing, or just, it is part of her identity to the culture of which she lives in. Not far from it, the author relates of how our manners, dress codes, and other attributes of culture diversity can encounter to disagree, often causing tension that displays each distinctive cultural habit. If such misinterpretations of language and manner on the table can happen, one can only come to the conclusion that for nations, it is the same when they meet.
