Politics of Piety

Saba Mehmood's work for me, exposes the biasness of western liberal values and feminism in the way it deals with what doesn't conform with their set of beliefs: piety of muslim women. Saba comments on issues such as the veil and dealings with the oppposite sex by examples and uses them to elucidate the paradoxes between different approaches. The discussion on the veil where a particular woman calls the veil a way to achieve piety is particularly interesting. Her view is that when you wear the veil for the first time you are embarassed and later, as you get used to it, when you take of the veil you feel immodest thus the difference between the internal and external feelings of modesty is bridged by the veil. Although I find this reasoning for wearing the veil flawed, it presents the perspective of the woman wearing the veil. Like Saba mentions Kant (or was it Foucalt...) saying that the moral act is the one that is done conciously. not out of habit, I would still agree that a veiled woman, if she went through an internal dialougue and did not just conform to the norm is a moral act and not just an act.
In this work the post structuralist problem of not having (worthy) local traditions and idioms to explain a position opposite to Western Liberal ideals is also shown as Saba constantly quotes western writers to point the subalternity of the woman's position. The Western Liberal has to be made to understand in his own way o/w the project is lost onto them, while the muslim pious woman have to use the idiom of logic to convince the Western Liberal to remit their position (as in case of Nadia and Iman where Saba does not understand the reason for Nadia's advice.)
This reading speaks very deeply to the issues of false conciousness and I believe in quoting Kant (or Foucalt..) Saba gives us a very useful way of looking at conciousness. I would define it as a conciousa act, that does not rise from a norm but internal dialogue.
Furthermore, in case of the example of Jamal and Abir we see how myths, rituals, traditions and fantasies can take a central, powerful position in our lives. Men created/perpetutated patriarchy and systems of religion to govern womens' sexuality. These crackens sometimes become bigger than them and despite the powers vested in them by way of patriarchy they are yet unable to control women. Instead women use these systems to perpetuate their positioning in partriarchal societies weielding the ultimate rebellion.