Yassmin Abdel-Magied, the ludicrously accomplished engineer, campaigner, and media personality all-but forced out of Australia by a relentless media campaign, has issued her first full statement after revealing she’d be leaving the country.
Well, more accurately, she’s released a statement regarding the insane public rhetoric about that decision – including that 7 News Facebook poll, which asked users if they’re stoked on her imminent departure.
In a new preface to a Guardian Australia essay on her experiences as a female Muslim activist, Abdel-Magied writes “given that I am now the most publicly hated Muslim in Australia, people have been asking me how I am.”
“What do I say? That life has been great and I can’t wait to start my new adventure in London? That I’ve been overwhelmed with messages of support? Or do I tell them that it’s been thoroughly rubbish?”
Referencing Australian conservative media’s preoccupation with scathing articles about her in the light of her ANZAC Day Facebook post, Abdel-Magied writes “almost 90,000 twisted words” have been printed about her.
Touching on the way she’s been discussed in parliament, and the even more brutal way she’s been talked about on social media, Abdel-Magied asks herself whether she should admit “I get death threats on a daily basis, and I have to reassure my parents that I will be fine, when maybe I won’t be?”
It’s not even death threats, either – she reveals “I’ve been sent videos of beheadings, slayings and rapes from people suggesting the same should happen to me.”
Regarding her viewpoints, Abdel-Magied writes that “whether or not one agrees with me isn’t really the point. The reality is the visceral nature of the fury… is more about who I am than about what is said.”
And that’s just the preamble to the full piece, which remains a pretty harrowing description of life as an outspoken activist. Check it out HERE.
And that’s just the preamble to the full piece, which remains a pretty harrowing description of life as an outspoken activist. Check it out HERE.
