Women Against Fundamentalism

Sukhwant Dhaliwal joined WAF in 1995. She has worked with Asian women's organisations challenging domestic violence in both Newham and Manchester and has worked with Southall Black Sisters. For the last ten years, she has completed research projects encompassing a number of equality strands including: racism and racist violence; disability; age; religion and belief; and gender. Nira Yuval-Davis is a founding member of WAF. She is the Director of the Centre on Migration, Refugees and Belonging (CMRB) at the University of East London and has been the President of an ISA Research Committee on Racism, Nationalism and Ethnic Relations. Her written and edited books include: Racialized Boundaries; Gender and Nation; and The Politics of Belonging. She is currently leading a research team on Everyday Situated Bordering as part of an EU research programme.

This timely book should inspire younger generations of activists to pick up the torch, to lead simultaneously anti-racist and anti-fundamentalist feminist politics. With the xenophobic far right rising and communalism turning beliefs and cultures into identity politics' weapons, women's rights, citizenship and secular traditions are at stake. The spirit of WAF, its rare political clarity, its true internationalism, are more than ever needed. Marieme Helie Lucas, founder of Women Living Under Muslim Laws The powerful analyses and reflections of diverse women in the UK fighting authoritarian religious movements are documented here in all their brilliance and honesty. This is a resource in the best sense: of the refusal to submit, the courage to challenge, the strength to reflect critically. In a turbulent and complex period global - religious atrocities, military invasions, and a brutal war against the dignity and personhood of women - this book shows us that we can and must face many ways at once if progressive global politics is to have a future. Professor Chetan Bhatt, London School of Economics and Political Science There is much to learn from, and much to celebrate, in these pages: a feminist, anti-racist politics which supports religious freedom and expression but which challenges fundamentalism in all its forms, combined with compelling testaments to the intermingling of the personal and the political in private and public life. As individual accounts and as the documentation of an important social movement, these inspiring political narratives provide insight into one of the most complex and persistent challenges of our time. Molly Andrews, Professor of Political Psychology and Co-Director, Centre for Narrative Research, University of East London

• Introduction Sukhwant Dhaliwal & Nira Yuval-Davis 1. Pragna Patel Flying by the nets of racism, patriarchy and religion 2. Clara Connolly Confessions of an Anti-Clerical Feminist 3. Gita Sahgal Knowing My Place - The Secular Tradition and Universal Values 4. Ruth Pearson Linking the local with the global: the legacy of migrant grandparents 5. Taranum Maan Gods and Daughters Shakila 6. Nira Yuval-Davis Intersectional Contestations 7. Hannana Siddiqui My Life as an Activist 8. Julia Bard Learning to Question 9. Georgie Wemyss Activist Listening 10. Nadje Al-Ali From Germany to Iraq via WAF: A Political Journey 11. Sukhwant Dhaliwal Made in 'Little India' 12. Cassandra Balchin Making myself through difference 13. Rashmi Varma Telling Lives 14. Sue O'Sullivan Change, Chance, and Contradictions 15. Eva Turner One of My CVs 16. Jane Lane No clear pathway, just a lifelong zigzag 17. Ritu Mahendru Sexual and Gender Based Violence Against Women 18. Natalie Bennett Anti-fundamentalist feminism and green politics 19. Judy Greenway The Spirit of Resistance: Helen Lowe 1944-2011