Like Parvin, like Najiba, like Heba, we are all different: Reflections on voices of women in diaspora

Already in the early part of the twenty-first century, and faced with the intensified misperceptions about and hostilities towards Muslims in the wake of the events of 11 September 2001, it remains a relevant and timely task to deconstruct stereotypical notions that depict Muslims as homogeneous and alien, thereby targeting women and men of diasporic communities in the West (Moghissi 2002). Indeed, as reported by the Canadian Council for Refugees (2004), the degree to which people of Muslim and Arab origin are feeling the destructive impacts in their daily lives of openly discriminatory policies and distorted media images is unprecedented in Canada. Meanwhile, Islamophobia persists in being the principle Western medium for constructing of the ‘other’ (Henzell-Thomas 2001).