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Wednesday, January 27, 2010
/ -9:29 PM
Burqa Ban
How it all started
For the sake of clarity, when they say "burqa" or "niqab", the French are talking about the garment that covers the face completely and leaves only a grill or a space for the eyes. The veil that covers only the head and the neck and leaves the face open, is the "hijab". They are treated as two different things with a different set of sentiments and politics reserved for both. So the" burqa" is different from the "Islamic headscarf."
French Leader's speak
“The burqa is not a religious sign, it is a sign of the subjugation, of the submission of women. I want to say solemnly that it will not be welcome on our territory.” Said the French Leader. Last summer in June, Nicolas Sarkozy started the polemic in his speech saying "The burqa is not welcome on the territory or our republic. The problem is of the liberty and the dignity of women. It's not a religious sign. It's a sign of servitude and degradation." But here was a President making a strong statement about a dress worn by a certain members of a community, the Muslims. What's worse, his party launched the debate on national identity soon after. The suspicion became stronger, that his party (the UMP) was going to instrumentalise the burqa debate for the sake of the upcoming regional elections (March 2010) and that muslim immigrants and french born muslims were being targeted.
French stand
People have very strongly criticised the debate on national identity. But the debate on the burqa seems to go down more easily with the general public. The socialist opposition (the PS) says they are against the burqa but also against the ban. What worries them is that if a ban on the burqa does come about it'll give islamophobes and xenophobes more courage to bully their way around. What worries them about those opposing the ban is that they may actually end up defending the burqa. Muslim women organisations have welcomed the idea of a ban.
French Muslims and their stand
Most established Muslim organisations in France are moderate. Some say "these moderates" tow the french line seems to suggest that all the muslims living here are either not French or not good muslims just because they want to go along with the French. If a majority of Muslims in France are saying that the burqa is not Islamic, what would be the sense in anyone rushing to the burqa's rescue? Muslims in France slam the burqa but do want to keep the "hijab" (the veil that leaves face uncovered) that they consider religious, out of this debate. They do feel, naturally, that such debates tarnishe the image of Muslims and a ban would be harsh.
Burqa Ban
controversy erupted when a university dean in Egypt warned students they would not be able to stay at college dorms unless they removed their burqa. The dean cited security grounds, saying that men disguised as women in burqa could slip into the female dorms. Soad Saleh, a professor of Islamic law and former dean of the women’s faculty of Islamic studies at Al-Azhar University — hardly a liberal, said the burqa had nothing to do with Islam. It was but an old Bedouin tradition. The racism and discrimination that Muslim minorities face in many countries — such as France, which has the largest Muslim community in Europe, and Britain, where two members of the xenophobic British National Party were shamefully elected to the European Parliament — are very real.
Personal choice?
A story of two Muslim women in Cairo subway. Dressed in black from head to toe, the woman asked me why I did not wear the burqa. I pointed to my headscarf and asked her “Is this not enough?”
“If you wanted a piece of candy, would you choose an unwrapped piece or one that came in a wrapper?” she asked. “I am not candy,” I answered. “Women are not candy.”
I have since heard arguments made for the burqa in which the woman is portrayed as a diamond ring or a precious stone that needs to be hidden to prove her “worth.” Unless we challenge it, the burqa — and by extension the erasure of women — becomes the pinnacle of piety. If a Jewish can wear a small hat on their head, why can't the Muslims wear burqa? If an Indian got a pierce on the nose, why can't Muslim do the same? If a Caucasian women can naked by the beach, why can't the Muslim's women wear burqa?
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