The French Parliament has voted to become the second country (Belgium) to ban full burqas. The lawmakers voted to make it illegal for women to wear a full burqas or nijab in public. It is a direct assault on religious freedom from a nation that helped define the basic rights of all humans.
The vote was an astonishing 335 in favor and only one against.
The law will affect five million Muslims living in France.
The law must still be approved by the Senate after going to the constitutional council for a review.
Source: ITN
Nal,
Again, what you point to are fundamentalist extremists but the Israeli bad action is doesn’t come from direct religious doctrinal dictate like the yarmulke and the burqa but rather is endemic to the separatist culture of fundamentalism (no matter what flavor) whereas by contrast in Basra in 2006, 79 women were killed for violation of “Islamic teachings”.
If you can find a Talmudic reference these indefensible Israelis used as rationale for this kind of brutality then I’ll amend my statement.
A hijab is alright but adding an extra hankerchief-sized piece of cloth suddenly makes all the difference? Adding that little piece of cloth now makes it a tool of repression?
You do have a point nal. The discrimination against muslims in Europe is definitely there. Had a taxi driver in Copenhagen who was Algerian. He kept talking about the “others”. I did not get it at first but after being there awhile I realized he was talking about the muslims.
BIL:
But one group is doctrinally willing to enforce their religious code publicly with violence rather than restraint and tolerance (both religious and sexual).
Israeli City Establishes Program to Locate and “Treat” Israeli Girls Who Date or Marry Arab Men
Is this an example of the tolerance and restraint you’re talking about?
In addition, as a public policy matter, allowing large groups of people to go around masked is simply a bad idea on public security grounds.
Is not a beard a partial mask?
An hajib does not cover the face. It can be a print scarf and muslim women do wear those in France and they wear them everywhere in world.
Swarthmore mom
No. Only about 2000 (two thousand) Muslim women in France wear face covering garbs (burqa or niqab).
Which makes this ban even more silly.
Most muslim women in France wear the hijab.
oops,
‘mens muslim or other religeous or state also going to be banned’ should be;
mens muslim or other religeous or state GARMENTS also going to be banned?
“If one bans the burqa, should not the same principle apply to the yarmulke?”
Firstly, I must say that I come to this blog because of this kind of posting …it is such refreshing dialogue and unrestrained sharing of information that IMO increases understanding and leads to positive and real growth. Thank you!
back to the topic; I recall the argument against burqa also included a measure of safety to the puplic at large? Full body coverings allow concealments of more than G*ds natural weaponry and that said, are mens Ogals, shumaggs, thoubs, mens muslim or other religeous or state also going to be banned? (There’s some pretty darn fancy state robes in the world as well….)
Because if not, is no one concerned that this law becomes more egregious to women than the previous muslim law? It will ostracize her against her own people in a foreign land.
Nal,
The French law bans “face masks worn in public” so I don’t really see how this principle could apply to yarmulkes which doesn’t cover the face at all.
The same for the Kufie, Chiria, and Coif: the face isn’t masked, so the law doesn’t apply. I’m not quite sure what a Ammana is though.
Many of the Jews in France have immigrated from Morocco. They are Sephardic and they blend into French culture. They don’t standout as a muslim in a burqa does.
Nal,
On a purely theological level, a yarmulke (or kippah) is a symbolic reminder that there is something above us and derives from the Talmud saying “[c]over your head in order that the fear of heaven may be upon you.” Originally a custom and not a religious law, wearing one is only considered a law by Orthodox Jews. Contrast this with the more lenient (and variable) practices of Conservative Jews who may or may not wear a yarmulke outside of Temple depending on the congregation and Reform Jews who would I think I can safely say treat the yarmulke again as custom if anything.
A burqa is a covering designed in both religious source material and in application as a tool to repress women. The Quaran says “And say to the faithful women to lower their gazes, and to guard their private parts, and not to display their beauty except what is apparent of it, and to extend their headcoverings to cover their bosoms, and not to display their beauty except to their husbands, or their fathers, or their husband’s fathers, or their sons, or their husband’s sons, or their brothers, or their brothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons, or their womenfolk, or what their right hands rule (slaves), or the followers from the men who do not feel sexual desire, or the small children to whom the nakedness of women is not apparent, and not to strike their feet so as to make known what they hide of their adornments. And turn in repentance to Allah together, O you the faithful, in order that you are successful” – clearly a device of sexual repression not coming from a modesty before one’s god but because men can’t control themselves around naked women. As it impinges upon a woman’s choice of how to conduct her sexual autonomy, it serves a purpose squarely at odd with the human right of self-determination.
This being said, Orthodox Jews practice segregated religion as well by dividing congregations along sex lines. A practice some might find odious, but in general not a interference of a woman’s secular human right of self-determination and indeed is a reflection of her right to free expression and practice. If she doesn’t like sitting in the balcony at temple, a woman from that faith can always choose to practice Conservative or Reform Judaism. Or simply stop practicing at all for even the fundamentalist Jews that are the Orthodox don’t have the tradition of “honor killings”.
Both are fundamentalist beliefs that have no place in the modern world, both are based in religious notions and not secular human rights that belong to all people simply by their nature of being born. But one group is doctrinally willing to enforce their religious code publicly with violence rather than restraint and tolerance (both religious and sexual). The burqa is a tool of sexual repression and Islam a religion that at its most fundamental encourages violence to ensure compliance. Herein lies the problem with the burqa.
In addition, as a public policy matter, allowing large groups of people to go around masked is simply a bad idea on public security grounds.
Many of the Orthodox Jewish women wear wigs as their head covering. They do not cover the face at all.
NAL:To add to your point,what about these the Kufie or the Ammana the Chiria or even the Coif?
Many Jews wear a yarmulke that are not fundamentalist. It covers a smaller section of the head than a hat.
If one bans the burqa, should not the same principle apply to the yarmulke? Why do some find it acceptable to ban the burqa but not the yarmulke? Is it a matter of size of the covering? Is it a matter of the gender of the person wearing the covering? Are not Jewish fundies a sub-group refusing assimilation and bent on erasing freedoms?
Re mespo727272’s post: The question as to how a free society grapples with the existence of a subgroup of people whose values are opposed to those on which a country is founded is absolutely fascinating to me on so many levels. What an excellent topic for a high school debate team!
In the U.S., our fundamental belief in separation of church and state and of freedom of speech demand that no matter how obnoxious the lies and propaganda of puppets like Rush Limbaugh and those of similar ilk (so long as we can’t pin them for incitement of violence), they’re untouchables from a legal standpoint. In fact, I dare say we allow these dangerous forces to foment at the risk of literally upending our current form of government.
But this is also true, from a legal standpoint, in France, which, in 1905, enacted the law on Separation of the Churches and State. (Covered very nicely on Wikipedia, which includes a great caricature symbolizing the separation.
I think it would be interesting to debate the similarities/differences — legally, culturally, historically, and geographically (i.e., the influence of other European nations on France) between France and the U.S. as to tolerance of the influx of Islam into their societies.
France has a long tradition and an explicit policy of preserving French culture. The burqua ban, as Blouise point out, is more a push back against a segment of the French population that defies assimilation into the general population. The recent violence in France among young radicalized muslims likely precipitated this move. France is at a crossroads where it must decide how to handle a religious cult who makes no pretense to its animus against French (i.e. Western) values. How long before the rest of the West must make a similar decision? As many of us have said, the belligerency of fundie muslims has now become a world-wide societal problem. How does a free society handle a sub-group of people bent on erasing those freedoms? The historical answer is not promising.
Present day immigration problems in France are partially rooted in that country’s colonial past in North Africa.
“After 1946, when the people of Algeria were granted full French citizenship, they began pouring into France at the rate of 30,000 a year. Arriving in Paris on the slow trains from the Midi, they drift with their bundles into the old, revolutionary districts of Belleville and Ménilmontant, where whole blocks now have the sound and smell of Algerian medinas. Only one in five of the Algerians in Paris has regular employment; the others live in the tradition of the Paris demimonde, vociferously free, but desperately poor.” (Time Magazine, July 1953)
Imagine how much worse it is today, 54 years after that article was written.
There are now threats of stripping Muslims of their French citizenship if they wear the burqas in public.
The huge vote count reflects frenchmen’s fear of “a loss of basic French values”
And we think we have problems with immigration.
Religious freedom = Fried snowballs