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
The appropriate solution is to ban all religions.
“Although the region in which the country stands today has an ancient history, the emergence of the Saudi dynasty began in central Arabia in 1744. That year, Muhammad ibn Saud, the ruler of the town of Ad-Dir’iyyah near Riyadh, joined forces with a well-known Islamic scholar and Imam , Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab, to create a new political and religious entity. Both persons found they had common interests, mainly to see all the Arabs of the peninsula brought back to “true” Islam.[7] This alliance formed in the 18th century remains the basis of Saudi Arabian dynastic rule today, and over the next 150 years, the fortunes of the Saud family rose and fell several times as Saudi rulers contended with Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, and other Arabian families for control of the peninsula (see First Saudi State and Second Saudi State).[8] The third and current Saudi state was founded in the early 20th century by King Abdul Aziz Al Saud (known internationally as Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud).” from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia (emphasis added)
Our “allies”. The perpetrators and financiers of the 9/11 attacks. Business partners of the Bush family and benefactor of Cheney’s criminal enterprise Halliburton.
Now why is it that we are in Baghdad and not Riyadh again?
The burqua has come to symbolize more than mere religious piety. It is now a political symbol of Wahhabism,* and the primacy of sharia law. A recent study of fundamentalist Wahhabism found:
The publications in this study, found in some of America’s most important mosques, pose a grave threat to non-Muslims and to the Muslim community itself. They now have become a matter of national security since 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers were Saudi subjects indoctrinated from young ages in just such Wahhabi ideology, possibly from the very same textbooks and fatwa collections. Saudi state curriculum for many years has taught children to hate “the other” and support jihad, a malleable term that is used by terrorists to describe and justify their atrocities.
The study goes on to state:
(i>Wahhabi extremism is more than hate speech; it is a totalitarian ideology of hatred that can incite to violence.
It is thus akin to a display of the Nazi regalia in Germany which few would argue is an abridgment of human rights. It serves as a visual affront to a duly constituted popular government and a silent call to defiance. To that extent, I have no problem with enforcement of the law. If the burqua has come to stand for a political ideology fundamentally at odds with Western values of tolerance, respect for a woman’s fulls rights as a citizen and person, and an unmistakable attack on secular popular rule, how can a democracy permit a dagger such as this to be poised above its heart. This is not to say that the burqua can be banned at religious events and ceremonies, but when a group has put its violent ideology into action, a democracy must act to diffuse a movement so contrary to all it stands for and all its aspires to be.
*”I remind him that the sheikhs and muftis of the [Wahhabi] movement have refused to acknowledge that the earth is round and rotates on its axis. It is [Wahhabism] that until not long ago prevented girls and women from studying; it is [Wahhabism] that bans them from driving vehicles; it is [Wahhabism] that forces [them to wear] the niqab and the burqa; it is [Wahhabism] that sees the West as infidel and prevents the construction of houses of worship for other religions; it is [Wahhabism] that declares the Shi’ites to be infidels; it is [Wahhabism] that bans elections; and it is [Wahhabism] that holds a whole series of other narrow, formalistic, and shallow perceptions of the religion. Wahhabism is a model of unilateralism, intolerance of other Islamic schools of thought, and fanaticism against other religions.”
~Ibrahim ‘Issa, editor of the Egyptian opposition daily Al-Dustour.
Themselves, but aid is always appreciated by the oppressed.
Buddha said…Voluntary choices are one thing, but how many news stories does it take to convince you that many Muslim women want to be free of the confines of their imposed “choices” made in the name of the religious choices of their families and/or governments? And that often the price for exerting their other primary human rights are met with violence and further repression if not death?
I don’t disagree. But who’s responsibility is it to liberate them?
Basic human rights, like the right to sexual self-determination, always trump the right to free exercise. Voluntary choices are one thing, but how many news stories does it take to convince you that many Muslim women want to be free of the confines of their imposed “choices” made in the name of the religious choices of their families and/or governments? And that often the price for exerting their other primary human rights are met with violence and further repression if not death?
Correction in the 3rd paragraph of my comment above: They always do this in the NAME OF increasing freedom.
Nal said…”Tools of female repression are found in all cultures and all religions, and are noted through one’s perception and biases.”
I agree Nal.
The west likes to push its way of life on everyone else, no matter their culture or religion. They always do this in the increasing freedom (Iraq, anyone?).
If I was a woman who grew up in a house where my mother wore a burqa and her mother wore a burqa, and all my sisters, aunts and cousins wore burqas too, I might *WANT* to wear a one. In fact, I might feel uncomfortable if I went out without it. What if I actually LIKED it?
If you want to take-on the oppression of Muslim women, start with forced circumcision, which is still regularly practiced and has devastating, permanent physical effects.
Freedom is about respecting other nations, cultures and religions — not using our way of life as means to judge every other and make them conform to the Western notion of freedom, ala corporate servitude.
So, let’s see if I understand this correctly.
I am no longer allowed to wear my gimp suit in France because it shows that I am being oppressed.
What if I WANT to be oppressed because it makes me HAPPY?
Shame. It is a nice gimp suit. Really restrictive and shiney.
Additional in todays news. A Frence muslim property tycoon has just stated that he will personally pay ALL fines handed out for wearing bondage gear. Sorry, I mean burkhas. This could all get very “interesting”.
I think I should wish everyone happy Bastille Day, let them eat cake…
I know this is going to sound silly but during my research into this topic I came across this incident which seems to have resonated with the French population:
“A French Muslim woman has been fined for wearing a burka at the wheel of her car – weeks before the proposed introduction of a total ban on the full-body veil.
The 31-year-old was stopped by two policemen in Nantes in western France earlier this month as she drove wearing a burka, or niqab, covering all but her eyes. She was given a €22 (£19) fine for “driving in uncomfortable conditions”, because her vision was allegedly reduced. ……
The government, supported by some politicians from both right and left and women’s rights groups, says the full veil is incompatible with France’s official Republican values of liberty and equality. Critics, on both right and left, say that a ban is unnecessary and will inflame race relations.
It also emerged yesterday that a leading advocate of the burka ban, Jean-François Copé, the head of the ruling centre-right party in the National Assembly, had received death threats from extremist Islamic groups. He has been given extra bodyguards.”
(By John Lichfield in Paris Saturday, 24 April 2010)
Woosty, I can certainly understand the view that the burqa is a tool of repression. However, many items in daily use can be used by individuals to repress a particular woman. No one is proposing that we outlaw locks and window coverings because they can be used for that purpose. I have a major problem with laws suggesting that women generally can be trusted to make decisions about their own clothing, but a woman who chooses to wear the burqa is not legally competent to choose what clothing she will wear. I know the french law forbids face masks, and i agree that is less specific than some proposals, but it seems pretty clear that it was intended to target a specific group of women unless there is some evidence that women are using burqas to facilitate criminal activity (or people generally are utilizing face masks to facilitate such activity). I’m not saying there isn’t any such evidence, but the presence or absence of such evidence doesn’t seem to be entering into the discussion.
‘The burqa is not a symbol of anything “religious” – it is a tool of brutal repression of women, period.’
-Brutal? A little piece of cloth is brutal?
‘Tools of female repression are found in all cultures and all religions, and are noted through one’s perception and biases.’
apparently that little piece of cloth is supposed to replace a full-on metal armour. And the repression comes when this manner of thinking looks ok rather than the alternative ie: men learning how to keep their stuff and aggressions under control instead of keeping Women oppressed.
Berliner,
It has been my experience with Muslims that they, like Christians and Jews, come in a wide spectrum of practices and (in)tolerances. It’s the extremists in all categories that are the societal problem.
Nal,
Then consider my statement duly amended. Thanks for the catch. I’m sure Mike S. would have corrected me if he were around and I appreciate your doing so in his absence.
BIL:
Again, what you point to are fundamentalist extremists but the Israeli bad action is doesn’t come from direct religious doctrinal dictate …
Deut. 7:3 prohibits interfaith marriage. It is God’s will and justifies the kidnappings and “reeducation” camps.
Swarthmore mom:
It is more than an extra piece of cloth. Most go all the way to the floor.
But that was not what was outlawed. That little piece of cloth was outlawed.
The Moar You Know:
The burqa is not a symbol of anything “religious” – it is a tool of brutal repression of women, period.
Brutal? A little piece of cloth is brutal?
Tools of female repression are found in all cultures and all religions, and are noted through one’s perception and biases.
Swarthmore mom,
oops! You’re of course right, my error.
Note to self: read more slowly.
Nal,
I’m — for various reasons — not in favor of this law, but the simple rule “don’t mask your face” is I think the least arbitrary, discriminatory, and vague variant.
BiL,
I’m not an Islamic scholar, but several knowledgeable people have told me that most mainstream Muslim schools don’t interpret these quotations of the Qur’an and the Sunnah as a religious duty for women to cover their face.
Most of the people that uses the burka are French converts.And like the blacks in the US, we have more economic and social differences here than religious differences.
Anyway, many Muslims(Take the very liberal Yasmin Alibhai Brown of the Independent for instance) support this kind of law.
The burqa is not a symbol of anything “religious” – it is a tool of brutal repression of women, period.
I’d remind those bleating about how the wearing of this foul instrument of abuse constitutes “religious freedom” that quite a few people in this nation considered the enslavement of human beings of African decent not just moral, but a Biblical duty mandated by the teachings of the Bible.
Was slavery OK because Christians said so? Of course not.
Neither is the wearing of a cloth sack designed to remove all of the features that mark us as human OK, no matter what religious folk say to justify it.
It is more than an extra piece of cloth. Most go all the way to the floor.