It’s official. The French Senate has banned the voile integrale” (total veil) in all public places less the streets. The law forbids any veil that covers the face including full-length body robes and the burqa, which is a head-to-toe covering with only an opening for the eyes. The ban, approved nearly unanimously, will take effect next spring and does not exclude visitors.
While neighboring countries have been considering doing so in the future, France is the first European country to pass the law which prohibits face veils. The fine for concealing one’s face in public is up to $185 (150 euro), and, or, classes on citizenship conduct or “Republican values.” The bill also enforces a penalty on anyone accused of imposing the burqa on a woman, which includes a fine of up to $38,400, and jail time; both are to be doubled if the veil is forced upon a minor.
According to President Nicolas Sarkozy the burqa represents oppression and this form of dress is incompatible with their local values.
Said Sarkozy:
In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity … The burqa is not a religious sign, it's a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement … It will not be welcome on the territory of the French Republic.
During the burqa debate, Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said, “Showing one's face is a question of dignity and equality in our republic.
The French Council of State has expressed that the ban may be in disaccord with human rights and the French Constitution. Prior to the ban, during a visit to Normandy, President Obama implied such a law is not in accordance with the culture and values of the United States: I will tell you that in the United States our basic attitude is that we're not going to tell people what to wear.
Moments after the burqa bill was passed, the Eiffel Tower and area near Notre Dame Cathedral were evacuated because of anonymous threats.
It is not clear how many Muslim women wear the burqa in France but a rough estimate is in the hundreds. While most Muslims agree the headscarf is an essential part of the Muslim woman’s attire, there is disagreement on the necessity of face-covering based on different interpretations of the Quran. Women are not allowed to hide their face during Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, however, some Muslims believe they must do so at all other times in the presence of any man other than their husband, brother, father or son.
Muslim
Muslims came into Europe and America because the lands they called home were either colonized and/or war was waged on them and they were made to suffer thereby. This is not a phenomena that is starting with the Gulf War, but is has the beginnings since the times of the Crusades. What do we Muslims expect to happen to us when we enter into a land a beggars, as we have been doing since the time of the demolition and abolishment of the CALIPHATE? Since that time we have been as beggars in the lands of those who worked to bring about the end to the CALIPHATE. When that happens, it is we who are in the prone position, ready to be dictated to. Dictated to, NOT BY tyrants or warlord leaders like Joseph Stalin, but by those who preach that such imposition is a means to englighten us and bring us out of the stone age into the modern era. The fundamental thing that we must comprehend is that FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND EXPRESSION are not meant to shelter the righteous and pious, but they are legal means whereby to protect and give comfort thoe who seek the propagation of lewdness and unabashed shamelessness, so that they can commit what they want to commit and dissent against them is immediately silenced.
September 15, 2010
markjuliansmith
The reasoning put forward by Hamas in Lebanon recently align with the Iran clerics claim women not dressing properly cause earthquakes and are responsible for the inappropriate behavior men subject them to including rape.
These statements reinforce the reality the burka is not a freely worn garment given the clear stigma Muslim women, who do not wear the burka or even the veil, are subject to in Muslim communities.
If it is such a free choice how is it Muslim men are not covered in a ton of black fabric or cotton veils to cover their masculinity? Are Muslim men not sexual beings?
The burka is as much a political statement as a naked woman walking in the streets to advocate public nudity as a right which should be accepted by the rest of society. One of subservience to men’s dogma not independence.
Nudism is a cultural and political movement advocating and defending social nudity in private and in public. It may also refer to a lifestyle based on personal, family and/or social nudism.
Society in general has decided public nudism can be very confronting, inappropriate, and even regarded as obscene by some. Although nudism is often practiced in a person’s home or garden, either alone or with members of the family public and in restricted venues public nudity is a behavior which society in general have deemed should be restricted and subject to judicial penalty.
The burka is much more of an obscenity than nudity. For where nudism seeks to expand the societal bounds and diminish prejudice the burka politically advocates a denigrating , subservient role in society for women.
The burka reinforces the notion women are not only to blame for men’s behavior towards them in regards sexual assaults but also women’s aspirations should be necessarily be different and subservient to a man’s definition of what a woman’s life should be.
The public wearing of the burka is a categorical political act which seeks to advance the notion of the acceptance of the subservience and restriction of women’s opportunities in life relative to men which is absolutely obscene and must therefore be subject to judicial penalty.
Everything we do is political. A woman deciding to wear shorts given human history is a political statement in itself. For it can be deemed as simply a relatively freely decided fashion statement. The Burka is an antitheist of this and very much a political statement of subjugation and in no way can be regarded as a fashion statement or a modern principle. No matter how many times and subtle colorful variations get dragged down the catwalk.
September 15, 2010
Delores S. lundie
As a Muslim convert who happens to be a woman I am delighted to see attenion being directed everywhere
Concerning women's rights...to call injustices a religious
Issue is outrageous..and it's time to address the conditions in which women...especially my Muslim sisters in some countries are experiencing.
September 15, 2010
Ajay Singh
Women identity, freedom, social life, etc., all is very fine; but what about freedom of religion and one's choice of it??
September 15, 2010
_001.jpg)
