Sarkozy's Anti-Burqa Stance Deprives Women of Identity

French President, Nicolas Sarkozy announced Monday that the burqa will no longer be welcome within the country. Although the commentary was only a small part of a larger address by the president to French lawmakers at Versailles, Sarkozy spoke out strongly against the burqa, calling the head-to-toe garment a "sign of subservience".

We cannot accept in our country women imprisoned behind netting, cut off from any social life, deprived of any identity.

This is not the idea the French Republic has of a woman's dignity.

According to a recent article in the London Standard, "Mr Sarkozy's government announced last week that it would seek to set up a parliamentary commission that could propose legislation aimed at barring Muslim women from wearing head-to-toe gowns outside the home."

Although Sarkozy's intentions seem noble, the course of action that the French government is pursuing actually deprives women of their liberties. The planned regulation of women's dress won't necessarily have any positive effect on intramarital relations. It does, however, create a rationale for controlling husbands to keep their wives at home more. Alternatively, an uncovered wife might induce more aggressive behavior from a jealous husband not accustomed to sharing his wife with the eyes of others or worried about the toll her increased public role might have on his family honor.

Most importantly though, the institution of a burqa ban compromises a woman's ability to stay true to her religious and spiritual beliefs. By dictating what is "appropriate" for French women to wear, the regulatory committee on the subject is less liberating its targets than acting as the warden of its own narrow-minded idea of freedom. If the intention is to change the behavior of Muslim men towards their wives, why should this new legislation be aimed at Muslim women?

The movement toward a burqa-free state becomes increasingly counter-intuitive when one considers France's colonial history and concern with women's dress. In his essay, "Algeria Unveiled", Martinique-born post-colonial thinker Frantz Fanon, details the struggle of occupying forces within the country as they worked to quell the unrest instigated by Algerian pro-independence groups. Faced with a contingent of female guerrilla fighters, the colonizing forces gathered a group of marginalized Algerian women (servants, prostitutes, and the poor) in a public square and forcibly unveiled them. As a means of protest, Algerian women who had previously shed the haik -- the Algerian equivalent of the burqa-- took it up again as an affront to French colonizers.

Of course, Sarkozy's France is no longer the heavy-handed occupier that it once was, but its bias against immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East has certainly endured. In the face of France's modern day struggle with Islamic dress (including the ban on head scarves in public schools) and its historic context, the symbolism of the veil as a protection of Muslim expression remains.

Although France proudly claims its longstanding tradition of secularism, Sarkozy's most recent parliamentary address has only served to make clear the state's intolerance of Islamic practices and beliefs. The women who will be affected by the deliberations of the burqa committee are shopping for groceries and picking up dry-cleaning, not running for state office. The committee is sending the message to the French public that a person cannot simultaneously be a French citizen and a conservative Muslim. A choice must be made between religious and nationalistic identities.

It is no wonder then that French women who have previously chosen to don the niqab or the burqa as a symbol of their Muslim identity might feel less than liberated at Sarkozy's announcement. Perhaps instead France should require that the husbands of women who wear burqas also don the heavy garments. Given, the idea is equally as ridiculous as outlawing them altogether, but at least it would be targeting the right party.

Comments

[lgreenefh]

Good article by Berit. The comments to it were fascinating. Seems that some of your respondents don't understand the concept that is well rooted in the US and France of separation of church and state.

The challenge, of course, is when someone is being abused by religion and their rights are being subverted. This can be a difficult one to weave through but the point is that Islamic women shouldn't be told by the state, through an edict, that they should remove their Burqas, particularly because Sakozy thinks they are being abused. In doing a little further digging on this story, no where did I read about Islamic women petitioning the government of France to give them the freedom to not wear a Burqa.

The West (the US, Britain, France, etc.) has a long history of telling people from other cultures what is right for them and sometimes enforcing our sense of right in rather brutish fashion, including killing people who disagree with our sense of "right."

This is simply meddling by the state around an issue that really goes beyond their authority to regulate. Furthermore, it would seem that President Sakozy and the French government have more important issues to deal with right now.

[Realization]

I was raised Catholic and received considerable training in that religion. Went to Catholic schools through college. I have studied a lot of history and comparative culture and lived extensively overseas, including in the Middle East where I met many admirable Muslims and some who weren't. Then again, I have dealt with Christians involved in nasty things (genocide) in the Balkans and know very admirable Christians. Same for Buddhists, Hindus, and many with no religion.

I was in Saudi Arabia when pressure was building on Western women to covering up. Haven't been back for some time but I believe Western women were forced to change their dress to fit the local situation. And what about how Western women have to dress in other Muslim countries. I note that Western women reporting in Iran, for instance, wear scarves, etc.

I go with Sarcozy - unless Western women are allowed to dress as they wish in the Islamic world.

Matter of fact, the discussion should extend to spreading the faith. Why should Islam be able to actively look for converts in the West when Christianity or other religions cannot do so in much of the Islamic world? And it is sometimes illegal for Muslims to change faiths - the apostasy issue.

I look on this as a simple question of fairness. The same rules should apply everywhere. Human rights trump religious rights every time and that means a global free market in religious beliefs. (I know..... There is no "free trade" either.)

[mommadona]

EXCUSE ME?

Women gotta cover it because the MEN can't handle it?

Hellllooooooo?

21st Century calling......

Don't need no tribes.
Don't need no religious males in skirts.
Don't need no male pubahs.

Dudes, you are sooooooo dusty and musty.

[rosiebond007]

If women are so desperate to have a life in France, then they should be thoroughly aware of the customs and lifestyle.

If they want to wear their burkas - stay at home!

Simple .......

It's not the country that has to conform - it's the immigrants - GET REAL - THEY CAN STAY AT HOME !!

[NightLikeThis]

Absolutely support “separation of church & state" – that given having been boiled like the frog in the U.S. in GWB admin: a sore subject re: which Sarkozy’s surely aware.

But I don't believe the question of public raiments in France, re: only the burqa, will move issues more than 1cm if people aren't given ind. choice of clothes of their religion, or tradition... & also afraid Berit’s right: women who wear [the burqa] not of choice poss. won't appear in public anymore, if this passes.

To effectively free the public square of having to notice religious preferences, Sarkozy ban would censor nuns’ habits, yarmulkes, robes of bishops, priests, monks, dervishes, and catechism dresses.

Would he refuse to hold hands with Prince Abdullah if wearing his princely raiment? http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/bush%20abdullah%20twn.jpg Nevermind.

But Berit's questions open how much isn't known about ramifications re: a ruling which if taken at face value could be a great mistake. An argument, at least, for consideration vs hasty regulation based on purported concern for women's rights.

I agree with her, paraphrasing (lack of space to quote): Separation of church and state (rule of land appx. same in France as in U.S.) is worth defending. Being forced to dress as if one has no personal preference, religious or otherwise, is merely meddling by the state, in a way that’s most likely to implode.

Legislation re: public clothing will not change issues of oppression, where they exist.

[Neal Jansons]

Ah, how typical. Don't stand in the way of the systematic oppression of women and the belief-system that perpetuates and entrenches it because i will make the main oppressors of this belief-system be more oppressive as a reaction.

Along the same logic we shouldn't have integrated schools and society, because it just provoked the racists, we should never have allowed women to have rights or work outside the home because it just provokes the abusive misogynists, and homosexuals should stay in the closet because being out provokes the homophobes.

Really, it makes perfect sense. Victims are are the ones at fault...we have to make sure they don't go around provoking their victimizers. Anything else is just evil oppression of culture.

All sarcasm and irony aside, does anyone else think that the apologists for the misogynistic practices of Islam sound a lot like those who say that the slaves were happy to be slaves and better off?

[AstridD]

Yes, you make perfect sense.

I also had a good laugh at the little irony is to be found in the title of the author's musings. The whole point of enshrouding a woman in face-erasing, sex fetish garb is to keep her from having any kind of identity to begin with. That's the plan.

[Sharon Anderson Morris]

Berit, I totally agree with you. I think Sarkozy's initiative backfired.
I believe Sarkozy actually meant to empower women, but didn't think this all the way through.
I think this isn't the end of the story by any means. .

[kithinji]

Muslim women should not be forced to wear the burqa against their will. Yes, some women may 'choose' to wear the burqa, but in a western society, it is reasonable for the people of the society to want everyone to walk around with at least their faces exposed. God could not have intended for many many women to be completely shut off from the outside world. I am in favor of modesty, and I have no problem with a headscarf or a veil, but a full burqa is not necessary, and France has the right to tell it's citizens to show their faces in public. Here's an interesting article that talks about both sides: http://www.mindreign.com/en/mindshare/World-Politics-and-Current-Events/Sarkozy-3a-e2-80-9cMuslim-Burqas-are-Unwelcome-e2-80-9d/sl34045952bp295cpp5pn1.html

[Breakwind]

Yes, every woman in France should have the right to send pictures of herself clad in a burqa to friends and family and the grandkids. Looks great on a drivers license, too!

[AstridD]

High-larious.

You just made Sarkozy's, and the French feminists', case for them. As you say, those women are both oppressed, as well as, unemployable.

[flatus]

If a tribe survives then so does it's religion. Nothing disrupts a society more than illegitimate children.
This is after all what is behind the burqa. That is, do not foster lust in men that have no "business" with the tent wearer.

[Petunia39]

Good article and good analysis Berit. The only thing Sarkozy's comments are going to achieve is to further isolate and make difficult the life's of these women. In the past, when a leader has enforced these codes the result has been the virtual self-imposed house arrest of women who would not go out in violation of their religious dress code (as was the case during a couple of years during the rule of Reza Shah in Iran). A very few percentage of Muslim women where Niqabs or Burqas (I could hardly assume that it is a matter of dire national concern for the rest of the French citizenry) and the overwhelming majority of Muslims find this custom unnecessary and extreme, but I suspect that most women who wear these do so probably because it is their custom or their own personal belief. My sense is that this has far less to do with the rights of these women and more to do with satisfying xenophobes, and creating a distraction away from real problems facing French society. Obama had a response to this issue wherein he stated he understands that the French have their own way of dealing with these issues, but that in the U.S. we do not interfere with religious beliefs regarding dress codes. I'm glad we have O and not Sarkozy.

[Romulus]

I disagree. Forcing women to wear burqas or brainwashing them to believe that it's "proper" and that they want to wear burqas is oppressive. No civilized nation should tolerate that kind of oppression. If Muslim men want to continue oppressing their women, they should not come to any Western civilized nation but remain in Muslim nations.

[snollman]

It is deeply offensive and ignorant of you to suggest that Muslim countries are not civilized. Berit raises a valid point that this kind of cultural practice raises a catch-22 that is not necessarily solved by simply banning the frowned upon behavior. Assuming, like Sarkozy, that western cultural practices (that include many woman-inhibiting behaviors) are somehow superior is not going to address the underlying causes or subsequent negative effects on women when they wear the Burqa. Bigotry of any kind misses the point of the debate by forgetting that both sides are trying on some level to protect women who may not be able to voice their opinions and exercise their rights effectively.

[been2there]

France has not thought this through. Women will want out of burqas long before men want to let them out-- what France needs to do is get ready to shelter women whose families will abuse them for being fully human. As with self-esteem, freedom can not be a gift; one can only extend the chance to earn it.

[BobLablah]

Would you be OK with a law banning all clothing that completely covers the face/head?

Are you OK with laws that prohibit public nudity? Don't those laws deprive nudist women of their liberties?