The legal banning of the burqa and niqab (the full veil worn by some Muslim women) has been growing in popularity in Europe and is now making its way across the Atlantic. Canadian Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, Jason Kenney, known for his conservative and anti-immigrant policies, announced that new Canadian citizens will now be forced to remove the burqa or niqab while taking their oath of citizenship.
According to the Associated Press,
Jason Kenney said most Canadians have misgivings about Islamic face coverings and said new Canadians should take the oath in view of their fellow citizens...The Conservative minister called the issue a matter of deep principle that goes to the heart of Canada's identity and the country's values of openness and equality. He said women who feel obliged to have their faces covered in public often come from a cultural milieu that treats women as property rather than equal human beings.
This isn't about whether we think wearing burqas or niqabs is a good idea or not. The issue is whether a government should be able to impose its notion of national identity on its citizens (and non-citizens for that matter) by dictating what articles of faith we can and cannot wear.
We Sikhs are all too familiar with the confines of national identity. Thousands of Sikhs were killed in the 1980s in the name of Indian patriotism, we've faced immense backlash violence in the United States (and elsewhere) since 9/11 (many perpetrators calling themselves patriots), and we continue to face a legal ban on turbans in French classrooms and photographs on government-issued identification.
As a Sikh, and as someone who values religious freedom and cultural pluralism, I am disturbed by the growing number of laws that ban the niqab in Europe and now Canada. These laws further push a government's ethnocentric assertion of a homogeneous national identity -- all in the name of liberating women.
French Muslim woman Hind Ahmas hardly sees these policies as a means to her liberation, as she currently could face jail time for refusing to remove her niqab. Last Monday she was fined 150 euros and sentenced to a 15-day "citizenship course" for wearing her niqab. Her sentence was given in her absence, as the court would not allow her inside wearing her niqab. She stated to reporters, "This citizenship course, I will not do it. It is the people in the court who need lessons on French citizenship, not me."
Ahmas could face a fine of 30,000 euros and up to two years in prison if she does not attend the course.
While hundreds of thousands of working people, students, immigrants, and rather ordinary people are rising up throughout the world against corporate greed, political corruption, and growing inequality, our elected officials are apparently spending their time and resources creating and implementing policies that restrict and police religious garb. Priorities, priorities ...
As Islam continues to be openly vilified by politicians and media pundits, policies like these targeting the niqab are strategic, political moves used to galvanize support (and votes) via fear and exclusion. Michael Tubiana of the French Human Rights League (LDH) believes Ahmas is being targeted in this way because the government wants to be seen as tough on immigrants and Islamists as next year's elections quickly approach. He states, "The government just wants to compete with the National Front for votes at the next election. It used to be a case of the National Front trying to win votes from the centre right UMP party but now it is the other way round."
Indeed, it's hard to imagine Kenney's political motivations in Canada being much different. Every (intolerant) society needs its enemy. For Europe and North America, Muslims continue to unapologetically be the target.
So, as the popular union anthem asks, which side are you on?
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Ban the burka if you want, but the Charter deserves respect
“Fighting Stereotypes in the U.K.
In the Telegraph, Damian Thompson has an interesting short piece titled “When Islam met the diversity industry.” He notes the incongruous compatibility between British Muslims and the heretofore aggressively secular diversity industry.
Thompson focuses on the Islamic Diversity Centre in Newcastle. Much could be said about this group’s activities, but I want to make just one observation. The IDC’s stated purpose is challenging stereotypes of Islam. It is therefore rather stunning that when the group introduces its staff to readers of its web site, the most persistent stereotypes are abundantly confirmed.
[…]
That’s right: the men are identified and individually pictured, but for each female staff member there is a photo of a woman wearing a burqa, so that only her eyes are showing. Not only that, it is the same photo in each case; not a picture of the female staff member at all, but a generic image of a woman wearing a burqa.”
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/12/fighting-stereotypes-in-the-u-k.php
The re imposition of strict requirements is informed by an anti Western sentiment to some extent.
This is one source in Sharia law for the strictest requirement:
p42.1: Allah Most High says:
"Men are the guardians of women, since Allah has been more generous to one than the other, and because of what they [men] spend from their wealth. So righteous women will be obedient, and in absence watchful, for Allah is watchful. And if you fear their intractability warn them, send them from bed, or hit them. But if they obey you, seek no way to blame them. (Koran 4:34)"
"m2.3 It is unlawful for a man to look at a woman who is not his wife or one of his unmarriageable kin (def: m6.1) (O: there being no difference in this between the face and hands or some other part of a woman (N: if it is uncovered)[....]
A majority of scholars (n: with the exception of some Hanafis, as at m2.8 below) have been recorded as holding that it is unlawful for women to leave the house with faces unveiled" [....]
http://www.shafiifiqh.com/maktabah/relianceoftraveller.pdf
I read a story in which two liberal Muslim men, traveling in a conservative Muslim country, joke about the UBO's--Unidentified Black Objects.
Mainstream Muslims vs. Ultra-Conservative Muslims.
The fact is:
Even in France, where a nationwide "burqa-ban" went into effect recently -- out of millions of Muslim women there, only a few hundred of them wear a burqa.
http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/paper/index.php?article=4225
In Beligium, where a similar law was enacted, as few as 30 or so Muslim women are thought to wear a burqa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burqa
Simply put: any of these types of laws, outside of Muslim-majority countries, apply to very, very few individuals.
Which makes the prioritizing of such legislation seem rather strange and/or suspect, to say the least, I'd say.
By the way - as you've mentioned several times in the past - ongoing debate doesn't imply non-goodwill, in any way - and I agree.
And so:
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to you and your family!
And, as I said at the end of 2010 ... I'm sure all these interesting Muslim-related / Islam-related discussions will continue, in the New Year.
I don't know that we've changed each other's views one iota (which is fine, of course) ... but if nothing else, maybe overall comments and ongoing discussions between all of us here help people to realize that there's a lot more to all this than the "black and white" that anyone might be tempted to see, by sticking only with surface-level news, other people's opinions, and immediate, personal reactions.
I had a Muslim female friend (in Louisiana) who was considering wearing the veil out of a personal choice to express her faith. Her husband only cared that she be happy, and was happy with her with or without the veil.
The government has no right to restrict her from her choice.
It's funny to me how people point fingers at the sexism outside their own culture w/o recognizing sexism in their own culture.
"The most stubborn form of the opposition between Jew and Christian is the religious opposition. How is an opposition resolved? By making it impossible. And how is religious opposition made impossible? By abolishing religion. As soon as Jew and Christian come to see in their respective religions nothing more than states in the development of the human mind – snake skins which have been cast off by history, and man as the snake who clothed himself in them – they will no longer find themselves in religious opposition, but in a purely critical, scientific, and human relationship."
– Karl Marx, "On the Jewish Question" (1843)
So much of human communication is done using the face; the words we speak are enhanced and shaped by the facial gestures with which we deliver them, and our knowledge of how our words are received is in large part indicated by the receiver's expressions. Blocking the face off in public renders conversation at best difficult...and of course that's the idea, isn't it? Keeping women out of the public sphere and away from men who aren't relatives.
The message being sent is, "I refuse to deal with you as an equal. I must put a barrier between you and I." There's nothing positive about that. It's negative for both parties, but mostly for the women.
I wouldn't support a legal ban on these things, but surely a social awareness campaign pointing out these sorts of facts would help consign the niqab to history. As a minimum, making it the law that one has to reveal one's face for these sorts of legal transactions isn't too much to ask.
Have you ever even talked to one of these women? Have you ever posed these questions to them? For the love of cheese, do an internet search and read actual Muslim women's feelings on this issue.. especially free Western Muslim women who CHOOSE to wear this clothing. Get the actual facts before you start peeing imputations all over them.
Zombified and brainwashed people do not control their actions. They follow the instructions and find ways to explain why instructions are good for them.
The Burkah, from its origin from around 624 AD, is a symbol of male dominance of females, who must comply with all male's wishes and desires, while suppressing their owns. It is a symbol of inequality between sexes: one side is superior to another by law and Burkah is simply a visual representation of that notion.
Yes, there is sexism inherent in hiding your face from men...but only the men who are a "sexual danger". This is isn't a matter of philosophy, it is a matter of anthropological reality. If you bothered to do some research, you would find great evidence of this. Just finding some examples who choose such degrading traditions willingly doesn't remove the meaning.
If you can locate where I have supported ridiculous heels, you might have a point as regards practicality, but you don't.
I have indeed formed my opinion based upon research. You just don't like my conclusions. That's your problem, not mine.
But this sunshine can only enter when our inner windows are open and the curtains are lifted. There is no shame in it but the sense of liberty. It ceases to be hide and seek but just the latter.
When one seeks freedom, in this case the right to voice one's opinion through voting, then one must stand out if one wants to be counted as the torch bearer of liberty. One can not do that behind any veils.
As someone said, "Look me in the eyes and you shall see my soul".
For instance, when you ask a Christian to give up the idea of God, you are ipso facto asking them to give up huge set of conceptual frameworks which are entirely consistent with their experience. You are asking them to give up the conventional functionality of various non-religious ideas. It is the very functionality of practical information related to living life that provides the "evidence" of the truths within religious tradition.
On the other hand, from a purely philosophical-ontological perspective, the "truth" claims of most religions can be logically shredded. In the case of my own tradition, one is not allowed to accept an idea or belief simply because it is part of the tradition. We are given formal training in how to construct logical syllogisms and how to analyze our own inner and outer experience critically. If something cannot be logically proven, then it is not accepted as a fact, in Buddhism.
There are many religions in the world which are not dogmatic but pragmatic and are not -ISMS. They have no deities involved.
What people call god by any other name or no name, is actually Creative Energy... that is in organic and in inorganic what the religiousos call Omnipresent while not truely understanding its meaning.
Problem solved
(I don't really think religion should be banned. I just wish our species would evolve beyond the need to believe in fairy tale nonsense.)
But there are a thousand different modes of hijab, ranging from a loosely worn colored headscarf to a dark uniform body and face covering burqa. Somewhere in this spectrum the symbol of modesty turns into a walking billboard for the dark side of Islam.
Should not strong, well educated & free Muslima’s give up the practise to cover their face for the sake of their sisters in faith who are less privileged? Aren’t those who in the Days of Ignorance buried their daughters in sand (Q 81:8), at present burying them in veils? Shouldn’t we prefer hikmat over hijab?
a) Saudi Arabia legislating what women should wear; and
b) The West legislating what women should not wear
The mindset behind each is the same: TELLING women what to do!
I am against covering of the face, for these reasons:
a) It is an extreme interpretation of the Qur`an and Hadith;
b) It makes no sense in the Western context.
But, today, it is the niqab, tomorrow, it will be the scarf, and who knows what else will follow.
Already, the Western countries are banning the mosque minarets and even domes.
Our local mosque here, which took over 20 years to build because it's been built with private donations, had a minaret and a dome in its original design.
It has none of them.
Saudi Arabia's legislation oppresses women and relegates them to second-class status as the chattel of their fathers and husbands.
By contrast, legislation that bans identity-concealing garments upholds the dignity of women and reinforces their rights.
In a culture obsessed with physical appearance and materialist values, I think it makes perfect sense. It makes sense more than ever.
However, freedom to the West means how many layers of clothing the women should remove and not how many they should put on.
So long as they remove these layers, the West is fine with it.
But as soon as they start to put them on, the cry foul.
I have seen how some young Muslim girls at a French school were demonized, harrassed and ridicule by one of their teachers for covering their hair.
They were not covering their faces, just hair, which is the tradition of ALL Abrahamic faiths.