Category Archives: State Oppression

‘Veiled threat’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Among European liberals the burka is seen as a symbol of female subservience. And the freedom to opt for such deplorable status runs counter to other liberties regarded as more important in the hierarchy of freedoms: openness, transparency, equality and opportunity. Within Western society, the covering of the face negates all such fundamental rights….

“Tolerance of the practice is also a licence for intolerance. Too often extremists try to exploit this bogus symbol of Islamic piety to create Muslim ghettos where they assert their own personal power. Too often the issue is a deliberate provocation to challenge the values and mores of Western society. An absolute ban on the burka is unnecessary and unenforceable. But civic education and religious debate – here, in France and in the Muslim world – are the best way to consign to the dark ages this symbol of darkness.”

Editorial in the Times, 26 June 2009

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Canada: government drops plans to ban veiled voting

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The federal government has no plans to move forward with proposed legislation to force veiled women to show their faces when voting, the minister of state for democratic reform said Thursday.

Dmitri Soudas, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, confirmed the government still supports the idea of forcing voters to reveal their faces, but said the bill doesn’t have opposition support. “The bottom line is even if we were to proceed with legislation, it would be voted down immediately,” Soudas said.

The government introduced the bill in October 2007, a month after an Elections Canada ruling allowed Muslim women to vote with their faces covered by burkas or niqabs during three Quebec byelections. That decision infuriated the government, and Harper accused Elections Canada of subverting the will of Parliament, which several months earlier had unanimously adopted legislation beefing up voter identification requirements.

CBC News, 26 June 2009

West must respect the Muslim veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Modernity should not be defined solely from a Western, liberal, secular-centred point of view. Our world today is one of multiple modernities, in which societies are increasingly multicultural and religiously and non-religiously pluralistic. Western societies should respect the rights of Muslim women who choose to wear the veil.”

John Esposito in the Gulf Times, 25 June 2009

Express links veil to terrorism, calls for ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ban the BurkhaIt is a city that has found itself at the heart of the debate about ­Muslim extremism after providing a home to three suicide bombers who brought devastation to London in the July 7 2005 attacks. And in Leeds yesterday the number of women clad head-to-foot in burkhas provoked anger among growing numbers who believe they should be banned.

Groups of Muslim women dressed in the restrictive robes refused to comment on their personal reasons for wearing the garment which continues to cause controversy. And even though they were walking along a busy street among shoppers and workers, most refused to be seen engaging with a non-Muslim man in public.

Leeds has a fast-growing Muslim population of at least 40,000 – double the number of 10 years ago. Locals say that since the 7/7 attacks in July 2005 – three of the gang hailed from Leeds – there has also been a increase in the number of Islamic women choosing to wear the burkha, much to the anger of many of the city’s inhabitants.

German-born au-pair Chantal Manzal, 23, has been living in Leeds for a year but returns home next month. She said yesterday: “I cannot believe what I have seen in Britain. In Germany the burkha is hardly ever seen but here I see women wearing them whenever I go out. I find them really scary.”

Hairdresser Sarah-Jane Martin, 21, said: “There is no doubt these terrible things should be banned immediately. It is a sign of oppression against women and on those grounds alone, in this day and age, they should be outlawed.”

Businesswoman Marcia Booth, 37, said: “There is no more prominent sign of female oppression by men than the burkha. I find it so demeaning and whenever I see these women hiding themselves away my blood reaches boiling point and I just want to scream at them.”

Daily Express, 24 June 2009

See also ENGAGE, 24 June 2009

How to ban the veil?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Answer: find some co-operative Muslims who will agree with you, and promote their views as representative of the community. That way you neatly deflect accusations of racism. So we have the Express asserting that “both Muslims and non-Muslims” advocate a ban, while the Daily Mail wheels out Saira Khan, who writes in terms that could just as easily be found on some far-right website:

“In hardline Muslim communities right across Britain, the burkha and hijab – the Muslim headscarf – are becoming the norm…. Thanks to fundamentalist Muslims and ‘hate’ preachers working in Britain, the veiling of women is suddenly all-pervasive and promoted as a basic religious right. We are led to believe that we must live with this in the name of ‘tolerance’.

“… the growing number of women veiling their faces in Britain is a sign of creeping radicalisation, which is not just regressive, it is oppressive and downright dangerous. The burkha is an extreme practice. It is never right for a woman to hide behind a veil and shut herself off from people in the community. But it is particularly wrong in Britain, where it is alien to the mainstream culture for someone to walk around wearing a mask.

“So what should we do in Britain? For decades, Muslim fundamentalists, using the human rights laws, have been allowed to get their own way…. For the sake of women and children, the Government must ban the wearing of the hijab in school and the burkha in public places….

“My message to those Muslims who want to live in a Talibanised society, and turn their face against Britain, is this: ‘If you don’t like living here and don’t want to integrate, then what the hell are you doing here? Why don’t you just go and live in an Islamic country?'”

French secularist defends hijab ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Agnes Poirier“… the burka and all ostentatious religious signs have already been banned in state-run schools since 2004. And in hospitals or municipal offices, anywhere where people interact as equal citizens, staff are not allowed to wear hijabs or burka, and patients or members will be told to unveil.

“The ban in schools was passed in 2004 as a reaction to the Socialist Government of Lionel Jospin, which was seen as violating the spirit of the 1905 law on the separation of Church and State. Its laissez-faire attitude allowed a handful of teenagers to start wearing the hijab in school, provoking national outrage and a debate that lasted until the 2004 law finally enforced the Republican principle.

“That such a debate is taking place again reveals the sturdy health of secularism in France, a tradition that doesn’t shy away from being confrontational even in a country with the largest Muslim and Jewish communities in Europe.

“Similar debates seem impossible in Britain. When Jack Straw dared to state the obvious in 2006 by saying that the burka and the niqab were ‘visible statements of separation and of difference’ before asking politely that women visiting his constituency surgery consider removing them, it provoked angry protests from Islamic associations and the British liberal-Left, always inclined, it seems, to defend the rights of liberty’s enemies.

“Seen from France, Britain’s tolerance of extremist views looks at best naive, at worse dangerous…. Seen from Britain, French principles of equality and secularism are often misinterpreted, and dismissed as authoritarian or prejudiced. But critics of the French approach don’t seem to understand that secularism is neutral – the State doesn’t recognise any religion in particular but protects them all, guaranteeing cultural and religious diversity by ensuring that one faith does not get the upper hand.”

Agnès Poirier in the Times, 24 June 2009

Yes, that’s the same French state that is so committed to observing strict neutrality towards all faiths that it banned the Islamic headscarf from schools but ordered flags on all public buildings to be flown at half mast to mark the death of the Pope.

And it’s the same Agnès Poirier who is so committed to the principle of public debate that she rejected an invitation to speak at Ken Livingstone’s “Clash of Civilisations” conference because she would have faced other platform speakers who disagreed with her narrow and dogmatic interpretation of secularism.

MCB statement on Sarkozy’s support for veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sarkozy Defies Universal Values as he tells Women What Not to Wear: French leader’s Burqa remarks are designed to whip-up further xenophobia against Muslims

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) criticised French President Nicholas Sarkozy’s intention to ban the wearing of Burqa – a garment worn by a minority of Muslim women in accordance with their religious belief. Reiterating its long established position that individuals must have the freedom to choose their attire on the basis of deeply-held religious beliefs, the MCB called upon the French President to desist from engaging in and promoting divisive politics towards its Muslim inhabitants. In this respect, the MCB echoes the US President Barack Obama’s caution that “it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practising religion as they see fit – for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism.”

Assistant Secretary General of the MCB, Dr. Reefat Drabu said: “It is patronising and offensive to suggest that those Muslim women who wear the burqa do so because of pressure or oppression by their male partners or guardians”. She added: “Such suggestions can legitimately be perceived as antagonistic towards Islam. Instead of taking a lead in promoting harmony and social cohesion amongst its people, the French President appears to be initiating a policy which is set to create fear and misunderstanding and may lead to Islamophobic reaction not just in France but in the rest of Europe too”.

MCB press release, 23 June 2009

Update:  See also the Daily Telegraph, 24 June 2009

Veil is ‘not welcome on the territory of the French republic’ says Sarkozy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nicolas_SarkozyFrench President Nicolas Sarkozy has spoken out strongly against the wearing of the burka by Muslim women in France.

In a major policy speech, he said the burka – a garment covering women from head to toe – reduced them to servitude and undermined their dignity. Mr Sarkozy also gave his backing to the establishment of a parliamentary commission to look at whether to ban the wearing of burkas in public.

“We cannot accept to have in our country women who are prisoners behind netting, cut off from all social life, deprived of identity,” Mr Sarkozy told a special session of parliament in Versailles. “That is not the idea that the French republic has of women’s dignity. The burka is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience. It will not be welcome on the territory of the French republic.”

A group of cross-party lawmakers is already calling for a special inquiry into whether Muslim women who wear the burka is undermining French secularism, the BBC’s Emma Jane Kirby in Paris says. The lawmakers also want to examine whether women who wear the veil are doing so voluntarily or are being forced to cover themselves, our correspondent says.

BBC News, 22 June 2009

For Yusuf Smith’s comments see Indigo Jo Blogs, 22 June 2009

Update:  See also ENGAGE, 23 June 2009

Will France ban the veil?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Secularism is the religion of contemporary France. And the enforcers of that faith have a new target. ‘Today… we are confronted by certain Muslim women wearing the burqa, which covers and fully envelops the body and the head like a moving prison,’ said Andre Gérin, a Communist Party legislator who joined 57 others Wednesday in signing a motion for a parliamentary committee to study possible legislation to ban the wearing of the traditional costume in public….

“But what about the rights of Muslim women who honestly feel faith-bound to voluntarily don a burka? Or those prohibited by law from attending public school with the headscarfs they wear everywhere else? Why is no one ranting about nuns’ habits being ‘degrading’ (as Gerin called the burqa), just as no one lashed out at creeping extremism when then-First Lady Bernadette Chirac covered her head during Vatican visits?

“Probably because Catholicism has deep roots in French history and culture, and is not viewed as a foreign faith the way Islam is ….”

Bruce Crumley in Time, 19 June 2009

See also “Muslim council slams call for burqa inquiry”, AFP, 18 June 2009