talkpolitics | Persecuting headgear

What's a burqa, and does it have a place in our place? That's the question that a number of European societies have been pondering about for some time. In Germany for example, some province ministers of the interior have decided to ban the controversial headgear as part of the measures to counter Islamic radicalization. Other countries already have some experience in that respect, most acting on a regional principle, some at a national level.

In France, the ban on niqabs, burqas and all such paraphernalia has been in place since 2011. The penalty fee is 150 euros. So far, about 2000 such fines have been imposed, and one Algerian entrepreneur even boasts with the fact that he has personally paid more than half of those.

In France there's been a debate for 5 years now, whether this ban is an efficient tool in the fight against radical ideologies and in defense of women's rights - or it's the way of the French secular state to punish a religious minority and thus push it into isolation. The proponents of the ban argue that they're defending women's dignity and the high ideals of the French republic, while its detractors remind that these woman cover their faces voluntarily. They fear that the ban would force many conservative women into staying home rather than venturing into the street. Especially after the terror attacks in Paris and Nice, people's nerves seem to be strained to the brink, and the debate has obtained almost hysterical overtones.

Thing is, the very enforcement of this ban is practically difficult, because things could escalate pretty fast. For instance, when the woman's male companion blows a fuse (no, not literally!), or when these checks are done in some of the most problematic neighborhoods - those are potentially inflammable situations that could get out of hand easily. Let me just remind that 3 years ago, a Paris suburb saw massive unrest, exactly after such a quarrel over a burqa.

The police finds itself between the hammer and anvil in one more case: when it has to impose the ban on foreign tourists, for instance women from Saudi Arabia, who are considered top-notch customers in France. Some media report that the police have been handed unofficial instructions to turn a blind eye in those cases.

A similar problem exists here in Switzerland as well: there's a ban on burqas in the Ticino canton, and a citizens initiative is organizing a petition to expand this into a federal ban. The hotel-keepers in Lugano, Locarno and Ascona are already having headaches with the very thought of their rich customers from the Persian states fleeing Switzerland for some other luxurious places that haven't banned the burqa yet. Meanwhile, the proponents of the ban insist that "a free person does not hide their face; in Switzerland, the land of freedom, people shouldn't be forced to hide their face". The penalty fee in Ticino is about 100 euros, and repeat offenses are penalized with up to 1000 euros. There are about 350 thousand Muslims here in 8-million Switzerland, and there's no reliable data on the number of Muslim women who wear burqas. But it's obvious this could grow into a serious problem if not handled properly.

France has a lot more Muslims, close to 5 million, but only about 2000 wear burqas. The debate there has gained new speed lately, after in an interview the minister of the family issues, children's and women's rights, said some things that ignited the situation. And of course this wouldn't be France, if the scandal wasn't about the famous Paris fashion, women's fashion headgear more precisely. Some fashion companies have been offering a new product called Burkini (from burqa and bikini), so the socialist minister Laurence Rossignol called this "irresponsible", because the fashion companies were confining the woman's body to chains this way. And when she was called by journalists about those women who voluntarily wear a niqab, she said something to the effect of, "Yeah, but there were also American Negros who supported slavery". WTF.

This sort of comparison, along with the use of the term "negro", naturally caused her a lot of trouble. Many accused her of neo-colonialism, and some 20,000 signatures were collected in a petition calling for her resignation. Still, Rossignol did get the support of a number of fashion designers in this debate. Pierre Berge, a long-time partner of the legendary Yves Saint-Laurent said that he had always believed the fashion designer's job to be making women more beautiful and giving them more freedom - as opposed to becoming accomplice in a dictatorship that forces women to hide from society. And the philosopher Elisabeth Badinter even called for boycotting those labels who sell "Islamic fashion". Whatever happens there on the high-life end of the spectrum, it's obvious that this debate is going to gain momentum in the months to come, and possibly combine with the wave of terror incidents and the general anxiety of the populace, to contribute to the perfect storm that seems to be coming up in Europe.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

dreamville-bg.livejournal.com

This is just not fair. Kids and men can bathe in the sea freely, while women have to be dressed up like ninjas? WTF!? And this is done voluntarily? What sort of twisted people would raise a woman to believe she's free this way?

Edited Date: 23/8/16 06:04 (UTC)

From:

luzribeiro.livejournal.com

Poor oppressed Muslim men. They just cannot control their urges whenever they see a square inch of female flesh. But they are not to blame - Allah made them this way! So how about punishing women for the failures of a pervert god.

Edited Date: 23/8/16 06:07 (UTC)

From:

mahnmut.livejournal.com

Religious ones.

From:

ddstory.livejournal.com

'Cept, ninjas had those awesome sabres, and those deadly shuriken that they could throw at anyone who messed with them.

From:

wight1984.livejournal.com

The key issue here is that people often want things that are different to what we might expect, whether that's people who want to be covered head-to-toe or people who don't want to wear anything. The fact that their choices seem unusual to us doesn't mean that those choices haven't been freely made.

That's not to say that there isn't a sexist double standard when it female modesty... but there are also plenty of western double standards surrounding both make-up and hair removal, yet only some feminists would describe make-up and hair removal as inherently patriarchal and oppressive.... yes, the double-standard is bad but that doesn't mean that we should ban shaving your legs just because men aren't pressured to do it.

From:

dreamville-bg.livejournal.com

Reminds me of the issue with that kid who almost died in intensive care in a hospital because his parents had imposed a strict vegan diet on him, depriving him of vital nutrients. "My kid? He chose this diet by his own volition!" Yeah sure he did - except, that's the only lifestyle he had been exposed to, what else do you expect him to have chosen? Same with ultra-conservative religious women. I'm sure they genuinely believe they're free, making free choices on their own. Except, they really aren't. Because the choices they're being presented with, are rather limited.

For the record, it feels kind of weird that me, a man, would have to defend this position to you, a woman. But I suppose that's a topic of another sort of debate.

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Persecuting headgear