Once again, how Muslim women dress has been made into something worthy of public concern. This time, it was Sarkozy:

The problem with the burqa is not a religious problem. It’s a problem of liberty and of the dignity of women. It is not a religious sign, it is a sign of subservience, it is a sign of lowering.

I want to say solemnly, the burka is not welcome in France. We can not accept in our country women trapped behind a fence, cut off from social life, deprived of any identity. This is not the idea that we have of the dignity of women.

(click here for full transcript and video in French)

Beautifully said, I must say, but it is all meaningless.

If we assume that women who wear the burka are indeed everything he says they are, then will banning them from covering their face with those extra few square inches of cloth guarantee them a social life? A sense of identity? A happy marriage? Will it change anything? There is no evidence, as far as am I aware, to suggest that this will happen, so I do not believe that the government is in any position to enact legalisation to regulate their dress.

It seems fair to expect them to reveal their face when photo identification is required, but even in schools I do not see what justification the government has in banning them from wearing the burka. I’ll admit that, though I am quite fond of the headscarf — I’d even say that I find it sexy –, I have little sympathy for the burka, particularly the awful sky blue Afghani ones (black looks much better). However, I understand that those who are raised with the burka as a tradition do not see it as I do.

At best, one could claim there to be a correlation between unhappiness and wearing the burqa, but this would by no means suggest that the women are unhappy because of the burqa. If the husband is mean-spirited and controlling, if the wife only wears the burqa because she is forced to, and tomorrow a ban goes through and he can no longer expect her to wear the burqa; will she become happier? I somewhat doubt so.

And how are the husbands of those women who wear burqas? Are they possessive and misogynistic, or are they humans like humans are everywhere (for the better and for the worst), except that they’re from another culture, where women are expected to keep their bodies hidden to a greater extent than in ours? I am quite convinced that such expectations are wrong, but let’s not forget that our ancestors of a few centuries past would probably have more sympathy for the burqa than mini-skirts and tank tops. Yes, we’ve grown more tolerant since, but we still have our arbitrary rules: in many places, a woman can not reveal her breasts, let alone her genitals. People who are opposed to women walking down the street naked probably feel the same way as people who want women to be covered from head to toe. The degree is quite different in each case, but these rules remain equally arbitrary and indefensible. I hope that such rules will fade away in time, but this prudishness on our part is no more a sign of our disrespect towards women than the burqa is a sign of Muslim men’s disrespect towards women.

Then we must consider that by complaining about the burqa, we may well encourage its use. When the identity of people is attacked, they will often be tempted to reinforce it. This is why I believe it often better to live and let live, to live as well as we can and hope to influence others through example rather than through force and pressure. Perhaps the first generation of immigrants will keep their burqa, but their children may decide to only wear the headscarf, and their grandchildren may opt for a mini-skirt and a g-string.

It seems to me that calls to ban the burqa are rooted not in an attempt to better the lives of these women so much as to preserve our own comfort in the face of foreign customs which many of us feel a certain distaste towards. Law, however, should not be based in taste.

Sometimes, it’s even rooted in a certain distaste for Islam. Without even bothering to attack the validity of this prejudice, it’s important to note that there’s a serious misunderstanding of how Muslims are world wide: Muslim has become synonymous with Arab, and Arab culture has become synonymous with Saudi Arabian culture. What has actually happened is that Saudi Arabia, and particularly its rulers, with their vast oil wealth, have sought to spread a specific brand of Islam (Wahhabism), which is what many know as fundamentalist Islam, or sometimes even, sadly, just as “Islam”.

The influence of Saudi Arabia’s rise in importance is obvious in the news media as well as in other Muslim countries, where the Saudis have invested heavily in and sought to influence. The product of this is fundamentalists that have become quite vocal and the majority of Muslims, often moderate individuals who just want to live comfortably, find a partner and raise children that they will be proud of, are afraid to voice their opinion or to criticise anything about Islam in public out of fear of being seen as false Muslims, a label that Wahhabists seem fond of applying. These moderate Muslims may often even agree with the general message presented by the fundamentalists — the Taliban, for example, has experienced popular support in parts of Pakistan –, but this does not mean that their values are the same. When a video was released of the Pakistani Taliban flogging a young girl, many of the Taliban’s supporters realised that the Taliban did not only stand for Islam, a return to the simple days of yore, but also for unnecessary violence and intolerance. The Taliban has now lost much of its support in Pakistan because of this.

Islam is definitely not at its peak. Fundamentalism and intolerance have certainly gained weight in the past years. But it is important for us to remember that the situation was once radically different: Jews once ran away from Europe, where they were slayed in genocides, to arrive to the Muslim world where they found unparalleled freedom and respect, something that the Qu’ran demands on the part of Muslims. The Muslims were at the front of science, philosophy and art, while Europe was caught in its darkest period.

Now, during our better days, who would we be to look down upon them as “less civilised”, rather than extend a hand in friendship? We should place all tensions and disagreements aside and treat them not with contempt, but as we would wish to be treated. Would we want them to blame our religion (or lack thereof) for our problems, or would we want them to be a subtle influence that we may choose to accept or refuse? Perhaps in extreme cases, such as under the Taliban, military intervention is justified. But this is quite different from attempting to influence their culture, their perception of their religion, their traditions, their values and even how they dress.

PS: I’ve been a bit busy of late, and that’s my excuse for neglecting the website over the last month or so. I expect that I’ll be more active from now on.

-Dussault

1 Comment »

1. Awesome post. If we assume that forcing women to remove their burka will in some way empower them, we’re wrong. Who knows, maybe wearing it empowers them to not be sex symbols… It’s fair to assume that different women wear it for different reasons, some by force, some by choice?

   Comment by anon — March 11, 2010 @ 2:37 PM

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