Is The Burqa a Religious or Political Statement?Finally, at the midnight hour, some European governments have begun to fight back—not against the Islamification of Europe but against inhumane, even barbaric political practices in the name of religion which violate western standards of universal human rights.
Thus, first France, but now Italy have called for a ban on the burqa. Italy’s Northern League proposal “aims at amending a 1975 law, introduced amid concern over domestic terrorism, which bans anyone wearing anything which makes their identification impossible…..
The Northern League also has the backing of Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party. The League’s Roberto Cota said: ‘We are not racist and we have nothing against Muslims but the law must be equal for everyone.
When France’s President Sarkozy first called for a similar ban, a self-identified branch of al-Qaeda in Northern Africa threatened to attack France over this.
Predictably, Centre left opposition MPs “criticized the Italian proposal and said it was ‘unconstitutional because it infringes on religious freedom and justifying it because of law and order is totally out of place.’
Not so fast.
Verily, we live in an age of miracles; thus, none other than Sheikh Mohammed Tantawi, the leading religious figure of Al-Azhar, was, just the other day, “reportedly angered” when he toured a school in Cairo and saw a girl wearing “niqab” which means that her face was masked or possibly that she was wearing a full head, face, and body covering.
“Sheikh Tantawi, regarded by many as Egypt’s Imam and Sunni Islam’s foremost spiritual authority, asked the teenage girl to remove her veil saying: “The niqab is a tradition, it has no connection with religion.”
The imam instructed the girl, a pupil at a secondary school in Cairo’s Madinet Nasr suburb, never to wear the niqab again and promised to issue a fatwa, or religious edict, against its use in schools. The ruling will not affect use of the hijab, the Islamic headscarf worn by most Muslim women in Egypt.
Following the imam’s lead, Egypt’s minister of higher education is to ban female undergraduates from wearing the niqab from the country’s public universities, Cairo’s Al-Masri Al-Yom newspaper reported. “
Again, don’t rejoice too soon.
Even the very influential Sheikh Tantawi has his fundamentalist detractors who have excoriated him for supporting France’s ban on hijab in public schools and for shaking hands with Israeli President Shimon Peres.
And, clearly, the Egyptian government is unhappy about the gathering forces of Islamic fundamentalism which consistently manipulate women and women’s clothing as symbolic political statements. Some have even called for more severe Islamic clothing for women in which only one eye (Algerian style) can show.
The Egyptian government understands that it is at risk vis a vis Islamic fundamentalists.
Now, some European politicians understand this too.
Source: Chesler Chronicles
Posts
