Hijab (The Headscarf)—Yes; The Burqa—No
Pajamas Media 15 September 2009
Banning the burqa in the West might be one way to ban Islamist fundamentalism and the barbaric subordination of girls and women in certain immigrant communities. For this reason, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and French Minister Fadela Amara have again called for this ban. Earlier today, French immigration Minister, Eric Besson, called the burqa “debased.”
I would hope that the French take their argument further. In the past, they have mainly cited security concerns: Burqa wearing women might be “racially” attacked or burqa wearers themselves might be terrorists or criminals who are planning to attack or rob civilians.
I would hope that the French also argue for such a ban on women’s rights/human rights grounds, as I have already proposed. Thus, clothing which completely covers the face and head in a way which muffles speech, hearing, and vision, which limits or prevents all human communication and identification, and which, in effect, functions like an isolation chamber is, by definition, a violation of human rights.
None of this applies to hijab, the Islamic headscarf, which has already been banned in France in school and which is the subject of protest and controversy across Europe.
With all due respect for the good intentions of the French, perhaps Western governments should not automatically or necessarily ban hijab for women; the matter is tricky and complicated for girls as we have seen, as city after city across Europe has discovered. Indeed, this is a complex and challenging matter.
Today, in Holland, in the very country that is putting the sober and very brave parliamentarian,Geert Wilders on trial for exercising his political free speech—another bright Dutch light, Trouw historian Tineke Bennema has called on “women who were born in the Netherlands to voluntarily put on a headscarf ‘out of solidarity’ with the hijab wearers.” You know, like the Danes allegedly once wore the yellow Jewish star.
Read All here: http://europenews.dk/en/node/26287
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