French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to ban the wearing of burkas in France. The argument is that the garment represents female subservience to 14th century Islamicist patriarchy and thus presents a threat to western liberal democracy. Therefor, we liberate the women by forcing them to wear clothes more to our liking. It’s all about freedom!
The Netherlands considered a similar ban a few years ago, but ultimately rejected it.
As noted below, what I characterize as a defense of choice is being argued as a position of cultural conservatism combined with left chic denial of the dangers of Islam to our own political culture. To the conservatives around here, are you concerned that the US legal system is going to be converted to Sharia law? Does tolerance of burqas increase the danger?
More practical questions – will the burqa be universally banned? From theater? Film? Should special permits be required? Should the law extend to men? What constitutes a burqa legally? At what point does a nun’s habit become a burqa? What if the women start wearing nylon stocking masks instead? Or Woody Woodpecker masks?
Addendum: Swimwear for Muslim women.
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June 27, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Michael Pugliese
http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Back/WNext29/Secularism.html In Defence of Militant Secularism
Andrew Coates
A STRANGE alliance has arisen: from conservative members of the Muslim Association of Britain, the SWP, to London’s Mayor, all are in an uproar about “Islamophobia”. Ken Livingstone has taken it upon himself to criticise the French move to ban wearing ostentatious religious symbols in schools. He has also given lessons on religious freedom by defending a cleric, al-Qaradawi, who supports female genital mutilation.1 This bloc draws support from the mainstream of the Anglican Church and Prince Charles to, with rare exceptions, the bien-pensant pages of the Guardian.
All are reactionary responses to the secular view, which is at the centre of anti-racism. This stand, eloquently supported by Henri Pena-Ruiz in Qu’est-ce que la laïcité? (2003), rests on the fundamental principle of the Enlightenment: the freedom of the public sphere from religious dogma.
June 27, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Michael Pugliese
Only by defending universal rights, and by denying special privileges to religious groups, can a genuine anti-racialist position unite the oppressed.
The immediate cause of this polemic is the progressive decision of an otherwise right-wing French government to ban the veil (le voile), and other divisive badges of faith from the public educational sphere. This was supported by the immense majority of the French left. Even most of those opposed to a formal interdiction admitted “the veil is an oppression” (that is the position of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire). Nearly all sides have pointed to the simple fact that men, under dominant interpretations of the Qur’an, are not required to cover their hair, and that women are obliged to do so because it is held that the sight of female coiffure will cause sexual feelings. Members of the North-African feminist movement, Ni Putes Ni Soumises, were at the forefront of the battle against the veil. Fadela Amara has declared that, whilst a believer, she sees the veil as “a tool of oppression, of alienation, of discrimination, an instrument of power by men over women”.4 These brave feminist voices have aroused the violent hostility of the French Islamicists, the tellingly named Frères musulmans (Muslim Brotherhood). Only a tiny minority of the French left, inspired by the British Socialist Workers Party, or post-modernist relativism, defended the absolute right to be oppressed.
June 27, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Michael Pugliese
Islamic veil and political Islam – an attack on civil society
Fariborz Pooya
January 25, 2004 cadre of the worker-communist party of iran
http://www.wpiran.org/Islamic%20veil%20and%20political%20Islam%20-%20an%20attack%20on%20civil%20society.htm
June 27, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Michael Pugliese
Gender and Islamic Fundamentalism in Iran by Yassimine Matjher, Iranian communist. Writer for Hands Off Iran, workers Liberty and Critique (a neo-trotskyist journal on the fSU)
http://www.iran-bulletin.org/women/yassamin.html
June 27, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Michael Pugliese
Apologists
The defenders of Islamic feminism occasionally challenge us to define what we mean by “progress”. I would argue that stopping the stoning of women for adultery, an end to flogging teenage girls who have dared to show a fringe, stopping the Hezbollah throwing paint at women who wear colourful scarves, an end to the segregation of hospitals, buses, schools, universities marks progress in any culture. It is ironic that political correctness has discouraged many Western feminists from challenging “Islamic feminism”. Iranian women, who are amongst the worst victims of Islamic fundamentalism have no intention of following this trend and indeed over the last two years have written extensively against defenders of “Islamic Feminism”.
If feminism is to abolish patriarchy, if women’s liberation means freedom from economic social political cultural constraints then the women’s movement in Iran cannot find the answer in Islamic discourse .
Yassamine Mather May 1999
Yassamine Mather is on the editorial board of the journal Critique and works closely with the journal International Socialist Forum. She is currently a member of academic staff in the Departments of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at Glasgow University. She is a left activist.
Footnotes:
1. Nayereh Tohidi – Islamic Feminism
2. Women’s Right Are Human Rights And Human Rights Are Universal. Iran Human Rights Working Group Sept 1995
3. Islamic Feminism and Feminist politics in Iran -Hammed Shahidian. University of Illinois at Springfield
June 27, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Eric Kirk
Mike, you do hopefully distinguish between support for the Burqa and support for the right to wear a burqa? There are people who personally oppose abortion, but support the right of a woman to make the choice without government intervention.
The case you have to make isn’t against the burqa itself. Most of us agree that it’s a symbol and perhaps even a mechanism of oppression in the Islamic context. Why you have to justify is the position that a woman can be empowered by reducing the power she has to wear what she wants.
And do you have that column by the British Muslim woman who supports the ban? I think she makes the most compelling argument for your case.
June 27, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Eric Kirk
I found it.
“Why I as a British Muslim woman, want the Burkha banned from our streets.”
And how many ways are there to spell the thing anyway?
June 27, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Michael Pugliese
I know i am caught in the snares of a Marcusean/Marxist pov on “false conciousness, ” at least by inference, but, women when making that “choice” when constrained by a Patriarchy far more oppressive than our Grandmothers dealt with here in the USA, are not making a free choice.
June 27, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Eric Kirk
Yeah, they’re caught between you and their patriarchy. Everybody wants to decide for them what they should wear. When they want our help, I’m sure they’ll ask for it.
June 27, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Ben
This is a peculiar discussion when it is considered that the real effect of banning the burkha is the inability of these women to go out at all. We are restricting their ability to experience shopping etc. and creating a social environment similar to that in say Pakistan where women are not seen on the street. The reality of the matter is that we find the burkha frightening. The inability to see someone’s eyes is disturbing. In Islamic cultures it is ordinary and not frightening at all. Interesting that spell check does not know the word burkha. Our culture is not inclusive of the most basic Islamic traditions.
June 27, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Cristina
Ben, I agree with the first part of your statement; it’s also a concern for me that these women would be completely cut off from society (rather than just, um, partially cut off). However, as the British Muslim woman writes, the burqa is not an “Islamic” tradition – it’s a Saudi invention. Just like female genital mutilation isn’t “Islamic” (in fact, cutting or maiming of the body is expressly forbidden in the Qu’ran) – it’s a practice predating Islam that has been conveniently adopted by hard-line societies for which sexual control of women is an imperative.
June 27, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Cristina
I might add, “Infidel” by Ayaan Hirsi Ali – one of the most polarizing figures in the Muslim world – is an outstanding read.
June 27, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Moviedad
Couldn’t one say that since there is a religious symbolism involved, the definitions of what wearing a burka means, would vary? And therefore impossible to interpret. What a powerful symbol it is to cover completely, your person. You are like a ghost. But that’s my opinion. Do I have the right to make an Islamic woman go along with it?
June 27, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Moviedad
Descartes goes into his neighborhood tavern, the Innkeeper says: “Will it be the ‘usual,’ Sir?”
He replies: “I think not.”
And he vanished into thin air.
June 27, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Shane
If Sarkozy and a bunch of Trotskyists are on the same page, you know it has to be a really bad idea. No amount of lip service to social justice and feminism can obscure the reactionary nature of this proposal.
The same types of arguments were used by Christopher Hitchens and other former leftists to justify military imperialism in Iraq. It’s no surprise that the same strategy is being used in support of Sarkozy’s cultural imperialism.
June 28, 2009 at 9:37 am
Cristina
So, we’re left in the exceedingly uncomfortable position of choosing between cultural imperialism and tacitly supporting what is possibly the most patriarchal, anti-woman culture in modern history. Wonderful!
June 28, 2009 at 9:43 am
Eric Kirk
In that case I’ll choose cultural imperialism.
June 28, 2009 at 10:50 am
ED Denson
Eric, June 28, 2009 at 9:43 am did you change your position on this issue?
I’m conflicted too. The problem is not the burka per se. Fashions get weird and no doubt like the ski mask at the protest the burka becomes a political statement. Occasionally. Normally, however, it appears to be an instrument for the oppression of women. It makes little sense to argue that burkas are being worn by choice in the vast majority of the cases. Perhaps in strict justice the law should forbid compelling a woman to wear a burka, but how could such a law be enforced? It would be like expecting kidnapping victims to come forward while being held by their kidnappers, to accuse them.
Perhaps the problem comes to this: everyone has freedom of religious belief, and normally as long as it doesn’t involve white people smoking marijuana, acting out religious sacraments and living in accord with religious precepts. But how does one give such freedoms to children if their parents will not do it? Can the state intervene in the religious and moral education of the children to “protect” them from their parents beliefs (like the Texans just did in a civil rights disaster). If the state can’t intervene, in what sense do the children have freedom of choice? Or when will they have it?
I have no solution, but I very much dislike women being compelled to wear burkas.
June 28, 2009 at 11:52 am
Eric Kirk
Well, I haven’t changed my mind with regard to a law banning burqas, but I’m happy enough to criticize the practice of imposing them on women.
June 28, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Shane
False dichotomies like that one only serve to strengthen extremists on both sides of the debate. It is in their interest to perpetuate the so-called “Clash of Civilizations” because it is the source of their strength. In reality, opposition to a ban on the wearing of burkas does not equal tacit support for patriarchy and misogyny any more than opposition to the invasion of Iraq equaled support for Saddam Hussein.
June 28, 2009 at 2:31 pm
suzy blah blah
Why not make a distinction between the fashionable freedom to choose burkwas, and uh, the other kind. It should be that burkwas are against the law but if your fashion consultant gives you a written recommendation for wearing a burkwa for a year, and if you stay within the allotted number of burkwas that fashion dictates, your cool. Or hot as the case may prove.
June 29, 2009 at 12:34 am
Mellie
It is the burqa, not religious dress in general, that is under attack, i.e. this is not about religion as such but yet another specific attack against Islam.
The US wants strategic control of the oil of the Middle East. This means dehumanising the people who live there – overwhelmingly Muslims. If we respected them as human beings, we might object to them being slaughtered.
Our society should practice toleration towards other cultures. We have absolutely no right to tell minorities how they may or may not dress. We may object to women wearing the burqa but change must come from Muslims themselves. The idea that it may be forced upon them by hostile foreign governments is repulsive.
Vindictiveness like this sometimes puts on a hypocritical “progressive” face but it is the sort of thing the BNP would applaud.
June 29, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Skippy
Sadly, I think Mellie’s onto something, especially in her second paragraph.
June 30, 2009 at 3:55 am
Scott LaMorte
I’m considering that what you wear is essentially a form of self-expression. As such, I believe it should be protected under the right to freedom of speech.
As one philosopher pointed out, some rights contradict each other. Your freedom to yell fire in a theater is contradictory to my right not to get trampled in a panic.
Unless what you are wearing can be shown to be having a serious harm to society that outweighs your freedom of expression, it should be protected.
Personally I find suits and ties far more dehumanizing than almost any other outfit. I’d love to ban them.
Though I may disagree with what you where, I will defend your right to wear it.
June 30, 2009 at 3:56 am
Scott LaMorte
No edit feature… my bad! I meant “what you wear” of course.
June 30, 2009 at 7:32 am
suzy blah blah
Personally I find suits and ties far more dehumanizing than almost any other outfit. I’d love to ban them.
Though I may disagree with what you where, I will defend your right to wear it.
As one philosopher pointed out, some rights contradict each other.
gotcha…
July 1, 2009 at 6:32 am
Cristina
While I agree with some of your points, the issue is much more complex than “Westerners” dehumanizing Muslims (after all, many Muslims ARE Westerners!). Did you read the commentary by the British Muslim woman? There’s a huge schism about this among Muslims themselves, and it doesn’t have to do with practicing tolerance. It has to do with, like I said before, tacitly supporting a religious belief system that dehumanizes WOMEN.
July 1, 2009 at 8:59 am
Eric Kirk
I would add that following our invasion of Afghanistan, hundreds of the women of Kandahar tossed their burqas into big piles in the streets and torched them. They obviously didn’t find the issue very complex.
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September 2, 2009 at 10:54 am
Anonymous
And good luck with that. Fear of retribution is as good as duct tape across the mouth.
September 2, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Eric Kirk
There is only so much the state can do to protect adult victims of abuse. Depriving victims of choice and freedom is not particularly effective in that regard.