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French President Sarkozy calls for the banning of the niqab and burqa

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Tuesday, 23 June 2009 13:36


 There’s a lot in the papers today, (Times, Daily Express, Daily Mail) regarding the speech of the French President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday in which he pledged his support for a parliamentary commission to debate a possible ban on the wearing of the burqa/niqab in France.

Sarkozy said that the burqa represents the “debasement of women”.

He went on:

“In our country we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity.”


His comments reflect the attitudes that informed the proceedings and outcome of the Stasi Commission and its recommendation on the banning of headscarves (conspicuous religious symbols) in French schools.

The Commission, in its choice of females and others testifying to the symbolism and effects of the headscarf on Muslim identity and female participation in French society, echoed much the same. Feminists and others that gave evidence to the Commission argued against the headscarf portraying it as a symbol of female subjugation, of submission to patriarchal authority, and as restrictive to the movement of women in the private and public spheres.

The irony of course was that while the views of critics of the headscarf were amplified and magnified in the Commission and in public debate, the subjects themselves, headscarf wearing women, were largely absent.

Few were willing to hear the voices of headscarved women decrying popular imagery of them as ‘deprived of identity’, or lacking in autonomy. And while feminists and others were keen to advance their cause as one of liberating ‘subjugated women’, their own subjugation of these same women, forcing them to conform to dress codes of another’s choosing, didn’t seem to register on liberty’s radar.

Sarkozy said:

“The burkha is not a religious sign. It is a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement”.

Which begs the question, who determines the meaning of religious garb and symbols, state authorities or members of the religious community? Is the President of the Fifth French Republic, or any other official for that matter, the best person to inform Muslims, Christians or others, what their religious dress means?

President Obama in his Cairo address squared off those who claim to advance liberty by curtailing the liberty of Muslim women to choose their dress. Obama said, ‘We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism’.

To which Sarkozy is said to have responded:

'It is not a problem that young girls may choose to wear a veil or a headscarf as long as they have actually chosen to do so, as opposed to this being imposed upon them, be it by their families or by their environment.'

What then does the French president have to say of an ‘environment’ that refuses women the right to choose, or which interprets their choice as 'debasing' and 'subservient'?

A strange form of liberty this, that puts the state in the position of deciding when and how a Muslim woman is made free.
Comments
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Illuminati  - Secularism's intolerant face   |2009-06-23 12:31:30
The French President's remarks will be a gift to the country's (and europe's) xenophobes to whip up anti-Muslim sentiment. What an utter berk.
Scarface  - Ummm...   |2009-06-23 15:32:54
...I think you meant 'Le berk.'
Irina  - where is ur common sense?   |2009-06-23 18:02:28
I can't believe you guys. You are so busy trying to please muslims that you are ready to betray your fellow Frenchman – let alone mere common sense in this matter with burqas. You even cant see the fact that your own old England is already half-arab and you are going thru identity crisis. (Funny, meantime your Iranian "friends" expel your diplomats). What idiocy.
don  - dress sense   |2009-06-24 10:11:10
assume all women with all over covering are naked beneath. this might make them realise that it is not what they might want to to be thought of when they get the gist of things !!!
amina   |2009-06-28 20:28:40
i am a muslim revert and find what was said about muslim women and wearing burka very offending,us muslim women have the right to cover our selfs it is of no importance to non muslims as they do not no or understand our religon,therefor they have no right to comment,we are respectable women who dont go flaunting our selfs and making our selfs up for attention.our religon and choice in clothing is important to us and it is not hurting any non muslims so why the big fuss??
w a young  - mr   |2010-07-05 16:15:55
ban the burka.i think it is inappropriate to cover your face in public BAN IT.
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