France to Burkas: No.
By Ji-Un Kwon
The French National Assembly is launching an inquiry into whether the wearing of burkas by Muslim women in France poses a threat to the ’secular nature of the French constitution’. A day earlier, President Nicolas Sarkozy declared the garment ‘not welcome’ in France:
“The problem of the burka is not a religious problem. This is an issue of a woman’s freedom and dignity. This is not a religious symbol. 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 cannot 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 a woman’s dignity…”
I am a staunch supporter of secular government, and certainly agree with and appreciate the sentiment and eloquence of President Sarkozy’s statement. But the introduction of a restriction like this, even in a country as seemingly progressive as France, can also be troubling.
Sarkozy wisely frames this as a women’s issue, though it is clearly not enough to quiet protests of religious persecution. And reaction in France is mixed, with French Muslim leaders criticizing the inquiry as ‘a way of stigmatizing Islam and the Muslims of France.’ Not surprising. To many, the inquiry is basically religious oppression by way of feminism… or -to speak in hyperbolic terms- government sanctioned atheism. A move like this has the potential to become emblematic of government insertion into individual private life. And this is where it gets tricky, on a number of levels. A ban would provide a certain amount of protection and cover for Muslim women who are forced or pressured to wear the garment, without choice. But it does so by taking it away.
Enter mental paralysis.
Perhaps it’s excessive and France may be overstepping their bounds. But… maybe it’s just impatience… and totally understandable. Here, in the states, we wait in frustration as large masses of the country hem and haw about how they ‘feel’ about gay marriage, while same-sex couples everywhere just want to get on with their fucking lives. The overwhelming feeling is, ‘Just shut up and get on board!’ Should these women be made to wait, as well? How unreasonable is it for a government to say: We don’t have time to squabble over your faith. We have a country to run.
Thoughts?
I totally agree that for issues like Gay Marriage we’ve spent way too much time and money arguing over it… but, could you imagine if the government said “no.” If they said you 100% do not have the right to even argue for your cause and we will not bring it to a vote and you will not have equal rights because you were born a certain way that make some people nervous. America wouldn’t stand for that. I certainly wouldn’t.
There are women out there who want to wear a Burka, who choose to of their own volition. Plenty of women of other religions and cultures take on specific forms of dress, if you ban one don’t you have to ban them all? There are a lot of things that make America and Europe different places to live, good and bad things on both sides. For me, the legislative process, the petitioning and the phone calls, the news articles and the re-votes, although they’re frustrating at times they still prove to me that as Americans we have choices. We have the right to fight for what we believe in, (not everyone chooses to stand up and that’s fine too, that’s kind of the point… if there’s something you want you fight for it, if you sit back and don’t fight then you have to accept the outcome) it might take longer but at least in the end we’ll be able to say we did all we could have done.
Do these garments clash with my notions of sexual equality? Yes, absolutely. Is it reasonable to consider an outright ban of them? Nope, not even close. It is absolutely a form of religious persecution, something any “enlightened” nation should abhor. Ensuring freedom and liberty sometimes necessitates that we tolerate things which we find distasteful (much as we in America should expand that tolerance to include equal rights for same sex couples).
Or, to put it more succinctly: let ‘em wear their fucking hats. Sheesh.