The Netherlands Wants to Prohibit Burqa-Wearing

[Dardedar]

DAR
These things are bloody ridiculous.

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The Netherlands Wants to Prohibit Burqa-Wearing
By Jean-Pierre Stroobants (Brussels) and Antoine Jacob (Berlin)
Le Monde

Saturday 21 October 2006

Europe has been swept away by the debate on the compatibility of the Islamic veil and integration.

The debate over wearing the Islamic veil, which earned France intense criticism, is gaining ground in Europe. If, in France, it was conducted in the name of secularism, in other countries it is linked to the problems of integration encountered with certain communities of the Muslim religion.

Tony Blair's government has just broken a taboo on the other side of the Channel by questioning the legitimacy of signaling their difference by forcing women to wear garments that entirely cover their faces, such as the niqab or the burqa.

This questioning is not an artifact of European societies only. In Egypt, the provost of the University of Helwan, near Cairo, has just revived the argument by recently banishing the niqab, a veil that allows only the eyes to appear, from his university residence.

On Thursday, October 19, the Dutch Parliament had a debate on the attitude to adopt. The minister for immigration and integration, Rita Verdonk, deemed that wearing the burqa - which covers the entire body, including the eyes - must be prohibited in public places, just as is wearing "other veils that cover the face."

As of December 2005, a majority of deputies had already rallied to a proposition made by Geert Wilders - a dissident from the liberal VVD party and founder of a new populist party, the Party for Freedom (PVV) - to totally prohibit the burqa. A resolute adversary of radical Islam, Mr. Wilders, threatened several times with death, lives under a high level of protection.

Convoked by the MPs to explain the government's delay over this issue, Mrs. Verdonk promised to act as soon as she was in possession of the report requested from a commission composed of jurists, a scholar of Islam, and an imam, which is due to be handed in to her on November 7. She declared that as far as she was concerned personally, she was against wearing a garment that, she said, has no place in a society "where people must be able to look one another in the eyes." According to the minister, the burqa is an obstacle to good integration.

Conveying the reluctance of part of the Christian Democratic fold hostile to any obstruction to religious freedom, the justice minister, Ernst Hirsch Ballin, indicated that the experts saw themselves as entrusted with a larger mission than the simple study of legal means to prohibit the burqa.

But his colleague, Maria van der Hoeven, holder of the Education portfolio, clearly professed to be against students as well as teachers wearing too-concealing garments. The minister is supported by the Universities Union (VSNU).

The present debate is influenced by the one that took place in neighboring Flanders. The regional Parliament for this Belgian region voted a motion in 2004 prohibiting the wearing of any overall veil, deeming that any person circulating in public should be identifiable.

In Germany, the polemic was revived October 15 in the Sunday edition of the daily "Bild" newspaper by political personalities of Turkish ethnicity who exhorted Muslim women living in the country to "take off the veil" to better integrate themselves in the society.

"Join the world of today, join Germany; you live here," pleaded, notably, Ekin Deligoez, a Green Party representative to the Bundestag. According to another deputy, Social Democrat Lale Akgun, to walk in the streets without a veil is no "sin"; it's a question of "equality of rights" between men and women.

Since then, Mrs. Deligoez has received threatening letters and unpleasant emails, coming, she says, "90% from men." Several organizations representing a traditional vision of Islam have denounced this initiative, defended by German political officials.

"I see the veil as a sign of political isolation, even of oppression, when it is imposed on young girls and women," commented Secretary of State for Integration, Christian Democrat Maria Boehmer (CDU).
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[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

The veil originally had a non-gender role - in fact, there are still desert tribes in which both genders wear them to protect from sand and sun. Once they started "urbanizing" the veil became the M.E. version of "barefoot and pregnant". I'm with the ones who say people in society need to be identifiable. Other than that, they can wear - or not wear - anything they want to for whatever reason they want to (but not ordered or coerced to).

[Doug]

DAR
These things are bloody ridiculous.

DOUG writes:
This is from the Onion, right? Nobody in their right mind would actually force other human beings to go around in large sacks. That would take...religion?

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

I don't know why religions get hung up on "old" clothing. The old-fashioned nun's habit was medieval housekeeper's garb - and way too heavy for most U.S. climates, but great for the European climate it came from. The Amish and Shakers do the same thing, except their "period" is 19th century. The Quakers (Friends) did the same thing for awhile, but got over it by the mid 20th century. That "bloody ridiculous" sack is quite valuable for protecting the wearer - of whichever gender - from sandstorms in the desert, even today, although it is medieval in origin. Why it became gender specific and hung on even after the culture group urbanized - THAT'S religion.