“Hats off (or should that be chapeaux off?) to French President Nicolas Sarkozy for calling for a ban on the burkha in France…. No British politician would be brave enough to do what Sarkozy did or to follow through with what will almost certainly be a nation-wide ban on the burkha. Our politicians are, unlike our European amis, too cowed by political correctness and misguided multiculturalism to speak out on such a difficult topic and risk offending the two-million-strong Muslim population.
“Except the burkha isn’t a Muslim issue. It’s a British issue. It doesn’t just demean the woman who wears it, it also demeans the men and women who have to see her wearing it…. The idea of a ban is certainly not preposterous…. As Sarkozy pointed out the burkha is a political, not a religious, statement…. It is a direct and explicit criticism of our Western values and belief in the equality of men and women.”
Julia Hartley-Brewer in the Daily Express, 29 June 2009
Lift the veil of inequality from Muslim womenfolk
By Julia Hartley-Brewer
HATS OFF (or should that be chapeaux off?) to French President Nicolas Sarkozy for calling for a ban on the burkha in France.
The Muslim robe, which covers the head and body and reveals only the eyes, is, Sarkozy said, a sign of the “subservience” and “debasement” of women and is not welcome in his country because: “We cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity.”
No British politician would be brave enough to do what Sarkozy did or to follow through with what will almost certainly be a nation-wide ban on the burkha.
Our politicians are, unlike our European amis, too cowed by political correctness and misguided multiculturalism to speak out on such a difficult topic and risk offending the two-million-strong Muslim population.
Except the burkha isn’t a Muslim issue. It’s a British issue. It doesn’t just demean the woman who wears it, it also demeans the men and women who have to see her wearing it.
It tells other women that their faces are mere objects for men to gaze upon, that she thinks she is somehow more moral or worthy for showing “modesty” and it tells the men that they would be unable to control their sexual urges if they should catch a glimpse of her face.
Which, when you think about it, is pretty insulting.
US President Barack Obama recently made a speech in which he insisted, quite contrary to what Sarkozy thinks, that freedom of religion meant that he would “not tell people what to wear”.
Yet we are all subject to rules about what we can and cannot wear in public places, whether it is a work uniform or a dress code for a fancy restaurant or nightclub.
The idea of a ban is certainly not preposterous.
The burkha is already outlawed in Italy and even headscarves are banned in schools, universities and public offi ces in Turkey, while head-scarves are banned in French state schools.
Strangely, Michael Jackson provides a useful point of reference on this contentious issue.
The pop star’s bizarre behaviour often prompted public ridicule and criticism, particularly over his insistence on covering his own and his children’s faces whenever they were out and about.
This, it was generally agreed, was weird and in the case of the children even cruel.
Jackson was not making a religious statement, he was just being Wacko Jacko.
But can you imagine it being acceptable for the world to laugh at or malign a Muslim woman for covering her face in exactly the same way?
Of course not yet we seem to have one rule for one group of people and another rule for everyone else.
We would not, for instance, be happy sitting in a restaurant next to someone wearing a balaclava.
That wouldn’t just be Wacko Jacko weird but downright sinister.
The only reason why it is acceptable for a Muslim woman to wear a burkha in public is because it is justified as a form of religious expression and therefore becomes completely unchallengeable and untouchable.
AS SARKOZY pointed out the burkha is a political, not a religious, statement.
The Koran makes no mention of any need for women to cover their heads or faces, stating only that both women and men should dress modestly (yet funnily enough you don’t see many Muslim men queueing up to wear burkhas, do you?)
In fact the burkha hails from seventh-century Arabia where it was worn by desert tribes to protect them from sandstorms.
When was the last time there was a sand-storm in Blackburn? Even if we assume women are making a free choice to cover their faces (which is questionable) the burkha is not about a woman’s personal freedom to dress the way she wants. It is about far more than that.
It is a direct and explicit criticism of our Western values and belief in the equality of men and women.
Wearing a turban or a crucifix doesn’t cut you off from the world, while a burkha says that a woman’s face is not her personal identity, it is simply an object for men to look at.
How can any woman be an equal member of society if she’s nothing but a faceless shadow?