Burkas Cast a Veil over Us All – So Ban Them

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Cultural values that oppress and diminish women have no place in our society

Am I a racist? That’s what I was called on Twitter this week. It happens every time I express my loathing for the burka and the niqab, both hideous shrouds that hide a woman’s face from the world and prevent her – and, therefore, her children – from playing a full part in society.

My accuser on Twitter, one Imran Bhaloo, said it was offensive and racist of me to call a burka a shroud. “You have no right to evaluate culture,” he said. “A burka is not better or worse than a short dress, especially when you’re wearing it to impress someone. At that point, it ceases to be a choice. So how free are you?”

Actually, Mr Bhaloo, I do have a right to “evaluate culture”, as you call it. Mercifully, this is a country in which critical thinking is permitted: if we believe a practice stinks, then we say so. For example, if the Daughter comes downstairs wearing a skirt shorter than a text message, I culturally evaluate it and tell her to get changed pronto.

You ask me how free am I? Well, I’m a lot freer than those poor girls, as young as 11, who attend the Madani Girls’ School in east London. The school, it was revealed yesterday, requires all pupils to wear a burka, or a full-face veil and a long black coat, outside the premises. According to the school’s website, the uniform rule “conforms to the Islamic Code of dressing and must be adhered to at all times”.

How free is an 11-year-old who only sees her city through a letterbox slit, and who is obliged to dress in a way that intimidates people, prevents any connection being made, and ends up stoking even more racist feeling? How free are the children at the Ayesha Siddiqa Girls’ School in west London, which, like other private Islamic schools, requires pupils to wear a burka or jilbab (headscarf)? The Ayesha Siddiqa school had an emergency Ofsted inspection earlier this year that raised concerns about the 120 girls’ “welfare, health and safety”. » | Allison Pearson | Wednesday, September 18, 2013

My comment:

Finally, Brits are coming to the conclusion that the Islamic veil / burqah / niqab / hijab should be banned. It's taken a long time. Many of us have been saying this for years; but we were shouted down by the thought police (and the MSM) for being too intolerant and un-pc. Interestingly, Brits had a go at the French too, for being intolerant of diversity when they banned the burqah. But now, it seems, they have been proved right. They were, of course, right all along.

The burqah has no place in a progressive society. Ban it! – © Mark

This comment appears here too.

Asking Women to Remove Veil Is Not Racist, Says Former Extremist

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Asking Muslim women to remove their veils is not racist or Islamaphobic, a former extremist who is now a Parliamentary candidate has said.

Maajid Nawaz, a British-born Muslim who has since renounced his views and is standing as a Liberal Democrat, said girls and women should remove their veils in classrooms, courts, and banks. His intervention came amid a growing political row over the issue.

Theresa May, the Conservative Home Secretary, said “women should be free to decide” for themselves whether to wear a veil. She said it was not for the state to “tell people what they should be wearing”, but added that at schools and courts removing veils may be a “practical necessity”.

Earlier this week, Jeremy Browne, the Lib Dem Home Office minister, told The Telegraph that there should be a “national debate” about whether veils should be banned in public.

MPs and senior judges subsequently called for national guidance to clarify the issue. Mrs May told Sky News that she did “not think the Government should tell women what they should be wearing”. » | Steven Swinford, Senior Political Correspondent | Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Bounty Offered to Report Face Veil
A Belgian right-wing politician has offered a financial reward to anyone who would report a woman wearing a face veil to the police. Face veils in public, worn by a small minority of Muslim women, was banned by the government last year. But right wing groups say the ban isn't being enforced because police are afraid it might lead to riots. Al Jazeera's Bhanu Bhatnagar reports.

On a Visit to Saudi Arabia, Doing What the Saudis Do
THE NEW YORK TIMES: “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” is a maxim derived from advice that St. Ambrose is said to have offered to St. Augustine in the late 4th century.

It’s still a pretty good idea, which would partly explain why Karen Post said she went shopping not long ago for an abaya, the robelike dress worn by some Muslim women. Ms. Post, who is a branding consultant, was headed for Saudi Arabia on a business trip.

“Online, I found a company that sells Islamic clothing,” she said. “For like $49, I found a really nice black abaya that fit perfectly.”

Late last month, she flew to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to give a talk on branding to about 400 executives and marketing employees with Saudi Arabian Airlines.

Now, doing as the Romans do is one thing. Doing as the Saudis do, especially for a woman, is something else.

A State Department travel warning advises American citizens to take precautions in the country, where laws against alcohol and even playing music in public are strictly enforced. Women are especially restricted. State Department guidelines note, for example, that the religious police can “pressure women to wear” the full-length black covering known as an abaya, “and to cover their heads.” Women can’t drive in the country and are strongly advised not to appear in public without an approved male escort.

Nevertheless, Western female business travelers do venture these days into Saudi Arabia. Like Ms. Post, they make it a point to learn the drill. » | Joe Sharkey | Monday, March 14, 2011

Von der Maske zum Gesicht – und umgekehrt: Nachdenken über die Burka
NZZ ONLINE: In der Diskussion um das Burka-Verbot prallen unterschiedlichste Argumentationsweisen und Interessenlagen aufeinander. Der auf beiden Seiten öfters spürbare missionarische Eifer droht den Blick dafür zu verstellen, dass ein Aufklärungsprozess nur wirksam sein kann, wenn er sich von innen heraus entwickelt.

Als Charles-Louis de Secondat, besser bekannt unter dem Titel des Barons de Montesquieu, im Jahr 1721 seine «Lettres Persanes» publizieren liess, leitete die europäische Aufklärung den Prozess ihrer kulturellen Selbstbefragung ein. Denn der Verfasser, der hier aus guten Gründen anonym bleiben wollte, richtete seinen kritischen Blick auf die Sitten und Gebräuche der Grande Nation, die sich damals schon gerne als den Nabel der Welt verstand. Montesquieus Kunstgriff machte Schule: Er bestand darin, dass zwei fiktive Perser in einer Reihe von Briefen untereinander und an Freunde in der Heimat darüber berichteten, was sie auf ihrer Reise erlebten. Die Route führte von Isfahan über Smyrna nach Italien und schliesslich rasch nach Paris. Rica und Usbek, begabt mit wachen Sinnen, fanden reichlich Stoff zur Verwunderung über das Leben der Franzosen wie über politische und religiöse Verhaltensweisen. Beiträge zur Selbstkritik >>> Von Martin Meyer | Samstag, 29. Mai 2010

Spanish Town Bans Burka in Public Buildings
THE TELEGRAPH: The Spanish town of Lerida has become the first in the country to ban the Burka in municipal buildings.

The town council voted to prohibit the "use of the veil and other clothes and accessories which cover the face and prevent identification in buildings and installations of the town hall."

The vote, by 23 to one with two abstentions, is the first of its kind in Spain, a country where Islamic veils and the body-covering burqas are little in evidence despite a large Muslim population.

The move is aimed at promoting "respect for the dignity of women and values of equality and tolerance," the town hall said in a statement. >>> | Friday, May 28, 2010

Related article here

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Wearing the Burqa Is Neither Islamic Nor Socially Acceptable
THE INDEPENDENT: To deny face-to-face interaction is to deny our shared humanity

I am a Shia Muslim and I abhor the burqa. I am offended by the unchallenged presumption that women covering their heads and bodies and now faces are more pious and true than am I.

Islam in all its diverse forms entitles believers to a personal relationship with Allah – it cuts out middlemen, one reason its appeal extended to so many across the world. You can seek advice from learned scholars and imams, but they cannot come between your faith and the light of God. Today control freaks who claim they have a special line to the Almighty have turned our world dark. Neo-conservative Islamic codes spread like swine flu, an infection few seem able to resist.

The disease is progressive. It started 20 years ago with the hijab, donned then as a defiant symbol of identity, now a conscript's uniform. Then came the jilbab, the cloak, fought over in courts when schoolgirls were manipulated into claiming it as an essential Islamic garment. If so, hell awaits the female leaders of Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Soon, children as young as four were kitted up in cloaks and headscarves ("so they get used to it, and then later wear the full thing," said a teacher to me who works at a Muslim girls' school) and now for the graduation gown, a full burqa, preferably with dark glasses.

White liberals frame this sinister development in terms of free choice and tolerance. Some write letters to this paper: What is the problem? It is all part of the rich diversity of our nation. They can rise to this challenge, show they are superhuman when it comes to liberty and forbearance.

They might not be quite so sanguine if their own daughters decided to be fully veiled or their sons became fanatic Islamicists and imposed purdah in the family. Such converts are springing up in Muslim families all over the land. Veils predate Islam and were never an injunction (modesty of attire for men and women is). Cultural protectionism has long been extended to those who came from old colonies, in part to atone for imperial hauteur. Redress was necessary then, not now. >>> Yasmin Alibhai-Brown | Monday, July 13, 2009

Abaya Gets a Makeover from John Galliano and Blumarine
THE TELEGRAPH: Top European fashion labels, including John Galliano and Blumarine, have sent models in couture abayas down the runway in an effort to lure wealthy Muslim women.

The Saks Fifth Avenue Riyadh and Jeddah fashion show at the George V hotel in Paris. Photo: The Telegraph
A horsewoman in a flowing, made-to-measure Islamic gown atop a snorting steed opened the fashion show on Thursday at the George V Hotel in Paris.

Abayas are the body-covering black robes some Muslim women don over their clothing in public, usually accompanied by a head scarf or niqab, the face veil that covers all but the eyes.

Designers who tried their hand at making over the abaya, which is required in Saudi Arabia, included Christian Dior's artistic director John Galliano, French luxury labels Nina Ricci and Jean Claude Jitrois and Italian houses Blumarine and Alberta Feretti.

The show began with a bang, as the carrot-topped cavaliere - decked out in a Galliano-designed abaya exploding with firework of coloured sequins and dangling fringe - rode her mount into the hotel's subterranean salon.

Twenty models followed on foot, wearing abayas heavy with rhinestones or airy in gauzy fabrics.

"I realised that most of the Saudi clients are wearing designer brands, but they're covered by a black abaya," said Dania Tarhini, the show's organiser and a general manager of Saks Fifth Avenue in Saudi Arabia. "It is an obligation to wear the abaya there, but let them feel good about it."

The timing of the Paris show was propitious: four days earlier, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, struck a nerve in the Muslim world by declaring that full-body veils such as the burka are "not welcome" in France, saying they make women prisoners. A top Muslim group in Britain called Mr Sarkozy "patronising and offensive." Lebanon's most influential Shia cleric called on Mr Sarkozy to reconsider his comments. >>> | Friday, June 26, 2009

British Dhimmitude! Stewardess Sacked after Refusing to Wear Islamic Robe
THE TELEGRAPH: An air stewardess has been sacked after refusing her airline's demand to wear traditional Islamic dress and walk behind male colleagues in Saudi Arabia.

Lisa Ashton, who worked for BMI, was told that she was expected to wear the abaya, a long black robe that leaves only the face uncovered, when she was out in public in the Gulf state.

She was also told that she should walk behind male colleagues irrespective of their rank, in order to conform with the social codes of the conservative country.

Miss Ashton was instructed to consider the abaya as part of her uniform when flying to Saudi Arabia.

But she told her managers that she considered the requirement discriminatory, and was worried that Saudi Arabia was not safe to travel to because of the danger of terrorist attacks.

"It's not the law that you have to walk behind men in Saudi Arabia, or that you have to wear an abaya, and I'm not going to be treated as a second-class citizen," she said.

"It's outrageous. I'm a proud Englishwoman and I don't want these restrictions placed on myself." >>> By Duncan Gardham | Sunday, April 26, 2009

Women in Somali City Must Cover Up or Go to Jail
CNN: Women in Somalia's third-largest city, Baidoa, have been ordered to wear Islamic dress starting this week or face jail time, according to a resident and Somali media reports.

The order -- issued last week by Al-Shabaab, the radical Islamist militia that controls the city -- also warns business owners to close their shops during daily prayers, or they will be temporarily shut down, a local journalist said.

The militia has ordered women to cover their bodies and heads from view, according to a resident of Baidoa who did not want to be identified for security reasons. The clothing must be black, red or white, and women in the impoverished city are concerned that they will not be able to purchase clothing that conforms to the order, the resident said.

He said women would be jailed if they violated the order after it goes into effect Tuesday. Somalia's Shabelle Media, quoting an Al-Shabaab spokesman, said they would spend 12 hours in jail. >>> CNN's Ben Brumfield and journalist Mohamed Amiin Adow contributed to this report | Monday, April 20, 2009

The Islamic Veil

Le Voile islamique : eléments pour un débat éclairé
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The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – USA)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardcover – USA)

Laura Bush and the Islamic Veil
With many thanks to Always On Watch for alerting me to this video: