Europe takes advantage of Egypt’s niqab ban

Europe takes advantage of Egypt’s Tantawi niqab ban calls

Hey, if he really did say that, it's a great put down.

No!
Halloween is not over yet.

Le Pen was first to say so but than he was attacked as racist

'The veil? It protects us from ugly women'

On Sunday the rightwing extremist Jean-Marie Le Pen rocked Europe by winning a place in the second round of France's presidential election. Two days earlier, he spoke to Adar Primor about Muslims, Jews and Margaret Thatcher

The Guardian, Thursday 25 April 2002

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/apr/25/france.features11

I really don't understand this whole debate. In my opinion, the only case in point of banning the burqa is if the woman herself doesn't have the full right to decide if she wants to wear the damn thing. If she herself, without having been pressured to do so by anybody, decides to cover herself fully, why can't we just accept it? If nuns wear their funny nun uniforms or Jews, buddhist monks or Shinto priests their garb, we also accept that, here in Europe. I agree, it the burqa looks shit, but I see so many people dressed shitty every day and can't ban that either, why once again pick on Islam? If the argument is the war on terror and the fact that the government cannot identify said women, I say all the better for these women. There is too much surveillance already and it's de facto useless as we've seen in England. Too much information to process.

And how, exactly , would you determine that?

How about: a reasonable person would assume that nobody would 'choose' to cover themselves in this fashion.

There are two ideas in this one sentence, but, I'll address them both. Firstly, it is established societal decorum to show your face in public. Secondly, Islam has a well founded reputation for the repression (by western standards) of women, despite what its adherents claim.

I am not aware of any rational person who believes that the burqa represents a security issue.

I think Sarkozy said it well:

"We cannot accept to have in our country women who are prisoners behind netting, cut off from all social life, deprived of identity,"
"That is not the idea that the French republic has of women's dignity.
"The burka is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience..."

MajorBummer, I agree with you on several points, although it must be said that while nuns, monks and priests do indeed (usually) choose their vocations, a woman is born a woman and has no control over that. That said, I think that it's unlikely that most women wear the veil "without having been pressured to do so by anybody." You often see groups of barely-adolescent girls speaking the same language (usually Turkish), some of them wearing it, others not, even though they all appear to be of veil-wearing age. That would lead one to believe that it is indeed the family and not the girl who makes the decision, especially because I can remember being an adolescent girl and there is no way I would have made myself stand out in such a major and often unflattering way unless I was forced to by my mother. The very fact that there is an age at which a girl is expected--see that word, expected--to start wearing it would indicate that it is probably not her choice.

After you've been wearing the thing for eight or so years before you're married off, although you are now an adult, maybe it's so much like a second skin that you really only feel comfortable in public with it on. Did you ever know a grown man who wore a ball cap everywhere he went? He wears it because he feels naked without it. Difference would be that he conditioned himself to it, and wasn't required to start wearing it as a child.

I must also admit that I don't personally know any veil-wearing women (been in a few classes with some, but that's about it) so the above paragraph is really just a theory, speculation.

Some good points you make. I was only talking about women who really choose to dress like this. Not the others, and yes, for us it is very hard to judge who dresses like that without having been brainwashed by their societies or families to do so. You say one is born a woman and that one has no choice in that matter. True, but only the very religious women dress like that which to me puts them into the same catagory as nuns, Jews, Buddhist, whatever, walking about showing to the world what religion they follow. No difference, it's for us to remain as tolerant towards them as we are towards all other religions.

How can we expect tolerance from others if we don't tolerate ourselves? What is our society standing for in their eyes? What is the picture they get? Could that perhaps have something to do with not being willing to integrate, to become like us?

In general there is a lot of talk about women's rights in the Islam and so we complain when their women hide behind the veil. How many German women do you find in top positions after working hard for many years? How are European women depicted on magazine covers? Sorry, is that a role model for anybody to follow, a message that women should be taken seriously? Do you blame them for not wanting to become like us? I don't.

I don't think I've ever seen any Turkish girls wearing veils, surely you mean headscarves, which is a completely different thing to having to cover your face with a veil.