Stop Islamophobic attacks on the veil
Posted by John, April 13th, 2011 - under France, Islamophobia, Niqab, Veil.
Covering your face in public in France is now illegal. Muslim women in France who choose to wear a niqab, or face veil, in public face arrest and a fine of 150 euros.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy says this is about liberating women and integrating Muslims into French society.
But Sarkozy has never been concerned with women’s oppression. Instead he is worried about the electoral threat from the far right.
A recent poll showed that Marine Le Pen of the fascist Front National Party is ahead of Sarkozy by two points.
Instead of standing up to Le Pen, Sarkozy is shifting ever rightwards. He sees attacking Muslims as a vote winner.
Increasing “social integration” is another lie. If some Muslim women want to cover up when in public, a ban will simply push them to stay at home.
The French ban is just the latest example of the dangerous rise in Islamophobia across Europe. Muslims are seen as the enemy at home and in the imperialist wars abroad.
No wonder many Muslim women see wearing the hijab or the face veil as an expression of resistance to racism and pride in their religious identity.
They want to show they are refusing to be cowed.
Socialists should reject those on the left who support the veil ban because they support France’s claim to be a non-religious, secular society.
France isn’t secular. Christianity is the dominant religion. And the French state isn’t targeting religion in general but Islam in particular.
Some feminists argue for a ban because they say covering up is a sign of women’s oppression.
But for women’s liberation to have any real meaning, women must have the right to wear what they choose.
Women’s bodies have long been a battleground. Women have been condemned both for showing too much flesh and too little.
Laws that punish women for their choice of dress or religion do not liberate them. They are an instrument of oppression and prejudice.
History shows that politicians often use racist scapegoating in times of crisis and falling popularity. What is happening in France should be a warning to us all.
This article first appeared in Socialist Worker in the UK.
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Comments
Comment from Ross
Time April 14, 2011 at 7:04 am
John,if we don’t demonise Muslims,how can we possibly have a clear consciences when stealing their lands and resources ?
Comment from peter piper
Time April 14, 2011 at 3:57 pm
“They want to show they are refusing to be cowed”
A muslim woman refusing to be cowed??!!thank you for a bloody good laugh
Comment from Calligula
Time April 14, 2011 at 5:35 pm
John,
Of all your article, I find these most significant –
“A recent poll showed that Marine Le Pen of the fascist Front National Party is ahead of Sarkozy by two points.”
“Instead of standing up to Le Pen, Sarkozy is shifting ever rightwards. He sees attacking Muslims as a vote winner.”
“History shows that politicians often use racist scapegoating in times of crisis and falling popularity. What is happening in France should be a warning to us all.”
In a nutshell they reflect the game being by Gillard and Abbott.
Of course their game isn’t dress codes – just a bit of gratuitous dole bashing.
Here we go – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY7Hh5PzELo
Anything you can do I can do better – does seem to be the flavour of the month in the increasingly adversarial and counterproductive politik.
I say ‘does seem to be’.
In reality it is collusion. Naked, callous hypocritical collusion
Why?
France has infinitely more to worry about than making a few Islamic Ladies feel uncomfortable in public.
Maybe Sarkozy and LePen both hate a certain Islamic coutourier?
Why not as simple as that?
We all know the depths French politicians have habitually plunged to.
Meanwhile Abbott and Gillard (let’s list the poll winner first) have infinitely more to worry about than bashing a few dole bludgers.
According to that bald coot’s (Garrett, is it?) figures they intend to spend the immense sum of $3 per head on improving numeracy/literacy.
Clearly they don’t actually give a stuff about educating toward occupations – so it is exactly the same old witch hunt shit as ever was played to the detriment of innocents.
No wonder that idiot pm keeps – ‘just moving forward’ while ‘never looking back’.
If she did she’d see the extensive history of the politics of hate.
Plausible deniability + politics of hate + an ignorant, illiterate, electorate + two amoral ratbags squabbling over primacy = our sad future.
“Let them eat cake”. Maybe apocryphal, but I’d like Jooles to come out with that one on a similar occasion.
Comment from Ross
Time April 14, 2011 at 6:28 pm
Peter Piper,you are very ignorant of what really happens in the Muslim World.You are using gross generalisations about a culture that is just as diverse our ours.
While Muslim women have more defined parameters of behaviour in their society than our women,you will find that in a family situation they will have more freedoms and decision making capacity than any of us realise.
We cannot write off any culture because of our inbred Western bias with notions of a superior race.Our culture obsessed with the adulation of money is destroying us.
Comment from John
Time April 14, 2011 at 6:57 pm
Ah, an expert on th liberation of aborigines and now Muslim women. Who has been an important part of the Arab revolutions? Muslim women.
Comment from Jennywren
Time April 14, 2011 at 7:22 pm
Sorry, I see the issue as a safety measure. Maybe I am a bit scared of Muslims, but as far as I know, only muslims blow themselves, and others, up. Some of these suicide bombers have been women, but I suspect that some may have used a Burka as disguise. To me its like walking into a bank with your moror cycle helmet on. You can wear the helmet at home, but not in a bank!
Comment from John
Time April 14, 2011 at 7:35 pm
Yes the West just bombs the hell out of Muslim countries and kills oh, say 1 million Iraqis. I think the mass murderers in the White House and the Lodge are more frightening than a woman in a burqa.
Comment from Ross
Time April 14, 2011 at 8:53 pm
Jenywren is in a state of total delusion.http://ae911truth.org/ http://patriotsquestion911.com/
Muslims did not do 911.The scientific forensic proof exists on the above websites. All 3 buildings at the WTC fell at freefall speeds.This is a scientific impossibility.It defys the laws of maths and physics.
Jennywren; would you care to address this reality?
Comment from Philo
Time April 14, 2011 at 9:25 pm
John, Obviously you have no idea what the purpose of the coalition forces have done in Iraq. When you have served with them you might be able to comment intelligently and not propagate your bigotry.
Comment from John
Time April 14, 2011 at 9:26 pm
This ‘scientific’ evidence gets rebutted by scientists day in and day out. What sort of nonsense suggests Bush would attack his own people in this horrendous way? The risks are too great. Back on track to the veil and Islamophobia please.
Comment from Philo
Time April 14, 2011 at 9:33 pm
Several years ago I was confronted in the doorway of a shop by a young Malayian woman wearing a niqab, our eyes happened to meet. She went of down the street shouting “RAPE” “RAPE” First she needed to realise we in Australia look people in the eye as a form of reconition.
Comment from John
Time April 14, 2011 at 9:40 pm
What bigotry is that, pray tell? To point out the million or so Iraqis who have died as a consequence of our invasion. Good work eh?
Comment from Ross
Time April 14, 2011 at 10:11 pm
John , I will debate anyone any day about the science of freefall of all 3 buildings of 911.Jennywren has portrayed all Muslims as being lunatic bombers who have a passion to destroy Westerners.
I implore Jennywren to debate the physics of freefall of the twin towers and the controlled demolotion of the third building WTC 7 which no plane impacted.
Comment from dl
Time April 14, 2011 at 11:58 pm
From what yesterday’s edition of The Age said, somewhere in the range of 2000, out of a total of 5 or so million muslims in france, actually wear the Burqa, an incredibly small number indeed. Maybe this small number acts to cast doubt on the proposition that the burqa (wrt france) is an oppressive aspect of ‘Islamic’ culture, forced upon submissive Muslim women by misogynistic Muslim men, or so the stereotype goes, as one would expect it to be worn in larger numbers, were that the case. The SW authors claim that this has alot to do with Sarkozy’s laxcklustre poll ratings is probably close to the truth, although he has made noises about Muslim integration before. As an aside, I wonder what would will happen if say, David Cameron tries to institute such a law in Britain? His government probably won’t, and i’d wager that britains’ muslim population would react much more vociferously to it.
Another interesting dillemna that has been suggested is as to how this ban will affect the wives of oil-rich gulf arabs, many of whom like to shop in Paris. This introduces a class aspect to the law, and the obvious fact that the law is aimed largely at the poor ‘arab on the street’.
Overall, i’m actually still ambivalent as to whether I support the ban or not.
Comment from John
Time April 15, 2011 at 5:56 am
Jennywren’s views about Muslims bombers are as you point out untenable, in light of the barbarism of the West. It is the West who invades Muslim countries; it is the west who kills millions there. And they wonder why there is some blow-back.
Your views about 9/11 are a fantasy. I have no intention of debating this nonsense. There are silly blog sites for that rubbish. Express your views on 9/11 there.
Comment from John
Time April 15, 2011 at 7:25 am
dl, the left can’t support the ban.
Comment from Ross
Time April 15, 2011 at 6:24 pm
John ,I shall not post more 911 truths on your site again.If you fear the wrath of the elites over that issue,that is nothing compared to taking on the banking system and their fractional reserve system of counterfeiting our money.
The present banking scam is their foundation of their power base.Our Govts cower into submission when the really big money changers make their presence felt.
Comment from calligula
Time April 15, 2011 at 8:44 pm
John/Ross –
The veil. Torn from the eyes.
Ross has a conviction that something was wrong at 9/11.
Is he wrong?
I’m an engineer and saw that evening – in what was allegedly real-time footage – something quite uunprecedented.
The destruction was out of scale with design aircraft impact resistance and apparently caused what Ross calls a free-fall collapse of structures specifically designed to withstand such aircraft impact.
The scenario did not match the destruction.
And other anomalies do exist.
Furthermore Ross is by no means alone with his suspicions.
Ground zero, they called it and for good reason.
Kinetic energy is funny stuff but cannot defy the laws of physics – cannot translate into momentum and simultaneously defy gravity.
Oh – unless there was something ALIEN in those building permitting or causing that.
Better that Ross has his way – okay.
With me.
When structures collapse they fall down from the point of critical damage.
They do not suddenly explode upwards and outwards fifty stories above that point of damage.
Leastways not unless some outside agency was set-up to help them along.
Now, if we can get past that I’d like to discuss why Bob Brown wants to blow up the next Hobart motocross meet. Heard he’d invited Wilkie.
Trouble ahead there.
Comment from Ross
Time April 16, 2011 at 7:34 pm
Thanks for your support Calligula.Note that Alan Hart the renouned BBC journo and friend of John Pilger has now after yrs of towing the official line on 911 ,last yr came out and said he knew from the start that 911 was a false flag event.
To be fair to John he has not complained in the past.Many other forums have banned me entirely.ten yrs will have passed soon and now we will use opposition to war and the monetary angle to stop this oppression.The issue is just too big and scarey for many of them.
Comment from Calligula
Time April 16, 2011 at 9:52 pm
Dear Ross –
Duanne was writing to John and sharing his worries with us in good faith.
Someone called him a Hansonist though I cannot understand why.
My deceased son wanted to be a historian and before he became too unwell to care any longer managed to accumulate a lifetime of resource material.
If 9/11 is a big deal what about Pearl Harbour?
If it was a day of infamy the Yanks made it so by driving the Japanese toward a last gamble they bloody well knew wouldn’t ever work.
I’ve just finished reading about the Boer War. Incredible, unconscionable, insane, costly, and initiated by those John hates.
It still amazes me that at least two battles recorded as historical fact happened at a place known as Armageddon before my wife’s dad was involved in the third as a trooper with our own 11th Light Horse in 1916/17. Believe we’ve had another since then.
I only mention a few ‘for instances’.
I’m half way through Dave Hicks – “Guantanamo, My Journey”.
He mentions engagements that I wasn’t aware of yet I had to research Pakistan when they wanted to buy tactical rifles from our firm.
(In other words AustGov wasn’t honest with us.)
There is absolutely no way we can keep track of man’s inhumanity to man.
If we tried it would drive us insane.
The best we may ever manage is to utilise our skills, experience and knowledge to keep demanding that it shall stop on our own patch while persistently citing the reasons why it damned well shall.
A much derided man had a shingle on his desk. It said – “the buck stops here”.
Derided alright since despite that shingle he ticked off the orders for Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the full knowledge that the Japanese were already sueing for surrender.
Any imperialistic, oligarchistic, tontine grubby enough to sustain its existance at the expense of the rest of the world and the unrelenting exploitation of its own populace has to collapse sometime.
Meanwhile they commit horror.
They employ horror persistently and pay horrid people well for committing unrelenting horror on their behalf.
Believe me chief. The World Trades Centre site needed redevelopment – they didn’t have total control over what was happening there, they were what are called ‘sick buildings’ and it was costing far too much to operate them.
Hard decisions are sometimes difficult to make – but a good lunch, a few snifters and an after dinner mint usually sets you up for the rest of the day – especially when you need a causus belli or two to invade Iraq, Afghanistan and with any luck, Iran.
Comment from John Barr
Time April 18, 2011 at 11:42 am
I we outlaw the wearing of the veil in Australia it might stop the Islamization of Australia, as instructed by the Ayatollah Khomeini during his visit to Australia in the 80′s, and that would be a good thing.
As a christian (retired), acording to a Mullah, in Malaysia, that I once had a conversation with. “If you are not a Muslim, & believe in Allah (pbwh) then you are an animal, not human, it is not zinna to kill an animal.” As I am regarded as an animal to be killed without regard.
The less people of this religion we have in our country the better.
If banning the veil helps keep them out then I am in favour.
Comment from Calligula
Time April 20, 2011 at 2:30 pm
John Barr –
If everyone here was forced to wear a police uniform we would have a crime free society.
That makes as much sense as your wanting to outlaw the veil.
It also makes as much sense as the sentiment you attribute to moslems.
The ‘them and us’, majority rules, approach never works no matter the circumstance of birth or whatever prejudice is adopted afterward.
Comment from Calligula
Time April 13, 2011 at 10:22 pm
John,
Let me assure you of something.
If any particular lady decides they like you – nothing will come in the way of them flashing you their charms.
I have always believed that such a decision should always have been left up to them.
On the other hand I have always lived in a straight laced, boring, western style, society.
Some little bundle of trouble begins flashing signals at you.
What happens next?
The boyfriend and mucho trouble arrives.
Who ever said it had to be an ethnic thing?
I’m now relatively too old to go chasing skirt.
I mostly have to put up with the, now, wrinkly old bitches I’ve known for most of my life.
Despite the odd sparkle in their eyes, the occasional twitch of old hormones – they really need to be put out to pasture – before they end up doing themselves, and me, harm.
But in this little town some young ladies choose to wear some headgear.
I’ve known some people of the brethren.
And more lately some people, I assume, who, perhaps, are of Islam or maybe from a part of the world who also choose to dress that way.
They go about their business and don’t place demands upon me.
Oh. No demands except being disarmingly sweet and , bless them, incredibly polite.
I’m sure if any occasion arose to do business – they’d respect me more for respecting their Ladies enough by respecting the way they choose to dress.
I find it completely delightful that my town lets anyone dress the way they want to.
But I’ll bet you a million bucks that the day after the first contingent of immigrant sex crazed nudist recidivist feminists turns up in town – that they’ll introduce dress codes AND anti-consorting by-laws.
Bottom line is that I have existed in a wowser society for too long.
I hate it and see the harm it does others.
I see no reason to compound that hate.