Originally Posted by
pineapple stu
On your last point, because it stands out as not stuck in the middle of your essay, yes, I support the French bans (and other countries have banned them too). They're a significant barrier to integration, and the misogyny which they indicate (let's not start pretending it's about modesty; it's about gender control, pure and simple) has no place in any modern western culture.
That just comes across as more paternalistic ignorance, to be honest, and I get the sense that you're confusing the concept of integration, which is actually a bilateral process, with the concept of assimilation, which is a one-way process and which appears to be what you really desire of Muslims. In what ways specifically do the niqab or burqa pose a "significant barrier to integration"? Having lived in Manchester for a few years, the veil was a frequent sight in the city centre streets and shops and those women who wear it get on with their daily business without a problem (and without a man by their side, I might add).
This on the broader concept of integration is insightful: http://idealmuslimah.com/rss-feed-ne...tegration.html
"Integration is a two-way process: it requires adaptation on the part of the newcomer but also by the host society. Successful integration can only take place if the host society provides access to jobs and services, and acceptance of the immigrants in social interaction. Above all, integration in a democracy presupposes acquisition of legal and political rights by the new members of society, so that they can become equal partners. Indeed, it is possible to argue that, in a multicultural society, integration may be understood as a process through which the whole population acquires civil, social, political, human and cultural rights, which creates the conditions for greater equality. In this approach, integration can also mean that minority groups should be supported in maintaining their cultural and social identities, since the right to cultural choices is intrinsic to democracy."
This too:
"Castles et al helpfully contribute to the discourse by setting out a list of criteria against which the degree of integration can be measured – a sort of checklist of indicators that determine the extent of integration with indicators of education, training and employment; social integration; health, legal , political and overall integration. The irony is that there may be women wearing the veil who may tick all the boxes by being educated, working in the public and services sector, voting and being good neighbours, yet be considered not to have integrated because of the niqab. Furthermore, if the veil is an obstacle to integration, the implied meaning by those who use this word loosely is that they will not be able to integrate at all, whilst in the academic sense of the word they may be more integrated into the workings of British society than many thousands of young white working class English (the so-called ‘Chavs’) whose integration may never been questioned on the basis of their appearance. For a politician to assert that Muslim women are not integrated because they wear the niqab and do not converse with male strangers on a street is somewhat of an over-simplification to say the least."
Numerous Muslim women choose to wear such dress of their own volition because they believe it to be Allah's injunction (rather than their husband's or any man's). They're not necessarily under any duress to do so. Are they also excluded from enjoying the benefits of your frankly farcical and hypocritical conception of "free speech/expression"? Why not let them express themselves, speak for themselves and stop assuming their intentions?
Here are the words of niqab-wearer Sahar Al Faifi: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/...f-8824243.html
"I started wearing the niqab at a the age of 14, although my parents discouraged me. I was motivated by a deep belief that this was the right decision for me and that hasn't changed in the intervening years since.
The common impression that many people have about those that wear the niqab is that we are oppressed, uneducated, passive, kept behind closed doors and not integrated within British society. The terms used in the press often reflect this, as do some politicians statements. Jeremy Browne MP is a case in point with his call for a national debate about whether the state should step in to “protect” young women from having the veil “imposed” on them. Sarah Wollaston MP finds the niqab “deeply offensive”. Enter the Prime Minister and commentators across the political spectrum ready to discuss us.
Allow me to introduce myself. I am a proud Welsh and British citizen, a molecular geneticist by profession and an activist in my spare time. I have formerly been elected as the Wales Chairperson of a national Muslim student organisation and held other leadership roles including working with bodies such as the National Union of Students. I wear the niqab as a personal act of worship, and I deeply believe that it brings me closer to God, the Creator. I find the niqab liberating and dignifying; it gives me a sense of strength. People I engage with judge me for my intellect and action; not necessarily for the way I look or dress. Niqab enables me to be, simply, human."
Hamza Yusuf's words are also worthy of consideration: https://sandala.org/pourquoi-no-burqa/
"While I am personally opposed to the face veil, it is a legitimate, if minority opinion, in the Islamic legal tradition for a woman to wear one. Most women who wear it believe they are following God’s injunction and not their husband’s. French laicism seems as fundamentalist as the very religious fanatics it wants to keep out. On a trip to France a few years ago, I was shocked to see pornography openly displayed on the streets in large advertisements. How odd that to unveil a woman for all to gape at is civilized, but for her to cover up to ward off gazes is a crime... While the French Prime Minister sees no problem with exposing in public places a woman’s glorious nakedness, he is oddly and quite rabidly disturbed by allowing others to cover it up. The sooner secular nations learn to allow people of faith to live their lives in peace, the sooner peace will flourish."
It's odd to hear you complain about and denounce alleged misogyny and gender control whilst at the same time engaging in that very thing yourself by attempting to speak for Muslim women, denying them their voice and dictating to them or insisting on what they should or shouldn't wear. It's totally hypocritical. Why do you feel entitled to view parts of their body they don't want you to see?
Do you feel similarly about non-Muslim women; that they should uncover or dress themselves to suit your preferences? If not, why are they exempt from your curious and intrusive obsession?
In case you haven't noticed, dress-codes aren't unique to the Muslim world either. Islamic veils don't necessarily indicate misogyny or gender control any more than Western dress-codes indicate misogyny or gender control. Do you apply the same argument to Western clothing etiquette for women? Do you feel Western conventions also indicate misogyny or gender control? It wouldn't be regarded as appropriate for a Western woman to walk around in public in the nude - she might even face arrest - so let's not get too smug and pretend Western women here are at liberty to dress or undress however they wish without being shamed, disparaged or criminalised.
In your opinion, does the attire of nuns have a place in modern Western culture? If so, why do you treat such dress differently?
Those who want to move to France, for example, should be prepared to respect its culture. If they're not prepared to do that, then they shouldn't move there in the first place.
Not all migrants and refugees enjoy the luxury many of us in the EU or the West may have to just get up and decide to move wherever they want with relative practical and political ease. Most abandon their homeland out of economic necessity (much harsher than most contemporary Westerners will ever have experienced) or in desperation to avoid conflict and political upheaval (often brought upon them by Western warmongering and military interference in the first place).
Anyway, why would wearing a veil have to be seen as "disrespecting French culture"? And what about French nationals who've been born in France yet decide to wear a veil? They didn't decide to "move there". France has been their home since the moment of their birth. Perhaps they're already "integrated" yet decide to wear the veil. There's genuinely something rather absurd and self-entitled - obscene with a whiff of racist supremacism even - about a non-Muslim Irishman assuming the right and attempting to dictate to a specific subset of French nationals who are Muslim what is and isn't their national culture. It's been a genuine surprise to me to see you engaging in it.
I posted this before in the Brexit thread, but, as I said there, it's a powerful and thought-provoking article by Dina Nayeri, a former asylum seeker (who left Iran aged eight and who, on top of holding both US and EU citizenship, is now a teacher of American literature in London) on the nativist disdain for the "ungrateful refugee", the nativist compulsion to control immigrants and the suspicious notion that immigrants should shed their old identities or owe some eternal and unconditional duty or gratitude to their native hosts: https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ateful-refugee
I'd appeal to you to read it. It might provide some food for thought.
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