Burka Babes

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In my never ending quest to talk about sensitive issues maturely and sensitively (thread title notwithstanding) I want to know what you all think of the burka and the French condemnation of it. I watched a documentary yesterday on Sharia law in Canada and was really moved by some of the stories.

Sharia is about far more than the burka, but it seems to me that the burka in particular is the flagship symbol for some forms of Sharia law -- usually the repressive forms.

For those who want a little explanation, many Muslims believe that a woman must keep her head covered (I'm unsure if this is actually in the Koran, mind you). This concept is called "hijab". Most of my students wear a scarf around their heads that keeps their head covered. The term "burka", as I understand it, is a robe with a headscarf that also covers the face (Wikipedia uses a slightly different definition, take a peek. "Niqab" refers to the same thing -- covering the face so that only the eyes show through a small slit, translucent veil, or mesh screen. The explanation is that a woman should cover the shape of her body and her face so as not to excite the passions of men -- the only men who should see her are her family members and later her husband.

Many Muslims see the wearing of such attire to be an act of faith and an act of identity assertion. Personally, I am a big believer in the idea of reasonable compromise. If they want to wear a scarf to cover their hair, more power to them. But the wearing of a face covering is not appropriate in everyday life -- in an open, democratic and free society, you should have permission to show your face and everyone also has the expectation to see your face when you are in public (the sign at my bank asks people to remove their hats, dark glassses and hoodies for security purposes.)

The actions that some Muslims take to force women to wear their hijab or burqa are reprehensible. I know I don't want that sort of crap happening here.

 

I have an interesting story to relate but first I'd like to agree that I see nothing wrong with wearing head scarves, but I think a burka is extreme. That being said I don't think that a government should prohibit the wearing of a burka.

Anyway to the story - which involves the birth of my son. When my wife was in labor, the main nurse who tended to her wore a head scarf. At one point, when the baby was still a while away I went outside the hospital to phone in an update to my family (I got terrible reception in the hospital, and since it was clear the baby wasn't coming at that moment, but it had a few hours since I called the family, I thought it would be a good time for an update.)

The nurse said as I was leaving - My shift ends in a couple of minutes, and I'm leaving when the next nurse gets here, so if I'm gone when you return, good luck.

So I went outside, called the family, spoke for a few minutes and then came back in the hospital. On the way back inside, the nurse walked passed me wearing a burka. Even though the only thing showing were her eyes, the fact that she was on her shift for the past eight hours was enough for me to recognize her. I said "Goodbye" as I passed her, but her eyes never turned to look at me and she said nothing.

I found this very strange on multiple levels. First of all, she had been very friendly and talkative while she was working, but evidently that is something she was not allowed to do while wearing the burka. And while I can see why you would likely have difficulty performing your duties as an attending nurse while wearing a burka, I was surprised that someone who came from a conservative enough of a family that she had to wear a burka would be willing to get a job anywhere - especially one where she wouldn't be able to wear a burka.

While she was an obstetrics nurse, and therefore all of the patients she encountered were women, inevitably many women who are in labor are accompanied by their husbands, and thus her face would be seen by men. So I'm not really sure how the "rule" is applied.

On a lighter note, near the end of the delivery where the top of the baby's head is visible, but yet is still entirely inside the mother (the medical term is called "crowning") the OB told me to "Look at this". (Jack was born with a full head of hair, so when you can see the top of the hair you could see his hair.) The problem was, I wasn't sure I really wanted to see that. But I couldn't just say no, and the only thing I could come up with was, "No thanks doc - I've seen it already." My wife then slapped me and told me to look, and in hindsight, I guess I'm glad that I did, although that sight has been burned into my memory.

 

That sounds perfectly reasonable to me - if they want to wear one, go ahead, but they shouldn't be forced to wear one because their family says so. Of course, there is no way to really tell which is happening, such as in Aldeth's wife's nurse's (*whew*) case.

 

In this day and age, security is important. If you want to do something then by all means wear a headscarf but a full body thing? No way. I've worked in airports and I know how bad these burka's can be for security.

From a personal point of view if you want to live in a country then follow their beliefs. Here in the UK (and from what I know of the US it's the same), we do not cover ourselves like that. We're open about who we are. If I went to an Islam country the as a mark of respect I would cover up. When I went to the Vatican, I made sure my shoulders and legs were covered. If you want to be accepted then you do the things that are acceptable in the society you want to be admitted into.

 

Well, there's not much that can be done in terms of children living under the roof of their parents in terms of clothing rules, but once a person hits 18, if there's any evidence that someone is being held against their will with the threat of violent punishment hanging over them for violations of the rules (such as clothing rules or speaking to other people without a man's permission) then the perpetrator of such threats needs to be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

Come to think of it, if violence is being done to kids for any reason then there's grounds there for government intervention too, sorry I didn't make that clear enough.

 

On the issue of voluntary wearing of burkas, and prohibitions against them, they should not be mentioned specifically. If there are security/professional concerns, mention "any form of attire that covers the face" or a similarly descriptive term. These days, there are a variety of situations where anything like a burka would be vastly inappropriate, and I have no problem with them being banned for practical reasons, but then the practical reason should be given, and it should be clear that this includes, but is not limited to, burkas. If anyone objects, too bad.

All in all, the burka is just a symbol. For those who wear it voluntarily, it's a symbol of pride in their religion and a wish to stay pure. For those who are forced to wear it, it is a symbol of oppression and discrimination, but it isn't the oppression or discrimination themselves. Removing the burka from the latter won't fix anything, while removing it from the former will cause problems.

 

France seems to disagree as they went on and banned these items in schools and such. Not that I agree with them, atleast not fully. Technically I think that the parents have a limited power over their children in terms of restricting their rights, forcing them to use scarves if it is against the child's will may very well be such a violation.

 

France's decisions are fool-hardy. Not only do I take issue with refusing to allow someone to wear a symbol of their religion (France has even banned hijabs -- not just bourkas -- from their schools and public buildings) without a legitimate reason, I find it laughable that France then wonders why their Islamic immigrants aren't content and feel they are being discriminated against. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that telling someone they can't wear something as innocuous and unobtrusive as a hijab within it's official buildings is going to be viewed as discrimination.

Indeed, there is a good reason for this. Telling a woman that she can't wear her hijab without a legitimate (ie non-philosophical) reason is discrimination. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not blaming France's government for all its problems or giving the Islamic terrorists and protesters within its borders a pass; nor am I arguing that the hijab and bourka should be allowed under any and all circumstances (allowing a woman to pose in a bourka for a drivers license, for example, would be absurd -- but I see no reason not to allow her to do it in a hijab). I am simply pointing out that the French government is essentially the poster child for how not to deal with Islamic discontent. They just seem to fan those flames at every conceivable opportunity.

Different regions and sects within the Islamic faith view this differently. For some, it need only be worn when in the company of men who are not family or trusted family friends. For others, the Bourka need only be worn outside. For most, it needn't be worn at all. There are other customs practiced by different regions and/or sects that I needn't go into, but she most likely falls within the second or third option I listed. If option 1, it is likely (but not absolute) that she wouldn't be working, as you correctly pointed out. If option 2, her behaviour was acceptable within the confines of her culture or sect. If option 3, she's particularly devout and wears the bourka by choice (and this type of thing happens more commonly than you would think).

 

You'd be surprised how the situation in France compares with their european neighbours. Check this article out:
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/50/the-french-muslim-connection
It concludes:

In itself, banning wearing things like this in schools, I have no problem with. So long as the ban stretches to all religious items, whether it be the hijab or a catholic cross.

 

The problem in this case is that the hijab more cultural than religious. The Quran demands modesty, not the hijab. This is why we see some Islamic sects/regions that require hijab, some that require the bourka, and still others that require neither. You aren't telling a Muslima to do the equivalent of taking off her cross when telling her she can't wear a simple head covering. It's more like telling her take off her shirt.

 

Okay, fair point. However, from my understanding of the French system, that does fit in well. As far as I can tell (and I'm sure there are some French citizens who can correct me if I am wrong) the entire French system is set up in such a way that it does promote one culture and one people. Whether you look at how the electoral systems work, how the governments are structured, the way the upper education systems operate, or of course how integration is handled - it's all designed in order to unite the country. Even their censuses do not collect information on Religion nor Ethnicity. Compare it to say Belgium, which the very way the system works there, it accepts two different cultural groups - or even Germany, with their federal system. You can see the degree of their success in that article I linked above, where it looks at the numbers of Muslim immigrants who consider themselves French first, and Muslim second (compared with their European neighbors).

With this goal in mind - whether the approach is the correct one or not - you can see how banning of these head dresses fits. You see an article of clothing that very clearly separates the two cultures, so what do you do? You ban it from schools. Is this descrimination? Well, so long as it is applied across the board to everything that does not fit in with this standard, then no. If they also ban, for example, the wearing of kippot in public places, then banning the hijab becomes more acceptable.

 

When a government asks its immigrants and/or non-immigrant religious conservatives to tolerate the lower modesty standards of those around them without a fuss, what they ask is reasonable. When they impose those same lowered standards upon immigrants and religious conservatives by force (and when you use legislation to require or forbid a specific behaviour, this is exactly what you are doing), they do something very different.

By not allowing the minority to impose their arbitrary modesty standards upon the masses, France does a good thing. By refusing to allow that same minority to adhere to its own arbitrary modesty standards without seeking to impose those standards on anyone else, France violates that minority in a very severe way. Telling someone she needs to be a bit more modest than she prefers* is not a violation of her rights, culture, or dignity. Telling her she needs to show more skin is, on the other hand, a violation of her basic rights.

Cultural hurdles will lessen with time. Any effort to jump such hurdles through force of law, however, will ultimately backfire and these laws aren't protecting anyone. These cultures of origin tend to view wearing the hijab in the same way we view wearing a shirt, so the government isn't just forcefully stripping a minority group of its cultural identity. They're also undressing them in the town square. When has forcing a culture to change (or "integrate" as many people like to call it) by legislative fiat ever worked?

* In this, I refer to telling a student she can't wear miniskirts or shirts with a bare mid-riff. Forcing women to wear a bourka or even a hijab, however, is a different story because of the baggage such things rightly carry.

 

It is a little strange, actually, that the Burqa that is not afaik mentioned in the Quran has become so symbolic of the Muslim religion. Personally, I find that anything that covers the entire face and possibly the eyes is going too far - ironically, the only place where someone should dress like that is their home. The quote provided in the wikipedia article on hijab only specifically speak of clothing that covers the breasts (as well as jewelry, but that's a different thing); the others in the article generally concern behavior rather than clothing:

And say to the believing women that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts and do not display their ornaments except what appears thereof, and let them wear their head-coverings over their bosoms, and not display their ornaments except to their husbands or their fathers, or the fathers of their husbands, or their sons, or the sons of their husbands, or their brothers, or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women, or those whom their right hands possess, or the male servants not having need (of women), or the children who have not attained knowledge of what is hidden of women; and let them not strike their feet so that what they hide of their ornaments may be known; and turn to Allah all of you, O believers! so that you may be successful. - (Qur'an 24:31)

Personally, I think a lot of what is considered Islamic tradition actually came from tribal tradition of the lands where Islam originated and spread from. In the past a lot of cultures stressed that people should wear some form of hat or other headwear, after all - many still do. From what I have seen in my country, by the way, many Turkish and Bulgarian Muslim (Pomak) women wear headscarves in public, but I doubt that all do. A headscarf is not necessarily a mark of Islam, though, as many older Bulgarian women from rural areas wear headscarves as well, especially if they are widows.

 

Shaman, one of the problems is that, in Islam, tradition and religion have become very strongly mixed. That's hardly the only religion to fall susceptible to that failing (see Catholicism), but I don't think any solution has been found yet.

 

I have no problems with Burka's (but then my family wears sacred underwear).

I believe it is wrong for a society to restrict such garb. On the other hand, anyone wearing a burka must realize the police will occasionally need to identify a person and the burka hinders such identification. Security officers and police must be sensitive to this and treat any removal of a burka as a strip search -- requiring both probable cause and an appropriate search facility.

Liaison with appropriate religious personnel should be required of security forces and police to ensure the individual's religious requirements for such a search are adequately met. This would go both ways -- the individual must realize they will be detained for a longer period to ensure their religious beliefs are not challenged. The religious community should also realize that in emergent situations delay may not be possible.

Right now, I think security forces and police are saying, 'we don't need to change, you do.' Which is wrong.

 

I respectfully disagree with you -- while I believe that in the vast majority of cases any religious garb (like my holy underwear!) is none of the state's business, the burka is a different matter. In a society the populace has a right to see the face of all its citizens. Most societies frown upon the wearing of face coverings outside of weather purposed materials.

In addition, regulations against burkas are also founded on the idea that a religious elite cannot FORCE, by means of physical threats, members of their community to completely efface themselves. That happens in many Muslim communities. I believe that was the thrust of the French President's position against the burka.

In a broader sense, it's the old battle between having a united society and respecting minority rights.

 

That's a bit hypocritical, for several reasons. If you're going to believe in religious garb being none of the state's business, then that's that. Creating an exception for the particular garb that you dislike (I'm not saying that's because you dislike or have something against the religion itself, though it's certainly the way many people approach it) and suddenly making it the state's business to interfere, you should have a very good reason for bringing state law into what's ultimately a very persona matter (religion and religious/cultural dress). "Society has a right to see the face" is not an excuse. No, they don't. They might prefer to, they might like to, they might be annoyed if they don't, but I do not see any reason why members of the general public have any right to demand this. It's really none of our business, and personally I couldn't care less about whether I see their face or not. You have yourself given an excellent case where not showing your face is perfectly acceptable, and living in Montreal there is no way you will find me with my face showing in January, when the outside temperature is -30C (or even lower if you factor the windchill). Why would it be perfectly fine to walk past a man with his face covered because of the weather, but not if it's a woman covering hers because she wants to? Of course this is on the assumption that the burka isn't being forced on her, which brings us to the next point.

It might have been his intention, which is very laudable, but if he really believes that eliminating the burka is going to suddenly liberate all oppressed women then he is in for quite a shock. It won't make any difference whatsoever. Oppressive husbands (or fathers, or brothers) are not relying on the burka. It's just one of many aspects, and quite frankly a very minor one too. I've known women who wear scarves and others who wear burkas and you'd be amazed at how many of them wear them not because men force it on them but because they find themselves more vulnerable without them. They feel it gives them confidence, not that they're effacing themselves. Besides you sometimes see some very odd things - including a whole group of women wearing burkas, high heels, a LOT of makeup (which, considering you could only see their eyes, was very obvious), and going on a night out (don't ask me where).

With all that said, there's a fine line between the public and security. I think it's none of the public's business, but if there's a legitimate security reason (airports, banks, governmental buildings, whatever) then of course police/security should have the right to see the face. Like all searches though this should be done privately and by a member of the same sex. Fair's fair - if a burka woman going into a bank is asked to show her face to prove her identity and she refuses, then she might want to consider trying a different bank. I said earlier the government shouldn't interfere with people's personal issues, but that doesn't mean the government has to throw its security standards upside down to accomodate them. There should always be a give and take.

Of course there's the entire issue of what this ban will achieve exactly. End of repressive Sharia? Dream on. It just strikes me as a very awkward and heavy-handed way to deal with a very serious and subtle problem (unfortunately France is rather good at doing this type of thing). LKD, as you've said the oppression is about far more than the burka, even though it's the flagship, but I would point out that it is only the flagship; remove it and another one will appear to replace it. If we're going to deal with the very real problem of women being oppressed in the name of Sharia, it's going to take much more than simply banning the burka. The only thing this will achieve (as Drew pointed out) is making islamic immigrants (including the women who wear the burka because they want to) feel that the government is oppressing them instead. Switching one feeling of oppression with another is not the way to go.

 

I feel that certain standards of universality should apply to all citizens regardless of their faith, culture, or whatever. When it comes to hiding faces, I think that's a huge one. The rule should apply to everyone in public -- what they do in their own homes being irrelevant. The fact is that if I came to my job wearing a ski mask, I believe that every principal in the country would ask me to remove it, adn I believe he'd be well within his rights to do so.

We shouldn't be making exceptions for religious purposes when it comes to security or safety issues. This is why Sikhs are permitted to wear their turbans most of the time, but if they have a construction job, they are required for safety reasons to wear a hardhat, even if it contradicts their religious beliefs. The same thing goes for loose flowing robes worn by many Muslims -- they can't wear them around spinnig machinery. I say the same thing goes for showing your face -- if a cop pulls Fatima over for a speeding violation, he needs to see A: a Driver's license that shows her face and B: her actual frigging face. It is preposterous to expect him to call a woman officer to come and look at her because her religion forbids him to see her face. Reasonable accomodation must be made, but IMHO burkas (or ANYONE who wishes to keep their faces covered, I'm not targetting Muslims in particular) are beyond reasonable. They can -- no scratch that, MUST -- make some effort to accomodate the society they have entered or they're gonna find it tough living here*.

I understand your comparison, Drew, but I don't think facial exposure is the same as genital exposure -- extreme beliefs aside, I think it is reasonable to expect facial exposure in general public discourse.

*Translation: You are welcome to come here and build churches (mosques), worship in them, worship at home as you see fit, and wear any clothes that conform to our local sense of decency. You can eat whatever foods you wish. We will make lots of accomodations for you and your culture and be as understanding as accepting as humanly possible. But in return you will make some effort to show respect for our society, laws, and values. Should you be unable or unwilling to do that, you are welcome to either go the @*&! home or not come here in the first place.

 

LKD - Are you sure your not an American? You sound just like my Grandfather and every other memeber at the VFWs. Old war stories and cheap draft beer, man i love those places. Just don't stand in the way to the bathroom, those old guys don't get much warning and will run you down on the way in.

Seriously, I agree with you whole-heartedly. Any society that's accepting others/outsiders/foreigners shouldn't have to conform to their standards. They should conform, at least to a reasonable extent, to the society that they are joining.

 

Why? Security concerns are not the issue -- it is easy enough to modify police procedures to accomodate a burka (as I mentioned before). Honoring religious beliefs is a cornerstone of US culture. So long as no one is being harmed there is no reason to violate those beliefs.