FID 2011.04.13

The big news in Europe is the French banning the burqa (or burka, or however that face-covering rag is spelled). For once, I'm proud of the French. They actually showed some couilles (that's French slang for testicles).

Vive La France!

Women are fighting in the streets of Paris. Alas, they are not fighting against Islamic gender apartheid—they are not protesting arranged marriage or honor killings. Instead, they are fighting for the right to veil their faces (*end sarcasm*).

It is important to note that France has not banned the headscarf (hijab) and that the French ban is not specific to Islam. The French law is ethnicity- and religion-neutral and refers only to a generic “face-covering.”

In other words, ski masks and cowboy-style bandannas are also banned, but I don't see Jean-Claude Killy or Roy Rogers protesting.

Increasingly hostile and anti-assimilationist Muslim immigrants (have) poured into France ... Why leave Mecca or Kandahar if you want France to resemble it in every way? 

... the burqa is not religiously mandated by Islam. It is a political and jihadic statement. There is a long, long history of Muslim-majority countries allowing women to shed the face veil and burqa (Egypt, Turkey, Algeria, Lebanon, and Iran to name a few). Only recently has one Muslim country after another returned to this misogynist custom, and with a vengeance.

Keep in mind that comment about "the burqa is not religiously mandated by Islam." Below is a similar commentary by Dr Taj Hargey, who is Imam of the Oxford Islamic Congregation and Chairman of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford. He makes the same point.

The burka is an alien, cultural monstrosity

The decision by the French government to outlaw all forms of public face-masking, including the burka and niqab, is welcomed by all thinking Muslims around the world.

All the Koran requires is that both genders dress modestly...

Face-masking is a pre-Islamic Byzantine and Persian practice and is non-existent in the Koran. Indeed, since Muslim women are banned from hiding their faces while praying or when they perform the pilgrimage, why do they need to do so in the public realm?

So what's all the fuss about? IMO it's best explained by a quote from the first article:

"The burqa is not a dress, it’s a message, one that clearly communicates the subjugation, the subservience, the crushing and the defeat of women..."

Where's NOW when we need them...?