pochercoaster
12-25-2010, 12:10 PM
Right, so I already made a thread about this awhile ago. What the hell, no I didn't, Seil did, but for some reason I thought I made that thread. Totally not tired >_< However the topic continues to show up in the newspapers as of late, and I've given this a little more in depth thought and felt the need to rant.
Here's the article that prompted me to rant. (http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/909157--niqab-debate-what-should-canada-do)
The emphasis is mine.
...The debate about Muslim head coverings — the niqab is a garment that covers all but the eyes, while the burqa goes further and covers the face and eyes — is escalating at home and abroad. In early October, constitutional authorities in France ruled that banning the burqa and other Islamic face coverings in public places is legal, clearing the final hurdle before the ban becomes law. French people back the ban by a margin of more than four to one, the Pew Global Attitudes Project found in a survey earlier this year.
Three weeks later in Canada, Quebec's Orthodox Jewish community said it opposed a proposed government bill that would ban women from wearing the burqa while receiving government services. The group worried that “hard and fast rules” adopted by government would exacerbate social tensions and alienate religious minorities.
In Quebec last March, Jean Charest initiated legislation that would ban the niqab in public. Ontario's Court of Appeal, meanwhile, said that the niqab must be removed in a court of law if the accused's right to a fair trial requires it.
...
Farzana Hassan is a scholar and activist from Pakistan... She advocates a ban on the burqa and niqab, both of which obscure all of a woman's face and head except her eyes. Hassan says the Qur'an does not demand adherence to these garments, and that even though some women say they “choose” to wear them, both represent a form of intolerable subjugation.
...
In the case of the burqa, and even , the hijab, I'm on the side of Lebanese-born French novelist Amin Maalouf. Maalouf writes: “Traditions deserve to be respected only insofar as they are respectable — that is, exactly insofar as they themselves respect the fundamental rights of men and women.” Or, as Canadian Irshad Manji writes in The Trouble with Islam, “We shouldn't let multicultural bromides anesthetize our brains any further.”
So that's clear to me. The burqa and niqab represent a tradition that views women as sexual objects, temptresses who, with the flash of an ankle, can bring men (weak creatures incapable of resisting this temptation) to their knees. It's a repugnant value system and I reject it. So should all Canadians who embrace secular feminism. So let's ban the burqa, the niqab, and while we're at it, the hijab.
Right, well I don't know where to start. I apologize in advance if the following paragraphs seem rather fragmented as it's Christmas morning and I'm still waiting for my coffee to kick in.
First of all, I'm an atheist; second of all, my knowledge of various religions is actually quite minimal, so I don't feel qualified to comment on whether or not the niqab is truly a symbol of oppression in Western countries. Thirdly, I am going to be discussing the niqab in North America and Europe, as comparing a woman voluntarily wearing a niqab in the West is totally different from a woman being forced to wear a burka in Kandahar, where there is no question that there is widespread oppression against women.
I'm mainly interested in the legal aspects of this, especially in regards to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This topic should interest ALL women, regardless of their religious beliefs, because it has to do with limiting your freedoms.
Fundamental freedoms
2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association
Life, liberty and security of person
7. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.
Your right to wear what you want, regardless of whether or not it's for religious reasons, regardless of whether or not a third party thinks it's oppressive to women, is protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. You may even argue that if a woman is uncomfortable being uncovered it's violating her right to security of person.
What immediately struck me about this topic is that it just seems so incredibly off the wall for a nation like Canada to tell you that you don't have the right to wear whatever the hell you want (as long as your genitals are covered.)* I am pretty much convinced that the only reason the media is paying attention to this is because of the muslim phobia that ensued after the US invaded Afghanistan and 9/11.
So:
1. The niqab-wearing population in Canada is incredibly tiny. I live in a city with a large muslim population and I've only seen a niqab once. Most muslim women I've interacted with either wear the hijab (a headscarf that just covers the hair- the face is visible) or nothing at all. They are virtually indistinguishable from other women except for the fact that some of them cover up a little more! They go to post secondary school and get careers, although the prevailing muslim phobia would have you believe that their husbands wouldn't allow this! Muslim =/= fundamentalist
So remember that when we're dealing with banning this particular garment, the media is stirring up a lot of frenzy over a very very small percentage of the population. I highly doubt it's because that occasionally providing a private room for a women to uncover a niqab is such a huge inconvenience that they want to ban it outright. It's not that. It's just Canada jumping on the xenophobic bandwagon along with the US.
2. How exactly does banning the niqab in public help women be less oppressed? Man, why don't we just disallow nuns from wearing their habits and monks their robes? (Yeah, I've seen monks walking around in Toronto too.) The Christian bible isn't any kinder to women than the Qu'ran so if you want to ban the niqab based on the fact that it stems from an oppressive religion then you have to ban ALL religious clothing. If you take any texts of any religion seriously they're going to be oppressive.
However I think we generally recognize that those who practice religion seriously realize that there are lots of outdated notions in the texts they follow yet continue to practice their religion anyways because they are individuals capable of distinguishing between what's applicable to modern society and what isn't.
3. And WHO is actually offended when they see a niqab? Who is harmed? I'm not. Now if you're standing in line at the airport or something I believe they have a right to request you to uncover your face in a private room so they can match it to your passport photo. But really, in public? Are we so small minded that we get a little scared or offended when a women is covered in material?
Again, who is harmed by this? I don't believe we should restrict freedoms as long as they don't harm anyone else. If you want to harm yourself I'm okay with that, just don't hurt my kids. You could argue that the women is harming herself (that's a very shaky argument) but it still doesn't contradict her right to practice whatever lifestyle she wishes. And you could argue that it's not the women who are at fault, it's their husbands/families who are forcing them, in which case it's no longer a matter pertaining to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms but rather an issue that should be dealt with as domestic abuse. And I doubt it's so widespread in Canada that they have grounds to make legislation against it in order to deal with the voluminous backlog of domestic abuse cases involving muslim families who force their wives to wear burkas.
Also, how is limiting their right to government services liberating women at all? As already mentioned in the article, all it does is simply alienate them. If we really want to "liberate" these women we do it by allowing them to integrate into society, but in their own way. You don't do it by erasing their identity.
4. This isn't really a valid argument, but I seriously LOL when people talk about women totally free from oppression in the West. Don't take this the wrong way- I would take Canada over MANY other countries where genital mutilation is routine and women don't go to school and if you get raped you're considered untouchable etc. etc., but approaching the topic from the mindset that the West has everything right and people should just be more open minded to OUR ideas and we can freely dismiss theirs because we're uncomfortable with a woman covering herself up is not the way. Women are paraded around like sex objects and while I think this is for many reasons, most of which don't bother me, I can't shake the feeling that it's at least partly due to deep rooted societal oppression. Hey, abortion isn't even readily available to many women in the West- are we really all that enlightened? There's dozens of examples of female oppression in the West, but that's another rant.
TL;DR Banning the niqab is a waste of time that will produce no noticeable improvements in the status of women. Allowing this legislation to go forward is a blow not to Muslim women, but to all women- because we are not intelligent enough to wear our clothes and understand the messages we carry with them. Thinking that our work liberating women in the west is finished and that all we have to do is get the rest of the world to follow in our footsteps is naive and colonialist.
*Okay, I'm not really surprised, I just wish all the "we love multiculturalism and that's what makes us Canada and not a certain neighbour to the south" bullshit was actually true.
Here's the article that prompted me to rant. (http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/909157--niqab-debate-what-should-canada-do)
The emphasis is mine.
...The debate about Muslim head coverings — the niqab is a garment that covers all but the eyes, while the burqa goes further and covers the face and eyes — is escalating at home and abroad. In early October, constitutional authorities in France ruled that banning the burqa and other Islamic face coverings in public places is legal, clearing the final hurdle before the ban becomes law. French people back the ban by a margin of more than four to one, the Pew Global Attitudes Project found in a survey earlier this year.
Three weeks later in Canada, Quebec's Orthodox Jewish community said it opposed a proposed government bill that would ban women from wearing the burqa while receiving government services. The group worried that “hard and fast rules” adopted by government would exacerbate social tensions and alienate religious minorities.
In Quebec last March, Jean Charest initiated legislation that would ban the niqab in public. Ontario's Court of Appeal, meanwhile, said that the niqab must be removed in a court of law if the accused's right to a fair trial requires it.
...
Farzana Hassan is a scholar and activist from Pakistan... She advocates a ban on the burqa and niqab, both of which obscure all of a woman's face and head except her eyes. Hassan says the Qur'an does not demand adherence to these garments, and that even though some women say they “choose” to wear them, both represent a form of intolerable subjugation.
...
In the case of the burqa, and even , the hijab, I'm on the side of Lebanese-born French novelist Amin Maalouf. Maalouf writes: “Traditions deserve to be respected only insofar as they are respectable — that is, exactly insofar as they themselves respect the fundamental rights of men and women.” Or, as Canadian Irshad Manji writes in The Trouble with Islam, “We shouldn't let multicultural bromides anesthetize our brains any further.”
So that's clear to me. The burqa and niqab represent a tradition that views women as sexual objects, temptresses who, with the flash of an ankle, can bring men (weak creatures incapable of resisting this temptation) to their knees. It's a repugnant value system and I reject it. So should all Canadians who embrace secular feminism. So let's ban the burqa, the niqab, and while we're at it, the hijab.
Right, well I don't know where to start. I apologize in advance if the following paragraphs seem rather fragmented as it's Christmas morning and I'm still waiting for my coffee to kick in.
First of all, I'm an atheist; second of all, my knowledge of various religions is actually quite minimal, so I don't feel qualified to comment on whether or not the niqab is truly a symbol of oppression in Western countries. Thirdly, I am going to be discussing the niqab in North America and Europe, as comparing a woman voluntarily wearing a niqab in the West is totally different from a woman being forced to wear a burka in Kandahar, where there is no question that there is widespread oppression against women.
I'm mainly interested in the legal aspects of this, especially in regards to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This topic should interest ALL women, regardless of their religious beliefs, because it has to do with limiting your freedoms.
Fundamental freedoms
2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association
Life, liberty and security of person
7. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.
Your right to wear what you want, regardless of whether or not it's for religious reasons, regardless of whether or not a third party thinks it's oppressive to women, is protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. You may even argue that if a woman is uncomfortable being uncovered it's violating her right to security of person.
What immediately struck me about this topic is that it just seems so incredibly off the wall for a nation like Canada to tell you that you don't have the right to wear whatever the hell you want (as long as your genitals are covered.)* I am pretty much convinced that the only reason the media is paying attention to this is because of the muslim phobia that ensued after the US invaded Afghanistan and 9/11.
So:
1. The niqab-wearing population in Canada is incredibly tiny. I live in a city with a large muslim population and I've only seen a niqab once. Most muslim women I've interacted with either wear the hijab (a headscarf that just covers the hair- the face is visible) or nothing at all. They are virtually indistinguishable from other women except for the fact that some of them cover up a little more! They go to post secondary school and get careers, although the prevailing muslim phobia would have you believe that their husbands wouldn't allow this! Muslim =/= fundamentalist
So remember that when we're dealing with banning this particular garment, the media is stirring up a lot of frenzy over a very very small percentage of the population. I highly doubt it's because that occasionally providing a private room for a women to uncover a niqab is such a huge inconvenience that they want to ban it outright. It's not that. It's just Canada jumping on the xenophobic bandwagon along with the US.
2. How exactly does banning the niqab in public help women be less oppressed? Man, why don't we just disallow nuns from wearing their habits and monks their robes? (Yeah, I've seen monks walking around in Toronto too.) The Christian bible isn't any kinder to women than the Qu'ran so if you want to ban the niqab based on the fact that it stems from an oppressive religion then you have to ban ALL religious clothing. If you take any texts of any religion seriously they're going to be oppressive.
However I think we generally recognize that those who practice religion seriously realize that there are lots of outdated notions in the texts they follow yet continue to practice their religion anyways because they are individuals capable of distinguishing between what's applicable to modern society and what isn't.
3. And WHO is actually offended when they see a niqab? Who is harmed? I'm not. Now if you're standing in line at the airport or something I believe they have a right to request you to uncover your face in a private room so they can match it to your passport photo. But really, in public? Are we so small minded that we get a little scared or offended when a women is covered in material?
Again, who is harmed by this? I don't believe we should restrict freedoms as long as they don't harm anyone else. If you want to harm yourself I'm okay with that, just don't hurt my kids. You could argue that the women is harming herself (that's a very shaky argument) but it still doesn't contradict her right to practice whatever lifestyle she wishes. And you could argue that it's not the women who are at fault, it's their husbands/families who are forcing them, in which case it's no longer a matter pertaining to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms but rather an issue that should be dealt with as domestic abuse. And I doubt it's so widespread in Canada that they have grounds to make legislation against it in order to deal with the voluminous backlog of domestic abuse cases involving muslim families who force their wives to wear burkas.
Also, how is limiting their right to government services liberating women at all? As already mentioned in the article, all it does is simply alienate them. If we really want to "liberate" these women we do it by allowing them to integrate into society, but in their own way. You don't do it by erasing their identity.
4. This isn't really a valid argument, but I seriously LOL when people talk about women totally free from oppression in the West. Don't take this the wrong way- I would take Canada over MANY other countries where genital mutilation is routine and women don't go to school and if you get raped you're considered untouchable etc. etc., but approaching the topic from the mindset that the West has everything right and people should just be more open minded to OUR ideas and we can freely dismiss theirs because we're uncomfortable with a woman covering herself up is not the way. Women are paraded around like sex objects and while I think this is for many reasons, most of which don't bother me, I can't shake the feeling that it's at least partly due to deep rooted societal oppression. Hey, abortion isn't even readily available to many women in the West- are we really all that enlightened? There's dozens of examples of female oppression in the West, but that's another rant.
TL;DR Banning the niqab is a waste of time that will produce no noticeable improvements in the status of women. Allowing this legislation to go forward is a blow not to Muslim women, but to all women- because we are not intelligent enough to wear our clothes and understand the messages we carry with them. Thinking that our work liberating women in the west is finished and that all we have to do is get the rest of the world to follow in our footsteps is naive and colonialist.
*Okay, I'm not really surprised, I just wish all the "we love multiculturalism and that's what makes us Canada and not a certain neighbour to the south" bullshit was actually true.