Regards, Ivan
Posted on 06/19/2004 3:38:38 PM PDT by MadIvan
IS A British Muslim girl who shrouds her head and body expressing her deeply held religious faith? Or is she collaborating — reluctantly or willingly — with a cultural movement which seeks to make women silent and invisible?
Until Mr Justice Bennett’s ruling this week that Denbigh High School in Luton was not discriminating against 15-year-old Shabina Begum by forbidding her to wear the jilbab, no one was prepared to draw a line. Hearing Germaine Greer on Question Time rail against his verdict, I could only despair at how political correctness has hamstrung feminism. We now have to rely on that old patriarchal foe, the British judicial system, to stand up for women.
For every angry young man who cries racism or Islamophobia this summer, a dozen girls will be grateful not to be sweating under a shroud, able to enjoy sport and play unencumbered with their friends. If Ms Begum had prevailed, the bar for what constitutes a virtuous and devout Muslim schoolgirl would have been raised ever higher. Eventually only those with faces hidden by the burka and taught separately from boys would qualify.
Islam requires modest dress. For girls this has long meant trousers and a tunic, the shalwar kemeez, which Ms Begum herself wore until two years ago. Was her desire for further concealment the result of her deepened faith, as she claims, or because her older brother Shuweb Raman started to exert power over her? “One wonders why it should have been her brother who articulated what the claimant was perfectly capable of saying herself,” observed Mr Justice Bennett coolly.
Does it take a male judge to say it? The jilbab is not about religious faith, it is about culture, a particular, repressive culture which denies women employment, education, and equality under the law. It is a cloak of invisiblity which means that women’s rights can be ignored, their dissent go unheard.
The jilbab and the burka are deliberate physical impediments to free movement, comfort, and the right even to look fully at the world. The burka does not, by the twisted logic of fundamentalism, engender male respect: women in countries which enforce the veil are not the most revered, they are the most subjugated on Earth. The burka is the garb of the slave.
I will find myself under assault from those who say I am a white imperialist who feels her Western feminist values are superior. Too right I do. I am weary of debates where “but it’s their culture” lets off regimes which, if they were imposed by one race upon another rather than by men upon women, would be subject to international sanctions.
Take the Olympic movement which, although it excluded South Africa for 28 years when it would not send black athletes, tolerates countries which operate a different type of apartheid and refuse to include female competitors. At Barcelona in 1992, 35 countries sent men-only teams. By the 2000 Sydney Olympics, under the pressure of the feminist lobby group Atlanta Plus, this was reduced to nine countries.
Now that poorer countries, which once put their limited resources only into male sports, have benefited from the help of the International Olympic Committee, the Athens Games is expected to have only four or five male-only teams. They will be from rich Muslim nations, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and will compete despite their defiance of the Olympic charter which forbids discrimination on the grounds of sex.
Meanwhile their women athletes will stay at home. Their only hope of international competition is next year’s Muslim Women’s Games — away from the gaze of even fathers or brothers in locked stadiums. It is forbidden to photograph the winners; the prize ceremony is conducted fully veiled, so the victors are faceless, anonymous.
Is it permissible on the grounds of culture for these Arab nations to flout the Olympic ideal? Over the centuries, Chinese foot-binding, Indian dowry murders and female genital mutilation have all been excused on the grounds of “culture”. In each case it took feminists — indigenous and from abroad — to highlight and outlaw these practices.
The debate which defines our age is how far can we tolerate the intolerance of others. The Islamic fundamentalists have firm principles to which they hold fast and true, while we slip and slide in the mud of liberal accommodation. But there are inalienable rights and moral tenets which transcend all cultures and we must not be frightened of defending them, from the Olympic stadium to the classrooms of Luton.
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
Referring to the title of the article: there is nothing wrong (in principle) with cultural supremacism. Some cultures are patently better than others.
About bloody time, indeed!
The light is slowly dawning, even on benighted 'progressive thinkers'.
About bloody time is right!
She makes some good points, but really when it comes to fashion, we are all slaves of culture, whatever culture we happen to be in.
The government of Turkey has it figured out. It bans the burka because it knows that it represents and inspires the extremists.
Not that I would recommend donning a burka for fashion purposes.
But slaves of our own choosing --- at least with western fashions, you don't get shot in the face by your own father if you wear the wrong outfit for the occasion. If you wear a suit and tie or a dress to something everyone else wore jeans to you aren't going to be killed for it.
"...an open feminist on our side"
Sounds a bit like law-and-order lesbian Tammy Bruce (former head of the
Los Angeles chapter of The National Organization of Women)
http://www.tammybruce.com/
You nailed it. On the one hand people are saying that covering up women is making them slaves, and on the other they say making them naked (re porn or the StarTrek Ferengi wives) makes them slaves. Reality is that people dress like they choose.
love those Taliban Singles babes!
In one of the many ironies of liberalism, b/c of their rampant support of "reproductive rights", feminazis in Europe are going to get a suprise in approx. 25 years when one half of Europe's population are unassimalated Muslims.
There's nothing more depressing that standing on line at Marks & Spencer's, holding a lovely Christmas Cake or some equally wonderful British staple, while a woman, also waiting in line - dressed head to foot in thick, black swathes of heavy fabric, stands in front of or behind you. Why do I know she is more than a slave to culture than I am? Because of the totally miserable expression in her eyes. She is a true slave. She is a beast of burden.
When your post came on my screen I thought I'd clicked on some ad or something-- when I realized what I was looking at I laughed till I cried!! Simply outstanding-- although my wife and daughters didn't laugh like I did....
I find the Burka as offensive as the tablecloth Yassir Arafat's wears on his head. These are enemy uniforms.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.