Niqabs & Burqas: The Garb of Terrorists?

The Felicity Daily Herald

France moves closer to banning full Muslim veil

LA VERRIERE, France – The man she married is French, her four children were born in France and she speaks French with only a trace of her native Arabic tongue. Faiza Silmi contends her clothes — a head-to-toe robe and filmy tissue covering her face — are the reason France has denied her citizenship in her adopted land.

The 32-year-old Moroccan may soon be facing an even fiercer blow. A top French lawmaker submitted a draft law this week that would ban such Islamic dress anywhere in public, a measure that would set a European precedent and trap thousands of women between their religious convictions and the law of the land.

“They say I’m too attached to my religion,” Silmi told The Associated Press at an empty restaurant near her home southwest of Paris, her large eyes peering from a slit in her veil. “Lots of Christians live in Morocco and we don’t make them wear scarves.”

Unlike Muslim headscarves, full-body, face-covering robes are a rare sight in the streets of France, home to an estimated 5 million Muslims, the largest such population in western Europe. France’s main Muslim leaders have declared that Islam does not require women to cover their faces with niqabs or burqas.

In a country whose national emblem is Marianne, a bare-chested woman, there is deepening concern over the all-encompassing garb, often black or brown and worn with gloves, attire typical in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. Here, it is widely viewed as a gateway to radical Islam, an attack on gender equality and other French values, and a gnawing away at the nation’s secular foundation.

President Nicolas Sarkozy opened the door to a possible ban in June, telling a parliament session in Versailles that such dress “is not welcome” in France. A parliamentary panel set to work in July on a six-month mission gathering information on the garments.

On Tuesday, the head of Sarkozy’s conservative UMP party in parliament’s lower house, Jean-Francois Cope, jumped the gun before the panel’s report was finished, and filed draft legislation on a ban. “No one may, in spaces open to the public and on public streets, wear a garment or an accessory that has the effect of hiding the face,” the draft text reads.

The document cites public security concerns, thus includes all face-covering clothes, in a bid to head off challenges from those who might claim such a law would violate constitutional rules on individual rights — a major concern along with how such a law would be enforced. It foresees fines for those who break the law.

The initiative, unlikely to go to debate before spring, would be the second time France targets Muslim dress. A 2004 law born in acrimony bans Muslim headscarves and other “ostentatious” religious symbols in the classrooms of French public schools. Sarkozy’s party dominates parliament and the president reiterated Wednesday his wish for a law on full veils, though it’s too early to say whether it will pass.

Europe’s growing Muslim population has bred tension across the continent. Wariness is pervasive since deadly attacks in Madrid in 2004 and in London in 2005 by Islamic radicals living in Europe. And some non-Muslims sense a threat by a foreign culture to their way of life. It took only four minarets on Switzerland’s 200 mosques to push the Swiss to vote “no” to minarets in a November referendum.

However, France, which wants an Islam tailored to the West, would be the only western European country to target the all-enveloping robes and niqabs, the cloth hiding the lower face. “We’re going to become the laughing stock of democracies” should France ban the clothing, said Raphael Liogier, a sociology professor who runs the Observatory of the Religious in Aix-en-Provence.

He is among critics who say a ban would be a violation of basic rights and “transgression of the fundamental principles of our republic.”

Muslim leaders of all tendencies have warned that a ban risks stigmatizing all Muslims, and anti-terrorism judge Marc Trevidic told Sunday’s Journal du Dimanche that a ban “will maybe push impulsive people to want to commit attacks.”

However, Andre Gerin, who heads the parliamentary panel, says the full-body veil is an “attempt to instrumentalize Islam for political ends” via a “fundamentalist and barbaric ideology” that oppresses women.

Gerin, a communist who served for years as mayor of Venissieux, a suburb of Lyon known as a haunt for Muslim fundamentalists, insists the phenomenon is growing.

But at Friday prayers recently at a mosque northwest of Paris in Argenteuil, considered a bastion for Salafists who adopt a literal reading of the Quran, only a handful of fully veiled women were seen. Some expressed fear of a ban.

“We won’t be able to leave the house,” said Oumeima Naceri, a 19-year-old convert draped in black garments, including a filmy “sitar” veil covering even her eyes. “That frightens us enormously … It’s like asking us to go naked.”

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Muslims just can’t catch a break. Not even in France.

Are you people aware that: Islam in the ONLY major religion that ACCEPTS the Prophets of ‘ALL’ major sects ~ including some religions that are not so recognized as ‘major’.

Are you folks aware that …. Islam, HISTORICALLY, is the only Major Religion based upon monotheism (Christianity holds to a ‘Holy Trinity’, while Judaism often worshipped idols).

And are you folks aware that …. the ‘Holy Quran’ is primarily not only a ‘Holy Book’ revealed to the Holy Prophet Muhammad by the angel Gabriel, but also an historical document that tells the story of the rise of Islam from Islam’s major enemies: Christians and Jews. And it is to the latter aspect that many, many myths and outright LIES arise from ‘those that don’t know’ yet speak as if they are authorities on the Religion of Islam.

Historically, Islam was under great attack by both the Jews and Christians! Yet contrary to ‘popular belief’, Islam NEVER forced their religion upon  ‘others’ at the point of a sword. NEVER!! Too, historically Islam advanced Jihad on Muslims to 1) purge themselves against evil or 2) DEFEND THEMSELVES against attacks by ‘others’. And I could go on-and-on about the Fundamentals of Islam that are at great variance to that espoused by ‘those that don’t read or take the TIME to Study this Great Religion.

Hell. The very name Islam means Peace.

When one looks at the length and breath of History, ‘ALL’ major religions (and their sects) participated in heinous and despicable acts against all of Humanity. The Crusades and Christianity’s active participation in the Slave Trade are examples of TERRORISM. READ the Old Testament if you wish to see ‘Jewish Terrorism Gone Wild’! Yet somehow the Western World wants to paint a broad stroke of ‘Terrorism’ on a religion ~ Islam ~ borne of Peace yet TODAY stained with the label as a ‘Terrorist Organization and Religion”.

Today, there is something to be feared when Muslim women wear their Traditional Islamic garb. Just as TODAY we hold in suspicion anybody that speaks Arabic …. or quotes from the Holy Quran …. or says Prayers 5 times a day …. or kneels and bows toward Mecca … or fasts during Ramadan …. etc., etc., etc.

We in the West find it more convenient, easy, and in line with our Prejudices to simply wish to BLAME an entire Religion on the random criminal ‘ACTS’ of a few …. THAT JUST HAPPENED TO BE OF THE ISLAMIC FAITH! To me this is quite queer, when one considers that INDIVIDUALS,  Groups or Sects of so-called Christians or Jews do not have their religious affiliations transferred upon the ‘ACT’ itself! Isn’t that strange to you?

This is the Twenty-first Century, Folks! When will we ‘Grow Up’ and seek an ‘Understanding’ of the World based upon our own Study and Research, rather than relying on what ‘others’ say or feel: even if what you hear from ‘others’ match your preconceived prejudices. Because a big part of Growth is ‘unlearning’  a LOT of garbage taught in our Youth.

Niqabs and Burqas.

Give me a frickin’ break!!