Thanks for letting us know, you are for Mollaa Forced Borqaa, not freedom of choice of your Mother, Sister, Daughter, Grand Daughters, great-grand-daughters and so on. What a Tyrant ...!
--- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, Farida Majid <farida_majid@...> wrote:
>
>
> I had written the following 2 yrs ago:
>
> Call for a ban on Hijab is not the answer
>
> A knee-jerk reaction to Aqsa Pervez's tragic death in Mississauga, Canada, would be a gross dishonor to this young rebel and her free spirit. Professor Taj Hashmi has made an impassioned plea calling for a ban on hijab in Canada. The antidote to a stupid, inhuman and falsely constructed religious dictum is not another dictum that in turn can have multiple undesirable consequences.
> Hijab ban in Turkey has caused social disruptions, dysfunction at educational institutions and workplaces, and strengthened the resolve of the Islamists. The story is not dissimilar in France, a ban that I opposed at the time protesting against the claim that it was a "religious" symbol of the Muslims on the same par as the Star of David of the Jews. In Germany the hijab-ban for State teachers has served as a stick in the hands of old German racial supremacists. Now I hear Belgium has banned the hijab.
> I have always taken a stand against a State imposed ban on hijab or any other article of women's clothing for the simplest of reasons: Other than trends, local culture or "fashion" as she deems it, a woman needs no higher authority to dictate her in matters of clothing or the manner in which she dresses herself.
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> Before I answer today's impassioned arguments about 'conditioning of minds' of women who wear hijab voluntarily, I would draw attention to my concern for politicization of the whole issue. To which extent the modern societal pressure to wear a hijab as an elevated status-symbol is entirely patriarchal has not yet been fully psychoanalyzed. The Islamist women peddling hijab are not a meek lot. They have an agenda. To a political junkie like me, if it walks like and quacks like politics, then it is POLITICS.
>
> Any politics that involves a heady combination of women and religion is super-potent! Look at the unabated and unabashed power of "Abortion Politics" in the U.S.A.!
>
> In Bangladesh the Supreme Court has made a recent rule against imposition of any dress-code, other than normal institutional identification 'uniform' types, against the wish and comfort of women. Nevertheless, dirty politics revolving around women and Islam is keeping the srteets heated with violent protests against the Govt. women's development policies.
>
> The blogger, Marvi Sirmed, wrote:
>
> Major disagreements exist on whether or not Burqa is an injunction of Quran. Even if it proves to be in the holy scriptures, it needs to be reviewed in the context of modern world where men are expected to have at least little hold on their libido, where women are not just sex objects whose unveiled presence in society would be dangerous for public morality.
>
> I totally agree with her sentiments, but I would not re-visit Abul 'ala Moududi's premise in order to express them. But then, why blame Moududi alone? I had hard time only the other day convincing an Indian Muslim Association leader who resides in Washington DC that women running around in the streets of Manhattan in Beach Volleyball outfits in the dead of winter is an impossibility and happens only in his lurid fantasy.
>
> The point I am anxious to make is that the "context of modern world" is far more complex than what Moududi had envisioned or women like Marvi Sirmed is imagining. Patriarchy has updated its various political masks. We have not figured out all the 'political' ways of dismantling them. Some of the old, sensible arguments need to be revitalized in order to be effective.
>
> Farida Majid
>
>
>
>
> To: bangla-vision@yahoogroups.com; GreenLeft_discussion@yahoogroups.com; greenyouth@googlegroups.com
> From: sukla.sen@...
> Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 22:14:29 +0530
> Subject: [india-unity] Burqa got a befitting French kiss
>
>
>
>
> http://www.sacw.net/article2015.html
>
>
>
> Burqa got a befitting French kiss
> by Marvi Sirmed Saturday 16 April 2011
>
>
>
>
> From: LUBP
> The burqa debate: "Burqa got a befitting French kiss"
> Before reading this argument on recent Burqa-ban by France, you need to know who I am. Raised in an orthodox Muslim Deobandi family, I've been educated in Pakistan's Punjab where urban middle class used to be too sensitive about purdah in 1980s and 90s – the decades when I went to school and then university. Being first generation migrated out of the village in a big city, my father was a part of purdah sensitive educated middle class professional class. But my mother, raised and educated in a secular and Sufist Sindh, fought against Burqa throughout her life in order to save me from this `curse' as she would put it.
> Mom succeeded in this battle to the best of my luck and now no one expects her or me in Burqa or purdah in general. Despite being thoroughly religious, mildly ritualistic and overwhelmingly humanist in her viewpoint, I never saw he[r] observing strict purdah. She would cover her head, although, while meeting with my father's friends and serve them tea – a practice completely absent in my orthodox and backward paternal family. It's because of her struggle that the family elders were never able to impose either Burqa or hijab – or even a chaddar – on me. All they required of me was to cover my head with traditional dopatta when I stepped out of house. My honest confession: I often cheated on them by just wearing it in their presence. But seeing my aunts and grandmother, I kept wondering all through my childhood, how must it feel to be continually imprisoned in a horrible thing called Burqa.
> It has been and is my biggest relief to be among people who are sane enough to be against this practice of subjugating women through veil. But finding so many friends and fellow rights' activists among those protesting France's ban on Burqa is shocking and disappointing both. The anti-ban crowd comprises a range of viewpoints – from ardent Islamic, to moderate, to new-age Islam, to seculars, to antitheists and so on. Most heard argument from almost all of them has been their unflinching `concern' for women's choice and freedom to choose what they want to wear.
> To me, this strong sounding argument remains flawed, inconsistent and self-contradictory. How could a choice to commit suicide be that widely accepted? If your suicidal tendency is the result of certain frame of mind, experiences in life, is self-destroying and criminal, so is Burqa. When the society conditions your mind to willingly get subjugated and considering yourself `safe' by hiding behind the veil, how is it a `free choice'? Most of the women passionately protesting the Burqa ban are heard saying they do it of their own free will because they feel safe. Well you can feel safe in Guantanamo Bay if you're conditioned to feel safe that way.
> It is a slap on the face of a society where a woman can only feel safe if she hides herself, if she is invisible from public eye, if she conceals herself from the male eye. Stepping on the soil of any Muslim country in a dress of your choice save Burqa, is herculean for any woman. You want to wear a sleeveless top on a hot summer day and go out on the streets of Lahore or Dhaka, it would be appalling if not impossible like it is in most of middle eastern countries. Things would, however, be starkly different in Kathmandu, Kandy or Mumbai even if you put east versus west argument.
> There's a wide gulf between for and against Burqa arguments within Islamic scholars. Major disagreements exist on whether or not Burqa is an injunction of Quran. Even if it proves to be in the holy scriptures, it needs to be reviewed in the context of modern world where men are expected to have at least little hold on their libido, where women are not just sex objects whose unveiled presence in society would be dangerous for public morality.
> At the risk of sounding Islamophob or racist against Muslims in west, I would strongly suggest to those who seem too concerned about women's "freedom" to choose Burqa for themselves, to kindly go back to their countries of origin and fight for women's choices there. A lot of women in these countries don't have right to choose their spouse or profession let alone dress. Let us all fight for a free Muslim world where women are free to not wear Burqa. A polite reminder to all the women's rights activists, of sickening bars on women's choices in Muslim countries where they are coerced into adopting a life style no sensible male would ever choose for himself. Burqa can never be a free choice of anyone. Had it been, this choice would have been available to men also.
>
> Marvi Sirmed
> Columnist / Independent Blogger,
> Founder Editor of Baaghi:
>
> http://www.marvisirmed.com
>
------------------------------------
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