True face of Europe?

France's burkha ban, where women who cover their faces (don the niqab) in public places would be fined and sent to, 'citizenship class' goes against the multi-culturalism that Europe is known for.
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Post World War II (WWII), many former colonies became free and there was a rush of immigrants to different countries in Europe. So, far Europe had been mono-religious and mono-cultural but post immigration it started becoming a multi-cultural society.


Kenza Drider fighting against ban on veils

Initially, Europe welcomed immigration as there had been destruction in WWII and people were needed for rebuilding. It became a multi-cultural society and I say multi-cultural not multi-religious because Christians came in from Africa and Asia. Their religion was the same, Christianity, but their culture was different.
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Then of course, people from other faiths also started coming into Europe. So, when a country imposes a ban on the burkha, it goes against the multi-culturalism in European society.

Having said that, I must add that personally I am against the full-face covering. I don't think this burkha and hijaab is at all Islamic. All Islam says to women is that do not display adornments and cover your breasts.

In fact, most theologians would agree that women can show their face and hands in Islam and the rest of the body may be covered.

Yet, just like a government has no right to force somebody to wear a particular garment, it also does not have a right to force somebody 'not' to wear something. The burkha is a cultural tradition so not to allow this violates human rights.

On whether Europe is closing its doors to Islam in a subtle way...
So far, Europe was thought to be a very tolerant society, in fact, that was the very essence of it. Holland especially was perceived as giving full religious and cultural freedom, in fact, freedom was very basic to the country and France too. Today, we see this being eroded and England perhaps is the only country, which still has more tolerance. Now, Europe is manifesting its intolerance.u00a0

All was okay till immigrants were small in number. Once those numbers increased and different cultures started to assert themselves, this has surfaced. Now, there is quite a lot of friction in Holland. The latest, I think, will be animal rights groups that are demanding that certain faiths abandon the animal sacrifice they have been practising. I think this is going to spread to other places soon and initially; at least, it looks like it will be a combustible issue.

Islam is definitely viewed as a threat and the feeling was boosted post the 9/11 attacks in the USA. Already, intolerance was emerging but these attacks gave that sentiment a fillip. Currently, even in the US, the Muslim population is living in insecurity.

Recently, the Congressional hearings on radicalised Muslims in the US started a lot of debate. There is actually only one Congressman who is doing this and he is highly anti-Islam. One pastor, Terry Jones burnt a Koran in the US, despite being told to desist by so many people. So, we see are seeing such instances multiplying increasingly.

On the argument that women are expected to toe the line in Islamic countries, so why should they not do so in Europe?
People often use the argument that women, for instance, are not allowed to wear bikinis in Saudi Arabia so it is right that they should be stopped from wearing burkhas in France. This is a specious argument. If somebody does bad or is intolerant, would you become intolerant yourself? Or, would you show tolerance and hold yourself up as a model for others to follow?

You cannot say, you do not allow this, so we too will not allow this. Why just bikinis? Women are not allowed to do so many things in Saudi Arabia. So, why compare your culture with Saudi Arabia's culture? In fact, we should encourage the women fighting for their rights in Saudi Arabia. Change cannot be instantaneous and it has always backfired.

The Shah of Iran abolished the hijab and told women to give up Islamic dressing and to wear skirts. Ultimately, he was driven out. King Amanulllah of Afghanistan similarly said one must do away with the hijab and don Western dress but he too fell. One must persuade and make people aware.
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This kind of burkha ban is absurd and it makes women face double pressure from the family and from the government, so women become the greater victims. That is why human rights advocates are against it.

On why if Muslims hate the West do they go to Western countries as immigrants and even former dictators prefer to live there in exile?
People often say that if Muslims hate the West so much, why are they the ones always living in exile in the West or migrating West? Yet, people who ask such questions are already prejudiced. There are two types of dictators ufffdthose who live in exile in the West and others who go to Saudi Arabia. Also, one cannot just drop into US to live there. There are certain rules to obtain citizenship.
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It is not as if all the Muslims hate the West. There are those that are in favour of Western modernity, others who are bigots and the majority who are neutral or fall somewhere in between. Just recently, I read a piece by a Saudi Arabian writer, living in the US who was full of praise for the US. Where is such freedom in my country? He had asked in his essay. So, there are people who think this way too.

The future of the burkha ban in France...
I think the move by French president Nicolas Sarkozy is a highly politically motivated one. Sarkozy is a right-winger and since the Left is now emerging more popular in France, this is his way of creating hysteria and is a bid to get re-elected as elections are approaching. The way he has rushed into Libya is also his way to divert attention from the problems he is facing. If France keeps saying that only 2,000 women wear the full burkha in the country, then why are they going crazy about this issue? These are things people need to think about."u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0

Asgar Ali Engineer is director, Institute of Islamic Society and chairman, Centre of Study of Society & Secularism

Burkha and crime

M In March 2002, two robbers, male and female, stole jewellery from an exclusive store called Ramot on Sloane Street in Knightsbridge in London by wearing burkhas in the store.
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The robbers flung open their garments to reveal guns, threatened the staff, took their keys to the display cabinets, locked the staff in a back room, and made off in a black Mercedes Benz getaway car with what Scotland Yard called, "unique" gems.

M In Lahore, Pakistan on December 25, 2002, two assailants in burkhas threw a grenade among worshippers at a Christmas Day Service in the village of Chianwala, northwest of Lahore, killing three and wounding 13.

MSome years earlier in Philadelphia, a Wachovia Bank branch in Philadelphia was held up by a woman in Muslim garb, though this time in the Juniata Park part of town.

MThe two brothers who run the large Lal Masjid complex in Islamabad, capital city of Pakistan, led an insurrection through which they hoped to topple the government of their country.

Holed up in the complex, surrounded by some 10,000 soldiers, one of the two brothers, Maulana Mohammad Abdul Aziz Ghazi, 46, tried to escape by joining a group of some 20 women permitted to leave. He donned a full black burkha, even wearing gloves and high heels.


A veiled woman outside a courthouse in Paris

Also, he was the only one of the group who stayed quiet. He was caught with reports stating that Abdul Aziz was picked out because of his, "unusual demeanour." One officer said, "The rest of the girls looked like girls, but he was taller and had a pot belly."

Not in the picture
The garment is becoming obsolete in Bollywood

While Paris rejects the burkha, Bollywood isn't too far behind either. The last time any major actress in a Hindi film wore a burkha was Manisha Koirala in Mani Ratnam's Bombay in 1995. And that was not really a Hindi film but a Tamil film dubbed into Hindi. So where did the burkha disappear from our movies?

Significantly, most films in the Muslim social genre were box-office successes. So much so, that in 1960 Guru Dutt produced a Muslim social Chaudhvin Ka Chand to offset the crippling losses he suffered in Kagaz Ke Phool. Chaudhvin Ka Chand worked.

And how? Waheeda Rehman in a burkha for a large part of the film set a trend for the young women desirous of privacy or secrecy in the 1960s, to wear the burkha irrespective of which community they belonged to.

Indeed the burkha became a symbol of comic concealment in Hindi cinema, with our heroes donning the burkha to sneak into girls' hostels and other 'restricted' areas.
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But, if today Rishi Kapoor and Kanwarjit Paintal, had to get into burkhas, as they did so humorously in Raffoo Chakkar in1975, they would think twice before doing so, given the controversy it is generating currently.

Rishi Kapoor's son Ranbir did get into a burkha for a comic scene, in the recent Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani. Nowadays the burkha has become a serious political issue and is gradually disappearing from Hindi cinema.
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Heroines in Hindi films have looked remarkably comfortable in a burkha. Mala Sinha, Sadhana and Manisha Koirala, who are not Muslims in real life, looked as graceful in burkha in Mere Huzoor, Mere Mehboob and Bombay (respectively) as Meena Kumari in Pakeezah or Salma Agha in Nikaah.

The end of the road for the burkha was signaled by the colossal flop of H S Rawail's Deedar-e-Yaar in 1982.
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A thinly veiled (no pun intended) remake of Rawail's own 1960s blockbuster Mere Mehboob with three actors Jeetendra, Rishi Kapoor and Tina Munim, put producer Jeetendra in the red and almost forced him to shut down his production house.

Thereafter barring Nikaah in 1982 and Sanam Bewfaa in 1991, the era of the burkha ended in Hindi cinema.
For all practical purposes the burkha has become obsolete in Hindi films. One major reason for this is the cultural progressiveness that has overtaken the Muslim community in India.

Girls from educated cultured families no longer favour the burkha. This is reflected in films like the 2004 film Ishq Hai Tumse where Bipasha Basu played a burkha-less Muslim girl.
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It looks like the end of the road for the genteel culture of shayari recited especially for ladies in the burkha.

As told to Hemal Ashar

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