Thursday, April 21, 2011

Burka

Every time I see a burka or a nikab, that all-encompassing face covering that Muslim women wear, I get an overpowering urge to tear it off. I cannot bear the lack of individuality, of anonimity, that it confers on a woman. Isn't it obvious to them that this is a device intended by their menfolk to control them, to reduce them to less than individuals, to treat them like cattle. In the free west we cannot accept this. To say that they have the right to choose is nonsense, a person who has been enslaved is no longer free to choose. To say that this is a cultural tradition is also nonsense. By the same arguments female circumcision, also a cultural tradition, would be tolerated. It is just as objectionable as if only women were required to wear a ball and chain locked around their ankle. Would western women accept this? Women fought hard and even committed suicide in order to obtain equality. Are we now going to let the purveyors of extreme Islam to undo all the progress that has been made in ensuring sex equality. I agree with the French, for a change, burkas should be banned entirely, not just because they make a mockery of identification procedures. What is the point of requiring photo-id, if those who want to can flout the system. This is preferential treatment of Muslim women, and it cannot be tolerated.

Several years ago I visited India, and I went to Hyderabad. As I entered the airport I was overwhelmed by a sense of alienation, the whole entrance hall was thronged by hundreds of women wearing total face coverings. It was like being on an alien planet. I asked my hosts why there were so many women there and they explained that this was the season for the sale of young women to the Arabian area. The Sheikhs buy their third, fourth or fifth wife from the Moslem areas of India because they are cheap, plentiful and attractive. Who cares what happens to the older wives. It is an abominable tradition, and we should be fighting it in every respect, not giving them the imprimatur of western acceptance.

The system that allows such treatment of women is called sharia, the legal system developed by Sunni Islam. Strictly speaking a Muslim is not supposed to marry more wives than he can treat equally, but that is nonsense, every one knows that as soon as a Muslim man tires of his wife he chooses a younger one. I don't say that western mores are perfect, we have a lot of prostitution and divorce, but our system is infinitely better than treating all women as an underclass with limited or no rights. Ban the burka! (and while we are about it ban the nikab too).

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