Nations right across Western Europe are considering a ban on Muslim women from wearing veils that cover their full faces.
The Pew Global Attitudes Project survey released findings yesterday that show that support for this kind of ban is strengthening right across Europe. Countries with strong majorities are France (82 percent), Germany (71 percent), Britain (62 percent) and Spain (59 percent). The ban would be in the form of legislation that prevents total face veils in schools, hospitals and government offices.
Americans are, however, very much against such legislation (only 28 percent approve) because they see it as a violation of religious freedom. Such a ban could obviously lead to other religious garb such as yarmulkes, clerical collars and Hare Krishna robes also being forbidden in certain public spaces. Legislators claim the reasons behind the veil ban are security based and not religious.
Defenders of the various burqa bands are also attempting to cast themselves as fighting for the rights of women, however various Islamic scholars are questioning the validity of this. Boston University scholar and the author of ‘Sexual Ethics and Islam,’ Professor Kecia Ali views this current European fixation on Muslim women’s clothing” not as “a systematic push for gender equality” but as “a symbolic statement” that “plays into an us-versus-them mentality with brutal real-world consequences.”
Ali has been further quoted as saying that the proposed burqa ban: "distracts from real issues of class injustice, racial oppression, and continued discrimination and violence against women, Muslim and non-Muslim."
Boston University religion scholar, author of "God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World," and regular CNN contributor Stephen Prothero writes that:
“Anti-burqa legislation in Belgium, France, the UK and beyond raises all sorts of questions about immigration and assimilation, church and state. But lurking around each of these questions is the overarching matter of what the veil means. Is it a symbol of Islamic identity? A rejection of the hyper-sexualization of the female body? Or is it, in the words of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, ‘a sign of debasement’–a stiff-arm to country and community, and a symbol of sexism and misogyny?”
Prothero goes on to state that in his opinion this issue challenges any notions of Europe as being justly and properly tolerant of its multi-cultural society.
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(To read the full article, please go to http://religion.blogs.cnn.com).