AS a leading member of the Global Coalition Against Allowing Muslim Women Freedom of Sartorial Choice based on their religious obligations and convictions, Nicholas Sarkozy’s latest salvo declaring the burqa ‘’not welcome’’ in France, has, I feel, irrevocably forfeited his right to be taken seriously.
Within minutes of his speech, internet forums, social networking sites and blogs – the 21st century’s version of the village grapevine – erupted with hoots of laughter and derision at his feeble attempt to deflect his nation’s attention from more pressing matters to the quintessentially French preoccupation with women’s clothes.
His ill-timed, clumsily worded, two-minute tirade against the ‘’burqa’’ could have fitted right into the current international climate of dividing Muslims into two groups: moderates (‘’good’’) and fundamentalists (“evil” – “abaya and beard wearing”), had he not taken it upon himself to assert that wearing an outer covering garment when outdoors is not a religious obligation upon Muslim women.
“The burqa is not a religious sign, it’s a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement – I want to say it solemnly,” he said, addressing members of both parliamentary houses gathered at the Palace of Versailles for his speech.
You could have knocked me down with a feather: since when did Sarkozy become an authority on Islam?
Has he read the verse of the Qur’an (Surah Ahzab, Verse 59) which explicitly enjoins believing women to wear an outer garment when outdoors, so that they are identified as Muslim women and not harassed? If so, how is he qualified to offer a different conclusion from centuries of Muslim exegetes and scholars who affirmed that such a garment is undoubtedly a religious obligation? Has he ever spoken to any of the thousands of Muslim women who choose to wear the burqa/abaya/jilbab and asked them the rationale behind their choice of that garb?
If you look at his words from an extremely liberal point of view, Sarkozy might be forgiven for his views on the abaya/burqa/jilbab as being a symbol of servitude: It is a sign of subservience – not to human beings, fickle fashion trends and social mores – but to the Higher Wisdom of the One who decreed it an obligatory protection for Muslim women.
What is unforgivable though, is his labeling the garment “a sign of debasement.” As the head of a nation that is self-confessedly proud of its “laissez-faire attitude towards casual sex” and all the debauched trappings that go with it, one would expect him to be better acquainted with ‘debasement’ . A visit to just one among the thousands of proudly advertised, government-licensed “adults-only entertainment spots” in France would suffice for him to write a detailed dissertation on human debasement and what it comprises.
Debasement is trading in the bodies of women, displaying them and using them as a means of provoking and gratifying unnatural biological urges in strangers. Debasement is the deliberate, systematic dehumanization of women and their relegation to being sexual toys in the hands of profiteers – not the covering of a woman’s body in public, that protects her from precisely such predators.
By calling for a “ban” on the burqa in the first-ever address to lawmakers by a French head of state in over a century, Sarkozy tried to juggle several items on his agenda: projecting himself as both an agent provocateur and a fearless knight in shining armor who is unafraid to save France – more specifically French “laïcité” – from the menacing specter of Muslim “fundamentalism”; appeasing MPs who had urgently pressed for the motion in Parliament, and rallying other bigoted members of the public around his desperately flailing persona as President.
Incidentally, this is not the first time Sarkozy has indulged in ‘God-talk’ – dragging theological issues center-stage in a country where a majority of the citizens believe that the State should hold a neutral position in religious matters, and that freedom of conscience and religion are inalienable rights of individuals. The French concept of “laïcité” (‘laicity’) necessitates that the State should “foster emancipation by giving each citizen the opportunity to learn to think freely without being locked in the ideas of his native social group.”
This emphasis on “freedom of thought” has a historical basis: France was subjected to the religious and cultural monopoly of the Catholic Church for several centuries, and when the Republic came into being, it assumed the role of an “emancipator,” helping citizen widen their views – sometimes even against their will.
That Sarkozy has had to take recourse to the marginalization of Muslim women in his attempt to defend the French ideal of “an open mind” is an irony that would have been laughable, were it not for the ominous sense of foreboding that overshadows the future of Muslims in France today. – SG